The Post-Malthusian World Began in Western Europe in the Eighteenth Century: A Reply to Goldstone and Wong

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The Post-Malthusian World Began in Western Europe in the Eighteenth Century: A Reply to
Goldstone and Wong
Author(s): Ricardo Duchesne
Source:
Science & Society,
Vol. 67, No. 2 (Summer, 2003), pp. 195-205
Published by: Guilford Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40404070
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REPLY TO GOLDSTONE AND WONG
195
Metanarratives
in
Global
Histories of Material
Progress."
In
Benedict
Stuchtey
and Eckhardt
Fuchs, eds.,
Writing
World
History
1800-2000.
Oxford,
England:
Oxford
University
Press.
Overton,
Mark.
1996.
Agricultural
Revolution in
England:
The
Transformation
of
the
Agrarian
Economy
1500-1800.
Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University
Press.
Pomeranz,
Kenneth.
2000a.
The Great
Divergence:
China,
Europe,
and the
Making of
the Modern
World
Economy.
Princeton,
New
Jersey:
Princeton
University
Press.
Snell,
K. D. M. 1985. Annals
of
the
Labouring
Poor: Social
Change
and
Agrarian England,
1660-1900.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press.
Sugihara,
Kaoru. 1996. "The
European
Miracle
and the East Asian Miracle: Towards
a
New Global
Economic
History."
Osaka
University
Economic
Review,
12,
27-48.
van
Zanden,
Jan
Luiten.
Forthcoming.
"The 'Revolt of the
Early
Modernists' and
the 'First
Modern
Economy':
An Assessment."
Wong,
R.
Bin. 1997. China
Transformed:
Historical
Change
and
the Limits
of European
Experience.
Ithaca,
New York: Cornell
University
Press.
Science
&
Society,
Vol.
67,
No.
2,
Summer
2003,
195-205
THE POST-MALTHUSIAN
WORLD
BEGAN
IN
WESTERN
EUROPE
IN
THE
EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY:
A REPLY TO
GOLDSTONE
AND WONG
It
is
good
to see
the
distinguished
scholars
Jack
Goldstone and
Bin
Wong
offer
commentaries
on
my paper
"Between
Sinocentrism
and Eurocentrism: Andre
Gunder
Frank's
Re-Orient"
(S
äfS,
Winter
2001-2002)
.
Although
I do
not
want
to
weary
readers
by
responding
to
every
critical
point
they
made,
there are
several
points
in their commentaries
that
require
detailed
comment.
1.
Wong
says
that,
since
I
hardly
offer
quotes
and
page
references
to
support
my interpretation
of
his book China
Transformed,
it is
"usually
diffi-
cult to know"
where
I
get
my
material for criticism.
For the record:
in
what
I
wrote
on
Wong's
book,
which
amounts to
about two
full
pages (spread
over
pp.
452-453
and
456-457),
I
supplied
four
quotes
(not
including quoted
words or
short
phrases)
,
four
page
references,
and two notes.
Wong
also
says
that
my
interpretation
of
his book
lacks
logic
and is based on a
misrepre-
sentation
of
his
arguments.
I
do
not think
I
misrepresented
what he said
about the
rise of
industrial
capitalism
in
Europe,
so I
have no
alternative
but to
cite
in full the
passage
where
I
summarized his
argument:
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1
96
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. . .
Europe
did
not
enjoy any
marked
technological advantage
before 1750-1800.
.
. .
This is
exactly
the
point
Bin
Wong
makes
.
. .
that
"even
Europe
and China's
most
advanced
regions
in
the 18th
century, England
and
the lower
Yangzi,
had
not es-
caped
the
limits of
the
economically
possible
scenarios
envisioned
by
classical
econo-
mists
of the
period"
(50).
While
both
early
modern
Europe/England
and
late
im-
perial
China
experienced
rapid
"Smithian"
growth,
i.e.,
increases
in trade and
specialization, proto-industrialization,
and
cash-crop
farming,
as
well as absolute
increases
in
agricultural
output,
both
saw
no
sustained
increases
in
per
capita
grain
output,
or
in
labor
productivity.
In
both,
"real
wages
over the
long
run did
not
change,"
and
life
expectancy
was more
or less the
same.
"Labor intensification
accompanied
Smithian
growth
in
China
as it did
in
Europe"
(30).
Thus,
in both
regions
a
Malthusian crisis
was
"lurking
in the
background,"
as
population
multi-
plication
continued to
press
"beyond
what their
[organic]
resource
base could
support."
Only
in the 19th
century proper,
Wong
adds,
with
the utilization
of coal
and other mineral
sources of
energy,
readily
available
to
Europe
but not to
China,
was
Europe/England
able to
diverge
economically
from the
rest of
Eurasia
and
circumvent
the Malthusian
limitations of
an
economy
based
on
organic
raw
mate-
rials.
(452-3.)
Readers
will
have
to
judge
for themselves
whether
this
passage,
and
what
follows,
is
a false
representation
of
Wong's
argument.
I
argued
further
that
Wong's
book
ignored
the
scientific
and
technological
process
that
led,
most
significantly,
to
the invention
of Newcomen's
atmospheric
engine
in
1712
and of
James
Watt's
steam
engine
in
1769. Without
these
developments,
I
insisted,
the
use of coal as
a
source
of mechanized
energy
would
not
have
been
possible
in
the
first
place.
Wong says
that,
in
a
section of
his
book,
"Logics
of
Technological Change:
Contingent
Possibilities,"
he did
address
the
"thorny
issues
of
technology,"
but also warned
against
the
assumption
that these
technological
changes
were
logically
and
necessarily
bound
to
happen
as a result of
prior
centuries of
"market
expansion
and
commercial
capitalism." Again,
readers
may
draw their own
conclusions,
but
nowhere
in
this
section,
or elsewhere
in the
book,
does
Wong
examine the
famous
sequence
of
technological
inventions
and innovations
that took
place
in 18th-
century England.
He
says
exactly
what
I
said
he
said,
which
should
hardly
be
a matter
of
controversy,
since
in his
commentary
on
my paper,
as we
will
see
further
below,
albeit this
time he does not offer
any
clear
time
periods,
he continues to make the
same flawed
argument
that,
before
1800,
both
Europe/England
and
China were
following,
if
I
may
cite additional
words
from his
book,
"fundamentally
similar
dynamics
of economic
expansion
via
the market"
(52,
see also
17,
30,
42, 45,
69).
2.
Wong
also
rejects my
claim
that he misuses
E. A.
Wrigley's
point
that
the
exploitation
of coal is essential
to
break
away
from the Smithian
/Malthu-
sian
limitations
experienced
by
all
organic
economies,
by turning
this
point
into an
argument
that
cheap
coal
was
a
key
factor
setting England
apart
from
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REPLY TO GOLDSTONE AND WONG
197
China
in
the
19th
century. Wong
insists he used
Wrigley's
argument
only
to
make
the
point
(similar
to the one
I
made)
that,
in
principle,
all
organi-
cally
based
pre-industrial
economies have limits to
growth,
which
are
bound
to be "reached
sooner or later without
a shift to a
mineral-based
economy."
However,
in the context
of his
argument
that "estimates of
aggregate popu-
lation
in China
and
Europe
do not reveal
fundamentally
different
popula-
tion and resource
conditions
in China
and
Europe before
1800"
(23,
italics
added),
he wrote:
E. A.
Wrigley
has
argued
that
the
English escaped
the
limits of
Smithian
growth by
tapping
mineral
sources of
energy
on a scale
unprecedented
in world
history.
Pro-
ductivity
increases
based on
coal as a
new
source
of heat and
steam as
a
new
form
of mechanical
energy
were
the
key
features
of
the
initial
industrialization
process
that
set
parts
of
Europe
off
from the rest of Eurasia for
much
of the nineteenth
century.
The
persistence
of
what he calls an
organic
economy,
in
contrast to the
mineral-based
economy,
leads
Wrigley
to
argue
not
merely
for a
shift
in the
timing
of
crucial
economic
changes
leading
to modern economic
growth,
but
for a
logi-
cal
separation
between the
dynamics producing
economic
growth
for Smith and
the
logic
of
expansion
based on
new sources of fuel and
energy.
(50.)
If
Wong
now
wants to
adopt
what I said about
Wrigley
he is most wel-
come.
But for
the sake of textual
accuracy
he
should
also
acknowledge
my
point
that
Wrigley
cannot
be
employed
to
support
the claim
that 18th-
century England
experienced
"Smithian"
growth
only,
or
that
England
be-
gan
to
liberate
itself from the
organic
limitations of the
past only
in
the
19th
century.
As
I
wrote,
citing Wrigley's
own
words,
Wrigley
"is
very
clear . . .
that
the
problems
associated
with
converting
mineral heat into kinetic
energy
or
motive
power
had
been
'readily perceived
and
gradually
overcome' with
the 'invention
and
development
first of the Newcomen
atmospheric
engine
[1712]
and
later
of
Watt's
[1769]
more
powerful
and efficient . .
.
steam
engine'
(1994,
34),
and that
these
changes
were
'progressively
liberating
the
English
economy
from
the
negative
feedback
that must afflict
any
or-
ganically
based
economy'"
(456-57).
3. One
thing
about
which
Wong
may
have
rightfully
complained
is that
I
did
not mention
that,
in his
view,
the
exploitation
of
large
amounts of New
World
resources
was the
other
key
factor
which,
in
addition to
coal,
allowed
Europe/England,
but not
China,
to
experience
an industrial
breakthrough
in the 19th
century.
Wong,
however,
does criticize
me for
ignoring
Kenneth
Pomeranz'
elaboration
of this
point
in
his recent book The Great
Divergence:
China,
Europe,
and
the
Making
of
the
Modern World
Economy
(2000).
Whereas
the
focus
of
my critique
of A.
G. Frank was on
the role of
colonial
profits
in
the
industrialization of
Europe,
Pomeranz directs
attention
to the
"unprec-
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1
98
SCIENCE
&
SOCIETY
edented"
ecological gains
Europe
achieved from the
extraction
of
"land-
saving
resources" such as
timber, cotton,
and
sugar.
First,
let me
clarify
that
I
did not assume
in
my paper,
as
Wong
insists
I
did,
that
a
critique
of Frank
was tantamount to
a refutation
of "all the
important
attacks"
on
Euro-
centrism.
On two occasions
I referred to
Pomeranz'
"extremely
well re-
searched"
book,
released too
late for
me
to
debate
in
the
paper,
but which
I
insisted
world historians
"must
come to terms
with"
(429,
458).
In
a
forth-
coming
paper,
I
review this
book
in
even
more detail
than
I
gave
to
Frank's
Re-Orient;
the conclusion
I reach is that
Pomeranz
fails to
make
a
convinc-
ing
case that a
trading partner
like the
Americas
was essential
to
overcome
England's apparent
shortage
of
land
and
resources.
Western
Europe
was
not
encountering any
intractable
ecological
limits to
growth
in
the
18th
century,
or a situation
in which
diminishing
resources
were
forcing peasants
to
work
harder because returns
on each
workday
were
declining.
On the
contrary,
over
the
period
1700-1850 most
of this
region
was
on a
path
away
from the
Malthusian
limitations
of the old
regime
as a
result
of sustained
improve-
ments
in
technology
and
productivity.
Besides,
Eastern
Europe,
Russia,
and
Scandinavia
were actual
and
potential suppliers
of
vast
quantities
of
primary
resources
at
generally
more
competitive prices
than
the
Americas.
If west-
ern
Europeans
were
willing
to
finance a
costly
transatlantic
expansion,
it was
under
the mercantilist
belief that
military power
and
security
could
only
be
obtained within
a self-contained
economic
empire.
Wong
(like
Pomeranz)
is,
I
believe,
in error when
he
writes
that
"no
other
economically
advanced
part
of
the world
mounted
similar
linkages
to
its economic
peripheries."
The
People's Republic
of China
we
see
in
maps
today
is a
very
recent
creation.
Outer
China,
a vast
territory
roughly
the
same
size as Inner
China,
populated
by Mongols,
Turkish and
Tibetan
stock-
raising
peoples,
was taken
over
politically
only during
the
course
of the
18th
century.
And while the
regions
of
contemporary
Inner China
were
under
imperial
authority by Ming
times
(1368-1644),
at least
half of
this
huge territory
was
barely
colonized
by
Han
migration
before
1500,
particu-
larly
the lands of the
southwest:
"parts
of
Guangdong
in the east
to
all
of
Guangzi,
Guizhou,
and westward
into Yunnan
and Sichuan
was
still
largely
non-Chinese in
population"
(Mote,
1999,
702-3).
This colonial
expansion,
accompanied
by bloody
revolts
and the wholesale
massacres
of
non-Chinese
peoples,
continued
earnestly through
the
Qing
era
(1644-1911)
into
Tai-
wan,
Hainan,
the
Nanyang,
or
"Southern Seas"
and,
since
the
end
of the
19th
century,
into what Fernand
Braudel
(1995,
191)
referred
to as
"China's
America,"
Manchuria. Vast
untapped
natural
resources,
including
wood,
lead,
copper,
iron, silver,
gold,
soybean
cake
fertilizer,
and
sugar
were
ex-
tracted out
of these colonies.
If we are
willing
to calculate
the
ecological
benefits
Europe
enjoyed
from its
colonies across
the
Atlantic
Ocean,
what
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REPLY
TO GOLDSTONE
AND WONG
199
about
the benefits
the core economic
regions
of the
Yangzi
Delta and North
China
gained
from
the colonization
and
outright integration
of so
many
territories?
Would
"China" have been able to sustain further extensive
growth
after
the
1 700s without these internal
colonies?
4. Both
Wong
and Goldstone
refer to
Li
Bozhong's
Agricultural
Devel-
opment
infiangnan,
1620-1850
(1998)
as a
work which
I
ignored
but which
contains
evidence
of
rising agricultural
productivity
in one of the
Yangzi
Delta's
regions, Jiangnan,
and
which thus
challenges my general
claim that
there were
fewer and fewer
ways
to raise
agricultural productivity
within
China's
shrinking
farms after
1800.
Wong,
however,
does not cite
any
of Li
Bozhong's findings.
Goldstone
cites a
passage
which states that for more than
1000
years
before
the 1950s increases
in
output per
acre were achieved
through
increases
in
inputs
of
imported
fertilizer and not
through
increases
in labor
inputs per
acre. But this
sweeping
statistical remark is not
backed
by
any
specific
numbers.
The number Goldstone does
mention
-
that the
annual
net
output
per
farm worker
increased
by
52
percent
in
the Lower
Yangzi
from the 16th
through
the
18th
centuries
-
is
actually
taken
from
James
Lee
and
Wang Feng
(1999, 31),
who
also refer to
Li
Bozhong's
book
and
cite
(only)
this
one number
from him.
The
many
sources I
cited
in
my
paper
(Bray,
1984;
Chao, 1986; Elvin,
1984, 1988; Fairbank, 1992;
Landes,
1998;
Maddison, 1998;
Mokyr,
1990;
Perkins,
1969)
all
agreed
that,
from
1400
to
1800
(or
1820),
total
agricultural output
kept pace
with
population
in-
creases,
but after
1800
population
began
to
outpace
grain output.
From
Li
Bozhong's
number
all we can
say
is that there
is one estimate which shows
that
labor
productivity
increased
through
the
18th
century
in
the Lower
Yangzi
region.
Still,
I
might
add,
even
this number
is
seriously qualified
by
Lee and
Feng's
own
recognition
that
agricultural
growth
during
the 18th
century,
and
after,
was
"accompanied
by
a
parallel
process
of labor
intensification,"
by
increases
in
the
number
of
workdays per
year
and hours
per
day
(38-
39).
They
even concede
to
Philip Huang,
in
a
footnote,
that
"output per
workday
[labor
productivity]
may
not have
increased"
(175),
though
they
add
that,
as
a result of
"substantial"
increases
in
the
number of
workdays,
"annual
output
and
annual
income
also increased"
(175)
. But
this,
of
course,
is
precisely
what
Huang
means
by "involutionary growth":
total
output
of
market
production
and income
were
increasing
in
the
Lower
Yangzi,
but at
the
cost
of more
workdays per
year
and
more hours
per
day,
under the
pres-
sure
of
declining
marginal
returns
per
workday (Huang,
1990,
11-15)
5.
In the
end,
Goldstone
too
agrees,
if
reluctantly,
that
"by
1800 . . .
China's
agriculture
was
reaching
the limits
of
productivity growth."
But he
counters
that
England's
18th-century performance
in
agriculture
was no
better than
China's. While
English
"agricultural
output
did
increase faster
than
population"
in
the first half of the 18th
century,
"from
1750 to
1850,
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200
SCIENCE
äf
SOCIETY
England's output
of basic foodstuffs failed to
keep
pace
with its
population
growth."
Indeed China
may
have
performed
better,
since its
agricultural
sector
produced
all of what
China
consumed,
whereas
England
imported,
in
1846-1849,
20%
of the value
of what
it consumed
in basic
foods.
Gold-
stone
thinks
I
did
not "do the
full arithmetic"
when
I
presented
numbers
that showed
sustained
increases
in
English
labor
productivity
after
1700.
He
says
we
can
easily
conceive
of a situation
in
which
the
consolidation
of small
peasant
lands into
large
enclosed
farms
employing
fewer
workers
per
acre
would
result
in
an
increase
in labor
productivity,
although
the
total
agricul-
tural
output
would
remain the
same
as the
combined
total
output
of
the
small farms.
That
this
example
is no mere
supposition,
Goldstone
adds,
is
shown
in some
of the
estimates
cited
by
Mark
Overton
(one
of
the
authori-
ties
I
used).
These
estimates,
Goldstone
says,
show
that the
"average
annual
increase
in
population
[in
England]
from
1700 to
1800 was
0.55%
per
annum,
while the
average
annual
increase
in total
agricultural
output
in
the
same
period
was
only
0.46%
per
annum."
If one
looks
at the
estimates
for
the
period
between
1750
and
1800,
one
finds
that
agricultural
output
in-
creased
even
less,
by
only
0.55%
per
year,
whereas
population
increased
by
0.82%
per
year.
Actually,
"even
from
1800
to
1850,"
Goldstone
observes,
"England's population
grew
faster
than
its
agricultural
output,
so
that
out-
put
per capita
of
total
population
further declined"
(italics
added).
This
ingenious argument
contains
serious
flaws,
starting
with
Gold-
stone's
partial
use of
Overton's
numbers.
The estimates
he takes
are
only
those derived
from a
"population
based
output
method."
But
if we
look
at
the other
estimates
Overton
mentions,
which
were
derived
from
a
"volume
based
output
method,"
we see
that
the
average
annual
increase
in total
ag-
ricultural
output
in
the
period
from
1700
to 1800
was
as
high
as
0.65%,
rather
than
0.46%.
And
if we
look at the
volume-based
estimates
for
the
period
between
1750
and
1800,
we see that
it
was
0.81%
per
year,
rather
than
0.55%
(Overton,
1996,
85).
At
any
rate,
why
insist
on
analyzing
total
agricultural
output per
head
of
total
population
when
what
matters
are
changes
in the
proportion
of
the
English population
working
in
agriculture?
Thus,
if in the
early
16th
century
"around
80%
of farmers
were
only growing
enough
food
for the needs
of
their
family
household,"
by
1850
the
proportion
of
the
population
working
in
agriculture
had
declined
to
only
20%
(Overton,
1996,
8)
.
Clearly,
one
English
worker
engaged
in
farming
in
1850 could
feed
more
persons
than
in 1500
or
in 1700. While
it
is true
that,
in
1850,
food
imports
were
equivalent
to
20%
of
the
entire
output
of
English
agriculture,
in this
case
it is Goldstone
who does
not
complete
the
full
arithmetic,
since
in 1850
the
agrarian
sector
was
facing
a
population
three
times
larger
than
it was
in
1750
when
England
was
self-sufficient
in food!
Besides,
Jiangnan,
the
one
region
of
China
where
Li
Bozhong
has
de-
tected
increases
in
agricultural
productivity
through
the
adoption
of labor-
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REPLY TO
GOLDSTONE
AND
WONG
201
saving
fertilizers,
"may
have
imported
as much as
22%
(and
certainly
no less
than
15%)
of what it ate"
(Pomeranz,
2002,
545-546)
. This fact is all the more
revealing
because Pomeranz
and
Wong
have both
insisted
that
Jiangnan,
not
China,
should
be
compared
to
Europe's England,
since
this was the most
advanced
region
of China.
Yet,
while
England imported
all
of
its
grain
from
Ireland,
Russia and
Prussia,
rather than the New
World,
and
only
began
to
import
fertilizers
after
1850,
Jiangnan
was
importing
at least
20-30%
of
its
"labor-saving"
fertilizers
from the new world
of Manchuria.
Oddly enough,
Pomeranz
(2002,
582-584)
relates this trade statistic about
Jiangnan
with-
out
realizing
that it
undermines his claim that
English agriculture
was a
unique
beneficiary
of
primary product imports.
It
seems
that
Jiangnan,
not
England,
enjoyed
a
greater
ecological
windfall
through
the
import
of criti-
cally
important
"labor-saving"
fertilizers
from
its
colonies.
6.
Goldstone,
however,
makes the
valuable
point
that
having large
num-
bers
of
people
released
from
agriculture
does
not
mean
that a
country
is
ready
for
subsequent
industrialization.
Without the
general adoption
of
steam
power,
the increases
in
productivity
achieved
by
England
in
the
18th
century
would
have been
unsustainable
in the 19th
century.
The
only
rea-
son
England
was able
to
finance sufficient
imports
of food to
compensate
for
her
apparent
lack
of
total
agricultural
output
in the 19th
century
was
"because
her
non-agricultural
population
became
sufficiently
productive."
I
agree,
and
did
argue
in the
paper
that,
"without the eventual
exploitation
of
mineral
resources
of
energy,
the sustained
growth
England experienced
in
the
18th
century
would have
been
increasingly
harder
to
secure"
(455).
The estimates
I offered on
English agricultural productivity
were
only
in-
tended
to
demonstrate
that
England's
organic economy
had "more
scope
or
potential
for
improvement"
than
China's
(456).
The real
disagreement
between
us is
that,
for
Goldstone,
the
"great
divergence"
between
England
and China
occurred
only
after about
1820/50,
because
it was
only
then that
fast
and
sustained
quantitative
growth
rates
in GOP
per capita
and indus-
trial
output
were
discernible
in
England
(see
Goldstone,
2002).
I,
on the
other
hand,
rather than
pointing
to the
effects
of
the
transformation,
would
emphasize
the
many
qualitative
technical
changes
-
Hargreaves's spinning
jenny
(c.
1766),
Watt's
separate
condenser
(1768),
Arkwright's
water
frame
(1769),
Cort's
conversion
of
pig
iron to
wrought
iron
(1784),
Cartwright's
power
loom
(1787)
-
which occurred
in
the last
third of
the
18th
century,
and
which made
possible
the
higher quantitative
growth
rates of the 19th
century.
Goldstone
is not
unaware of
these technical
changes,
and
in
fact
writes
that,
"from
1650,"
England
saw
"the
development
and
marriage
of
an
investigative
instrument-based
experimental
science
to
an
entrepreneur-
ial,
machine
and
engineering-oriented
practical
culture." But for
some
unclear
reason he still maintains
that
through
the
entire 18th
century,
and
the first
decades
of the
19th
century,
England
was
on the
same
Malthusian
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202
SCIENCE &
SOCIETY
path
as China: the industrial
age "only beg[an]
with the
widespread
deploy-
ment of steam
engines
in
manufacturing
and
transportation
.
.
. from
the
1820s
to 1850s"
(2002,
italics
added).
7. This
brings
me to
what
I think
is the
most
troubling aspect
of
Gold-
stone's and
Wong's
critique:
both
fail to
trace
back
the
historical
conditions
upon
which
the
industrial
revolution
depended,
on the
unexamined
assump-
tion
that
multiculturalism
requires
that we attribute
to as
many parts
of
the
world as
possible
(or
is
it
just Jiangnan
and
England?)
roughly
the
same
potential
for modern
economic
growth.
That
this
potentiality
became
ac-
tual
in
England,
they
insist,
was
a
"singular
event"
which
occurred
in
this
part
of the world
"largely
for chance
reasons."
However,
if
Wong
believes
it
is
possible
to
"imagine"
alternative
paths
to
industrialization
in
non-
European
settings,
in contrast
to the
"path-dependent"
manner
in which
industrialization
would
spread
from
England,
Goldstone
holds
that,
once
this
unique,
accidental
event
happened
in
England,
"the
process
of encour-
aging
science,
engineering,
and
technology
to
develop
marketable
commodi-
ties
became
a
normal,
rather
than
exceptional,
part
of economic
activity"
in
the
rest
of the
world.
These
interpretations
are
hardly
multicultural.
In Canadian
society,
multiculturalism
is a
policy
officially
designed
to
encourage
ethnic
or
cul-
tural
difference.
The anti-Eurocentrism
of Goldstone
and
Wong,
however,
is
an
ideology
designed
to
encourage
the
idea
that
there
was
nothing par-
ticularly
different about
modern
Europe.
I
accept
the classical
definition
of
the
Industrial
Revolution,
and
agree
with
David
Landes'
recent
argument
(contrary
to
Goldstone's
reading
of
him)
that this
Revolution
was
both
a
continuation
of
the
accomplishments
of
earlier
centuries
as well
as
a
"break-
through"
in the use
of new
sources
of
inorganic
energy
and the
invention
of
machines
capable
of
converting
mineral
heat
into work
(Landes,
1998,
186-199).
This
breakthrough
occurred
in the
last third
of
the
18th
century.
And while it
began
in
England,
there
were
many regions
in
Europe,
such
as
Alsace,
Bohemia,
Flanders,
Hamburg,
Lombardy,
North
of
France,
Saxony,
Silesia,
and the
Zurich
highlands
which
were
not far
behind
(Komlos,
2000)
.
We have
no
reason
to
"imagine"
alternative
paths
to the
English
model:
diverse
ethnic
regions
of
Europe
pursued
their
own industrial
paths.
Think
of
how
France,
lacking
coal which
could
easily
be
converted
into
coke,
was
able to
achieve
industrial
rates of
growth
of
2.5%
per
year
between
1815
and
1850
by
assuming
a
leading
role
in the
transformation
of water
power
from
a
traditional
craft
into a scientific
technology
(Crouzet,
1996).
Think also
of
how
Switzerland,
with no
coal,
no
iron,
no
colonies,
and
no
direct
access
to the
sea,
obtained
vast amounts
of raw
materials
by
meeting
the
"much-
dreaded"
English
competition
on the
world
market
with
her
highly
efficient
textile
and
watch- and
clock-making export
industries
(Fritzsche,
1996)
.
This
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REPLY
TO
GOLDSTONE AND WONG
203
is not to
underestimate
the
revolutionary significance
of Britain's
coal-related
technologies.
The French
were well aware of
this,
and
rather than
imagin-
ing
other
realities
they imported
a
growing
share
of their coal
consumption
and
produced
their
own steam
engines.
On
a connected
note,
Golds tone
is
too
pessimistic
in
his observation
that
agricultural
changes
"elsewhere
in
Europe
[in
the 18th
century]
do not
look
good."
He
is
wrong
to use Hoffman
(1996)
as a reference
for his
argu-
ment
that even the
most
commercially
advanced area of
France,
the Paris
basin,
saw
"hardly
any long-term gains
in
[agricultural]
productivity"
in the
18th
century.
Hoffman's
argument
is
exactly
the
opposite.
He
challenges
the traditional
interpretation
proposed
by
some
Annales historians accord-
ing
to
which French
agriculture
before the 19th
century
was
stagnant.
He
estimates
that there
were
regions
in
France
such as the Paris Basin and the
plain
of Caen
near Bretteville
which
experienced
sustained
productivity
advances
during
the
18th
century comparable
to the most
productive
re-
gions
of
England.
8.
Finally,
I chose the
title "Between
Sinocentrism and Eurocentrism"
to
suggest
that the
proponents
of a
China/Jiangnan
as
developed
economi-
cally
in the 18th
century
as
Europe/England
are
still
standing
between
two
ethnocentric
positions.
We
can
always
pretend
we are
"beyond"
any
centrism
by
imagining,
as
Wong
does,
"the
possibility
that
industrialization
sequences
might
be conceivable
in
non-European
settings."
I
would rather follow
Yury
Semenov's
"torch-relay"
model
(1980)
and
argue
that
technological
leader-
ship
has never
been
a
permanent
monopoly
of one culture but has
passed,
in
the
long
course of
human
history,
from one
geographical
region
of the
world
to another.
I would
also insist
that the attainment
of a
higher
stage
of
technological
development
always
entails certain
irreversible cultural
losses
for mankind.
Ricardo Duchesne
Department
of
Social Science
The
University
of
'New
Brunswick
P.O. Box
5050
Saint
John,
New Brunswick
Canada
rduchesne@unbsj.
ca
REFERENCES
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A
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In
Science and Civilization in
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Part
2,
ed.
Joseph
Needham.
Cambridge,
England:
Cambridge
University
Press.
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Crouzet,
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A VARIETY
OF
AUTOCENTRISMS
205
Semenov,
Yury.
1980. "The
Theory
of Socio-Economie
Formations
and
World
His-
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In Ernest
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Soviet and Western
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Wong,
Bin.
2000
(1997).
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Transformed:
Historical
Change
and the Limits
of
Euro-
pean
Experience.
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New York: Cornell
University
Press.
Wrigley,
E. A. 1994. "The Classical
Economists,
the
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State,
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sary?
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Routledge.
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Society,
Vol.
67,
No.
2,
Summer
2003,
205-217
ARTICULATING GROUP
DIFFERENCES:
A
VARIETY
OF AUTOCENTRISMS
I
hope
to make
a modest start
in
this
paper
towards a historical
and
comparative
study
of
autocentrism,
defined as the
tendency
of social
groups
to claim
supe-
rior attributes
-
racial
or cultural
-
and,
conversely,
to
denigrate
other
groups.
In his
essay,
Eurocentrism,
Samir
Amin
(1989, 74-5)
draws a
sharp
dis-
tinction
between
the "banal
provincialism"
of
medieval
Europe
and the
Eurocentric
thought
of modern
Europe.
Amin's
distinction
hinges
on
the
balance
of
power
between two
competing
groups.
Medieval
Europe
and Islam
were
equals,
or near
equals,
in
military power,
neither able to
impose
its
vision
on the
other;
yet
each
imagined
itself
superior
to the other. Presum-
ably,
such claims
of
superiority
are encountered
throughout
history;
that is
what
makes them banal.
On the other
hand,
Eurocentrism is not
only
his-
torically
specific
to
modern,
capitalist
Europe,
it is the
product
of
an
asym-
metric
relationship;
it constructs
an
ideology
of racial
superiority
to
support
capitalist
Europe's
project
of
global
domination. Eurocentrism
"implies
a
theory
of
world
history
and,
departing
from
it,
a
global
political
project."
This
approach
to Eurocentrism
contains
important insights,
but the
sharp
distinction
it draws between
"banal
provincialism"
and
Eurocentrism
raises
questions.
Modern
capitalism
does
not offer the first
occasion
when
one
group
has
gained
ascendancy
over
another;
in
fact,
this has been
quite
common. Once
we broaden
our
study
to
take in all
autocentrisms,
between
symmetric
and
asymmetric groups,
we
need to
address a
variety
of
questions.
Have
stronger
groups
in
asymmetric relationships always
mobilized ideolo-
gies
of difference
to
perpetuate
their
superiority?
And have
they
always
employed
the
language
of
race, blood,
or
lineage?
Can there
be
an
auto-
centrism of
weaker
groups
in
asymmetric
relationships?
Is their
autocentrism
different from the
autocentrism
of
stronger
groups?
Should
we
expect
a
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