[PEN-L:144] Frank and IR

[Rosser Jr, John Barkley]

     This is penned (-l?) in response to Mark Jones's 
missive on Andre Gunder Frank's review of Landes's book.  
Mostly what I am going to do is recount some discussions 
that occurred on the now much-maligned 
marxism-international list not too long ago.
     The debate there involved this question of the balance 
between Europe and Asia and why Europe industrialized prior 
to Asia.  Jim Blaut (who has a book on this) argued that it 
was historical/geographical accident, that Europe was 
closer to the Americas and thus was able to exploit the 
surplus from there, thus giving Europe the crucial edge it 
needed to dominate the world and ultimately to 
industrialize.  Thus, he argued that 1500 was the crucial 
turning point with Europe behind China (in particular) in 
all crucial ways prior to then.
     At least two alternative arguments presented 
themselves.  One is that put forward, as near as I can 
tell, by Mark Jones (and Frank?).  The remained no crucial 
difference until the eighteenth century.  Britain's 
emergence reflected energy crises it experienced.  
Certainly there is something to this, given the five-fold 
rise in real charcoal prices and the development of the 
Newcomen steam engine to pump water out of coal mines.
     A further support for this (presumably part of 
Frank's argument?) is that the material standard of living 
in China was at least as good as in Britain in the 
eighteenth century.  This is probably true, as is indicated 
by the famous refusal of the Chinese to allow British 
imports in the 1790s ("Our celestial empire possesses all 
things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within 
its own borders.  There is therefore no need to import the 
manufactures of outside barbarians"---Emperor Qianlong 
(Ch'ien-lung in Wade-Giles transliteration), to the 
emissary of King George III, 1793).
     The third view, argued by me and some others against 
Blaut, was that the crucial turning point came earlier than 
1500.  At that time China was far ahead of Europe, but 
Europe began to grow faster than China, which, for complex 
reasons turned inwards and grew more slowly.  Chinese ships 
reached the east coast of Africa and had the capability of 
going around the Cape of Good Hope, but did not do so.  It 
would be the Portuguese who would do it coming the other 
way.  There is no simple answer as to why this shift 
happened, but one can certainly associate it in Europe with 
the emergence of merchant capitalism in the late medieval 
period.
Barkley Rosser 

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
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