Why do some societies develop more quickly than others? Why are some cultures, despite all the reasons not too, stagnate in their devopment compared to others? For example, European colonizers vs the Native Americans or the technological height of our civilization compared to these uncontacted tribes in Brazil? What is the correct “formula”?
Private property, free markets.
Is there any evidence that Native Americans or these Brazil tribes didn’t have free markets and private property? How about the colonizers? They were at a time when mercantilism was at its peak, certainly not a free market.
Yes, they didn’t.
But they had private property. And more free markets than anyone else.
A multitude of factors contributed, one theory is that it was the climate that caused people to become more intelligent and develop technology. As the people moved to colder climates they built more advanced shelters and spent a lot of time inside and eventually this resulted in an increase in intelligence. I think if we compare the northern hemisphere, Europe and Mediterranean with the rest of the world, we can see this. The exception being eastern Asia, but there is information that says that the Chinese landed in France and ignited the renaissance. Another reason for the increased intelligence is that the people that travelled from Southern Africa (where man is first traced from), their ancestors travelled up Africa and to Europe and eastern Asia. Due to the travelling that was over a long period, this increased their intelligence and eventually they developed technology in eastern Asia and Western Europe. The most interesting cases were the Americas and Australia because those land masses are across oceans from each other. Which must mean one of two things, (1) The human species was around on the planet prior to the earth’s expansion, which caused the earth to rip apart and form oceans and the continents as we know it today (unlikely, based on fossil dating) (2) that the human species travelled across the oceans many centuries before mainstream history has led us to believe. So I think it was probably combination of climate (cold weather specifically) and the fact that they had travelled so much.
“The exception being eastern Asia, but there is information that says that the Chinese landed in France and ignited the renaissance.”
Is this some kind of joke? The intellectual movement dubbed the ‘Renaissance’ (Renascimento) arose in northern Italy and (initially) Avignon. It sought a rebirth of the literary - and shortly after political and philosophic - tradition of the classical world. Its origin is found in the work of dedicated individuals living in the 14th century (Petrarch, Salutati, Chrysoloras), which ignited the interest of the next generation of humanists.
China had no contact with Europe, and essentially no knowledge of the Graeco-Roman world. What is the supposed link?
On a similar note and contrary to popular belief, the Renaissance movement was already enormous in Italy by the time of the fall of Constantinople (1453), and indeed already included the study of Greek (e.g. under Manuel Chrysoloras who taught throughout Italy). The flight of Greeks from Byzantium was not the origin of the Renaissance either.
No It was not a joke. I made a big mistake, I meant to say Italy. I came across a book, I have not had the chance to read it yet. But as i said i came across information and what i said was not meant to challenge the history of the renaissance, I was only trying to point out that Eastern Asia was seemingly as advanced if not more advanced than western europe.
There is no single answer (sorry, EmperorNero), only many different factors which likely explain why certain societies outgrew others, why some grew and crashed, and why some remain stagnant for a long time. Part of it is probably resource constraints, part of it the preferences of the society’s members (high time preference, high value on leisure, etc.), part of it geographical and historical circumstance (a la Matt Ridely’s focus on the extent of specialization and division of labor), and part of it is probably the prevailing ideology (a la Deirdre McCloskey’s focus on bourgeouis values).
Native American tribes had conceptions of property (as advanced as they needed them to be), and they were not forbidden from establishing complex, inter-tribe markets. Dustin’s question is why these markets, and/or why a more complex set of rules regarding property and contract, did not develop in the Americas and elsewhere.