"Produces the majority of its calories from people selling a product or skill, so one can buy food from the marketplace. This is very different from all previous types of society where the vast majority of people acquire their own food directly."
I love this definition, so clearly delineates an agrarian society from a commercial one.
The efflorescences of these merchant cities was pretty mild in terms of progress. Between 1500 and 1600 the average increase in income per day seems to be about a penny per year. I doubt anyone even noticed this rate of progress. In addition, since the mortality was worse in cities, I wonder if the wage rates were needed just to get people to come to the cities and die.
To me, progress is a wide scale, preferably global, phenomenon, and that doesn’t even begin to show up until we add fossil fuels and mechanization to the mix.
Compared to the 100-200,000 years of stagnation in the standard of living that came before Commercial societies, it was a tremendous change.
Material progress cannot magically transform from nothing to "a wide-scale, preferably global, phenomenon." It should not be surprising that material progress started slowly and increased in strength and then spread globally. That is what evolutionary processes do.
And global progress that spanned most continents did not really start until the 1990s. So then by your standards, you have defined away the Industrial Revolution as an important step in progress.
I am not sure where you got the "a penny per year." I estimate during periods of growth, these Commercial societies grew by about 1% per capita GDP. Assuming $500/year, this comes to $5 increase per year at the lowest. Over a lifetime of 40 years, that is $200 (ignoring compounding which would make it bigger). That would be noticeable.
And many commentators at the time remarked on the contrast of the standard of living between the Netherlands and preindustrial England compared to other societies in Europe. To use the Netherlands in 1700 as a benchmark, that was a standard of living that was four times the rest of the world.
More evidence is how long it took industrializing nations to surpass the Dutch per capita GDP in 1700.
UK did not surpass this level until 1846
Belgium in 1856
USA in 1860
Germany in 1883
I don't understand your point about migration to cities. If their urban economies were not growing there would be no reason "to get people to come to the cities."
“It should not be surprising that material progress started slowly and increased in strength and then spread globally. That is what evolutionary processes do.”
Efflorescences have occurred repeatedly many, many times and then they sputter out. Greece, early Rome, Song China, Venice, Florence, Amsterdam. These are basically temporary reprieves from Malthusian pressures and exploitation. If the population had continued growing, it would eventually exceed the rate of economic growth, and the house of cards would tumble, and/or internal parasites and external predators would take the wealth for themselves.
“And global progress that spanned most continents did not really start until the 1990s. So then by your standards, you have defined away the Industrial Revolution as an important step in progress.”
No I haven’t. My point is that your first four requirements are not sufficient, and at best only led to temporary and local effects. When we add the fifth, we get a slow increase which proved both sustainable and able to spread widely. The IR and fossil fuels were essential, and without them Britain’s efflorescence would have just been another flash in the pan.
“I am not sure where you got the "a penny per year."”
A penny “per day” per year. Eyeballing your chart shows that GDP was increasing by about $300 per century. Or $3 per year, or about a penny per day.
“…many commentators at the time remarked on the contrast of the standard of living between the Netherlands and preindustrial England compared to other societies in Europe.”
Agreed, but I don’t think the idea of long term, continuous progress in living standards was a widely observed or noted phenomenon.
“I don't understand your point about migration to cities. If their urban economies were not growing there would be no reason "to get people to come to the cities."”
The mortality rates in cities was well known to be substantially higher than in the countryside, and were so high that absent immigration, populations would fall. My point is that to the extent people were rational they would need to be paid substantially more than in rural areas to offset their drastically shorter and less healthy lives. For cities to maintain their populations back then they had to constantly promote net migration.
You are hand-waving away 500 years of almost continuous economic growth and increased material standard of living for the masses by claiming that it would inevitably end. But it did not end. It is still going on today.
1) You just listed most of the societies that I already discussed and rebranded them as "efflorescences," obviously in an attempt to just hand-wave them away. Using a different name does not change the results of an increased material standard of living for centuries.
You are no different from those who say that current economic growth does not matter because it will end.
2) There is absolutely no force that guarantees current economic growth will last forever. Internal parasites and external predators still exist today. That does not make modern economic growth an "efflorescence" if our growth suddenly ends in 2025.
3) Since these Commercial societies clearly experienced increased material standard of living for at least one dozen generations, then by definition, they were not constrained by Malthusian limits. Robert Malthus said this was impossible. Malthusian limits are set by unproductive agriculture. I have written many articles showing a quadrupling of agricultural productivity, which Malthus would have said was impossible.
The USA further increased agricultural productivity before the IR.
4) Economic growth in Northern Italy and Flanders was stopped by military conquest. There was nothing inevitable about that, and it could still happen today. I see no reason why they could not have achieved the same SofL as the Netherlands.
5) Netherlands remained a prosperous nation even after their Golden Age and was one of the richest nations in the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
6) English economic growth started centuries before widespread fossil fuel use in the mid-19th Century. There was nothing that made further growth impossible. There probably is some upper limit for how far economic growth could have gone without fossil fuels, but there is no evidence that Commercial societies were anywhere near it.
7) The growth of those Commercial societies were intimately connected. Flanders overlapped with and built on the innovations of Northern Italy. The Netherlands overlapped with and built on the achievement of Flanders. England overlapped with and built on the achievements of the Netherlands. The growth continued, but the location shifted.
8) Your claim that cities require higher wages is clearly not true. Cities existed for millennia without increasing wages. Cities often grow in population without increasing wages. Cities do not make decisions about prevailing wages. Without economic growth, wages could not simply increase.
9) What factors do you believe cause "Efflorescences?" If it is roughly the same as my four keys, then I don't understand what you are objecting to. If it is difference, please state what they are.
“You are hand-waving away 500 years of almost continuous economic growth and increased material standard of living for the masses by claiming that it would inevitably end. But it did not end. It is still going on today.”
Actually I gave you a list of over two thousand years of Efflorescences (following Jack Goldstone's terminology and logic) all of which flourished for centuries then ended. The reason (actually one reason) that the current one didn’t end is that it led to a new gateway of fossil fuel powered machinery aka the Industrial Revolution. I think the discovery of the new world was also critical. I understand Goldstone to make the same point, that in the end, energy is a bottleneck on economic growth.
“Using a different name does not change the results of an increased material standard of living for centuries. “
I am stating that efflorescences were special occurrences, but they needed FF powered machinery to break through to widespread global progress.
“You are no different from those who say that current economic growth does not matter because it will end. “
Stating that fossil fuels was an essential part of large scale, global breakthrough to progress makes me the same as those who suggest it doesn’t matter?
“Internal parasites and external predators still exist today. That does not make modern economic growth an "efflorescence" if our growth suddenly ends in 2025. “
What makes modern growth other than an efflorescence is fossil fuels. And yes, modern growth may end too. Or may not.
“Malthusian limits are set by unproductive agriculture.”
Malthusian limits are approached when the increase in population exceeds the growth rate in food.
“There was nothing that made further growth impossible. “
Further growth was constricted by the need for most people to work in agriculture. It was constricted by limits of fertilizer. It was constricted by the pace of transportation and that moving food more than a dozen miles or so inland was uneconomical. It was constricted by the need to chop down all the nearby forests for wood and heat. It was constricted by small practical market sizes. It was constricted by the high mortality in dirty cities. It was constricted by the small and limited states during an age of slow transportation and communication. It was constricted by the need for higher populations to cause farming to expand into less productive areas. It was constricted by the fact that land transportation (horses and oxen) competed for the same solar energy drive food as people.
The breakthrough event was fossil fuels which helped solve all these problems, in effect raising the ceiling or limit. It was also supported by the discovery of three soon-to-be-open continents which were an order of magnitude larger and resource rich than Europe.
“What factors do you believe cause "Efflorescences?" If it is roughly the same as my four keys, then I don't understand what you are objecting to. If it is difference, please state what they are?”
I am not objecting to anything. I am suggesting that absent an IR that these improvements in living standards were shallow and limited. There is a fundamental difference between $1600 per year in a tiny corner of the world, and current global per cap GDP of nearly ten times this for 8 billion people. The term efflorescence works well at explaining how merchant cities in the pre modern world sometimes made two to four times the Malthusian average. It is a lot harder explaining how global incomes continued to grow ten to sixty times higher as health improved, lifespan doubled and population increased by a factor of ten.
I would argue for using a different term for what happened in classical Athens and Song China from what is happening now.
"Produces the majority of its calories from people selling a product or skill, so one can buy food from the marketplace. This is very different from all previous types of society where the vast majority of people acquire their own food directly."
I love this definition, so clearly delineates an agrarian society from a commercial one.
Reread the definition again. As currently written it makes no sense.
All calories are still produced by somebody engaging in farming.
Yes, I think that I need to rephrase it a little.
Good catch.
I understood what he meant. I suppose it needs a tweak. :)
The efflorescences of these merchant cities was pretty mild in terms of progress. Between 1500 and 1600 the average increase in income per day seems to be about a penny per year. I doubt anyone even noticed this rate of progress. In addition, since the mortality was worse in cities, I wonder if the wage rates were needed just to get people to come to the cities and die.
To me, progress is a wide scale, preferably global, phenomenon, and that doesn’t even begin to show up until we add fossil fuels and mechanization to the mix.
One other point. The differences in annual growth rates are not as great as they seem.
Commercial societies: 1% annual growth in per capita GDP
Early industrializers (UK, USA, Belgium, Germany): 3% annual growth in per capita GDP
Compared to the 100-200,000 years of stagnation in the standard of living that came before Commercial societies, it was a tremendous change.
Material progress cannot magically transform from nothing to "a wide-scale, preferably global, phenomenon." It should not be surprising that material progress started slowly and increased in strength and then spread globally. That is what evolutionary processes do.
And global progress that spanned most continents did not really start until the 1990s. So then by your standards, you have defined away the Industrial Revolution as an important step in progress.
I am not sure where you got the "a penny per year." I estimate during periods of growth, these Commercial societies grew by about 1% per capita GDP. Assuming $500/year, this comes to $5 increase per year at the lowest. Over a lifetime of 40 years, that is $200 (ignoring compounding which would make it bigger). That would be noticeable.
And many commentators at the time remarked on the contrast of the standard of living between the Netherlands and preindustrial England compared to other societies in Europe. To use the Netherlands in 1700 as a benchmark, that was a standard of living that was four times the rest of the world.
More evidence is how long it took industrializing nations to surpass the Dutch per capita GDP in 1700.
UK did not surpass this level until 1846
Belgium in 1856
USA in 1860
Germany in 1883
I don't understand your point about migration to cities. If their urban economies were not growing there would be no reason "to get people to come to the cities."
“It should not be surprising that material progress started slowly and increased in strength and then spread globally. That is what evolutionary processes do.”
Efflorescences have occurred repeatedly many, many times and then they sputter out. Greece, early Rome, Song China, Venice, Florence, Amsterdam. These are basically temporary reprieves from Malthusian pressures and exploitation. If the population had continued growing, it would eventually exceed the rate of economic growth, and the house of cards would tumble, and/or internal parasites and external predators would take the wealth for themselves.
“And global progress that spanned most continents did not really start until the 1990s. So then by your standards, you have defined away the Industrial Revolution as an important step in progress.”
No I haven’t. My point is that your first four requirements are not sufficient, and at best only led to temporary and local effects. When we add the fifth, we get a slow increase which proved both sustainable and able to spread widely. The IR and fossil fuels were essential, and without them Britain’s efflorescence would have just been another flash in the pan.
“I am not sure where you got the "a penny per year."”
A penny “per day” per year. Eyeballing your chart shows that GDP was increasing by about $300 per century. Or $3 per year, or about a penny per day.
“…many commentators at the time remarked on the contrast of the standard of living between the Netherlands and preindustrial England compared to other societies in Europe.”
Agreed, but I don’t think the idea of long term, continuous progress in living standards was a widely observed or noted phenomenon.
“I don't understand your point about migration to cities. If their urban economies were not growing there would be no reason "to get people to come to the cities."”
The mortality rates in cities was well known to be substantially higher than in the countryside, and were so high that absent immigration, populations would fall. My point is that to the extent people were rational they would need to be paid substantially more than in rural areas to offset their drastically shorter and less healthy lives. For cities to maintain their populations back then they had to constantly promote net migration.
You are hand-waving away 500 years of almost continuous economic growth and increased material standard of living for the masses by claiming that it would inevitably end. But it did not end. It is still going on today.
1) You just listed most of the societies that I already discussed and rebranded them as "efflorescences," obviously in an attempt to just hand-wave them away. Using a different name does not change the results of an increased material standard of living for centuries.
You are no different from those who say that current economic growth does not matter because it will end.
2) There is absolutely no force that guarantees current economic growth will last forever. Internal parasites and external predators still exist today. That does not make modern economic growth an "efflorescence" if our growth suddenly ends in 2025.
3) Since these Commercial societies clearly experienced increased material standard of living for at least one dozen generations, then by definition, they were not constrained by Malthusian limits. Robert Malthus said this was impossible. Malthusian limits are set by unproductive agriculture. I have written many articles showing a quadrupling of agricultural productivity, which Malthus would have said was impossible.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/farming-in-medieval-europe
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/farming-in-commercial-societies
The USA further increased agricultural productivity before the IR.
4) Economic growth in Northern Italy and Flanders was stopped by military conquest. There was nothing inevitable about that, and it could still happen today. I see no reason why they could not have achieved the same SofL as the Netherlands.
5) Netherlands remained a prosperous nation even after their Golden Age and was one of the richest nations in the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
6) English economic growth started centuries before widespread fossil fuel use in the mid-19th Century. There was nothing that made further growth impossible. There probably is some upper limit for how far economic growth could have gone without fossil fuels, but there is no evidence that Commercial societies were anywhere near it.
7) The growth of those Commercial societies were intimately connected. Flanders overlapped with and built on the innovations of Northern Italy. The Netherlands overlapped with and built on the achievement of Flanders. England overlapped with and built on the achievements of the Netherlands. The growth continued, but the location shifted.
8) Your claim that cities require higher wages is clearly not true. Cities existed for millennia without increasing wages. Cities often grow in population without increasing wages. Cities do not make decisions about prevailing wages. Without economic growth, wages could not simply increase.
9) What factors do you believe cause "Efflorescences?" If it is roughly the same as my four keys, then I don't understand what you are objecting to. If it is difference, please state what they are.
“You are hand-waving away 500 years of almost continuous economic growth and increased material standard of living for the masses by claiming that it would inevitably end. But it did not end. It is still going on today.”
Actually I gave you a list of over two thousand years of Efflorescences (following Jack Goldstone's terminology and logic) all of which flourished for centuries then ended. The reason (actually one reason) that the current one didn’t end is that it led to a new gateway of fossil fuel powered machinery aka the Industrial Revolution. I think the discovery of the new world was also critical. I understand Goldstone to make the same point, that in the end, energy is a bottleneck on economic growth.
“Using a different name does not change the results of an increased material standard of living for centuries. “
I am stating that efflorescences were special occurrences, but they needed FF powered machinery to break through to widespread global progress.
“You are no different from those who say that current economic growth does not matter because it will end. “
Stating that fossil fuels was an essential part of large scale, global breakthrough to progress makes me the same as those who suggest it doesn’t matter?
“Internal parasites and external predators still exist today. That does not make modern economic growth an "efflorescence" if our growth suddenly ends in 2025. “
What makes modern growth other than an efflorescence is fossil fuels. And yes, modern growth may end too. Or may not.
“Malthusian limits are set by unproductive agriculture.”
Malthusian limits are approached when the increase in population exceeds the growth rate in food.
“There was nothing that made further growth impossible. “
Further growth was constricted by the need for most people to work in agriculture. It was constricted by limits of fertilizer. It was constricted by the pace of transportation and that moving food more than a dozen miles or so inland was uneconomical. It was constricted by the need to chop down all the nearby forests for wood and heat. It was constricted by small practical market sizes. It was constricted by the high mortality in dirty cities. It was constricted by the small and limited states during an age of slow transportation and communication. It was constricted by the need for higher populations to cause farming to expand into less productive areas. It was constricted by the fact that land transportation (horses and oxen) competed for the same solar energy drive food as people.
The breakthrough event was fossil fuels which helped solve all these problems, in effect raising the ceiling or limit. It was also supported by the discovery of three soon-to-be-open continents which were an order of magnitude larger and resource rich than Europe.
“What factors do you believe cause "Efflorescences?" If it is roughly the same as my four keys, then I don't understand what you are objecting to. If it is difference, please state what they are?”
I am not objecting to anything. I am suggesting that absent an IR that these improvements in living standards were shallow and limited. There is a fundamental difference between $1600 per year in a tiny corner of the world, and current global per cap GDP of nearly ten times this for 8 billion people. The term efflorescence works well at explaining how merchant cities in the pre modern world sometimes made two to four times the Malthusian average. It is a lot harder explaining how global incomes continued to grow ten to sixty times higher as health improved, lifespan doubled and population increased by a factor of ten.
I would argue for using a different term for what happened in classical Athens and Song China from what is happening now.