Why, in 1700, did much of the world still seem very traditional?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Sluggish innovation explains why, in 1700, much of the world still seemed very traditional. Most people were still peasants; most governments still thought of themselves in traditional terms and ruled in traditional ways; and energy sources had changed little since classical times. Nor had rates of innovation increased significantly.

In 1700, the fastest way of sending a message was still by courier; most bulk goods still traveled on horse- or ox-drawn wagons or by boat. Peasants were probably less self-sufficient than they had been 2,000 years earlier. They probably handled money more often, sold goods more frequently on local markets, or looked for wage work more often than in the past. But most still produced most of their own food and textiles. Markets were certainly increasing in scope and importance, but they did not dominate people’s lives as they do today. The fact that most producers were peasants meant that cities and large towns, though multiplying everywhere, still contained a minority of the population, usually no more than 10 to 20 percent.

What had changed was the scale on which already existing ideas, goods, people, crops, and diseases were being exchanged and traded. This increase in the scale of exchanges and commerce prepared the way for a much more spectacular burst of innovation from the late eighteenth century. This was partly because, in region after region, societies were beginning to encounter resource limits: less land was available, wood and energy shortages became more common, furs became scarcer. By 1700, the world’s forests, arable land, rivers, and seas were being exploited on an unprecedentedscale, but still with largely traditional technologies.Expanding markets stimulated commerce in many different parts of the world and levels of commercialization increased, drawing more and more merchants, governments, and even peasants into market exchanges. As Adam Smith (1723–90) understood, larger markets encourage specialization and the efficiencies that go with it, a process that is peculiarly clear in the emerging plantation economies of the Atlantic.

This period was also the beginning of a profound change in the global distribution of wealth and power. Before 1500, the societies of Eurasia’s Atlantic Seaboard had been marginal, sitting at the edge of the vast exchange networks of the Afro-Eurasian zone. After 1500, societies of the Atlantic region suddenly found themselves at the center of the largest and most diverse trade networks that had ever existed. For two or three centuries, the volume and value of goods traveling on the newly discovered routes remained less impressive than the volume and value of goods traded through traditional networks, such as those reaching from the Mediterranean through the Indian Ocean to East Asia. But the intellectual and commercial benefits of Europe’s position at the center of these networks would slowly increase, as European governments learned to exploit their central position within global trade networks, as the volume of global trade increased, and as European intellectuals grappled with the unprecedented torrent of new information that flowed through Europe’s academies and universities and business offices.

Although in many ways the world of 1700 seemed very traditional, all the elements were gathering for an explosion of innovation in the next two centuries. The changes were perhaps easiest to see in the new Atlantic hub region.

In Europe, in a world of highly competitive, medium-sized states, the commercial, economic, and political impact of global exchange networks was obvious. Commerce got the attention of rulers, bankers, and governments. Arbitrage on global markets sustained the power of the Spanish empire in the sixteenth century and the power of its rival, the Dutch Republic, in the early seventeenth century. These were glimpses of the roots of what would later be called capitalism. Commerce generated significant revenues for both governments and elites. Many nobles invested in trade, while governments found that as the markets for goods such as salt or liquor or textiles or sugar expanded, these commoditiescould yield huge revenues. By 1700, most of the revenues of the British government came from customs and excises of various kinds. That helps explain why British governments spent so much on supporting trade, by building a huge navy capable of protecting overseas empires and by founding the Bank of England to support investment in new commercial ventures.

In Britain and parts of western Europe the structure of society itself was changing rapidly as more and more people became dependent on markets and on wages. Modern analyses of the demographic studies of the pioneering English statistician Gregory King suggest that by the end of the seventeenth century, about half of England’s rural population did not have enough land to support themselves.That meant they had to sell their labor, either in the countryside, working as rural laborers for large farmers, or by seeking wage work in the towns. King’s figures suggest that toward the end of the seventeenth century over half of Britain’s national income was generated from commerce, industrial production, or rents and services. If it really is true that highly commercialized societies are more likely to prove innovative than less commercialized societies, then this is an important omen of impending change. By the late seventeenth century, England and its great rival the Netherlands were both looking more and more “ capitalistic.” Not only did markets dominate their economies, but governments and elites were also deeply engaged in commercial activities of many different kinds.

The colossal extent and variety of exchange networks in this period, and the increasing importance of commerce, were perhaps the most important elements preparing the way for the remarkable burst of innovation that would begin in the eighteenth century during the Industrial Revolution.