I have been delving into J.S. Sharman’s Empires of the Weak, which argues that the story we tell of the triumph of the West as inevitable is quite misleading. In general, he questions the assumption that competition will automatically strengthen states through the processes of learning and selection.
Victory and loss in war are a result of complex and varying combinations of factors, many of the most important of which, like leadership and morale, are intangible. (p. 20)
We tend in hindsight to see correctness in what the winner did and mistakes in what the loser did. We also tend to narrow the list of critical factors. In fact, we may very well be emphasizing the wrong factors, we may misclassify some decisions as correct when they were mistakes and vice-versa, etc.
I think that this is true in business as well.
On the issue of selection, Sharman argues that there is not enough extinction among states for selection to operate effectively. I suppose that because firms go out of business much more frequently than states disappear, one can have some hope that the process of selection leads more reliably to improvement in the case of firms than in the case of states.
Charles Murray says something to the effect that the only thing that could change of primary state paradigm at this point is losing a total war like Germany/Japan in WW2.
War loss, if it doesn’t lead to extinction, does appear to be the only way to break out of certain prisoners dilemmas.
That said, the only thing close to a peer competitor to the West, China, is still way behind. It would find itself surrounded by a mostly hostile world (any war with the US would likely also be a war with Japan, Australia, etc).
And it’s not entirely clear why China would want a war with the USA, much less a total war where they marched into our capital a changed our regime. I have no doubt they would love to sink a few aircraft carriers, sign a favorable armistice, and call it the victory that ended a century of humiliation. But who says if such a scenario were even possible or what effect it would have.
Does this imply that China has the same government now that it did under Mao? It seems like there is a lot of intragovernment shifts, and how do you approach those?
Well, the current president is something of a new-Maoist who seems to not like the idea of businesses that are independent of the government.
If we’re defining the West and western Europe and its offspring, then I don’t think one can seriously attribute it to luck. The West didn’t win one lucky victory; indeed, it lost time and time again to the closest thing to a ‘rival civilization’, Islam, well into the 17th century. Western Europe’s ascendance toward supremacy in maritime technology (and therefore dominance over international trade and naval warfare), in institutional stability, and other key factors was gradual, occurred in varying degrees in multiple different countries, and was replete with setbacks. It wasn’t a fragile or highly evitable development.
Obviously, when discussing inevitability vs. luck, it’s not really ‘if’ but of how far back you have to go for the distant future to no longer be so inevitable. I think there’s a strong argument that even in the early middle ages (and definitely by the late middle ages), it was already most likely that western Europe would ultimately supersede Islamic civilization, and neither China nor India would rival it in global dominance. That’s how far back I’m willing to go at least.
The main cause of total regime change in China and India was a bunch of horse archers coming in and taking over the place. Preventing that doesn’t incent you to develop a Navy.
By contrast Naval dominance was key for the survival of European powers, especially once Naval Dominance meant control of New World riches and Far East trade.
If anyone is interested:
In his 2001 book, Carnage and Culture, Victor Davis Hanson addresses the relative strengths and weaknesses of “The West” v various others over time, and how cultural differences affected military strategy & innovation (among many other things) and ultimately, triumph over adversaries.
He focuses specifically on Salamis (480 B.C.), Gaugamela (331 B.C.), Cannae (216 B.C.), Poitiers (732), Tenochtitlan (1520-1521), Lepanto (1571), Rorke’s Drift (1879), Midway (1942), and Tet (1968).
I’m in the final chapter, so… don’t tell me how it ends, ‘kay? 😉
Sharman argues that there is not enough extinction among states for selection to operate effectively
States don’t go extinct very often, but they change management rather frequently. Today’s China bears little resemblance to Mao’s China.
Some years ago I saw a scholarly book on “state extinction” and “state resurrection,” if those are the correct terms.
The Baltic states come to mind especially, as does Poland. But the list was a very long one.
Offhand I think our analysis needs to be rigorous. Macedonia exists on the map–but what does it have in common with the Macedonia of Alexander the Great?
Just off the top of my head, we need to distinguish between…
1. a sovereign territory
2. The inhabitants of the territory
3. the institutions that adhere in that territory
State extinction is not necessary for evolution. Look at sports leagues. Teams almost never die off, but there is intense pressure to adopt innovations from other teams.
Two thumbs up for RobertB’s comment. I think the pro sports analogy works perfectly. The point is not extinction, it is that success is rewarded and failure is penalized, and thus certainly happened in a competitive cooperative way in Europe for about a thousand years among hundreds of entities.
Within a state the feedback mechanism can become self referential. Lots of people in Japan for decades leading up to the Second World War knew they were on a bad path, but the feedback mechanism they were constantly faced with was assination if they tried to stop things.
Also, data of that level can be easily misinterpreted. Why can’t japan conquer China of Britain conquered india? There are good reasons, but you can see how it’s easy to misinterpret the facts. Why is fighting the anglos any harder then fighting the Russians (another war they should have lost on paper). Sports feedback is way easier to interpret and measure.
The NY Times review, mentioned on Amazon, does raise interesting points. A British trading post on the edge of China did not amount to much at the time, and of course amounts to nothing at all now. The Orientals have, in abundance, patience and people, and they are not going away. I hope we don’t need a war to decide who runs the South China Sea.
I agree with Jay above that it is the management structure rather than the letterhead that’s important, and it changes rather more often.
This argument cuts both ways. Focusing on the influence of accidental factors to the exclusion of systematic factors is misguided because by definition we cannot influence the former. Rephrasing Pasteur slightly, luck only favors those who are prepared and have the wherewithal to take advantage of it, and those systematic factors are precisely what we can (at least in theory) control. As the joke goes, if you’ve missed your own front door for the fifth time, it’s not just bad luck.
The civil war, manifest destiny, western migration, rise of Texas is an ongoing national state change. The dominance of the big to, Texas and California, will severely limit the power of federal government. Step one of every change in DC will be, make sure California politic has agreed with Texas politic. The Eastern seaboard politic becomes increasingly frustrated, bottle necked, populist.
Well, a lot of ways to slice this.
The West was indeed lucky that Hitler was such a lunatic. His myrmidons were working on a nuclear bomb and other advanced technologies. The US Congress wanted no part of any war and it was only the attack on Pearl Harbor that ushered the US into World War II. In fact, FDR worried that the Congress would not allow him into Europe, but then Hitler complied by declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor.
Had Hitler and Tokyo only a little bit of patience we might today live in a darker world.
As for China and the mid-East, neither are evolving a according to Western hopes. Repression, suppression and oppression have become the norm in China ( not a popular topic, even in libertarian circles in the US). In the mid East, states such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Libya are going backwards not forwards. Depending on your point of view, Iran has marched backwards as well, and perhaps Russia too. Venezuela too.
The West became economically far far superior, due to “Christian Capitalism”. But we haven’t “won” yet — and it won’t be a victory until similar human rights respecting governments are legitimate throughout the world. (Right now the direction is the reverse.)
A good balance between individual freedom & autonomy & moral choosing, plus duty to family, community, “nation”. (The Kurds remain the largest, 25 mln person “nation”, without a state.)
The various institutions of “private property”, along with “free trade”, resulted in, and allowed, lots of economic surplus that was invested in productivity improving ways, for more future profit. The Taj Mahal is fabulous — but a thousand looms, etc, for more rapidly making cloth would have been better for the people.
Guns, Germs, and Steel along with many other books talks about the Industrial Revolution rise of Europe, as compared to other places in a longer geo-historical context.
The independence of the USA, and in particular the many democratic compromises, mostly improving from the Articles of Confederation, helped the USA to help the European West. The many wars, along with economic competition, fostered the tech superiority which has been so important.
Still, the idea that we, the world, are lucky seems pretty true. Looking at Venezuela and other states, it’s “never too late” to fail.
It’s good to look at decisions both in their results, and in the context at the time. The West has been doing that fairly well up to now. The PC-Klan and suppression of the truth show that an honest review of decisions may be stopping in “the West” — and if we get dominated by “magical thinking”, like that socialism can work, we will “lose”.