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Freedom and Growth: The Rise of States and Markets in Europe, 1300-1750 (Routledge Explorations in Economic History)
In discussions on European pre-modern economic growth, the role of individual freedom and of the state has loomed large. This book examines whether different kinds of 'freedoms' (absolutist, parliamentary and republican) caused different economic outcomes, and shows the effect of different political regimes on long term development. It thus offers new answers to debates on the transition from feudalism to capitalism and on the causes of pre-industrial growth and divergence.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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September 14, 2021Very underrated book! According to him it was an integration crisis in Italy that led to the downturn of the Mediterranean relative to the Northwest of Europe.
December 31, 2022
It is refreshing to read an economic history book that actually takes the economics side seriously.
Though the title seems to suggest that this economic history book deals with the economic development of capitalism and (proto-) industrialization up until close to the end of the ancien régime, really this book is a (solid) attempt at explaining the capitalist/industrial (they are not the same thing, as Professor Epstein makes clear) development of Western Europe. The two primary targets of the book are the Whig historians who argued that English exceptionalism (along with Parliamentary government, a Protestant work-ethics and certain property rights) was responsible for the ascendancy of Capitalism, and against Marxist/Malthusian historians who argued about the rise of the bourgeoisie and the accumulation of capital through colonial exploitation as determining factors necessary for breaking the Malthusian deadlock.
Epstein argues, rather convincingly, that it was not the property rights or capital-accumulation per se, and definitively not parliamentary democracy that brought along the rapid expansion of industrialization, capitalism etc. at the close of the era in question, but rather that the roots can be found in the late Middle Ages and the "creative destruction" of the Black Death which, though it did not change the direction of development, significantly speeded up the destruction of petty-feudal controls on economic growth and allowed for the relatively "free hand" of the economy to develop in the newly-formed(ing) centralized territorial states which could reduce tariffs, taxes, tolls and trade and provide the ripe economic factors necessary for the market forces of competitive advantage and economies of scale to push Europe onto an upward path of growth.
By drawing primarily from England and Italian examples, along with some significant references to Flemish, Dutch, French and Spanish cases, Epstein argues for something approximating Niall Fergusson's views in Civilization: The West and the Rest, though Epstein provides a much more economically (and historically) focused and detailed account of one of the primary questions in history, what makes western Europe to WEIRD (to quote Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion...Western Educated Industrial Rich)
Though the title seems to suggest that this economic history book deals with the economic development of capitalism and (proto-) industrialization up until close to the end of the ancien régime, really this book is a (solid) attempt at explaining the capitalist/industrial (they are not the same thing, as Professor Epstein makes clear) development of Western Europe. The two primary targets of the book are the Whig historians who argued that English exceptionalism (along with Parliamentary government, a Protestant work-ethics and certain property rights) was responsible for the ascendancy of Capitalism, and against Marxist/Malthusian historians who argued about the rise of the bourgeoisie and the accumulation of capital through colonial exploitation as determining factors necessary for breaking the Malthusian deadlock.
Epstein argues, rather convincingly, that it was not the property rights or capital-accumulation per se, and definitively not parliamentary democracy that brought along the rapid expansion of industrialization, capitalism etc. at the close of the era in question, but rather that the roots can be found in the late Middle Ages and the "creative destruction" of the Black Death which, though it did not change the direction of development, significantly speeded up the destruction of petty-feudal controls on economic growth and allowed for the relatively "free hand" of the economy to develop in the newly-formed(ing) centralized territorial states which could reduce tariffs, taxes, tolls and trade and provide the ripe economic factors necessary for the market forces of competitive advantage and economies of scale to push Europe onto an upward path of growth.
By drawing primarily from England and Italian examples, along with some significant references to Flemish, Dutch, French and Spanish cases, Epstein argues for something approximating Niall Fergusson's views in Civilization: The West and the Rest, though Epstein provides a much more economically (and historically) focused and detailed account of one of the primary questions in history, what makes western Europe to WEIRD (to quote Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion...Western Educated Industrial Rich)
April 30, 2010
Don't tell my non-economic historian friends: this is pretty cool.
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