this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
57 points (100.0% liked)

askchapo

22717 readers
1 users here now

Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.

Rules:

  1. Posts must ask a question.

  2. If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.

  3. Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.

  4. Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
PorkrollPosadist@hexbear.net
quartz242@hexbear.net
replaceable@hexbear.net
VILenin@hexbear.net
blashork@hexbear.net
EmmaGoldman@hexbear.net
SexUnderSocialism@hexbear.net
ZoomeristLeninist@hexbear.net
InsidiousTrackers@hexbear.net
57
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 GinAndJuche@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
120 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] ZapataCadabra@hexbear.net 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[โ€“] captcha@hexbear.net 2 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.