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rfmcdonaldThis will be my final post in this series, for the time being at least. My impending move to Kingston and graduate school will make it more difficult to maintain regular posting. Still, where there's life, there's hope.
***
Macrohistorians--students of long-term historical trends and the principles (perhaps even laws)--have often observed that innovations in human systems often don't come from the core of a system, but rather, from the margins. Why did Britain outstrip France when, in 1700, there were four times as many French as Britons and France was just as rich as Britain? Why, in the North America of the 1950s and 1980s, did forms of popular music originally from a small and often maltreated African-American minority (first rock and roll, then rap) end up dominating the popular music scene in a short time? Why did Communism, contrary to Marx's predictions, succeed in Russia, and then make the quickest progress in the poorer countries of the world (not the richest)?
The famous early 20th century Arnold Toynbee, in his A Study of History made an interesting suggestion, that countries facing difficulties--a threatening geopolitical situation, shortages of agricultural land or other resources--could often outstrip their competitors simply because these less favoured countries were forced to innovate. J.L. Hammond summarizes Toynbee's argument as follows:
Similarly, in the late 20th century the social scientist and historian Immanuel Wallerstein noted, in his trifurcation of the world into prosperous core, impoverished periphery, and intermediate semiperiphery, that the semiperiphery can play an important role in the global division of labour:
Chase-Dunn, building on Wallerstein's work, has emphasized how the semiperiphery can play a creative role in disturbing the current status quo:
In the first half of the 20th century, after all, the most spectacular revolutions (or revolutionary-type transformations) were in Russia, China, Mexico, India, Turkey--countries which, while poor and underdeveloped (to varying degrees) relative to western Europe and North America, were fundmentally modern in more than a few areas. These revolutions were semiperipheral in geographical location.
What does this mean for space travel, and space colonization? 18th century France was a large and wealthy kingdom, technologically advanced and politically liberal. There did not seem to be any reason why France could not continue to dominate Europe, given its inherent advantages of size and wealth over a fragmented Europe. Yet, France's smaller enemies and competitors--Britain, the Netherlands, Prussia--were forced to innovate, were forced to stumble towards the economic and political conditions of modernity. The Netherlands' small size forced the Dutch to drop out of the race; after 1815 the Netherlands included modern Belgium and Luxembourg and the country could have returned, but its failure to develop a liberal constitution drove the industrially prosperous south out. First Britain then Prussia, though, managed to outstrip France. On the eve of the First World War, there were more Britons and Prussians by population than there were French; including the wider British and German empires, the Anglo-Prussian leads would be that much greater. And certainly, Britain and Prussia were industrially more developed than France, if not necessarily richer.
The United States is a rich country, the richest that the world has ever known. The United States is the most technologically advanced country the world has ever known. The United States is one of the most populous countries in the world. The United States, in short, has a whole set of advantages which would be impressive enough taken singly, and combine to give the country an unthinkably vast advantage over all of its competitors--even the European Union, if it ever united into a federal state, would have quite a task before it.
Yet, France had all these advantages, too, and in the end it ended up being surpassed in many if not all of these fields by some quite unexpected competitors. Britain? Russia? Prussia? As large as the francophonie is, it's smaller than it could have been, given the vast size of New France and the potentially large number of colonists from France and elsewhere. France didn't have to struggle to maintain its supremacy; accordingly, France was able to slip into a slow relative decline (from which it has recovered, incidentally).
This is only a prediction, mind, and perhaps not an accurate one. For all I know, the United States might well end up forming the core of a Toynbeean universal empire, like Rome in the 1st century CE Mediterranean, or the Han in 2nd century BCE China. Then again, observes of France on the eve of the War of the Spanish Succession probably thought the same thing.
A Hindu Mars, perhaps?
***
Macrohistorians--students of long-term historical trends and the principles (perhaps even laws)--have often observed that innovations in human systems often don't come from the core of a system, but rather, from the margins. Why did Britain outstrip France when, in 1700, there were four times as many French as Britons and France was just as rich as Britain? Why, in the North America of the 1950s and 1980s, did forms of popular music originally from a small and often maltreated African-American minority (first rock and roll, then rap) end up dominating the popular music scene in a short time? Why did Communism, contrary to Marx's predictions, succeed in Russia, and then make the quickest progress in the poorer countries of the world (not the richest)?
The famous early 20th century Arnold Toynbee, in his A Study of History made an interesting suggestion, that countries facing difficulties--a threatening geopolitical situation, shortages of agricultural land or other resources--could often outstrip their competitors simply because these less favoured countries were forced to innovate. J.L. Hammond summarizes Toynbee's argument as follows:
In the eighth century B.C. all Hellenic communities were faced with a common problem or challenge, the problem of maintaining on diminishing resources a rapidly growing population. Corinth and other States solved it by overseas colonisation, especially in Italy and Sicily. The Spartans, instead of founding colonies, seized the land of their neighbours the Messenians. But this diverted and arrested their development, for the task of holding down the Messenians occupied and absorbed all their energy, compelling them to militarise all their institutions. As a result they have no share in the great triumphs of Greek culture in the fifth century. As Mr. Toynbee puts it: "Thus Sparta paid the penalty for having taken her own headstrong and hazardous course at the parting of the ways in the eighth century B.C. by condemning herself in the sixth century to standing still - with arms presented like a soldier on parade - at a moment when other Hellenes were just moving forward once again on one of the most signal moves in the whole course of Hellenic history." Athens neglected colonisation but averted the social revolution that was provoked by extreme distress by specialising agricultural production for export, introducing manufactures for export, and adapting her political institutions. In this way she opened up a new avenue of advance for the whole of the Hellenic society and inspired and directed the life of what we call the Hellenistic Age, the age in which Greek ideas spread over the conquests, first of Alexander, then of Rome.
Similarly, in the late 20th century the social scientist and historian Immanuel Wallerstein noted, in his trifurcation of the world into prosperous core, impoverished periphery, and intermediate semiperiphery, that the semiperiphery can play an important role in the global division of labour:
The semiperiphery, however, is not an artifice of statistical cutting points, nor is it a residual category. The semiperiphery is a necessary structural element in a world-economy. These areas play a role parallel to that played, mutatis mutandis, by middle trading groups in an empire. They are collection points of vital skills that are often poetically unpopular. These middle areas (like middle groups in an empire) partially deflect the political pressures which groups primarily located in peripheral areas might otherwise direct against core-states and the groups which operate within and through their state machineries. On the other hand, the interests primarily located in the semiperiphery are located outside the political arena of the core-states, and find it difficult to pursue the ends in political coalitions that might be open to them were they in the same political arena.
Chase-Dunn, building on Wallerstein's work, has emphasized how the semiperiphery can play a creative role in disturbing the current status quo:
As a result of his earlier work of comparing world-systems, Chase-Dunn remarked, he had begun to emphasize the semiperiphery as the crucial locus of systemic transformation. Unlike both the core and the periphery, semiperipheral agents possess both the motive and the opportunity to propose real alternatives to the existing system. As examples of the latter he cited the labor movements in countries like South Korea, South Africa and Brazil - concrete movements with real demands for social justice and democracy, rather than members of some nebulous coalition without any real goals
In the first half of the 20th century, after all, the most spectacular revolutions (or revolutionary-type transformations) were in Russia, China, Mexico, India, Turkey--countries which, while poor and underdeveloped (to varying degrees) relative to western Europe and North America, were fundmentally modern in more than a few areas. These revolutions were semiperipheral in geographical location.
What does this mean for space travel, and space colonization? 18th century France was a large and wealthy kingdom, technologically advanced and politically liberal. There did not seem to be any reason why France could not continue to dominate Europe, given its inherent advantages of size and wealth over a fragmented Europe. Yet, France's smaller enemies and competitors--Britain, the Netherlands, Prussia--were forced to innovate, were forced to stumble towards the economic and political conditions of modernity. The Netherlands' small size forced the Dutch to drop out of the race; after 1815 the Netherlands included modern Belgium and Luxembourg and the country could have returned, but its failure to develop a liberal constitution drove the industrially prosperous south out. First Britain then Prussia, though, managed to outstrip France. On the eve of the First World War, there were more Britons and Prussians by population than there were French; including the wider British and German empires, the Anglo-Prussian leads would be that much greater. And certainly, Britain and Prussia were industrially more developed than France, if not necessarily richer.
The United States is a rich country, the richest that the world has ever known. The United States is the most technologically advanced country the world has ever known. The United States is one of the most populous countries in the world. The United States, in short, has a whole set of advantages which would be impressive enough taken singly, and combine to give the country an unthinkably vast advantage over all of its competitors--even the European Union, if it ever united into a federal state, would have quite a task before it.
Yet, France had all these advantages, too, and in the end it ended up being surpassed in many if not all of these fields by some quite unexpected competitors. Britain? Russia? Prussia? As large as the francophonie is, it's smaller than it could have been, given the vast size of New France and the potentially large number of colonists from France and elsewhere. France didn't have to struggle to maintain its supremacy; accordingly, France was able to slip into a slow relative decline (from which it has recovered, incidentally).
This is only a prediction, mind, and perhaps not an accurate one. For all I know, the United States might well end up forming the core of a Toynbeean universal empire, like Rome in the 1st century CE Mediterranean, or the Han in 2nd century BCE China. Then again, observes of France on the eve of the War of the Spanish Succession probably thought the same thing.
A Hindu Mars, perhaps?
