You should read the paper "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development" by economists Acemoglu and Simon Johnson which argues against geography as a primary determinant of poverty in former colonies. Instead, it emphasizes the role of institutions over geographical factors. It's lengthy, but a great read. Also, check the paper "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution" by the same authors and discusses the "reversal of fortune," where regions that were prosperous before colonization (such as parts of Latin America and India) are now poorer, while previously underdeveloped regions (such as North America and Australia) became wealthier. This reversal cannot be explained by geography because the geography of these regions did not change, but the institutions imposed by colonial powers did. The reversal is largely time-invariant.
Thanks for the comment. I have read both those articles as well many books by Acemoglu.
While I think that there is much to be said for their institutional viewpoint, I think he is fundamentally incorrect here.
Acemoglu makes the very common mistake of not looking far back enough in history.
For one, poverty for virtually the entire population existed in what are now developing countries long before European colonialism. And in Europe as well. Modern institutions cannot explain poverty before those institutions were even invented.
There never was “a reversal of fortune.” In fact, the rank order of economic development of societies has remained remarkably stable for millennia if you factor in migration.
Latin America and India did not get poorer in absolute terms due to colonization. The indigenous people remained poor as they had for hundreds of years before and after conquest. All that happened is that a new European elite was placed on top of society.
The obvious reason for the sudden increase in economic development in North America and Australia was the migration of British settlers. And those migrants specifically chose those regions because of geography.
And many of the reasons why Britain was relatively rich before migration is also due to geography. British institutions could never have evolved without favorable geography.
I explain some of the geographical factors in Britain here. I will likely expand on them in a later article:
Did it really take centuries to get horses to pull plows? I am skeptical on that point. The first plows were very light weight, so it was mainly training them to walk in a straight line with rudimentary attachments. I think most of the breeding and specialized inventions came afterward, particularly in the Medieval period.
Plus you need the right type of staple crops that incentivized plowing. Africans mainly subsisted on root vegetables which did not benefit from plowing. Plus the areas with wild zebra were grasslands that are very hard to plow because of the dense roots. The West did not figure out how to do it at scale until the invention of the steel plow around 1830.
For all those reasons, I do not think zebras pulling plows in Africa could ever have been invented. Remember the Middle East had both grain crops and domesticated horses, long before plowing, so all it took was the bright idea of hitching horses to them. Given that the chariot was invented first, this was not a big intellectual leap. Sub-Saharan Africans had none of these in one place, so why would they even try.
My point is that it did not take additional breeding to pull a plow. The hard work had already been done, and Africa had no way to duplicate it or copy it.
I am not convinced that it took much of a jump to get large mammals who had been domesticated for millennia to pull a small plows in areas with widespread grain production. Africa had none of those pre-conditions.
You are correct about oxen being first, but that does not seem directly relevant to zebras doing it.
Yes, horse breeding took place before horse riding, and so did chariots. So it was a very small jump to pulling a plow. That is my point.
There were no horses in Africa. Oxen were only possible outside the tsetse fly area. There were no plows in Africa. No plow anywhere in the world before 1830 could possibly work. They had no crops that gave incentive to start plowing. Why would they bother starting the process?
I think that plow-based agriculture was inevitable in the Middle East, but it was impossible (or at least extremely unlikely) in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Yeah as the article pointed out the Sub Saharan does not even have enough herd animals to try selective breeding in the first place. Or any manpower to do so, since the region was extremely lightly populated until very recently for all the reasons mentioned above
You should read the paper "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development" by economists Acemoglu and Simon Johnson which argues against geography as a primary determinant of poverty in former colonies. Instead, it emphasizes the role of institutions over geographical factors. It's lengthy, but a great read. Also, check the paper "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution" by the same authors and discusses the "reversal of fortune," where regions that were prosperous before colonization (such as parts of Latin America and India) are now poorer, while previously underdeveloped regions (such as North America and Australia) became wealthier. This reversal cannot be explained by geography because the geography of these regions did not change, but the institutions imposed by colonial powers did. The reversal is largely time-invariant.
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w8460/w8460.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiCn__2-Y2JAxVRWUEAHWr2IcEQFnoECBUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3DG6lAHqyG-5Xhv5VhYp0v
Thanks for the comment. I have read both those articles as well many books by Acemoglu.
While I think that there is much to be said for their institutional viewpoint, I think he is fundamentally incorrect here.
Acemoglu makes the very common mistake of not looking far back enough in history.
For one, poverty for virtually the entire population existed in what are now developing countries long before European colonialism. And in Europe as well. Modern institutions cannot explain poverty before those institutions were even invented.
There never was “a reversal of fortune.” In fact, the rank order of economic development of societies has remained remarkably stable for millennia if you factor in migration.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/why-are-there-such-huge-variations
Latin America and India did not get poorer in absolute terms due to colonization. The indigenous people remained poor as they had for hundreds of years before and after conquest. All that happened is that a new European elite was placed on top of society.
The obvious reason for the sudden increase in economic development in North America and Australia was the migration of British settlers. And those migrants specifically chose those regions because of geography.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-geography-of-american-progress
And many of the reasons why Britain was relatively rich before migration is also due to geography. British institutions could never have evolved without favorable geography.
I explain some of the geographical factors in Britain here. I will likely expand on them in a later article:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/another-way-at-looking-at-pre-industrial
The institutions that Acemoglu focuses on evolved in Commercial societies in Northern Italy, Flanders, and the Netherlands. Then England copied them.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/how-and-why-commercial-societies
And those Commercial societies could not have done so with the geographical preconditions:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/the-geographical-preconditions-of
As far as domesticating animals, the Victorians were fairly successful in using Zebras to pull carriages.
Interesting. Was this in Africa, or were they imported to Britain? Did they get zebras to pull plows?
For whatever reason, I have never heard of this. It sounds more like a novelty item to amuse country gentlemen.
> Did they get zebras to pull plows?
It took centuries of domestication and specialized inventions to get horses to pull plows.
> It sounds more like a novelty item to amuse country gentlemen.
True, but that was simply trained wild zebras. Imagine what several centuries of selective breading could accomplish.
Did it really take centuries to get horses to pull plows? I am skeptical on that point. The first plows were very light weight, so it was mainly training them to walk in a straight line with rudimentary attachments. I think most of the breeding and specialized inventions came afterward, particularly in the Medieval period.
Plus you need the right type of staple crops that incentivized plowing. Africans mainly subsisted on root vegetables which did not benefit from plowing. Plus the areas with wild zebra were grasslands that are very hard to plow because of the dense roots. The West did not figure out how to do it at scale until the invention of the steel plow around 1830.
For all those reasons, I do not think zebras pulling plows in Africa could ever have been invented. Remember the Middle East had both grain crops and domesticated horses, long before plowing, so all it took was the bright idea of hitching horses to them. Given that the chariot was invented first, this was not a big intellectual leap. Sub-Saharan Africans had none of these in one place, so why would they even try.
> Did it really take centuries to get horses to pull plows?
The first plows were pulled by oxen. Horses didn't pull plows until the middle ages.
Heck it took centuries to breed horses to the point they were safe to ride into battle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uUk5WGAydI
My point is that it did not take additional breeding to pull a plow. The hard work had already been done, and Africa had no way to duplicate it or copy it.
I am not convinced that it took much of a jump to get large mammals who had been domesticated for millennia to pull a small plows in areas with widespread grain production. Africa had none of those pre-conditions.
You are correct about oxen being first, but that does not seem directly relevant to zebras doing it.
Yes, horse breeding took place before horse riding, and so did chariots. So it was a very small jump to pulling a plow. That is my point.
There were no horses in Africa. Oxen were only possible outside the tsetse fly area. There were no plows in Africa. No plow anywhere in the world before 1830 could possibly work. They had no crops that gave incentive to start plowing. Why would they bother starting the process?
I think that plow-based agriculture was inevitable in the Middle East, but it was impossible (or at least extremely unlikely) in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Yeah as the article pointed out the Sub Saharan does not even have enough herd animals to try selective breeding in the first place. Or any manpower to do so, since the region was extremely lightly populated until very recently for all the reasons mentioned above