Jared Diamond’s seminal Guns, Germs, and Steel provides a holistic thesis on the origins of all political history from pre-history into the modern era. His argument is a modified form of Climatic Determinism, which means, as he presents it, that environment determines history in the long run. Certain areas of the world, especially Eurasia, possess a greater variety of and more effective crops and livestock. These factors allowed Eurasians to build civilization the fastest and then conquer cultures living on other continents through the accumulation of technology and deadly germs. Crops and livestock allowed technology and germs to develop by facilitating greater population density and classes of people performing work besides the production of food. These factors explain history up to the sixteenth century, at which point European dominance became established.
Diamond stresses history since then far less. The general road history was about to take seemed predestined by the time Spain effortlessly exerted its control over the civilizations of South and Central America. One diatribe he does allow himself is the explanation as to why it was Europe and not China that succeeded in projecting dominance across the world. After all, China had been at the forefront of nearly all technological advance for several thousands of years. It was not until the early modern era that Europe pulled ahead. Diamond asks why that shift took place, given that there were seemingly no environmental factors that would push the societies in opposite directions.
The conclusion Diamond eventually comes to was that the natural political unity of China, which had at times provided ample opportunity for technological innovation, would occasionally stifle change significantly. To make this point, he cites an analogous situation in Japan. At one point in history, Japan had the best firearms in the world. However, culturally, they were scorned since they allowed a lowly peasant to take down a mighty Samurai. This subversion of social custom caused Japan’s government to take action, gradually eliminating guns altogether from the island. The key element to this is the Japanese government’s ability to make such a decision. Elsewhere in the world, such as the Fertile Crescent or Europe, any government that makes such a self-defeating decision (given that guns are innately more effective weapons than even the best sword) is either forced to reverse course at the risk of getting conquered by a nearby competing government. China faced a similar impediment; while it was not an island, China did not face major competition from any other competing, centralized power.
There were points in history that China did begin exploration. In short time, however, a competing faction within the government ended any such experimentation. Exploration was never again allowed until Europeans forced their way in. China’s centralization permitted it to act stubbornly and self-defeating. If there was another nearby competing power, or if China was naturally split into several smaller factions, one of them may have chosen to continue exploration, followed by a run of East Asian dominance throughout the world.
The geography of Europe took its inhabitants on a different path. At no point ever in history has more than half of the continent been held by a single power. While parts of Western Europe are somewhat flat, the geography of the continent is characterized by an unending coast of peninsulas. In contrast to China, this makes conquering every area a difficult task. Europe’s natural condition involves a multitude of competing powers. Again, in contrast to China and Japan, this means that if one begins using guns, they all must begin using guns to defend themselves. All nations are pushed towards progress under threat of destruction.
The best example of this, and one that Diamond cites especially well, is that of Columbus. Portugal, Genoa, and Venice all initially turned the funding for Columbus down. Spain as well left Columbus hanging for two years until finally agreeing to support him. If only a single government ruled Europe, would that single arbiter funded him? Based on Columbus’s experience and the tepid interest in East Asia, such action hardly seems likely.
The force that gave Europe its power was its lack of a single decision-making body speaking for all its peoples. The lack of supernational power gave Europe its power. Such a fact runs completely against the intuition of the historians studying this era, who see centralization of states as the cause of the rise of certain European nations (England, Spain, Austria, and France) over the unorganized states of Germany, Poland, Italy. Yet, this is only the cause of the relative power of states over others. Furthermore, the centralization only pertains to the ultimate subjugation of the noble’s power bases to a single government, not steps of centralizing authority within Europe as a whole. The lack of a central authority within Europe gave each of its members greater strength from and absolute perspective.
Imperialism, science, the Industrial Revolution, capitalism, and any small improvement thereof forced its way through Europe, rapidly providing it with the means to rule the globe. This is the power of political diversity. When there are multiple perspectives available, such the differences of opinion amongst the various European despots, a greater variety of strategies and options can be pursued. No matter how a single government attempts to construct itself to remain open to new opportunities, the intrinsic insularity of set single voices will result in bias. At that point in history, any given European nation could decide to begin experimenting with some new form of mercantilism or representative body. In doing so, all of its neighbor nations had the opportunity to gauge independently its effectiveness. While the nation may hope that its commitments and experiments were those that succeeded, its population still gained tremendously when a nation elsewhere found another solution.
The diversity and dissolution of power in Europe as a whole brought it wealth and prosperity. The technological level of the world would be set back seven hundred years had the decentralization of power not existed. These gifts, of course, are ones that can keep on giving. While the mixed-market capitalism and political systems of Westernized nations are all roughly comparable at this point, we still have the opportunity to experiment and watch one another. Perhaps no better modern example is that of the failure of economic planning within China and the Soviet Union. The world as a whole fortunately did not have to resort to a universal change in political philosophy to see it in action. Had Marxism worked, all other nations could then take advantage of that knowledge. Now, even the remaining socialists are able to take into consideration the difficulties the Soviets faced when further developing their own ideas.
While in the past many logistic barriers impeded the spread of a single government over the Earth effectively impossible, it now is seemingly feasible should the peoples of all existing nations accept it. The growth of the EU and the murmurs of a similar (although remarkably unlikely) North American state demonstrate that. Yet, what history tells us about the power of political diversity does not recommend further movement in that direction. The EU has not yet run into this problem very much given their rightful infatuation with subsidiarity, but greater impediments placed on the powers of the member states will quickly inhibit Europe’s -and humanity’s- ability to experiment with different methods in doing anything from escaping the current economic quagmire to achieving greater social justice. At this point in time, whatever our opinions are, we cannot know how to fix our financial mess and grease the wheels of exchange once more. It is an unambiguous positive that there are many independent nations that can seek their own solution to the problem. The importance of this power cannot be understated.
Even more damaging to political diversity is the viewpoint of those such as George Soros who wish to unite the world under a single government. While arguably this could lead to a reduction in war and genocide, it will also strangle our ability to experiment with new social structures. Nothing is keeping a world government from making a self-defeating decision except our hope that its decision makers approach godlike prescience. The current institutional technology we possess such as democracy and the mixed-market economy would be frozen in place, or at the most advance should the single decision making body agree to change. The world may still continue developing marketable technologies as it has done in the past, but there is little possibility in further optimization of the structure of society that facilitates those technologies to begin with.
There is, of course, no hard evidence demonstrating that the systematic improvements continually brought about by political diversity will outweigh the stability and peace which a one world government promises. At the same time, it is a very real factor that separates the affluence of today from the poverty of the early modern era. Any discussion about merging political powers must take political diversity into consideration. The greater number of independant entities there are willing to commit to new societal structures, the more everyone knows about what real effects those structures will have. With more political exploration, even if we’re not the ones doing it, we’re all better off.
