The Global Shift of Power in the 1600 And 1700s - Research Paper Example

?The Global Shift of Power in the 1600 and 1700s The great affair, we always find, is to get money ~ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations Introduction Nationalism, pursuit of wealth and trade opportunities along with religious and scientific motives has led empires and nations to build epicenters of economic, financial and political powers. However, these epicenters of power have consistently changed across the globe causing shifts in geopolitical influences of nations. The aftermath of 2008 financial and economic crisis witnessed another major shift in the balance of economic, financial and political power from the advanced countries to emerging markets – from West to East (“Emerging Markets”), or from the West to the Rest. This shift is, of course, not the first time that we have seen in the history of geopolitical influences. The meteorotic rise of the West from the 15th century and in parallel, the decline of China, was itself an earlier example, if not mirror image, of such kind of shift. The industrial revolution that gave birth to what is called “The Great Divergence” (the mounting divergence in manufacturing competence and in ability to project power between the first countries to industrialize, chiefly in Europe, and the rest of the world) marked another global shift. It is no surprise that the first industrial nation, Great Britain, controlled fully a quarter of the world’s population and landmass by the end of the 19th century. There was another transfer of power from the pioneer industrializer, Britain, to imperial Germany that attributed to the economic and geopolitical tensions setting the stage for World War I (Eichengreen). In his thesis, The World in Depression 1929-1939, author Charles Kindleberger notes that the Great Depression of the 1930s was an outcome of the global shift in power from Britain to the United States, one that left an drained Britain unable to manage global economy and an untested United States unwilling to do so. There was another power paradigm after World War II toward the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, and consequently the supremacy of the U.S. over the Western world. Since then, its economic prowness has been gradually declining due to catch-up growth by Europe, Japan and other East Asian powers. We are today witnessing a shift towards emerging markets like China and India. Declining Eastern Powers in mid 15th century During the 1400s, Ming China was, by far, the leading economic power. It boasted of construction landmarks such as the Great Wall, a standing army with a million troops and mastery of gunpower, printing, papermaking and compasses. Two critical factors led to a gradual decline of Ming Dynasty, resulting in a global shift towards the West (Bosworth). First, the Ming Dynasty turned inward. Zheng He’s fleet was dismantled. Restrictions were placed on the size of newly constructed ships. By the end of the 15th century, subjects of the Chinese empire were prohibited to build ocean-going ships or to leave China. The Silk Route was all but closed to traffic. The Chinese met early European intrusions by limiting contact to a handful of treaty ports. Isolation to foreign ideas, absence of foreign competition, and the smothering effects of tradition set China led to a long period of economic stagnation. The second factor was enhanced Western influence through better sailing, navigation and military technology. Rise of Europe – 1600 to 1700 A.D. A detailed look at the West European economic growth is key to understand the global shift of power from East to the West. The origins of this surge in economic development and the related Industrial Revolution are considered to lie in the economic, political and social developments of Western Europe over the preceding centuries, most often starting in the 16th century (Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson). Throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries, several geopolitical shifts occurred in Europe as the riches of the individual countries grew and faded. Marked political and religious friction resulted in extensive unrest and warfare. A foremost conflict of this period was the Thirty years’ war (1618-1648), which enmeshed Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Poland, the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. Though the outburst of the war had its origins in the struggle between radical Catholics and Protestants, the driving force quickly shifted to secular, imperial, and nationalistic alarms. Amid the chief political entities competing for stretched power and authority in Europe were the Bourbon dynasty of France and the Hadsburg dynasties of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. The war, which settled with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, was principally accountable for political restructuring of Europe. As a consequence, the United Provencies of the Netherlands, Sweden, and France grew their authority while Spanish and Danish powers weakened. Over and above reconfiguring territorial boundaries, the Treaty of Westphalia also conceded freedom of religious choice throughout Europe. This treaty hence marked the desertion of the notion of a united Christian Europe and acknowledged the applied realities of secular political systems. The building of today’s nation-states was under way. The 17th century also brought increased economic competition to Europe. Much of the foundation for worldwide commercialism – far-reaching voyaging and geographic exploration, enhanced cartography, and innovations in shipbuilding – had been laid in the 1500s. During 1600s, however, transformations in financial systems, lifestyles, and trading patterns, with expanding colonialism, drove the formation of a worldwide marketplace. The Dutch established the Bank of Amsterdam in 1609, which ultimately became the center of European transfer banking. By creating a system in which merchant firms seized money on account, the bank discharged traders of having to carry precious metals as payment. Trading practices became intricate. Instead of simple reciprocal trading, triangular trade (trade among three parties) permitted for a bigger pool of desirable goods. Exposure to an ever-growing range of goods changed European diets and lifestyles. Coffee and tea became widespread beverages during the early 17th century. Similarly, there was an explosive growth in sugar use. Sugar, tobacco, and rice became slave crops, hence led to an expansion in slave trade in order to meet the demand for these goods. Traders detained and enslaved Africans and shipped them to European colonies and the Americas to provide the necessary labour force for producing these commodities. The subsequent universal mercantile system permanently changed the face of Europe. The prosperous international trade produced social and political relationships, necessating new rules of etiquette and diplomacy. With a rise in expendable income, more of the newly wealthy spent money on art and other crafts (Kleiner). Furthermore to the rise of Economic growth in Europe, the following factors led to global shifts in power during the 17th and 18th centuries’ world. Global Networks of Exchange in the 1600s By the early 17th century, European traders had started maritime trade systems across the Atlantic Ocean and eastward to India and China. These systems or networks allowed them to procure furs, tea, sugar, spices, and other luxury commodities that had high demand throughout Europe. In the Americas, European settlers started using great numbers of enslaved Africans to grow labor-intensive crops such as sugarcane and tobacco for export to Europe. Portuguese, and later Dutch, dealers bought these slaves from trade posts on the West African coast. Once the slaves had been sold in the Americas, merchants used the incomes to buy local commodities to sell in Europe. This trade route controlled the Atlantic economy until the 1800s. European states meticulously protected their trade networks against rival nations. The Dutch East India Company, for example, owned its personal private army and navy, which it used to guard its trade associations with India and Southeast Asia. Worldwide trade transformed production and consumption patterns throughout the globe and led to the fast growth and development of England and the Netherlands at the expense of older colonial powers such as Spain and Portugal (Maxfield). Conflict and Empire in the 1600s and 1700s Countries across the world faced intense military and political changes over the course of the 17th century.  Gunpowder technology progressively found its way from Asia through the Middle East to Europe between the 1300s and the 1600s.  By the beginning of 1600s, Europeans were opening up to perfect cannon technology and test handheld firearms. These innovative military know-hows transformed warfare across Europe and the Middle East, and added to the expansion of powerful, centralized nations.  Countries such as France, Russia, and Japan also observed the arrival of absolutist forms of government (History World).  Influential monarchs and emperors self-declared themselves to be agents of God and used the military and political authority at their disposal to claim total submission from the smaller nobility and the peasantry of their kingdoms.   Religious, Intellectual, and Political Revolutions in the 1600s-1800s The 1600s and 1700s was the era of deep religious, intellectual, and political commotion across the world.  In Europe, the Protestant Reformation, which confronted the religious and political authority of the Catholic Church, led to the Thirty Years’ War in the early 1600s.  The Thirty Years’ War distraught much of Central Europe and led to distinctive divisions between Catholic and Protestant political states.   The Protestant Reformation and the decline of Catholic Church’s religious and political power steered to a phase of great intellectual vehemence across Europe in the 1600s and 1700s.  Known as the Enlightenment (Harris), this time-period observed the advance of intellectual movements promoting reason, democracy, political freedom, and rational analysis.  Enlightenment scholars probed civil establishments and developed new ideologies about the relationship between a nation’s governments and its people.  These concepts gave rise to a period of political rebellions planned to overthrow monarchical rule and to appoint democratically elected governments in the late 1700s.  The French Revolution in 1789 followed the American Revolution in 1776 stimulated other revolutions throughout the Americas and parts of Europe.  Scientific and Industrial Revolutions of the 1600s and 1700s The Scientific Revolution initiated in Europe in the 16th century, but had its chief impact on Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Drawing on scientific theories proposed by the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as Asian and Hindu-Arabic scientific and mathematical findings, European academics used the scientific techniques to create the modern subjects of astronomy, physics, biology, and chemistry. Key scientific discoveries questioned traditional beliefs about the nature of matter, the setup of the solar system, and the life processes of living organisms. In England, these fresh ideas and discoveries led to a gradual, but overpowering, shift away from customary means of agricultural and craft production to mechanical ways of producing and transporting goods. The invention of the steam engine in the 1700s, delivered a limitless source of energy to mechanical devices. Scientists and originators soon established basic machines to spin yarn, weave textiles, and accomplish other basic tasks. Although these early machines regularly produced low-quality manufactured goods, they however produced much larger capacities of goods than skilled craftsmen in the same amount of time. Engineers shortly created supplementary applications for steam power such as railroad locomotives and steamships. During the 1700s, the Industrial Revolution raced through Great Britain, and the country became the epicenter of the industrial production of iron, textiles, and other manufactured products. Factory towns increased rapidly as the economy moved from agriculture towards industralization. England’s growing industrial force made it the most wealthy and powerful country on the face of the planet by the early 19th century. Bibliography Acemoglu, Daron, Simon H. Johnson and James A. Robinson. "The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change and Economic Growth." Department of Economics 25 November 2002: 1-3. Bosworth, Michael L. The Rise & Fall of 15th Century Chinese Seapower. 1999. 13 March 2012 . Eichengreen, Barry. "Global Shifts." Bank of Finland’s 200 th anniversary symposium. Helsinki: University of California, Berkeley, 2011. Harris, Anne. "The Age of Enlightenment." 13 March 2012 . History World. European Absolutism And Power Politics. 1998. 13 March 2012 . Kleiner, Fred. Gardner's art through the ages: a global history. Vol. 2. Boston: Clark Baxter, 2005. Maxfield, Jack. E. "A.D. 1501 to 1600." 14 October 2008. Connexions. 13 March 2012 . Read More