[21] Mastery of wet-field rice cultivation opened up the hitherto underdeveloped south of the country, while later northern China was devastated by Jur'chen and Mongol invasions, floods and epidemics. Practices such as entail, which restricted land ownership, hampered the free flow of labor and buying and selling of land. In 15th century England, lords had lost their serfs, but were able to assert control over almost all of the land, creating a rental market for tenant farmers. For example, in China in 1432, a new Emperor outlawed the building of ocean-going ships, in which China was the world leader at the time. 0000000856 00000 n
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Collective Learning in Medieval China 26 28
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[49], Differences in property rights have been cited as a possible cause of the Great Divergence. Thanks to collective learning, the “first Great Diver-gence” of the Common Era happened in China in the tenth and eleventh centuries, giv-ing China a technological edge that lasted several centuries. The attitude of the east towards innovation is one of the other factors that might have played a much bigger role in the west’s advancements over the east. Europe's use of coal as an energy substitute for wood in the mid-19th century gave Europe a major head start in modern energy production. 1, The New Institutional Economics Religion and Economics (March 1997), pp. Looks like you’ve clipped this slide to already. gence” of the Common Era (CE). H�\��n�0�}���vQA�{m"!$ڂ�b~4�. The flow of cotton, sugar, timber, and tobacco to Europe from the New World gave economic development there a significant boost at a critical time; China enjoyed no advantage even remotely comparable. These innovations caused the Great Divergence, elevating Europe and the United States to high economic standing relative to the East. The First Great Divergence?1 The term "Great Divergence" was coined by Samuel P. Huntington in 1996 and used by Kenneth Pomeranz in his book The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (2000). h�b```b``��������A�������� Cheaper resources for core countries through trade deals with specialized periphery countries allowed the core countries to advance at much greater pace, both economically and industrially, than the rest of the world. 0000001951 00000 n
In each of these core areas, differing political and cultural institutions allowed varying degrees of development. R�������`�
��.�ذ.b�a�? Some small coal deposits were available locally, though their use was sometimes hampered by government regulations. 0000004106 00000 n
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�d6���1��3��6�����������zJl�">��2�8hOT`�dTo(� ��|�a�?�I&���. Collective learning has two main drivers: population numbers and connectivity. China decided to continue a self-sustaining process of scientific and technological advancement on the basis of their indigenous traditions and achievements. g�ҍ&+��������FO��\�b���u+�Y!d��Z8� c�FA ���� � �LJ ����5($���@�����b)�H/g�ZW�f.���������qZ�ñc"K�¹�w�;��8 � ��(И7�ap���LF � ` @�H�
[30], When analyzing comparative use-efficiency, the economic concept of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is applied to quantify differences between countries. In his book, The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (2011), Ricardo Duchesne conducts a systematic criticism of all the major empirical claims made by Pomeranz, A.G. Frank, Jack Goldstone, John Hobson, and other "multicultural historians", from which point he goes on to argue that the West experienced multiple divergences in all dimensions of life, starting with the Indo-European aristocratic culture about 5,000 years ago, with its ethos of individual heroism and its innovations in horse-riding, two-wheel vehicles, chariot warfare, and in the secondary products revolution. 0000007273 00000 n
[32], The claim that Europe had more free and efficient markets than other civilizations has been cited as a reason for the Great Divergence. CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, 1. The traditional dating is as early as the 16th century, with scholars arguing that Europe had been on a trajectory of higher growth since that date. Europe was able to trade manufactured goods to their colonies, including the Americas, for raw materials. If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. 0000011870 00000 n
Although China had used coal earlier during the Song, its use declined due to the shift of Chinese industry to the south, far from major deposits, during the destruction of Mongol and Jurchen invasions between 1100 and 1400. 0000002211 00000 n
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[4] Broadly, both terms signify a socioeconomic shift in which Western countries advanced ahead of Eastern countries during the Modern period. 0000000749 00000 n
Scholars who have studied Confucianism have shown that one of the central teachings of Confucianism is that one should remonstrate with authority. [30], Some of the most striking evidence for the Great Divergence comes from data on per capita income. trailer
In his work The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism he focused on Chinese culture as an explanation for why capitalism did not develop in China. Phases of global demographic transition correlate with phases of the Great Divergence and Great Convergence. C hina has played a central role in the debate over the Great Divergence of productivity and …