We tend to apply a variety of “intelligent design” to judge civilizations – rich and strong :: virtue / character
Chinese, Spanish, English, Americans Germans,Japan etc
Race Geography and luck - Jared Diamond on TOTN http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1071965
Why have Eurasians dominated the world?
Hunter gatherers:
Once upon a time - back in the day, maybe 100,000 years ago, Humans were mostly in bands of paired adults who cooperatively hunted and gatheredWe wandered around so much families could only have one baby every 4 or 5 years – population densities low – 1/10 of 1% of biomass was edible – bands learned what was in their area amazingly resourceful in figuring out how to exploit whatever they found.
Medicines in Amazon – asprin and birch bark etc - remembered lots of details -
There was no way to accumulate much stuff – we were always moving looking food
Women and men were relatively equal compared to later – many matriarchal societies
Relative equality - Hunt requires cooperation – communal - “clannish” or group oriented (still see evolutionary hist psych experiment - easy to get us to go to war against “them” – define as group in torture exper)
No big surplus to steal or expropriate – how much can you steal from a Bushman and how much walking would it cost?
Domesticable plants
Plants can’t move – so most have thorns or chemical protection – bitter, poison, mind altering. Early human-ish hominoids noticed plants that they could eat and would not make them sick. Across thousands of years – first gathering very small and scarce seeds – humans learned to propagate and select the best seeds of these edible food plants.
humans noticed that certain plants produced seeds which were larger or easier to harvest or process and started the process of selection started.
Genetic lottery – almonds single gene bitterness – one mutation can switch to edible – oak have multi-gene bitterness
This transition to fixed agriculture was fitful and took thousands of years to have much effect – slowly displacing hunting and gathering. In a few places where the genetic and geographical lottery – seed and soil -came up jackpot, relative explosions of food production.
These domesticable plants and animals were the first example of natural capital.
CAPITAL - "Human resources considered in terms of their contributions to economy."
There are lots of kinds of capital. Natural capital includes everything in the natural world – seeds, animals, climate, minerals etc.
12 plant species – mostly Eurasian - now supply 80% modern world's food mass
DOMESTICATE ANIMALS - Eurasia has most – Dogs goats sheep cows horses pig
chicken donkey cat help food storage by mouse rat control – Egyptians love
Fibres for clothes – wool – silkworms
– Animals are self-portable protein food
– milk, skins for clothes, manure for garden
SPECIALIZATION – DIVISION OF LABOR The emergence of reliable and abundant food sources, and food storage let these societies get much more “advanced” - stratified and specialized
Specialization – if looking for food all day CANNOT invent - ceramics for food storage
Metal – plows, super hard swords food storage – pottery, ceramics
Fixed civilizations can feed soldiers - do war better longer - wipe out hunt-gather
Horses Camels great for war and trade – Chariot - knights
Someone has to keep track of food storage, maintenance of dikes and canals, keeping order and defending the places where the crops are grown and all the wealth that these new societies accumulate. Kings Emperors – HUGE INEQUALITY – peasants smaller
MESOPOTAMIA followed by similar “hydraulic” developments Nile, Indus, Yellow Yangse Farming creates food production systems 90% biomass edible vs 1/10 of 1%
Large dense sedentary stratified societies
Eurasians’ big seeded wild grains – oats wheat barley rice - easy traded - similar latitudes
Different people and environments produce and learn different things and the more we can share the better off we all are.
WRITTEN LANGUAGE –– starting from simple marks in clay tablets - preserve and transmit complex technology – many minds can be consulted – include past generations much more information (human capital) than small band hunter-gathers rely on memory
As Infrastructure increases – canals, dikes, storage systems, transport systems – the civilizations keep advancing. Capital is cumulative – each advance made or borrowed increases productive capacity.
Eurasia best selection – wheat, rice, peas, millet, poppy, oats, barley, figs, olives
Spread easily along similar latitudes and similar climates Silk road
trade shares technology also – surplus, storage, feeds specialists administrators
China and Mediteranean – canals and inland sea – water transport cheapest
till RRs and 19th century
Amer– Indians --
Why when they came to North or South Amer or Aus or Southern Africa
Not race or intelligence! Not institutions or ways of organizing
Eurasians had the best variety of domesticable plants and animals
2 heads better than 1 cultural exchange many views
BOTTLENECK Isthmus Panama super bottleneck – still gap in Pan American highway?
Can’t trade – bad geography – with other MesoAmerican centers – can’t share seeds, plants, inventions, etc
DIVERSITY - TRADE - MESOpotamia & PERU were first (1491 p66, 177, 181) to have large urban complexes. Most early civs (China, Indus, Egypt) soft soil by rivers for water - Mesopotamia has long been recognized as a pioneer – but due to the limits of archeology Peru’s early history is only very recently becoming clear.
Both had a wide variety of ecosystems – due to mountains near to oceans or rivers. Instead of depending on unreliable rain river valley where water could be diverted made plant production much more reliable.
Peru had a large selection with different plant foods and ocean fishing in close proximity small areaa has fish, shellfish, sea mammals, seaweed, potatoes, cotton, fruit -
Cotton one of the earliest trade mediums – stable, light, storable - “money” Farming follows fish – luck of Humboldt Current in Peru – gives a food base which supports and enables the invention of irrigated agriculture systems in river valleys. They grew the cotton which made nets for more fish etc….
Compared to Silk Road in Eurasia Illustrate value of openness, trade, diversity
last in chain vs hi-capital societies
Americans only have Llamas – and they can’t trade $ communicate with Mexico where they have the wheel
1491 - GERMS epidemic diseases co-evolve with domesticable animals –
Eurasians develop resistance – societies w/o domestic animals don't
Big epidemics crucial beating Aztecs, Incas, Amerindians – up to 90% die
"Like looking at Jewish survivors wandering in woods after Holocaust"
1491 Mesoamerica – potato, manioc - corn beans squash avocodo – malpa - sunflower,
goosefoot – – ( few animals - llama, guinea pig) Peru – fish, potatoes, grazing
Indians – not passive living light on land – we saw them after they were ravaged by disease because of lack of domesticated animals develop no immunity
corn is most amazing feat of plant engineering in world history – Indians of new world make the best of the natural capital they have
Genetic variety less – only a small band migrates to new world - few immune systems à less variety in genes – evolutionary “market” also works best with wide variety of inputs
European observers justifies oppression and exploitation of “primitive” natives – dismissed achievements, most saw a world made empty by an unimaginable disease holocaust
AmerIndians learned to use fire to keep down brushy growth and increase grazing. Selective planting meant many more chestnuts, oaks and fruit trees than nature would have provided. The normal ecological succession – as in the Black Forest of Germany – led to a dark and silent world of climax stage vegetation. With aggressive fire management Buffalo range was extended – they roamed from New York to Georgia. English observers – used to domesticated animals – didn’t appreciate the Indians more distant form of husbandry.
Amazon – raised mounds broken pottery and charcoal – altered landscape size of Iowa
Continuous villages high population along Amazon
most of the useful plants were trees and bushes. Some – like peach palms - have production rates per acre better than rice, beans or maize
Australia – no animals to harness – no grains to domesticate – mental acuity but …
Africa – Sahara, bad rivers (compare Amazon) tropical diseases – climate zones
CHINA Thought – DUE TO ENVIRONMENT see man and nature as fundamentally linked – make huge alterations to natural landscape – canals and dikes and irrigation systems which create huge food surpluses – massive water transport over large area from Yangtze to Yellow in North – unified polity and huge technology
Chinese stories, religion, philosophy rest on much different foundations than Greek /Christian
Sky Gods vs earth gods – centralized bureaucratic hydraulic vs warriors and traders
metaphors for science & religion Atom vs wave –
Chinese scientists algebra, biology endocrinology gravity – but NOT SIMPLE – yin-yang complexity – space is not uniform – feng-shui
Attraction for horse-mounted warriors – Ghengis Khan – loot the rich farmers
CHINA VS EUROPE
1400’s Europe invents very little – China very dominant until 1400’s at least.
In 1450’s China is sending out treasure fleets – in ships which dwarf the ones Columbus will send to New World. China withdraws – in part due to arrogance and superiority. The rest of the world has nothing they want. Climate change may be driving horsemen from the steppes – who have been borrowing Chinese technology and have the advantage of fighting from horses – to attack and try to seize some of China’s wealth more aggressively.
Curiousity of Europeans vs Chinese scholar Western Civilization? “that would be a good idea”
England – Island – traders - Exchange trade wisdom of crowds
depth of knowledge limited by diversity & adaptability of thought
Columbian explosion – anthropological thinking – Las Cassas Grotius
WESTERN SCIENCE – incorporates Chinese advances and ways of thinking
Even mistranslations help - Leibnitz misunderstand old Chinese text, invents cool computer math
Newton incorporates Chinese “wavish” thoughts on gravity – optics – “Complementarity” – holding 2 conflicting ways of thinking at once – Neils Bohr later in quantum physics
Europe – fragmentation = open other - West also borrows gunpowder, plows, paper, movable type printing – but West has easier alphabet than China for printing
England – least hierarchical – most property rights vs central authority -
England and Spain – religious flexibility greater England
DUTCH EFFECT – CONCENTRATED WEALTH AND POWER – Oil, diamonds, gold hardly ever create functional countries – diffused wealth and power – markets not authority
Columbian Exchange – Newton and science – all the material stuff, all the intelledctual
ADAM SMITH
Adam Smith was a Natural Theologian – someone who searched for – and was confident that he would find – a pleasing design – natural laws - behind the apparent chaos – degradation and rapacity - of economic life in England. There was a brutish struggle for existence among the urban poor while incredibly wealthy aristocrats lived lives of oriental opulence.
BUT the average worker WAS getting better off due to the sheer volume of wealth and stuff being produced. Smith liked this focus on making decent life possible for all –
Saw labor as primary – “labor theory of value” – wealth flows from production
producers, not nature (French – farming country Physiocrats love farmers and land – Jefferson Francophile)
Suspicious of capital – concentrated wealth – elites – (with Christ, Muhammed, Marx, Lincoln)
Jefferson combines both views and makes a theory of democracy
Attacked by elites – workers will get lazy and work less if they live too well. Work less
They don’t – lots of consumer goods cheaply produced – they love them
Smith searched for explanations with all the single mindedness of Newton – who was also reputed to have wandered over 10 miles in a fit of abstraction. accused of believing in “natural religion” - wanted to dispense with prayers at beginning of class.
“Theory of Moral Sentiments” claimed that even though selfish humans behave morally because they imagine seeing themselves from POV of a neutral observer –
Man is naturally inclined to trade – and trading led to specialization & division of labor – lots of inexpensive stuff
Mercantilism - Duties on imported items – help domestic producers - we make all we can and sell to them and discourage our citizens from buying – we end up with all the gold
Smith attacks this dominant economic theory
Tariffs leads to corruption and favoritism – producers bribe govt to set rates
Better to use capital markets – each bit of capital looks for most profitable use – invisible hand better than government influenced by lobbyists
Externalities – oil – tobacco & drugs &alcohol
rules and transparency capital and other markets
“Division of labor limited by extent of market”
Marx – saw urban misery as agriculture was centralized and peasants driven off the land:: He saw the inevitable immiseration of proles and the creation of a Surplus labor army historical law-Malthus noted that people reproduce faster than food can expand – which was true at the time w/o informed democracy & progressive taxation & birth control this would still be true
US : As China & Egypt naturally hierarchical - US naturally egalitarian
Most educated and independent “positive freedom” people – tinkering out on the frontier extra land (Indians gone) = scarce labor – even indentured servants off soon
pressure for labor-saving devices vs China with surplus population – rapid accumulation capital
aversion to Court preferences & corruption –> fear of powerful centralized State
individual effort rewarded
Monotheism – This trade and technological advance and the stratified societies it produces has other effects besides increasing wealth – it causes some thinkers we take very seriously to ask about the morality of inequality.
From the earliest advanced societies the trend is for peasants to get skinnier and less healthy as the rulers and the traders live more luxurious lives – they have the power to
"collect" work and food from peasants – society richer – King - peasant skinny
Confucius, Christ and Mohammed all concerned with poor
No coincidence that great monotheisms emerge along trade routes and as “advanced” societies encounter and exploit poorer ones.
Trading civilizations – Roman Empire - $ and money-changers – proto banks encounter old pastoralist civilizations with much more communitarian orientation
Banks are not intuitive – as we will note later
JEWS – pastoralists – which we can see when the herder Abel’s sacrifice is favored over the farmer Cains’ - living in a war zone between big agricultural empires - enslaved and oppressed by both Egyptians and Babylonians Jews Confucius and Christ - condemn oppressive rich while others very poor
Call for social justice – all people have soul – ALL MEN ARE EQUAL – more important $
Old Testament emphasized dangers of the arrogance of the rich (Deu8), worship of riches (golden calves etc) “Rich man into heaven like camel going thru eye of needle” (more later)
JUBILEE every 50 when all land (bought or seized by rich creditors) was return to its former owners and every 7 years all debts were to be remitted.
Having been enslaved – they wanted to avoid a hereditary aristocracy (like Pharoh), or even rich families having long term advantage over the poor.
Romans required that those in their empire worship their gods – who must be very powerful – since the Romans ruled. The Jews reacted against their abuse – the apparent failures of their tribal god – by making up stories which made their god more powerful by definition.
Jews invented the idea of Creation from nothing – ex-nihilo – the claim meant that eve if your god threw out lightning – Yaweh had created the entire world where the lightning happened. He had created heaven and earth. He was omnipresent and eternal and perfectly immaterial.
CHRIST – Christ by far the most radical – member of a more “primitive” group oppressed by Romans – wealth must be given to poor to go to heaven – sin to make $ from accumulated wealth – Usury
In Jesus’ time abused by more “advanced” “globalized” Roman empire -
THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH – DO UNTO OTHERS – PUTS HIMSELF IN THE POSITION OF SYMPATHY WITH PRISONERS, POOR, prisoners OUTCASTS rich must share with poor to get into heaven
Moneychangers thrown out temple Christ attacked Moneychangers in temple
USURY VERY VERY evil – money from money – Jews can only collect interest from outsiders
– basis of Anti-semitism in Europe – Christians couldn’t collect interest -lose soul
Jews had to be evil lenders at interest - Shylock
Luke 19: 21-23 I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man: you draw out what you never put in and reap what you did not sew - (making money by money) - capitalism
Matthew 25:26-46
“render unto Caesars what is Caesar’s” a sarcastic joke – treason -Caesar of course had no right to
Paul - messages and practices of equality, caring for the poor, and a just society under God's rules, not Rome's - free healing – health care for all - share food. The key passage in the gospels is the "Mission Charge” - instructions how to behave - Jesus tells his disciples, "Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'" Women in early Christianity were leaders – everyone same lavel, took same communion - state religion picked priests (Bishop or Cardinal from rich families) stood on raised platform – speak the imperialist language
Christianity changed radically later –360degree flip - became the state religion of Roman empire – Christ the humble shepherd becomes kingly Christ – connected to King - lotsa gold – Bishops crown Kings
700AD ISLAM – LESS MALLEABLE THAN Christianity
Mohammed wrote more and it was well preserved - was a practical ruler
Experience as a trader but found followers among the simple Bedouins of the desert rather than city-dwellers.
Sees rising techonological level and trade à good BUT rising inequality so:
3rd pillar wealth tax 3%. Social Justice like Christ – but practical
Ceremonies and rituals reinforce EQUALITY OF ALL BELIEVERS –
TOLERATE Christians and Jews – fellow monotheists – cribs a lot from Christ.
Jews – Christ’s tribe and “Christ-Killers” become the bankers for the west – you’ll go to hell if you bank so make the Jews do it
Bad Kharma generated – Holocaust, Israel
