Why do you think the pace of the development of society is not equal everywhere. Write in four point ?
Answers
Answer:
This is a softball question for me (I’ve written several articles on social development and differential starting lines). The differences we are seeing today among countries have mostly to do with 1) past climatic/ geographic/demographic regimes, and 2) cultural diffusion. Those groups of people who found themselves in areas/climates that were very agriculturally productive ended up with large populations (it’s actually interactive…growth in population requires more food, and innovating to produce more food increasing population). Think China, India, Europe — in Eurasia for the most part. As population size increases so does the need to innovate to avoid direct competition, and gradually urban economies are born. As these places begin to create a social surplus, some people had the leisure time to begin invention (e.g., writing, money, bureaucracy), and they began to engage in trade for those things they could not easily produce themselves. Ideas spread, populations grew, and this cycle continues.
Other places were not advantaged in terms of agriculture (Africa, parts of Latin America), so their populations did not grow as quickly. They may also have been more isolated (say, by barriers such as the Sahara Desert), so ideas and trade spread more slowly. They often never grew in population sufficient to shake off small tribalism…and it was in this state that many were ultimately discovered by Eurasians in ships…with guns…and powerful technologies. And that was the history of the European Age of Discovery and subsequent colonialism.
Today you must have a long history of “modernism” (i.e., central government, monied economies, literacy, contract law, private land ownership…etc.) to quickly join the modern world. China has all those things but lacked the technology of mass production…which it is quickly gaining. Other places, such as Sudan or Bolivia, started out far behind in institutional development and so their progress has been slower (and there are theories such as world-systems theory that suggest the West has kept them from catching up, but I’ve never bought into that).