Breakthroughs that spread Progress throughout the globe
Historic trends move in lurches, not in smooth lines.
Breakthroughs that Promoted Progress
For the last few weeks, I have been pumping out quite a few articles on Society Types. One can think of these articles as a very high-level view of human history that explains this one graphic.
I have tried to repeatedly stress that this is not a history of progress. Progress started very late in human history. The history before modern material progress had plenty of change, but that change did not increase the material standard of living of the masses. Fortunately, my posts are reaching the point of human history where a few very unusual societies began to experience progress: Commercial societies (see top right in the graphic above).
My next few articles are going to be about Commercial societies. Before I go into more detail on Commercial societies, though, I want to put them into historical context.
Most of the following is an excerpt from my book From Poverty to Progress: Understanding Humanity’s Greatest Achievement. You can purchase discounted copies of my book at my website, or pay full prize at Amazon.
Other books in my “From Poverty to Progress” book series:
See also other posts on related topics:
I believe that six historical breakthroughs enabled progress to accelerate and diffuse to new parts of the globe. These breakthroughs occurred in very specific geographical locations that had significantly lower geographical constraints. I will be writing separate articles about each of these historical breakthroughs, but I wanted one article that summarized the topic.
So here is a list of what I believe are the six historical breakthroughs that accelerated and diffused material progress to new regions on the globe:
The emergence of Commercial societies in Europe about 800 years ago that innovated four of the Five Keys to Progress (productive agriculture, trade-based cities, decentralized power, and export industries).
The diffusion of Commercial societies from Northern Italy to Flanders and then to the Netherlands and finally to Southeast England.
The migration of Europeans to much of the rest of the world. The migration of peoples from Britain to North America was particularly important.
The Industrial Revolution in Britain, which added the fifth Key to Progress (widespread use of fossil fuels). The Industrial Revolution involved the application of fossil fuels to transportation, communication, materials, agriculture and other technologies, increasing their usefulness. This dramatically increased the rate of innovation to a level where real progress could take place in Western Europe and North America.
The Allied victory in World War II, which ended the totalitarian threats of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy. Once the economies of Western Europe and Japan recovered from the devastation of the war, they grew at an unprecedented rate for almost 30 years.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, which ended the last of the great predatory empires and undermined the legitimacy of centralized political monopolies. As a result, country after country dismantled totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in favor of increased freedom, democracy, market-based competition, and global trade.
These six historical breakthroughs enabled all Five Keys to Progress to spread through much of the world. I believe that the first of these developments, the creation of Commercial societies was one of the most important and also the least written about, so my research focuses on it.
The key development that made progress for the masses possible was the emergence of a new type of society sometime after 1200 in Northwestern Europe: Commercial societies. Commercial societies differed greatly from even the most complex Agrarian societies of Eurasia. These societies built on the relatively productive agricultural systems of Northwest Europe but channeled the food surplus towards autonomous trade-based cities full of free people with a wide variety of skills.
While Agrarian societies established government-sponsored monopolies designed to extract a food surplus to benefit political, economic, and religious elites, Commercial societies promoted competition between a wide variety of institutions. The result was a dramatic increase in the rate of innovation of technologies, skills, and organizations that triggered the first real progress in human history.
A brief note: I am cheating a little bit by considering Northern Italy as a part of Northwestern Europe. I do so because Northern Italy shares far more in common geographically with the Northwestern section of the European continent than the southern section, including a Temperate Forest biome, a large navigable river, stretches of productive Alfisol soil, and summer rainfall.
Most of the above is an excerpt from my book From Poverty to Progress: Understanding Humanity’s Greatest Achievement. You can purchase discounted copies of my book at my website, or pay full prize at Amazon.
Other books in my “From Poverty to Progress” book series:
See also earlier posts on related topics:
Michael, a newcomer to your site, which I'm thoroughly enjoying. Have/will you do an article on how China combined being a totalitarian/authoritarian state but also increased productivity?
Regards
What happened to AC and BC?