
Reinventing the Wheel: Why no-tech ancient civilizations still can't catch up. - cwan
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/11/reinventing_the_wheel
======
mattmanser
This article makes absolutely no sense.

China was technologically more advanced once. As was the Middle East. The
Mayans. We could go on listing 'peoples' who were at one point technologically
advanced but are now way behind economically.

This is just mistaking the effect of accumulated capital for technology. This
is just wrong on so many levels, so obviously wrong.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_China was technologically more advanced once._

This doesn't work as a counterexample, because they are once again one of the
world's largest economies.

 _As was the Middle East._

I wonder how (the absolute lack of) natural resources figures into this. Also,
Easterly notes the terrible impact that bad leadership can have (indeed, I
think that was a major sub-point of the article). And considering all the wars
there, I'm guessing that a real infrastructure based on that technology can't
accrete very deeply.

About the Mayans, I don't know enough...

~~~
Symmetry
The Mayas compared well with the ancient Greeks in many areas but were still
stone age some. If you're looking at contemporary comparisons they support the
article's point.

------
alphaoverlord
So, let me get this straight, the conclusion is that European countries are
rich and African countries are poor?

I'd hate to say the emperor has no clothes, but this does not seem
revolutionary in any sense. In fact, there seems to be more counter-examples
than examples when we look to the fact that the Middle East, India, China, and
North America does not fit the pattern. The Middle East was technologically
advanced in the 1500s, China was cited as a counter-example, and there was not
much development in North America. In fact, the movement of people and ideas
seems to contradict the authors thesis.

This conclusion also fails on closer examination. Superficially, this might
work when comparing Europe as a whole vs. Africa as a whole, but Finland is
also noted as a previous technological backwater with high GDP now. I'm
skeptical of any predictive power of this model.

On the other hand, the author is relatively eloquent. I like the line:
"There's a Thomas Edison born every minute. We just have to help them turn the
lights on." Just not particularly insightful.

~~~
thalur
What if the analysis were to be done based on where the people came from
rather than modern geographical borders? I felt it a bit odd that the analysis
was done by overlaying modern geographic boundaries on historical technology,
considering how many modern countries owe their technological progress to
other countries in older times. (e.g. America <\- Britain/France/Spain <\-
Europe <\- Middle East + Asia + Rome <\- Ancient Greece). I think its less
about who had what technology when, more about who inherited that technology.

------
meric
Countries are richer when its population inherits more technology from their
ancestors, except when bad governments are in charge. That is kind of obvious,
really. If I was asked the question "Why are some countries richer than others
in 2010?" yesterday I'd have provided the same explanation - It's because they
were richer before that.

What the article is saying can be reduced further: Descendants of
civilizations that have moved ahead of others will stay ahead unless they stop
moving.

And further still: When you move ahead of someone in a race, you'll stay ahead
until you slow down.

That might be nice to point out, but his mission at World Bank was how to
bring the less technologically advanced countries forward, not explaining why
countries who used to be technologically advanced happens to be richer today.

Obvious point, well argued.

He says interesting things about people carrying technology around. I wonder
what you can do with immigration to make your country become more
technologically advanced.

~~~
__bjoernd
Apart from the points appearing obvious, the article also points out that this
was exactly not what his employer did back in the 80s and 90s. And his
arguments appear to be more researched than some answer you and I could come
up with by using plain intuition.

------
sliverstorm
This mostly just reminds me I need to finish reading Guns, Germs, and Steel

~~~
pbourke
William Bernstein's "A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World" is also
quite interesting. It correlates social and technological development with
increased trade by examining various societies throughout history.

<http://amzn.com/0802144160>

------
smackay
There is a risk of looking at this as just another "The West is best" article
but for me the most interesting part was the examples of technology that were
cited. Most were easy distributed and had no need of some form of central
organization that made it difficult if not impossible for governments to
control. A lot of new technology is now inherently centralized or has choke
points that make it easy to stifle their use or adoption - though in the case
of mobile phones it might be as an act of desparation for a goverment to
restrict use.

Perhaps the path of development needs some rethinking to ensure they are
inherently transferrable or at least have a high-level of empowerment in
situations where the level of capital required is substantial or out of reach
of individual or small groups.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Rome ignored gunpower, horse collars, innovations in shipbuilding out of
arrogance. Not a good example of innovation.

~~~
alan
Eh? Citation needed. Most anything I've ever seen suggest that gunpowder was
unknown world wide before the Western Empire fell, and horse collars were just
being introduced.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Horse collars invented (int China) before 500AD, Europe didn't adopt until
1000AD.

!wiki horse collar

~~~
metageek
_Horse collars invented (int China) before 500AD,_

Look at that article again. Some early form of the horse collar may have been
around in China around AD200-250, but the finished form wasn't until 450-500.
Rome fell in 476.

Besides, consider what kind of contact Rome had with China. Nobody traveled
all the way from Rome to China; instead, goods were relayed: China to India,
India to Arabia, Arabia to Constantinople, Constantinople to Rome. And the
caravans through Arabia _didn't use horses;_ goods were carried on camels. So
there was no route for the horse collar to take, as a live technology.
Somebody in China could have tried exporting horse collars, but it wouldn't
have worked--only very valuable items were worth shipping all that way.

 _Europe didn't adopt until 1000AD._

We weren't talking about Europe, we were talking about the Roman Empire.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
All true. Read what again?

That caveat "as a live technology" is not strong: many technologies Did pass
between cultures even though they weren't attached to the camel.

(Western) Rome wasn't around in 1000AD, Europe was.

~~~
alan
"(Western) Rome wasn't around in 1000AD, Europe was."

True, but your original claim was about Rome ignoring a technology that wasn't
available until 524 years after Rome fell. And I'd still like to see some
evidence that gunpowder existed before 476 as well so that Rome could ignore
it.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
All good comments.

Western Roman empire fell in 476.

Wasn't available until after Rome fell? That was my point - it was there all
the time (perhaps since 200AD, certainly at 500AD).

~~~
metageek
Gunpowder? No. _Saltpeter_ was known by the 1st century AD; but saltpeter is
not gunpowder. The earliest reference to gunpowder is from the mid-9th
century; but then it was an alchemical curiosity. The earliest reference to
_using_ gunpowder is from the mid-11th century.

(All according to Wikipedia.)

------
nl
Guns, Germs and Steel has already been mentioned in this thread, but there are
two Hans Rosling talks that also provide some interesting data points:

The rise of the Asian economies:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_asia_s_rise_h...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_asia_s_rise_how_and_when.html)

Talking to foreign aid policy workers:
<http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_at_state.html>

------
kia
Single page:

[http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/11/reinventing...](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/11/reinventing_the_wheel?page=full)

------
lionhearted
> In fact, the principal beneficiaries of Western largesse today -- African
> autocrats and dysfunctional regimes -- are themselves the main obstacles to
> development. If there's anything that "must be done" to spur future
> development, it's to create the conditions necessary to empower the ordinary
> individuals who will create new and unforeseen technologies out of old ones.

I agree with all of this.

After reading lots of history, it seems to me that the most enduring and
effective form of government is the decentralized imperial republic. This is
not a common viewpoint among non-historians, but the key elements of this form
of government tend to produce healthy, growing, prosperous, safe societies.
Here's the specific elements in more detail:

Decentralized means allowing local areas in the republic to set largely their
own laws, have their own worship, and their own customs. The head government
sets minimum standards, and local governors see to it that they are met. These
are basic conditions of infrastructure like roads and hospitals,
communications networks, defense/garrisons, a few universal laws, and
taxation. Everything else is up to the local regional governor.

Imperial will be the most controversial element of this, because there's been
a large movement for self-rule in the post WWII era. I think there's lots of
merit to that movement, but I wonder if the baby has been thrown out with the
bathwater to some extent. Imperialism works as a natural check and balance
against corrupt government - in a world where imperialism is more acceptable,
it's basically "fair game" to go conquer any dysfunctional place. Thus, you
don't get governments like you have in Venezuela with the government bringing
in trillions in oil money that supposedly belongs to the people, but 1/3rd of
the population are living on less than a dollar a day, and then the country
has one of the highest murder rates in the world and the government is
basically a mafia. In an era where imperialism is acceptable, Chavez gets
exiled or executed, and the Chinese or Americans or British or whoever install
a local governor that brings peace, stability, infrastructure, and rule of law
to Venezuela.

Republic means some form of representative democracy. I think representative
democracy actually performs worse on average than monarchy because corrupt,
waste, and crime gradually increase in republics until the nation breaks, and
it's very hard for a single leader to clean house. However, republics don't
fall under the trap of having one horrifically bad leader who ruins the entire
civilization. It's a tradeoff. I thought the British Empire did a good job
with this, with a balance between the House of Lords, House of Commons, some
strong constitution-type documents like the Magna Carta, the military, and
local governors. Power was distributed in a decentralized way. The Prime
Minister or Monarch could step up and assert authority when times got dire or
massive house cleaning was necessary, but most of the time the Empire had some
significant republican democratic elements to it keeping the aristocracy in
check.

Of course, this is all very unfashionable these days, and everyone compares
ideas to the current era. But for producing high levels of science, commerce,
invention, quality of life, safety, peace, rule of law, health, art, and other
key things - decentralized imperial republicanism has absolutely outperformed
just about every other form of government.

~~~
zeemonkee
Unfortunately the British Empire collapsed for a reason.

Recent imperialist ventures - Iraq comes to mind - where the US and its allies
overthrew the local dictator - have led to a worse mess.

Let's not forget the long-term effects of British rule in places as far-flung
as Ireland, Cyprus and - of course - Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. A
policy of divide-and-rule led to pretty awful consequences.

British government during the 18th and 19th centuries was spectacularly
corrupt - the rotten boroughs and the Opium Wars being two examples.

Where decentralized British rule "worked" was where the Brits deliberately or
accidentally wiped out or effectively displaced the native populations -
Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

(Disclaimer - I'm British, and have reasons to be proud of my country, but our
Imperial past is not one of them).

~~~
paganel
Maybe we shouldn't focus only on the British Empire as the ultimate example,
I'd say that the Austro-Hungarian monarchy of the second half of the 19th
century is a better example, maybe also one that better fits what lionhearted
had in mind. I know that you can blame a lot of things on this particular
political entity (the War in Yugoslavia 100 years later being just one
example), but it also did a lot of things very well. Actually, come to think
of it, large swaths of the European Union are modeled on the Austro-Hungarian
example, but those in Brussels are just too scared to admit it.

~~~
zeemonkee
Ah, so the Dual Monarchy ~ the Franco-German axis ? Makes a lot more sense.

------
ahi
"When I worked at the World Bank..."

Sit down and shut up, you've done enough damage.

As far as I can tell his thesis is that civilizations that weren't
technologically developed aren't technologically developed. Uhh, ok.

------
ThomPete
The main reason is protectionism and trade barriers it's really that simple
IMHO.

Right now western companies can sell rice cheaper in africa than the africans
can themselves and they have no access to the western markets unless it's
somehow owned by european or american companies.

They can't catch up because they are not allowed to play the game.

