Globalisation

[viper37]

how so?  was it a better world when only the very rich could own a car?

Yes, that would explain the rare and economically out-of-reach Ford Model T.

my grandparents were to poor to afford a car, they only had a horse and a truck for carrying lumber.
Only my dad could afford a car for the family.

[viper37]

how so?  was it a better world when only the very rich could own a car?

I don't have too much time, but the idea that history "proves" that technology guarantees a better future for all, and that the lower classes had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a better age is fairy-tale history for self-satisfied "classical liberals". One easy criticism is that what constitutes "best" is not adjudicated by technology, but by values drawn from political philosophy. One can be incredibly efficient at killing millions of people, and warfare now has the potential of being much deadlier than it ever was. Is that a better world? Conversely, the accessibility of incredibly efficient modes of killing has nonetheless accompanied a decline in homicide rates in Europe and North America. Is this thanks to technology?  Technological progress -- which, contrary to what the focus on automatization suggests is not limited to production -- also allowed much tighter control of enslaved and colonial population during the 19th century, and they certainly qualified for being "the lower classes". 19th century urbanization brought dreadful mortality - higher than, say, the 18th century countryside - that political activism reversed. And lower class reluctance has much more to do with the realization that they would *still* be the losers of a changing world. This would be akin to heaping scorn upon aristocrats for being reluctant to be dragged kicking and screaming at the guillotine - sorry, "into political modernity".

on military history, you should really befriend Carl Pépin from the Royal Military College.  He had this great article on his facebook the other day about the brutality of combat in antiquity compared to modern era's fights.  Much more detailed and explained than anything I could post.

Technological progress -- which, contrary to what the focus on automatization suggests is not limited to production -- also allowed much tighter control of enslaved and colonial population during the 19th century, and they certainly qualified for being "the lower classes".

well, here, one could argue that technological progress made slavery mostly irrelevant in agriculture.  Romans had a large slave industry.  They were technogically advanced for their time, but primitive by our standards.

The Southern US States were dependant on their slaves for agricultural production, as were the northern states before industrialization began.  As industrialization made its progress thoughout the world, slavery became a relict.  Nobody seriously thought of abolishing slavery (talking about an organized movement) in 1776 because there were no practical alternatives.  In 1860, there were beginning to be alternatives to this model though.  And the lower class of the South certainly had be dragged screaming&kicking toward progress.  They were the ones fighting, not just the rich elites.  They feared progress as much as the elites of the time, probably for the same reason people of today vote Trump of Lepen: they fear of becoming irrelevant.

Re: homicide rate.  One could say, yes, it is because of technological progress.  The technology to prevent death (medical), the technology to make our lives easiers (entertainment), the technology to track the criminals.  I think it would be very hard to dissociate the sociological progress from the technologicial ones.

19th century urbanization brought dreadful mortality - higher than, say, the 18th century countryside - that political activism reversed

yes, before technology could adapt to the rapid change, before we realized the causes of cholera, to name one.
Once technology evolved to prevent those deaths, once technology made its deployment cost effective, it was done.  Could we have massive water treatment plants for small cities without modern technology?  It would only be limited to Montreal and Quebec city.

And lower class reluctance has much more to do with the realization that they would *still* be the losers of a changing world. This would be akin to heaping scorn upon aristocrats for being reluctant to be dragged kicking and screaming at the guillotine - sorry, "into political modernity".

Aristocrats were dragged kicking and screaming to the guillotine because they refused progress.  They failed to envision a world without them.  They sought to keep society constrained in an antiquated form of government were they could maintain their priviledges to the expense of the well being of others.  Just like unions complaining about globalization and technological progress today.


The lower classes aren't exactly losers.  In the 19th century, even in the 1950s, we couldn't afford to maintain a working class not working.  A society could not afford 10% unemployement, inactivity rate wasn't even compiled.  My dad's grandfather left home as an 10 year old orphan to work in a mine.  How many 10 year old orphans work in mines in Canada or the US today?  We don't need as many miners as before, and we have technology that make it unnecessary to employ 10 year olds in mines.  How was this detrimental to the lower classes?  Which is more likely: that the orphan son of wealthy businessman/aristocrat/noble is sent to work in a mine to provide for himself or the son of a poor farmer is sent to work in a mine to pay his father's debt?   Who got the short end of the stick in this deal, really?

Again, I don't think societal changes happen out of nowhere: they happen because technology allows it.  People of the 12th century didn't travel to meet their step family every second week-end because transportation was more difficult.  It's not that we love our family more than our distant ancestors, it's that we have the means to visit them.

Plants aren't more secure because employers suddenly developped a conscience and think of security first, they did it because the technology to make it so is available relatively cheaply.  I can buy a machine that make my employees work safer in heights and makes me save money in wages compared to traditional scafholding methods: Technology allowed me that.  If the cost had been 1M$ instead of 100 000$, I might appear as caring a little less about my employee's security and more about my profit line.

[Malthus]

Interestingly, in anthropology it has become something of a commonly accepted trope that the one technological complex that underlies basically all of human history was more than a bit of a mixed blessing when introduced - and that is agriculture/pastoralism.

Agricultural societies are significantly more violent than hunter-gatherer societies, as far as we can tell and on average (naturally, this only applies to the ones still around when people started to take records of such matters - and an argument could be made that these were the peaceful ones that got pushed to the margins by agriculturalists! Also, there are oddballs like West Coast native Americans). In some tribal agricultural societies, a violent death was a major cause of mortality. The reason: protecting good growing territory is very important, particularly as population densities increased (see for example Highland New Guinea). 

From forensic anthropology, it appears that hunter gatherers were healthier and lived longer: agricultural life tends to be one of unending hard work, greater population densities make for more diseases, and a diet based on a couple of staple crops isn't as healthy on the system as the mixed hunter gatherer diet; plus, crops were more susceptible to failing and creating sudden famines (a hunter gatherer had greater flexibility to switch to alternates if one food supply failed). 

Why then did agriculture come to dominate nearly everywhere suitable for it?

Because it supported a hugely greater population density. More people (particularly, aggressively territorial people) = more power. Hunter gatherers either became agriculturalists themselves, or got rudely shoved aside.

Each one of those folks was likely more miserable than the ones they replaced though. 

[HVC]

Why then did agriculture come to dominate nearly everywhere suitable for it?

Because it supported a hugely greater population density. More people (particularly, aggressively territorial people) = more power. Hunter gatherers either became agriculturalists themselves, or got rudely shoved aside.

Each one of those folks was likely more miserable than the ones they replaced though. 

Probably helped ease the bust/drought years. you can save some extra food year to year. if you're a hunter gatherer a drought will mess with your tribe. An agricultural city can survive one (and depending on the complexity of the society more) bad years without a devastating cost.

[Oexmelin]

well, here, one could argue that technological progress made slavery mostly irrelevant in agriculture. 

And one would be wrong. I am sorry to say this, but you should read up on slavery for this particular debate - otherwise, it will devolve into specific arguments against generalities

Plenty of people thought of abolishing slavery in 1776, including, surprise surprise, many slaves themselves (see Haitian Revolutions). Industrialization did not make slavery a relict: political oppositions of all kinds made slavery increasingly costly. It was still quite productive, and generated plenty of profits - including at the time of the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807, including at a time when mechanization concerned spinning and weaving, not growing. The Russian and Indian growers who took over the production of the American South did not employ hugely mechanized techniques and had rather their own systems of coerced labor, and Brazil's own production was obtained through... slavery. 

The argument that can be made is that industrialisation provided investment opportunities for merchant capitalists who had previously politically embraced slavery, and made them increasingly open to abandon their commitment to maintaining it (and maintaining peace at all cost, in the United States). The blow to that market, and the transformation of the United States into a free (or freer) labor entity had necessarily global repercussions for slavery elsewhere.

One could say, yes, it is because of technological progress.  The technology to prevent death (medical), the technology to make our lives easiers (entertainment), the technology to track the criminals.  I think it would be very hard to dissociate the sociological progress from the technologicial ones.

Except that the sharpest decline in the homicide rate is achieved by the end of the 16th century - not an especially shining moment of medical prowess.

The rest of your post is, paradoxically, a reiteration of technology as an independent force, and an economicist reading of it - which I am not getting into. We know where we stand on this topic anyway.

[viper37]

As it happens, I consider social democracy, not any technological advance, the greatest achievement of the 20th century. No other development has ever helped so many people out of poverty and its related ills.

wut

Sweden is one of the best countries in the world thanks to, not despite social democracy.

most G20 countries are at the same level of human development, yet not all of them went full social-democrat like Sweden.

[Valmy]

There is plenty of slavery around today after all.

Malthus do not forget about pastoral societies which were a prevalent alternative to agricultural societies for centuries.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Interestingly, in anthropology it has become something of a commonly accepted trope that the one technological complex that underlies basically all of human history was more than a bit of a mixed blessing when introduced - and that is agriculture/pastoralism.

Agricultural societies are significantly more violent than hunter-gatherer societies, as far as we can tell and on average (naturally, this only applies to the ones still around when people started to take records of such matters - and an argument could be made that these were the peaceful ones that got pushed to the margins by agriculturalists! Also, there are oddballs like West Coast native Americans). In some tribal agricultural societies, a violent death was a major cause of mortality. The reason: protecting good growing territory is very important, particularly as population densities increased (see for example Highland New Guinea). 

From forensic anthropology, it appears that hunter gatherers were healthier and lived longer: agricultural life tends to be one of unending hard work, greater population densities make for more diseases, and a diet based on a couple of staple crops isn't as healthy on the system as the mixed hunter gatherer diet; plus, crops were more susceptible to failing and creating sudden famines (a hunter gatherer had greater flexibility to switch to alternates if one food supply failed). 

Why then did agriculture come to dominate nearly everywhere suitable for it?

Because it supported a hugely greater population density. More people (particularly, aggressively territorial people) = more power. Hunter gatherers either became agriculturalists themselves, or got rudely shoved aside.

Each one of those folks was likely more miserable than the ones they replaced though.

Yes, you (successfully) reproduce then you win. Doesn't matter if you and your progeny are miserable.

I read an article many years ago about the Khoisan and their lifestyle, in general far preferable to that of an agricultural serf. At the end of the article the author then speculated that the Khoisan had it  ok in a marginal environment and think of how good it must have been for hunter-gatherers in prime zones like Europe.

Disease figures here too, the population densities have a strong adverse effect on the farmers.

[viper37]

Plenty of people thought of abolishing slavery in 1776, including, surprise surprise, many slaves themselves (see Haitian Revolutions). Industrialization did not make slavery a relict: political oppositions of all kinds made slavery increasingly costly. It was still quite productive, and generated plenty of profits - including at the time of the British abolition of the slave trade in 1807, including at a time when mechanization concerned spinning and weaving, not growing. The Russian and Indian growers who took over the production of the American South did not employ hugely mechanized techniques and had rather their own systems of coerced labor, and Brazil's own production was obtained through... slavery. 

Well, I was thinking in the US, and I did specify of an organized political movement.
Of course slaves would be opposed to slavery, I don't have to read about it to know that most of them did not like their condition, duh!
However, when the British abolished slavery in 1807, it did not extend to their colonies and they did not have the US as a huge slave-using colony either.
One could even say it was done to hurt the US.  Given how they fought to preserve slavery elsewhere after leaving the US, it's hard to see that action in a shining light at that time.

Except that the sharpest decline in the homicide rate is achieved by the end of the 16th century - not an especially shining moment of medical prowess.

And curiously, that is also about the time technological evolution permitted travel to distant lands and colonization an affordable adventure.  It also coincides with genocides of the indigenous people of North America for the Spanish, something that doesn't count in the homicide rates.

But I'd be interesting in comparing long term data trends, for when we have such records with the proliferation of various wars.  I'm expecting that in some conflicts, like WWII, outside of the war casualties, we would see less homocides.  Maybe because people had ways to earn respect with limited violence in a controlled environment (war), or in some case because they could "let got" of all social inhibitors (think of concentration camps, or for antiquity, the Crusades).  Of course, it's only a working theory.  I don't have the time, nor the resources to analyse sufficient data on the subject.

The rest of your post is, paradoxically, a reiteration of technology as an independent force, and an economicist reading of it - which I am not getting into. We know where we stand on this topic anyway.

C'EST PAS UNE RAISON POUR PAS SE DISPUTER 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

to be honest: still plenty of slaves around in this world. Including the in the west.

at least it's officially outlawed everywhere (and that only since 2007  )

[Malthus]

Why then did agriculture come to dominate nearly everywhere suitable for it?

Because it supported a hugely greater population density. More people (particularly, aggressively territorial people) = more power. Hunter gatherers either became agriculturalists themselves, or got rudely shoved aside.

Each one of those folks was likely more miserable than the ones they replaced though.

Probably helped ease the bust/drought years. you can save some extra food year to year. if you're a hunter gatherer a drought will mess with your tribe. An agricultural city can survive one (and depending on the complexity of the society more) bad years without a devastating cost.

Not really.

First, for most of human history, agriculturalists did not live in cities - they lived in scattered villages. Villagers generally speaking did not have enough of a surplus to keep an entire year's food supply in storage. They needed to keep a certain amount of seed on hand to plant. A bad year could mean starvation for some; two bad years in a row, meant widespread starvation for many.

The difference with hunter gatherers is that (again, aside from oddballs like West Coast native Americans, who lived off the salmon run), they tended to be very flexible in what they would eat. This, plus low population densities, meant that in a bad year they could just switch to less-preferred foods and still survive - there was always *something* they could eat, even if not very tasty, or more work to get.

With higher population densities, agricultural populations were trapped - if they ran out of food they grew, the results were dire. There simply wasn't enough other things to eat. If they were down to their seed grain, they faced a truly grim choice - eat it and live for a few more months; don't eat it, and allow some to starve to death.

This is were urban civilizations had the advantage over tribes of villagers - they could be organized enough to trade food long distance, so could blunt the impact of a purely local famine.

[Oexmelin]

However, when the British abolished slavery in 1807, it did not extend to their colonies and they did not have the US as a huge slave-using colony either.
One could even say it was done to hurt the US.  Given how they fought to preserve slavery elsewhere after leaving the US, it's hard to see that action in a shining light at that time.

My point was not that it should be seen as a beacon of morality, but that it followed trends for which the link with technological changes is remote, at best. And British abolitionism is definitely connected to American Independence, but not in so mechanistic manner as wanting to "spite them". I recommend Chris Brown's Moral Capital if you are interested.

And curiously, that is also about the time technological evolution permitted travel to distant lands and colonization an affordable adventure.  It also coincides with genocides of the indigenous people of North America for the Spanish, something that doesn't count in the homicide rates.

And so...? I am unsure of what you want to say here: homicidal maniacs depart for the colonies? You seem to be thinking that I am arguing that the past was awesome, and we should be returning to it. This is not my argument at all. I don't see how the decline in homicidal rates, well attested for, say, 16th century Sweden, is linked to technological advances which would make Swedish people leave for distant lands (Germany?).

But I'd be interesting in comparing long term data trends, for when we have such records with the proliferation of various wars.  I'm expecting that in some conflicts, like WWII, outside of the war casualties, we would see less homocides.  Maybe because people had ways to earn respect with limited violence in a controlled environment (war), or in some case because they could "let got" of all social inhibitors (think of concentration camps, or for antiquity, the Crusades).  Of course, it's only a working theory.  I don't have the time, nor the resources to analyse sufficient data on the subject.

It's usually the reverse. War time unleashes violence, including between civilians: it's been the case after WWI (small increase) and after WWII (larger increase).

[The Brain]

Even if we accept certain fictions, how many countries have even had social democratic regimes for any length of time? And bigger impact than stuff like artificial fertilizer or a number of other technological or socio-economic things that one can think of?

Western Europe and North America have had more or less social democratic governments at least since the end of WW2, sometimes earlier. No party in Sweden seriously questions universal healthcare, social security or labor rights, right? The only political question is the degree and mechanism, not the general concept anymore. It's not as pronounced in the United States as in other countries, but the US has had most elements of a social democracy since the New Deal, although it has certainly also weakened them the most in the last three and a half decades or so. The GOP does not really tackle entitlements anymore either as it has become consensus that these social democratic institutions are there to stay.

Is there anything you consider good that isn't social democracy and is there anything you consider bad that is?

We have very different ideas about what Sweden is like and has been like.

[The Brain]

To elaborate: I sometimes come across in Sweden the myth that social democracy created the wealth of the 20th century. It strikes me as bizarre. I don't see it when I look at Swedish history. Maybe I'm blind.

[Admiral Yi]

To elaborate: I sometimes come across in Sweden the myth that social democracy created the wealth of the 20th century. It strikes me as bizarre. I don't see it when I look at Swedish history. Maybe I'm blind.

To play Devil's advocate, what is the counter argument?