From a materialist perspective, why did the the global north, the western global north in particular, become so powerful it could loot the rest of the world with borderline impunity? (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've recently read"The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World" and want to hear what all of you think the answer is, because I feel like the book was missing something in its thesis and I am not very sure what that is.

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[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I don't know if I buy the geography take, the European plain is fairly wide open from France to the Caucuses (excluding the Alps basically). From what I've read Europe rushing military tech was because they didn't have valuable enough goods to trade, so they had to use violence to open up markets for them.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

The core reason is you have many small to medium sized states in constant competition. Geography is a factor but its not the entire picture. They militarized first, then they colonized. But they did not militarized for the sake of opening markets. They opened markets so they could continue militarizing.

this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023

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