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Pleistocene take-off (circa 50,000 B.C.E.) |
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Evolution of brain or voice box? |
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Cro-Magnon enter Europe (circa 40,000 B.C.E.) |
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Dependence on natural foodstuffs: nomadism. |
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Generate surplus with technological change. |
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Common-pool problem. |
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Migration when land abundant. |
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Intergroup warfare when land scarce. |
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Population pressure creates “demand” for settled
agriculture. |
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First stage: defending naturally occurring
foodstuffs. |
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Women cultivate crops by while men hunt. |
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Climate, geography, resources create “supply” of
settled agriculture. |
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Plant domestication. |
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Large connected belt of Mediterranean climate. |
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Wider availability of domesticable varieties
(cereals). |
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Animal domestication. |
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Coevolution of humans and animals. |
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Prevents mass extinctions during hunter-gatherer
era. |
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Evolved immunity to animal-borne diseases. |
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Specialization. |
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Artisans. |
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Soldiers. |
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Kleptocracy. |
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Bureaucrats. |
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The state (monarch) is a revenue-maximizing
natural monopolist in the use of force. |
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The minimum efficient scale of defense. |
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Revenue-maximization and the Laffer curve. |
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High MES of agricultural production. |
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Labor-intensive irrigation projects. |
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Slave or near-slave labor force. |
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Workers “deskilled” and can’t appropriate
benefits of innovation. |
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Appropriation of surplus by aristocracy. |
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Lavish monumental construction rather than
reinvestment. |
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Specialists focus on luxury goods for
aristocracy. |
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Low rate of technological change. |
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Slow economic growth. |
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Common origins of European and Indo-Iranian
languages (4000-2500 B.C.E). |
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Why did the Indo-Europeans succeed? |
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Mobility of domestic horse, wheeled carts. |
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Economic advantages of pastoralism. |
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Capital intensity. |
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The secondary-products economy. |
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Conquest or assimilation? |
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Was Europe already distinctive? |
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Notes