“The elemental truth must be stressed that the characteristi
Citations (1)
- The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers whole source · open book
“The elemental truth must be stressed that the characteristic of any country before its industrial revolution and modernization is poverty.… with low productivity, low output per head, in traditional agriculture, any economy which has agriculture as the main constituent of its national income does not produce much of a surplus above the immediate requirements of consumption.… ”10 On the other hand, in view of the fact that in 1800 agricultural production formed the basis of both European and non-European societies, and of the further fact that in countries such as India and China there also existed many traders, textile producers, and craftsmen, the differences in per capita income were not enormous; an Indian handloom weaver, for example, may have earned perhaps as much as half of his European equivalent prior to industrialization. What this also meant was that, given the sheer numbers of Asiatic peasants and craftsmen, Asia still contained a far larger share of world manufacturing output* than did the much less populous Europe before the steam engine and the power loom transformed the world’s balances.
chapter: The Eclipse of the Non-European World