“Rise and decline” in Italy and Upper Germany in the Middle Ages and early modern times: An essay

Abstract

To explain phenomena, such as the rise and decline of cultures and families, firms and theories, processes of deindustrialization, the “decadence” of Italy, the rise of the West and more recently of the East- and South-East-Asian countries with their Confucian heritage, has been and still is a major intellectual challenge.249 In Antiquity, history was sometimes interpreted as an inevitable process of decay. By the fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldun developed a complex theory about the rise and decline of economic and political systems.250 Five centuries later, Max Weber related the “Protestant Ethic” and capitalism and emphasized the importance of the process of rationalization for Western civilization.251 Contrary to Weber, Carlo M. Cipolla is more interested in technology and looks at “guns and sails” as the secret of Western superiority.252 In the last decades, new approaches have introduced new variables, among them the varied European climate and landscape. According to Eric L. Jones and Daniel Chirot, in contrast to Asia, this furthered the development of independent political units which had to guarantee security and property rights of the economic agents while under competitive pressures.253 Transaction costs and property rights - such as patents - are also a major theme in the theory of Douglass C. North, in whose wide perspective the “greed” for immediate gain by the political agents has often been an obstacle for economic expansion.254 The state-centred approach of Douglas C. North contrasts somewhat with Mancur Olson’s who emphasizes the negative economic consequences of the redistributive activities of groups.255