Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>I think this is fundamentally untrue. Of course, European plundered the
>New
>World, Africa and to lesser degree Asia, but I do not think that plunder
>alone was the source of North's wealth.
-Did I say "plunder alone"? I said "greased." I know this is all very -controversial, and I haven't read very deeply in this literature, but -I'm skeptical of both of the extreme positions - that it was either -all changes in domestic European society, or it was all plunder, that -caused Europe's rise to wealth.
But whether you look at the US colonies or Britain, for example, it's impossible not to see the slave trade and the economic exploitation related to "the Indies" (East and West) as fundamental to fueling the early industrial revolution. The most basic US textbooks admit this, with their focus on the "Triangle Trade" of slaves, sugar and industrial goods driving economic growth in that early period.
Imagine Europe as autarchic outposts and it's seriously hard to envision Europe and the US with the growth they were able to enjoy in that period.
Nathan Newman