Soren wrote on Feb 26^th, 2011 at 8:19am:


Soren,

According to Angus Maddison, China and India have dominated the world economy for most of the last 2000 years. At the peak of the Roman Empire, the Roman GDP was eclipsed by a factor of 6 by that of China.

The Romans were overrun by Germanic hordes and their GDP collapsed around the beginning of the 5th Century AD. The same thing happened in  India in the 18th Century and China in the 19th Century, although the tactics were slightly different - they used opium in the case of China.

See short explanation for philosopher here:
http://www.economist.com/node/16834943

Soren wrote on Feb 26^th, 2011 at 9:39pm:


Not GDP per capita. Nominal  or total GDP.  

Soren wrote on Feb 26^th, 2011 at 9:49pm:


Oh they knew it. The even called themselves the Centre Kingdom
(Zhongguo) (中国)

By the way, Angus Maddison was a British economist. He was Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Groningen (RUG). He was pretty well respected as an economist, and generally in matters of world trade, economics trumps metaphysics big time.

You think that Marco Polo had any significance? Well perhaps he helped open up the Chinese Economy from a European perspective, but compared to other trade within Asia, trade with Europe was minor in the scheme of things.

muso wrote on Feb 26^th, 2011 at 9:55pm:



Economists - what bugger do THEY know? (to speak Latin for a moment).

As to China's trade within Asia compared to its trade with Europe - if that's the indicator of its dominnce of world trade, I ask you: what does it have to show for it? 700 million poor peasants. The rest of Asia? The only significant Asian economic power is the one that actually burnt China to the ground 70 or o years ago.

The Chinese were too smug (ie stupid) to benfit from trade with anyone. The only hope for the Chinese is if they give up being so bloody Chinese - 'we've been around 5000 years'. Big deal. The aboriginese have been around ten times as long and look at them. They dominate the world digging stick trade. That not nothing.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Feb 26^th, 2011 at 10:58pm:


Military aggression is sadly common to all civilisations.

The reason that China didn't trade with Europe in the early days was due to the fact that Europe didn't amount to much until their demographic explosion of the late 18th and 19th century. Before that, Europe was negligible in terms of any world influence.

Soren, You talk about peasants as though China had the monopoly. Most of England for example were illiterate well into the 19th century.

muso wrote on Feb 27^th, 2011 at 6:39am:

True. This self-congratulatory revisionism of western history, sounds more like a eulogy for the dead and dying delivered in anger, than constructive critical advice to rising cultures. More like part of the process of British internalising of its empire, (as continental Europeans have already done),  now that it has passed, than optimism regarding its post-imperial future... Although, admittedly, it would take considerable time for a culture to come to terms with the fact that its greatest history will likely never be surpassed. China, it seems, is more fortunate in that respect, in that its greatest historical era is probably yet to be written and lived.

Yes - wouldn't it be nice?

Sadly though, pegged yuan or no yuan, China's domestic economy is predicted to overtake the US in dollar-terms by 2030.

And if the lower cost of living in China is factored in, it has ALREADY taken over the US as the largest domestic market in the world.

Human rights, freedom of the press, democracy: these are not things that - historically, anyway - have factored into global dominance, economic or otherwise. On that front (whoever would have thought?), the Arabs are now leading the way.

The Chinese tried the same in Tienamin Square and look what happened to them.

Democracy is still a ghost in China that refuses to go away. But is it necessary for global economic and military supremacy?

There is a lot about China's supremacy and work ethic that is historically Chinese. It's their culture, old boy. Confucianism has nothing to do with metaphysics, but it does show that ethics, in whatever form they take, shape economies in the long-term.

Chicago School economists might say something different, but the rise of China completely disproves their economic modelling. What the bugger do economists know?

muso wrote on Feb 28^th, 2011 at 11:04am:


Many of the problems we've had over the last few years have been caused, not merely by economists, but by a particular breed of economics known, through their respective agencies in the World Bank, IMF and US Treasury, as the Washington Consensus.

This is the "consensus" that caused the Asian financial crisis and severe monetary problems in countries like Argentina.

They also actively kept the financial market deregulated and allowed the Global Financial Crisis to happen.

They failed to heed the words of their very own grandfather, Milton Friedman, who appeared to learn from subsequent events and was a bit more pragmatic than people give him credit for.

At its core, economics is about values: how much people want things and what they will do to get them.