
Game of Thrones: why hasn’t Westeros had an industrial revolution?  - smacktoward
https://theconversation.com/game-of-thrones-why-hasnt-westeros-had-an-industrial-revolution-25240
======
wfn
Somewhat related: "The Last Ringbearer":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer)
\- "an alternative account of and an informal sequel to the events of J.R.R.
Tolkien's trilogy, The Lord of the Rings."

 _The novel is based on the premise that the Tolkien account is a "history
written by the victors". In Eskov's version of the story, Mordor is described
as a peaceful country on the verge of an industrial revolution, that is a
threat to the war-mongering and imperialistic faction represented by Gandalf
(whose attitude has been described by Saruman as "crafting the Final Solution
to the Mordorian problem") and the elves._

Author's article on salon.com:
[http://www.salon.com/2011/02/23/last_ringbearer_explanation/](http://www.salon.com/2011/02/23/last_ringbearer_explanation/)

The whole book in English here:
[http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/280578.html](http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/280578.html)

~~~
gcv
Fascinating. Is that Salon article even remotely accessible to a non-Russian
(speaker)? It makes fairly subtle references to writers non-Russians have
likely never heard of (the brothers Strugatskie, Lev Gumilev, Griboedov), and
so builds a large argument which can come across as vapid and pretentious. I'm
not necessarily saying it is, but I got most of the references and thought the
author went a little too far. The comments are rather less charitable, and
point out a few factual errors (e.g.: currency at Bree — silver pennies,
explicitly mentioned by JRRT; the weakness of sequels — what about Huck
Finn?).

~~~
wfn
> It makes fairly subtle references to writers non-Russians have likely never
> heard of (the brothers Strugatskie, Lev Gumilev, Griboedov), and so builds a
> large argument which can come across as vapid and pretentious.

fwiw, I don't speak Russian, but I've read 'Roadside Picnic' (and am somewhat
familiar with what else they wrote), know of Griboyedov, etc. I'm sure I've
missed many references and nuances, but the article did deliver a consistent
overall message/point to me.

> I got most of the references and thought the author went a little too far.

I probably agree, it went a bit over the top, but knowing where he's coming
from (i.e.: I understand his defensiveness), it was OK for me. Some of the
references to lore/history/etc were.. more 'cute' than argument-building. :)

------
glenra
The article claims loaned money is wasted in _" useless pageants and
tournaments"_ but pageants might be the opposite of useless in this context.
Having regular events where people travel from near and far to show off their
finery encourages the development of technology - and the sharing of
information - far in advance of what's necessary in normal day-to-day life.

Suppose you're making clothing (or armor, or swords...) and there's one big
annual pageant in your region. That pageant constitutes a financial incentive
to show off your best work. You now have a reason to save money and build up
technological prowess the rest of the year so you can try _extra_ hard to make
something _extra_ impressive that one week so the people who wear your stuff
at that event will outshine everyone else. Having special show-offish events
(generally with an associated crafts fair) leads to an arms race. If one lord
has an especially finely-woven blue silk shirt in this years tournament, the
next year everybody else HAS to have shirts made that well; the guy who came
up with the technique for making it makes out like a bandit and other people
copy his techniques. The need to impress others in a limited context produces
tech that isn't normally necessary and that tech first spreads to the rest of
the elite then trickles down to the masses.

Anyway, that's the "crafts fair" theory of how industrial development came
about.

------
pron
_Breaking up the feudal system with its attendant absurdities would help_

Feudalism is anything but absurd. In fact, it makes much more sense than
capitalism: trust is built slowly, and enhanced by gifts of land and marriage
bonds. It was a major cultural change that allowed people in the early modern
economy to put blind faith in faceless institutions and unseen strangers.
People living in developed countries often don't see how much trust is
required to maintain it, and this trust takes ages to build. Children grow up
seeing that the "system works" so as adults, they don't rock the boat (well,
most of them don't). To them, rampant bribery and nepotism in developing
countries seems strange and illogical, but it is the exact opposite. Those
"backwards" systems are built around the idea of cultivating personal
relationships because you can't trust strangers.

The lessons from this is that the converse is also true. A society built
around capitalism (and I'm talking capitalism in general; not necessarily
predatory free-market capitalism) requires, first and foremost, a lot of trust
in the system. If that trust is lost, we go back to feudalism. There is no
such thing as trust-free capitalism (specifically, because without trust there
is no credit – which, literally means "faith" – and without credit there is no
capitalism).

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Just a coincidence the history of feudal systems is the history of sadists
tormenting the people they lord it over? Its all fine and good as long as you
are one of the people with marriages and land bonds to barter. But the vast
majority of people called it serfdom and died young.

~~~
icegreentea
You're claim has minimal basis in history. The number of sadists tormenting
their serfs is surely non-zero, but also not systemic. For one thing, lords
DEPEND on their serfs for their well being. Their serfs economic output is
crucial.

~~~
malkia
Not directly part of any other feudal system, but Ottoman's empire has
established the order of jannisaries by taking young male boys from the
enslaved nation - these were trained to be the most ferocious fighters, and
even the sultan had to comply occasionally with their demands.

Hardly a thing you can see in an capitalistic system.

~~~
walshemj
No that is the common mistake of employing mercenarys and finding out to late
that have taken over as the Indian Princes found to their cost when they got
to British and french to fight for them.

Then problems the Roman empire had with the Praetorians deciding who was to be
emperor is a related problem

------
rjtavares
Missing from the analysis is the exploration of Westeros' magical winters.
They're described as smal Ice Ages lasting for a few years, and occouring
every 5-7 years (if memory serves me). People hoard food during the good years
so that they don't starve during the long winters, which are (particularly in
the north) complety barren. I imagine that would have an impact on society,
particularly on specialization and the pursuit of knowledge a related
activities.

~~~
Amezarak
(If you haven't read all the books, don't read this comment.)

There's also magic in general. Until relatively recently, societies could
accomplish a great deal through magical means, from road-building to
instantaneous long-distance communication. For much of the six thousand years,
there was probably no reason to focus on scientific and technological advances
when you could just use magic.

Things apparently changed with the near-extinction of the dragons. Dragons
apparently somehow boost magic - it almost disappeared without them, and now
it's coming back with them.

In the books, Marwyn the Mage (a maester) claims that the maesters were
responsible for the death of the dragons, because they couldn't build the
world they wanted with magic, prophecy, and dragons around - suggesting that
the maesters want a world of science and technology, perhaps with them as the
gatekeepers. Lady Dustin also suggests that the maesters are much more
political than they pretend.

~~~
rjtavares
Yeah, I thought about that too. As they say, necessity really is the mother of
invention...

------
bladedtoys
Why hasn't Westeros had an industrial revolution?

Because no one has ever had one[1].

There was no industrial revolution in China or India or the Muslim world who
arguably were more advanced than medieval Europe.

There was no industrial revolution in Rome or the Hellenistic era who had
vastly more potential in the creation and exchange of ideas than the medieval
period.

There were no industrial revolutions among the new world civilizations who had
larger populations than any medieval nation. There were no industrial
revolutions in sub Sarahan African even though there was iron working and
abundant resources.

Quite possibly the industrial revolution was actually an improbable set of
circumstance and people for which ad hoc but inadequate explanations abound.

(and so there hasn't been an industrial revolution on that tv show because it
is unrealistically unlikely.)

[1]With one exception, the one we happen to live in.

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koshatnik
Also, although this is more the case overseas rather than in Westeros itself,
slaves. Ancient Greece and Rome certainly had the knowledge and ingenuity to
have industrial revolutions, but with the availability of mass forced labour,
there would have been a much smaller cost saving in mechanising tasks. Serfdom
kind of does the same thing to a lesser extent.

------
fiatmoney
Intermittent bitter winters result in negative real interest rates - you'd
gladly give up a loaf of bread plus something else now (in summer) for a
guaranteed loaf of bread later (in winter).

With periodic long-term negative real interest rates, hoarding or investing in
hoard-protecting projects (fortresses, larders, giant walls) makes more sense
than investing in capital that will become idle in a long-term bitter winter -
especially when that source of capital makes you a target.

------
rasur
Because it's a book, and thus at the whim of the author?

~~~
jaegerpicker
I'm a HUGE GoT fan (have read the books multiple times) but it's a work of
fiction, fantasy fiction as that. The rules don't apply. There hasn't been an
industrial revolution because George RR Martin has decided there shouldn't be
one in his world.

~~~
maxerickson
There still has to be some internal consistency, if too many things happen on
just a whim of the author the story falls apart.

~~~
bryanlarsen
c.f. J.K. Rowling. She wrote a series of books with very little internal
consistency, yet made billions doing so.

------
higherpurpose
> In Europe, industrialisation depended on the dissemination of ideas. The
> more know-how was spread widely, the more people could hear of an innovation
> and could copy or improve it, building an accelerating cycle of
> technological development.

This hits the spot for the patent system, which is actually detrimental as it
is for technological development. Imagine if back then the "big guys" could
sue/take the property of anyone daring to copy or improve on existing
technologies? I also doubt that back then many would be interested in
licensing the technology, but more in keeping it for themselves to "rule the
world".

~~~
claudius
The patent system was introduced to solve the latter problem: By openly
specifying a solution to a problem, more people could benefit from that
solution. Combine that with a period of time where only the original inventor
is allowed to benefit and you catch two birds with one stone:

\- invention is incentivised as people can expect to be protected for a period
of time to get their investment back

\- to do so, they have to share their inventions with the world which then can
use it at a later point.

The problem today is that the period of protection is much longer than
necessary and sensible given the speed of innovation. Just a few decades ago,
waiting ten or twenty years for a patent to run out was much preferable to
spending ten, twenty or fifty years trying to solve the original problem
yourself.

The patent system is not the problem, its parameters are.

------
moomin
Another unique fictional aspect of the Game of Thrones world is that they have
a well-documented and well-understood technology (magic) that just plain
stopped working. Even things that you'd regard as chemistry e.g. wildfire
stopped working when the dragons died. So you're looking at an environment in
which normal scientific investigation might be unreliable.

For that matter, if you've got dragons, who needs cannons?

------
bluedevil2k
The article doesn't discuss the effectiveness of the plagues in adjusting the
supply/demand curves of labor, thus disrupting the feudal system, thus
unlocking the power of knowledge and innovation from the masses. Perhaps in
Westeros, the upcoming Winter will have the same effect.

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GlennS
I think it's a mistake to think that Westeros has been the same for 6000
years. Rather, the people of Westeros are making the same kind of historical
errors that Medieval people commonly did.

Evidence: the phrase 'stories about knights before there were knights' (I
think this is from Bran).

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henrikschroder
Because:
[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis)

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angersock
For anyone interested in industrial revolutions in fantasy or medieval
settings, I'd recommend checking out de Camp's "Lest Darkness Fall" and
Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court".

 _Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura_ is a pretty great CRPG in that
setting as well, with fantastic writing and worldbuilding--even if the vanilla
version of the game is somewhat buggy and imbalanced.

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klackerz
That's one of my main pet peeves about fantasy novels. The only author I know
who has introduced long term changes in a fantasy world is Brandon Sanderson
in his fantasy series Mistborn.

~~~
OscarCunningham
Terry Pratchett is another.

~~~
Macha
In effect, the long term direction of the Discworld books, especially since
the start of the watch sub-series is basically "What if the industrial
revolution happened in a (mostly) traditional fantasy world?".

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marknutter
Because GRRM is too busy introducing new characters.

~~~
stephencanon
I think you meant "killing".

~~~
Macha
Replacements need to come from somewhere or he'll run out of characters to
kill off.

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riffraff
did the Reform break the church near-monopoly on education?

I was under the impression the printing press had been the big thing there
(and also the main enabler of the Reform, which could have been a random
isolated heresy otherwise)

------
_random_
No colonies to rob?

