Albion's Seedlings

Smithian Optimality Plus

The previous post is a great piece - - thanks, James.

We are so accustomed to the accomplishments of the industrial era that we tend to lump all pre-industrial cultures together as primitive. But there are huge differences between the pre-industrial cultures pushing the upper ends of Smithian optimality (i.e., everything you can accomplish with market economies and specialization of labor, a la Adam Smith, but without powered machines and deposited hydrocabons) and less productive societies -- such as those of the Dark Ages.

These cultures tht achieved Smithian optimality and pushed the bounds further without mechanization are interesting cases. Based on James's review of these authors, it sounds as if Rome achieved this "Smithian optimality plus" through the scale effects of its large trade area and the long-term absence of war in its Mediterranean heartland. Macfarlane's comparison of Japan and England (The Savage Wars of Peace) came to the conclusion that both quite different societies had achieved a very high degree of pre-industrial development because their island status allowed them to avoid much of the war damage their continental neighbors suffered. Over time, that addiional capital multiplies.