Susan Fullmer
MDS 420 - Globalization
Final Essay
5/5/2019
The Great Divergence: The Need for Further Study
Globalization has shaped the world. As Westerners we have certain advantages over others around the globe such as better jobs, better education, our civic rights, and opportunities we have because of our higher income, just to name a few. This seemingly unfair distribution of power and opportunities can be understood better when looking at the Great Divergence. The origins of this imbalance happened primarily during the 19th century when the West had great advancement in a number of areas and therefore advantage over others in things such as economy, trade, technology, and global power. Because of these advancements they dominated the world in modernization and the ability to reach out and colonize much of the globe. Therefore my thesis is, the cause and effect of the Great Divergence is varied and complicated and warrants further study to understand its ramifications then and now.
Culturally, no matter where someone lives on the planet, the Great Divergence has changed and shaped the world we lived in then and the world we live in now. From the opportunities in educational choices (or lack thereof) to the modern contentions between the West and the East, the Great Divergence gives us an understanding of where it all began. Some eastern nations are catching up and in some ways surpassing the West in things such as modernizing its energy infrastructures which gives them great advantage in the world today.
Before the Great Divergence, the East was ahead in most categories, yet it was the West who got there first and stayed in dominance until modern times. There is a myriad of reasons for this. Some seem rather insignificant, yet played a crucial role. For example, financed by the Spanish Crown, Columbus set sail in 1492, not to discover America but rather to discover the Spice Islands. Because of the Crusades, Christians were exposed to the wonderful spices of the East. They brought back this kind of cooking and culture to the West where it soon caught on and became very popular (most notably, including textiles). Eventually Europe got tired of making the Ottoman Empire rich by the sale of these spices and became determined to cut out the middleman in the process. Of course, Columbus never did find these famed islands, but eventually Portugal did. There had been free trade on these islands before this discovery but this ended as Europeans conquered and colonized this culture. With the introduction of guns and germs the people and their way of life were decimated.
One of the more obvious reasons for the West surging ahead in the advancement of technologies was the invention of the steam engine which changed the world forever. Europe also had lawyers who assisted the people to change from a way of life of working for the state or a guild, to a life of working for themselves. This gave the population the freedom to explore and be more creative in the way they lived and did business. Other inventions and colonization also helped to strengthen the West. And another reason the West dominated was because of science.
The West’s influence is everywhere. Yuval Jarari states in his book, Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind, “Today all humans are, to a much greater extent than they usually want to admit, European in dress, thought and taste. They may be fiercely anti-European in their rhetoric but almost everyone on the planet views politics, medicine, war and economics through European eyes and listens to music written in European modes with words in European languages. Even today burgeoning Chinese economy, which may soon regain it’s global primacy, is built on a European model of production and finance.”
Since Kenneth Pomeranz published the book The Great Divergence in 2000, there has been much debate regarding this concept. Historically, the discussion has been centered on economic arguments which include wage-price series, living standards, and energy costs. Another consideration much debated are components of cultural and even intellectual - the argument that Europe had a larger market for ideas and thus hastened what has been called the “Industrial Enlightenment.” Those that study this concept look to aspects of literacy, book-production, and skill-building. And of course, the debate also often focuses on politics and economics.
But some are suggesting that we take a broader perspective when considering the divergence question to include historical change rather than just of the history of economic outcomes. For example, in Pre-Colonial India it was said that the people had no potential for capitalism. But this declaration was seen through western eyes. In reality, there was an extensive level of market dependence and agricultural industry. Instead of describing the situation with a narrative of potentiality, they are now studying the actual Indian economy and how it functioned at that time. Some are now saying that left to itself, without colonization, India would have achieved modern economic growth and a transition to capitalism. In the article, The “Great Divergence, Politics, and Capitalism” Shami Ghosh reports, “In a great many ways, South Asia was involved in ‘the social history of capitalism’ from a very early period and underwent many of the same types of social development as those taking place in Western Europe,” and had by no means reached a stage where, before c.1825, “expanding social needs [could] no longer be met out of existing technological means.”
Ghosh goes on to explain that there was a convergence in the world (just before the divergence) of activity of economic complexity including an increase in exchange, market dependence and regional specialization and a general improvement of living standards. It also was a time of more trade, more market exchange at all levels, growth in production, more productivity and an increase in the population. Shami Ghosh states, “Admittedly, such convergences did not all happen everywhere at exactly the same time, but the point is not so much a chronological as an evolutionary one: given certain conditions, certain kinds of social, political, economic, and even cultural developments appear to have taken place in different parts of the world, and apparently quite independent of similar developments at other ends of the earth.” He points out that though these regions were converging and would probably lead to independent “modern economic growth”, still this convergence would not be sufficient enough for all parts of the world to do so. With this said, Ghosh does believe that the ensuing divergence and the rise of capitalism did lead to this independence but cautions that these issues are complex and must be examined carefully. One cannot assume that all forms of capitalism are the same. For example, he feels it is necessary to understand not only the causes for the rise of market-dependent societies, but also to examine the differences in the levels and qualities of market-dependence.
One example of this is that the Netherlands had full market dependence and dominance far before Britain. Yet, because the former propelled productivity growth only so far, it might seem on the surface that they were not inclined for continuous growth. We must be careful of comparisons. Even if the rise of market dependence might imply a need to increase profits and productivity up to a certain point, it’s not logical that market dependence must lead to continual profit-maximization. Comparing the Netherlands and Britain in this instance is like comparing apples and oranges, and yet this can happen in the study of the Great Divergence. Ghosh recommends a careful differentiation between commercialization, market dependence and capitalism. He believes that culture is an important element in the rise of consumerism and should be examined carefully as well. He stresses that both market dependence and a need to increase productivity can come from socio-political structures which can determine how people access resources and how commodities are produced. Religion and concepts of “rationality” can also have an effect and must be examined for a total picture.
Eren Duzgun from the University of Kyrenia in Northern Cyprus states that the question of how Western Europe established its dominance over the rest of the world has created a debate that continues to this day. To lend light to the reason and need for this ongoing debate, he states that even though there has been a plethora of explanations for the Great Divergence, research as recently as the last decade has shown that some of those ideas have now lost all credibility. He reports, “Approaches emphasizing environmental factors, historical contingencies, and inter-regional connections and similarities have remarkably deepened our understanding of the wealth and poverty of “nations,” producing wide-reaching implications for the way in which we understand the origins of the present international economic and political hierarchies.”
And so debate, research and discussion continues. This topic is complicated and encompass many aspects. Because of its effect on modern day and how we move forward as a globalized community, it is imperative that we continue to study and understand the Great Divergence.
Culturally, no matter where someone lives on the planet, the Great Divergence has changed and shaped the world we lived in then and the world we live in now. From the opportunities in educational choices (or lack thereof) to the modern contentions between the West and the East, the Great Divergence gives us an understanding of where it all began. Some eastern nations are catching up and in some ways surpassing the West in things such as modernizing its energy infrastructures which gives them great advantage in the world today.
Before the Great Divergence, the East was ahead in most categories, yet it was the West who got there first and stayed in dominance until modern times. There is a myriad of reasons for this. Some seem rather insignificant, yet played a crucial role. For example, financed by the Spanish Crown, Columbus set sail in 1492, not to discover America but rather to discover the Spice Islands. Because of the Crusades, Christians were exposed to the wonderful spices of the East. They brought back this kind of cooking and culture to the West where it soon caught on and became very popular (most notably, including textiles). Eventually Europe got tired of making the Ottoman Empire rich by the sale of these spices and became determined to cut out the middleman in the process. Of course, Columbus never did find these famed islands, but eventually Portugal did. There had been free trade on these islands before this discovery but this ended as Europeans conquered and colonized this culture. With the introduction of guns and germs the people and their way of life were decimated.
One of the more obvious reasons for the West surging ahead in the advancement of technologies was the invention of the steam engine which changed the world forever. Europe also had lawyers who assisted the people to change from a way of life of working for the state or a guild, to a life of working for themselves. This gave the population the freedom to explore and be more creative in the way they lived and did business. Other inventions and colonization also helped to strengthen the West. And another reason the West dominated was because of science.
The West’s influence is everywhere. Yuval Jarari states in his book, Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind, “Today all humans are, to a much greater extent than they usually want to admit, European in dress, thought and taste. They may be fiercely anti-European in their rhetoric but almost everyone on the planet views politics, medicine, war and economics through European eyes and listens to music written in European modes with words in European languages. Even today burgeoning Chinese economy, which may soon regain it’s global primacy, is built on a European model of production and finance.”
Since Kenneth Pomeranz published the book The Great Divergence in 2000, there has been much debate regarding this concept. Historically, the discussion has been centered on economic arguments which include wage-price series, living standards, and energy costs. Another consideration much debated are components of cultural and even intellectual - the argument that Europe had a larger market for ideas and thus hastened what has been called the “Industrial Enlightenment.” Those that study this concept look to aspects of literacy, book-production, and skill-building. And of course, the debate also often focuses on politics and economics.
But some are suggesting that we take a broader perspective when considering the divergence question to include historical change rather than just of the history of economic outcomes. For example, in Pre-Colonial India it was said that the people had no potential for capitalism. But this declaration was seen through western eyes. In reality, there was an extensive level of market dependence and agricultural industry. Instead of describing the situation with a narrative of potentiality, they are now studying the actual Indian economy and how it functioned at that time. Some are now saying that left to itself, without colonization, India would have achieved modern economic growth and a transition to capitalism. In the article, The “Great Divergence, Politics, and Capitalism” Shami Ghosh reports, “In a great many ways, South Asia was involved in ‘the social history of capitalism’ from a very early period and underwent many of the same types of social development as those taking place in Western Europe,” and had by no means reached a stage where, before c.1825, “expanding social needs [could] no longer be met out of existing technological means.”
Ghosh goes on to explain that there was a convergence in the world (just before the divergence) of activity of economic complexity including an increase in exchange, market dependence and regional specialization and a general improvement of living standards. It also was a time of more trade, more market exchange at all levels, growth in production, more productivity and an increase in the population. Shami Ghosh states, “Admittedly, such convergences did not all happen everywhere at exactly the same time, but the point is not so much a chronological as an evolutionary one: given certain conditions, certain kinds of social, political, economic, and even cultural developments appear to have taken place in different parts of the world, and apparently quite independent of similar developments at other ends of the earth.” He points out that though these regions were converging and would probably lead to independent “modern economic growth”, still this convergence would not be sufficient enough for all parts of the world to do so. With this said, Ghosh does believe that the ensuing divergence and the rise of capitalism did lead to this independence but cautions that these issues are complex and must be examined carefully. One cannot assume that all forms of capitalism are the same. For example, he feels it is necessary to understand not only the causes for the rise of market-dependent societies, but also to examine the differences in the levels and qualities of market-dependence.
One example of this is that the Netherlands had full market dependence and dominance far before Britain. Yet, because the former propelled productivity growth only so far, it might seem on the surface that they were not inclined for continuous growth. We must be careful of comparisons. Even if the rise of market dependence might imply a need to increase profits and productivity up to a certain point, it’s not logical that market dependence must lead to continual profit-maximization. Comparing the Netherlands and Britain in this instance is like comparing apples and oranges, and yet this can happen in the study of the Great Divergence. Ghosh recommends a careful differentiation between commercialization, market dependence and capitalism. He believes that culture is an important element in the rise of consumerism and should be examined carefully as well. He stresses that both market dependence and a need to increase productivity can come from socio-political structures which can determine how people access resources and how commodities are produced. Religion and concepts of “rationality” can also have an effect and must be examined for a total picture.
Eren Duzgun from the University of Kyrenia in Northern Cyprus states that the question of how Western Europe established its dominance over the rest of the world has created a debate that continues to this day. To lend light to the reason and need for this ongoing debate, he states that even though there has been a plethora of explanations for the Great Divergence, research as recently as the last decade has shown that some of those ideas have now lost all credibility. He reports, “Approaches emphasizing environmental factors, historical contingencies, and inter-regional connections and similarities have remarkably deepened our understanding of the wealth and poverty of “nations,” producing wide-reaching implications for the way in which we understand the origins of the present international economic and political hierarchies.”
And so debate, research and discussion continues. This topic is complicated and encompass many aspects. Because of its effect on modern day and how we move forward as a globalized community, it is imperative that we continue to study and understand the Great Divergence.
Works Cited
Duzgun, Eren. “Property, Geopolitics, and Eurocentrism: The ‘Great Divergence’ and the Ottoman Empire.” Review of Radical Political Economics, vol. 50, no. 1, 2017, pp. 24–43., doi:10.1177/0486613416673163.
Ghosh, Shami. “The ‘Great Divergence,’ Politics, and Capitalism.” Journal of Early Modern History, vol. 19, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–43., doi:10.1163/15700658-12342421.
Harari, Yuval N., et al. Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind. Vintage, 2019.
Woods, Shelton, director. Globalization and the Great Divergence: Material Reasons. YouTube, YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyRj3SY9Xx0&feature=youtu.be.
Woods, Shelton, director. YouTube. YouTube, YouTube, 18 Apr. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1tdFMah4VI&feature=youtu.be.
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