Niall Ferguson is Wrong

I notice time and again there is common narrative used by Western historians (I can only read English, so I only read Western academic history) to describe the transitions of power and the characteristics of European and American society and governance contra non-European and non-American society and governance. The narrative goes that ‘the rest’ lacked economic competition (hence had no entrepreneurs) and free thought. This lack is one side of the coin with fits together with the other part of the narrative, namely that there was uncompromising despotic, centalised rule, which nearly all of the time was completely isolationed and shunned contact and (free) trade the rest of the world. Niall Ferguson seems to represent the latest incarnation of this viewpoint, perhaps with a nuance or two but definitely the narrative as described above is there. In his new propagandistic treatise written solely to corrupt the youth book his lists six features (‘killer apps’) which explain the West’s rise to power and why everyone else were bystanders to this ascendancy. The decisive features are: competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic. Firstly it should be noted that consumerism is only really a century old and democracy is effectively two centuries old, so these can hardly be the gamechangers that powered the West to become the most powerful region of the world around the 18th century. Second Weber’s work ethic is thoroughly discredited (and really, despite my admiration for Weber, the notion of it was always a form of proto-Fergusonism, that Westerners had more initiative and worked harder than everybody else.). Medicine and science are a bit of a strange argument to make. They comprise of the larger argument that the Western had better technology and technical knowledge than everyone else. I didn’t include this in the argument because few, even conservatives, pretend that China, the Ottoman empire, Persia, India and more had poor technology or limited medicine. To made that argument that overall the West had superior medicine and science seems frankly out of place anytime after the 1960s and 1970s. If the argument was the West had an industrial revolution then that should of been stated, to pretend there is more to it than that is very dubious. I also think the medicine and science point boils down to the argument that the West had room for free thought whilst everyone else, apparently were like worker drones in some Orwellian imagining. Lastly there is competition. This is perhaps the line of argument I am least disapproving of, specifically that Western countries like the Netherlands and Britain developed social practices where money and exchange was perhaps more open and unencumbered. More specifically financial instituions (e.g. banking) existed and possibly there was less of a guild heavy economy (though I really think many, like Ferguson, downplay the role of the guild system in European economies). Nonetheless the competition argument is based on a notion that people of the West have more initiative and more creativity than ‘the rest’. I have a feeling that even this argument is flawed, and furthermore that overall it can’t be said to be central to why Britain than America assumed global power and dominance.

The (sufficiently) perfect history is yet to be written (perhaps Ian Morris comes close), yet that history will involve disabusing itself of the above common, all too common narrative.