Abstract
This paper reviews the growing body of evidence on the relative economic standing of different regions of the world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In general, it does not find support for Euro-centric claims regarding Western EuropeÂs early economic lead. The Eurocentric claims are based primarily on estimates of per capita income, which are plagued by conceptual problems, make demands on historical data that are generally unavailable, and use questionable assumptions to reconstruct early per capita income. A careful examination of these conjectural estimates of per capita income, however, does not support claims that Western Europe had a substantial lead over the rest of the world at the beginning of the nineteenth century. An examination of several alternative indices of living standards in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuriesÂsuch as real wages, labor productivity in agriculture, and urbanizationÂalso fails to confirm claims of European superiority. In addition, this paper examines the progress of global disparitiesÂincluding the presence of regional patternsÂusing estimates of per capita income.
Highlights
This paper reviews the growing body of evidence on the relative economic standing of different regions of the world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
Eurocentric accounts of the global economy have increasingly come under challenge on several fronts
It appears that the foundational Eurocentric claim that Western Europe had taken an early economic leadâperhaps as early as the beginning of the second millenniumâis untenable
Summary
6.1 during the pre-industrial epoch when dramatic improvements in transportation could be ruled out. Once the Industrial Revolution introduced technologies that could harness energy from inorganic sources, primarily coal and oil, this effectively removed the constraint on the amount of energy that an economy could mobilize This new technology could not be acquired simultaneously by all societies, thereby creating the conditions for unequal development that has continued to the present day. Those countries that were pioneers in the acquisition of this technology would get ahead, but they would use their growing economic and military power to establish structures that would perpetuate this initial disparity. Using data from Angus Maddison (2001:23â4), Table One presents the growing lead that the United States and Western Europe experienced over the periphery between 1820 and 1998. Western Europe includes twelve countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom
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