The West vs. the Rest. When and why?

[Arilou]

Comparisons of European and Muslim slave trade in Africa are the matter of debate. Just few undisputable notes:
1. Europeans bought African slaves from Africans for about 300 years. Muslims for about 1200 years.
2. Although much has been written about European cruelty, once we use common sense, it tells something different. Slaves on African coast were relatively cheap, but once they boarded a ship, they became a highly valuable cargo. It was in the paramount interest of any slave-trader to bring as many as possible slaves alive and well to American markets. Still, their mortality might have reached 10%.
Muslims, on the other hand, engaged directly in slave raids, and it is estimated that five to ten Africans were killed to get one single slave to Arabian slave markets.

These facts do not suggest that Arabs remained inept in sugar business due to morality concerns....

Europeans have bought slaves from Africa since at least the time of the Roman Empire.

 

[Wektor]

Pure copper can be found sometimes in some places, like Mackenzie river in north Canada. Hunters and gathereres from there were known for having copper intruments, but they did not melt copper.
I suspect your examples are the case. If not, well, then we can admit that American civilizations were just a step before entering the bronze age. About time.

As others stated, Tarascans simply had metallurgy. It is even metioned in their NI's in EU4, so...

After several pages of informative discussion, with many interesting and thouthfull arguments from you, now I start to suspect, reading some of your recent comments, that you did not really start the thread to exchange ideas "why Europeans were more advanced", but to reinforce your own assumption, that it happened because Europeans were simply smarter as a culture. And you dismiss all arguments of others, who point out, that in some cases, (and when it comes to Native American, in all cases) they juest had harder time because of conditions beyond human control, like living in harsher climate or having no one to learn/steal ideas from or having different means or possibilities of acquisition of food.

 

[Arilou]

Chinese and Indians did not participate in African slave trade because they routinely enslaved their countrymen.

It's actually even simpler than that: Chinese (at least) and probably indians DID participate in the african slave-trade, though on a smaller scale. There are records of black eunuchs being imported to China.

 

[Wektor]

I'd like to point out that actually it was not Europeans who got the silver, but the Spanish. But the Europeans - other than Spanish - were those who facilitated the global trade net.
Please, follow my point: It was someone else than the country which had the big silver. Like you said, the Spanish spent their riches quite wastefully. If Muslim traders were still the smartest and most advanced in the world (like they were, but several centuries earlier), they would make the biggest profit. After all, it was them who controlled the influx of gold from Mali and Mutapa for centuries. And profitted from it by the way of controlling the trade to the West (till 10th century), and to the East as far as China (until 16th century). In both cases, they've lost their positions in European favour. But not because of (not-)having gold or silver.
So it seems that having gold mines does not make you the strongest businessman. It's the mindset, "being the best merchant", what makes you rich. In real history, it was the Dutchmen and Flemish, also (still) Italians, and later Frenchmen, and of course, the winners, the British. Not Chinese, not Indians, not Muslims. They remained passive far behind.


Let's imagine there were no Americas, and Colombus landed in, say, the Philippines. What would follow? The European position would be rather more difficult, because bullion opens every door, that's for sure. But I still believe that Europeans would gain control of the world trade, indeed, they were the only capable to create global trading net. They prevailed over Muslim traders in Indian ocean, but not thanks to "having silver".

I agree with you to some extent. What I meant, was that Spanish silver gave boost to economy of whole world, and whole European continent, and the fact that Spain wasted it, only makes my point stronger - they did not put it in treasuries, they spent it, so the cash started flowing in all directions. Simply put, there was much more money on the market in the year 1600 than in the year 1450. But I agree, that it's probable that Europe was already ahead in terms of promoting their trade and sailing technology. Although that probably wasn't that visible yet, they already had the advantage. Nevertheless, without discovery of America, global economy would probably not be possible.
It's interesting you mentioned Mali - because West Africa was the one that really suffered economically, when America was conquered. Their gold, harder to obtain and costlier due to number of intermediaries, stopped to be so precious, and Mali and their region stopped being a truly propserous place and became a backwater, which it is still today.

A few days ago I've read somebody stating that 30% of American silver ended in China. I find it quite possible.
So I can't get how MORE silver from America could harm Ming more than if there were no America, no silver? I just don't grasp this point.
What I do can imagine is that if I were Ming Emperor in need of gold, on hearing of Spanish success, I'd order my people: Let's sail to America. The western coast of North America was not claimed (not even explored) by any power, and we know very well that the gold there was just waiting to be discovered.
But again, the Chinese did not, neither did Muslims and Indians. I often can read an argument that they did not get an opportunity. Nonsense. If they were not behind Europeans neither in technology, nor in their mindset, they could sail the Pacific and made discoveries themselves. The Spanish or Portuguese could not prevent them from doing that - we all agree that China was strong enough to resist any force, and, geographically, Chinese position for colonizing the northwestern part of America is much better than of any European nation.
They clearly missed their opportunity, and Europeans cannot be blamed for that.

As for the silver, I am no expert on economy, but it had internal ande external consequences: (it's a gross oversimplification, mind you !) Before thst time, Chinese were mostly using paper money and copper coins as currency. But afterwards, Chinese government became so hungry for silver, which was considered as many times more reliable and precious, that they imported it en masse. It of course stsrted to be used, collected and hoarded by Chinese people, as a good investment and better currency. And soon, paper money and copper coins started to become more and more worthless (hyperinflation started). As silver was always sought after, the government decided to collect taxes in silver. Which led to massive poverty, mostly in rural areas, because common people were using Chinese currency in everyday matters, which inflated at extreme pace, and were giving out much more precious silver in taxes. To simplify - it all added to ongoing widespread chaos, caused also by famines and other disasters, and led to lack of support for the government when Qing invaded and in cosequence to collapse of Ming. You can compare that to communist government in Poland in the 80's, which established shops, in which you could buy expensive things for dollars and pounds, just in order to collect foreign currency from own citizens, as polish currency was worthless.

And later, during Qing empire - silver was the only thing China was importing, as it was relatively self-sufficient and had no interest in participation in international trade otherwise, while it exported many products, most importantly tea. Europeans, mostly Britain wanted to break that imbalance in trade, and break Chinese economical isolation, so they flooded China with India-produced opium....

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

Many people on these forums noted that Europeans had little to offer to Asian societies, while they imported many goods unavailable in Europe. That is not entirely correct. What Europeans offered vere service - the trade itself. They created trading net ranging from Basra to Japan, effective on the level which has not been achieved ever before. (It is during this period when Silk Road definitely lost in importance, and Central Asia became impoverished.) Europeans realized 90% of their turnover in Asian seas alone. Imports to Europe were marginal in volumes.

Sorry, but I have to intervene this misleading statement here. There was a vast and well-structured commercial network in the Indian Ocean long before the European arrival. There were numerous commercial cities and entrepots around the circumference of the ocean, from Mozambique to Java. There was a flourishing trade carried by Arabs, Persians, Swahili, Gujuratis, Malays, Chinese, etc.

The Portuguese arrival killed that trade by military means, pure and simple.

Their whole advantage rested purely on naval artillery. Although that technical advantage was only temporary (Indian cannon eventually caught up), there was just enough time for them to violently destroy the entire shpping network in a few short years, and ensure it would never recover. Once the major trading centers (not being fortified) were leveled by shore bombardment and patrols set up, the Indian Ocean trade shriveled. They imposed a monopoly on all navigation on the Indian ocean. A ship couldn't set sail anywhere in the Indian Ocean without a Portuguese license ("cartaz"), and all cargo was subject to seizure.

As to their trading skills, they had next to none. They came as pirates and raiders, under the command of nobles and knights, who wouldn't know a viable trade good if they saw one, and whose entire idea of negotiation is "Do what I say!". They had no notion of how markets operated, they imposed monopoly restrictions treaties with fixed-price guarantees by force of arms, and stole cargoes from local merchants. Where previously there had been ample competition and free trade across the Indian Ocean, it now became a "closed sea" (marum clausum.) where the Portuguese, and only the Portuguese and nobody else, European, African or Asian, could enter.

Of course, they had next to nothing to offer but cash (silver). Over time, they began replicate (poorly) the prior trade system. But, by my own estimates, the volume of inter-Asian trade replicated by them was considerably less than it had been before.

This didn't change. In the entire 16th C., the trade volume fluctuated, but there was no significant sustained increase. Fleet and tonnage sizes remained more or less stable until the end of the century. They kept hemorrhaging silver to Asia like there was no tomorrow. And the methods didn't change when others came. When the Dutch and English arrived in the 17th C., they operated on the same logic - piracy, raiding, bombardment, imposing monopolies - but much of it now against each other.

In short, your assumption that the Europeans "brought" trade to Asia is a bunch of dogswopple. It was a vast flourishing commercial area, they shut that trade down by naval power. What they replaced it with was an inferior network, tied up in idiotic Medieval restrictions. This gave them dominance, but not much else. They became the only ones who traded in the Indian Ocean because they deliberately forced out the competition violently, not because they were any better at it.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

Maybe they did (but I'm quite sure that it actually declined from 11th century onwards). But the truth remains that until Europeans entered the sugar business, sugar remained in short supply and a precious good rather than a matter of everyday use. And we all know that Arabs and Turks love their coffee and tea sweet.

You mean, until slavery entered the sugar business.

Sugarcane is just about the shittiest kind of work there is. You need slaves. And lots of them.

Comparisons of European and Muslim slave trade in Africa are the matter of debate. Just few undisputable notes:
1. Europeans bought African slaves from Africans for about 300 years. Muslims for about 1200 years.
2. Although much has been written about European cruelty, once we use common sense, it tells something different. Slaves on African coast were relatively cheap, but once they boarded a ship, they became a highly valuable cargo. It was in the paramount interest of any slave-trader to bring as many as possible slaves alive and well to American markets. Still, their mortality might have reached 10%.
Muslims, on the other hand, engaged directly in slave raids, and it is estimated that five to ten Africans were killed to get one single slave to Arabian slave markets.

These facts do not suggest that Arabs remained inept in sugar business due to morality concerns....

You're missing the most important difference: slave labor. It was never a part of the economy. Slaves were destined for the army or for domestic service. Production was undertaken by free labor, not slaves.

 

[nerd]

I have to strongly protest against such assesment of those civilizations. I will quote myself from my earlier post (which was a reply to Eusebio): Their supposed "backwardness" in terms of technology was a result of envirnmental issues - lack of such productive crops like wheat,rise or sorghum. Process of selective breeding of maize and potato to make them what they are today was much more difficult than with Old Wolrd crops. Archeaologists found very ancient, few thousand old maize, which was more similar to grass than to what we now know as maize. It took millennia of selective (or rather intuitive in case of prehistoric societies) breeding to get there. Also - total luck of animals similar to cows and horses - it all made life more difficult for them. As I've said - they didn't develop steel weapons or guns because their development was slower for objective reasons, and probably nothing could have been done about it.

To add to that - Civilizations and cultures grow mostly because of interconnections and learning from each other. Europeans did not have to discover farming, wheel, agriculture, pottery, horse riding, cow breeding, bow and arrows, writing and alphabet, metallurgy and many other important discoveries, because they adopted them from other, neighboring civilizations - mostly ancient Middle East (Mesopotamia, Syria etc.). Mesoamericans and Andeans had to discover all of that alone - and they managed to discover some, others they did not.. You say Aztecs did not know the plough - but they simply did not have the use for it, because they had no horses or even mules or cows to drag the plough. That's also the way for wheeled carriages - it's not that useful when you have to drag a carriage behind yourself, and not use animals. And also remember - technological progress is not linear. Let's compare for a second Mayans in 7th century with their Slavic contemporaries. Slavs were far, far better advanced when it comes to metallurgy (iron vs. stones tools) and agriculture, but Mayans knew how to write (for a millenium already) and Slavs were illiterate, Mayans knew how to build stone buildings, Slavs used only wooden huts, Mayans were politically organised in city-states, Slavs were still mostly tribal confederations....So it's not that simple.

Yo mention Aboriginal Australians - they were one of the least developed groups. And for a reason - there is just no way to develop agriculture independenlty in Australia. Heck, it's hard to farm there even today. There is no denying that achievent of Europeans were astonishing, but I fail to see why we should not measure other's achievemnts highly, using fair scales for that - if you excel is something beyond reasonable expectations, in unfavourable environment, that is still an achievemnt.

While nearly everything you say is at least partly true.......it is still just a litany of excuses of why they were not more advanced.

Regardless of why, those cultures were materially less advanced. That they did as well as they did is laudable.

 

[Arilou]

You're missing the most important difference: slave labor. It was never a part of the economy. Slaves were destined for the army or for domestic service. Production was undertaken by free labor, not slaves.

Notably the arabs had *tried* to implement plantation slavery... Until the Zanj revolts more or less put an end to that experiment.

Though I'd quibble about domestic servants not being part of the economy.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

A few days ago I've read somebody stating that 30% of American silver ended in China. I find it quite possible.
So I can't get how MORE silver from America could harm Ming more than if there were no America, no silver? I just don't grasp this point.
What I do can imagine is that if I were Ming Emperor in need of gold, on hearing of Spanish success, I'd order my people: Let's sail to America. The western coast of North America was not claimed (not even explored) by any power, and we know very well that the gold there was just waiting to be discovered.
But again, the Chinese did not, neither did Muslims and Indians. I often can read an argument that they did not get an opportunity. Nonsense. If they were not behind Europeans neither in technology, nor in their mindset, they could sail the Pacific and made discoveries themselves. The Spanish or Portuguese could not prevent them from doing that - we all agree that China was strong enough to resist any force, and, geographically, Chinese position for colonizing the northwestern part of America is much better than of any European nation.
They clearly missed their opportunity, and Europeans cannot be blamed for that.

You seem to have some very naive ideas about how exploration happened.

Let's take a parallel example. There is gold in West Africa. Plenty of it. Known since at least the 11th Century, and certainly by the 14th, to all Europeans. Just how many kings in Europe - just ten minutes away from West Africa - "ordered" their people to sail to Africa?

All those streams of gold coming up to Morocco didn't persuade a single King of England to send a single measly ship to take a ten minute trip to Africa? For centuries?

And after the Portuguese showed the way in 1430, and were hitting those gold mines like no tomorrow, why did it take until the 1550s for the first Englishman to finally try to sail there?

So we can excuse the King of England for not sailing to Morocco for centuries, where he knows there's gold, but somehow the Emperor of China is supposed to do something or other about a Pacific Crossing to a hoary unknown continent?

Or let's try another example. The Portuguese hit the the motherload in Asia in the 1490s. It had no technological or geographic differences from England, France, or Germany or whomever. They were hauling back loads of spices and valuable goods. And they were unloading them in Antwerp for all northern Europeans to see.

Just how many expeditions did the kings of England, France or whatever order to go to Asia? That's right. None. For an entire century, the Portuguese were the only ones there, hauling back riches beyond belief, quite on their lonesome. Nobody else even tried to go there.

Or another example. After the Dutch and English finally entered the Indian Ocean in the early 17th, how long did the French take? Now that all the cool kids are going, surely France should too? They sent two ships, both sank. They didn't send another ship for the next twenty years. Why did they not go? Not for lack of trying this time, because the King of France this time offered anyone who went all the privileges and monopolies in the world they could ask for. Nobody took him up. They didn't go. Couldn't raise the money to pay for it. And the English barely did too - they were ready to quit trying, like the French, if not for "one more go" to recover the capital they had lost on their first run.

World history is not Paradox history, where what the king says happens. Or even notices, or cares.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

Though I'd quibble about domestic servants not being part of the economy.

Productive vs. unproductive labor. Take it up with Adam Smith.

 

[Arilou]

Productive vs. unproductive labor. Take it up with Adam Smith.

Bah, poppycock.

Someone's got to do the housework. Either you do it yourself (which means you have less time for other things, including economic activity or spending your hard-earned money) you hire someone else to do it (in which case they get paid, and then go about spending their money in that wonderful free-market way) or you enslave someone to do it (in which you still have a small cost for feeding and such, but the majority goes to the slave trader) etc.

They're producing things of economic utility, it's of import to the economy.

EDIT: Oh I forgot the most traditional way of getting an unpaid laborer to do the housework: Marriage.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

Bah, poppycock.

Someone's got to do the housework. Either you do it yourself (which means you have less time for other things, including economic activity or spending your hard-earned money) you hire someone else to do it (in which case they get paid, and then go about spending their money in that wonderful free-market way) or you enslave someone to do it (in which you still have a small cost for feeding and such, but the majority goes to the slave trader) etc.

They're producing things of economic utility, it's of import to the economy.

Me? That's what wives are for.

Domestic slaves are not essential. They were more luxury status things. You don't really need to be ported down the street on the shoulders of a couple of slaves. You can walk, y'know?

Besides, if I'm buying an expensive female slave, she's going into my harem, not dulling her hands scrubbing the floors.

But if it satisfies you, I will reword: production of commodities, crafts and other tangible goods were not undertaken by slaves, but by free wage labor.

 

[Arilou]

Me? That's what wives are for.

See my update

But my point is that housework has economic consequences and aspects. It's not a bubble of inactivity. ("domestic" slaves were also involved a whole lot in other reas, like assisting craftsmen and so forth, at least by the time of the Ottomans, but yes, usually not in the actual "productive" role, but rather doing peripheral stuff, though the ottoman tendency to have temporary work contracts that were formally enslavement muddles things up a bit)

 

[SDSkinner]

oh, please.

Were other people just as capable of cruelty to their fellow man? Certainly. They just didn't actually do such cruelties on the scale that the Europeans did.

Genghis Khan? The Taiping Rebellion? The Qin?

 

[Yakman]

Genghis Khan? The Taiping Rebellion? The Qin?

again, scale. no one is denying the individual, or mass, crimes of non-europeans. but nobody went whole-hog for centuries like the Europeans.

the mongols were nasty. the taiping were stupid brutal. Emperor Qin is close, but reigned so briefly and was rebuked by everyone in China afterwards.

industrial scale evil that persists for hundreds of years? That's straight outta Europe.

 

[SDSkinner]

again, scale. no one is denying the individual, or mass, crimes of non-europeans. but nobody went whole-hog for centuries like the Europeans.

the mongols were nasty. the taiping were stupid brutal. Emperor Qin is close, but reigned so briefly and was rebuked by everyone in China afterwards.

industrial scale evil that persists for hundreds of years? That's straight outta Europe.

Europeans didn't do industrial scale evil persisting for hundreds of years. European atrocities tend to be of a short temporal duration, just like everyone else.

Also you underestimate the Chinese. The Qin didn't one day decide to be evil; the policies he had were formed over the past several centuries during the Spring and Autumn period (which has a couple of cases of genocide to boot). Collective punishment and mass execution were the norm. "Future dynasties are different" is propaganda based on the Mandate of Heaven. We have records of the Qin legal code from the graves of a civil servant and there isn't a discontinuity between it and what future dynasties used.

 

[Maq]

@Yakman @Arilou @Eusebio

I have to strongly protest against such assesment of those civilizations. I will quote myself from my earlier post (which was a reply to Eusebio): Their supposed "backwardness" in terms of technology was a result of envirnmental issues

You've named the reasons WHY they lagged behind, yet you confirm they did.
Yet I admit I should take a few steps back from my previous statements concerning Aztecs and other leading Amerindian civilizations. I've dismissed the adjective "sophisticated" and went too far calling them "primitive".
I think that we could settle on something like 'despite some remarkable achievements, they lagged far behind advanced Old World civilizations'.

All in all, for me it is obvious that because of civilization, rule of law and humanitarianism slowly, but surely, the level of everyday violence and cruelty in various societies decreased, and nowadays it is at it's all time low, especially in European societies. However, that doesn't make those "more civilized"
peoples incapable of occasional extreme cruelty and we have to admit that Europeans exploited weaknesses of others. And still XVI and XVII cenury was a time when cruelty was MUCH more acceptabnle that today, so it's not surprising that atrocities happened, given the general lawlessness of colonial areas. That's also European past and that has to be admitted. Not to forget about millions of Europeans who were genocided by other Europeans....And that all does not make European achievements any less important - it just makes thing more true and objective.

Here, too, I feel I should admit that some of my previous statements were unbalanced in favour of the West. Cruelties indeed happened, and on selected occassions reached a level which can a should be called "genocide".
(Let me contribute another example of genocide: Argentine conquest of Patagonia.)
But also here, I call other forumites not to reduce European expansion to "murder and plunder". Americas developed significantly under European hegemony, and the source of this development were not Aztecs' & Incas' gold, but work. This work often involved forced labour and slavery, but Europeans were not worse than others in this respect, given the time it happened.

 

[Maq]

Also, there is no other term that could describe actions of Belgians in Congo during Leopold II reign.
Also, Russian mass murdered Chukchis and Koryaks of Kamchatka in late XVIII century.

I took the pain reading original documents reagarding Congo State. I disagree. It was a ruthless exploitation, but not a genocide. The population declined due to rapid spread of sleeping sickness and other diseases. There was no concerted action targeted on extermination of any part of indigenous population.
As for Siberia, my stance is that Russia is NOT part of the West.

 

[Maq]

As others stated, Tarascans simply had metallurgy. It is even metioned in their NI's in EU4, so...

After several pages of informative discussion, with many interesting and thouthfull arguments from you, now I start to suspect, reading some of your recent comments, that you did not really start the thread to exchange ideas "why Europeans were more advanced", but to reinforce your own assumption, that it happened because Europeans were simply smarter as a culture. And you dismiss all arguments of others, who point out, that in some cases, (and when it comes to Native American, in all cases) they juest had harder time because of conditions beyond human control, like living in harsher climate or having no one to learn/steal ideas from or having different means or possibilities of acquisition of food.

Correct. My apologies. I went too far on several occassions.
A note of explanation: I've started this thread inspired by some discussions on EUIV forum. Those threads were intended to target other issues, but turned into heated arguments on 'the West and the Rest' topic, and some statements there were obviously wrong, overstretching the criticism of the West.
I'm glad to see that this thread remains more balanced, and for my contributions in opposite direction, I apologize once again.

 

[Maq]

As for the silver, I am no expert on economy, but it had internal ande external consequences: (it's a gross oversimplification, mind you !) Before thst time, Chinese were mostly using paper money and copper coins as currency. But afterwards, Chinese government became so hungry for silver, which was considered as many times more reliable and precious, that they imported it en masse. It of course stsrted to be used, collected and hoarded by Chinese people, as a good investment and better currency. And soon, paper money and copper coins started to become more and more worthless (hyperinflation started). As silver was always sought after, the government decided to collect taxes in silver. Which led to massive poverty, mostly in rural areas, because common people were using Chinese currency in everyday matters, which inflated at extreme pace, and were giving out much more precious silver in taxes. To simplify - it all added to ongoing widespread chaos, caused also by famines and other disasters, and led to lack of support for the government when Qing invaded and in cosequence to collapse of Ming. You can compare that to communist government in Poland in the 80's, which established shops, in which you could buy expensive things for dollars and pounds, just in order to collect foreign currency from own citizens, as polish currency was worthless.

What you describe strikes me like more a matter of mismanagement by totalitarian government than a result of influx of silver. And you very aptly compare it to Poland, also a dictatorship.