DBWI: Europe "Pulls a Meiji"

What if Europe was able to rapidly industrialize before the Mughal Empire colonized them? Could they have pulled this off like Meiji Japan? Britain probably had the best chance since it was an isolated island kingdom just like Japan.
 
I don't really think so, I mean, Europe didn't really start industrializing for a century, not until the Chinese and Columbians came and took it away from the Mughuls. The Mughuls certainly hadn't lacked the capital; they'd had enough to industrialize a half billion citizen superstate, why not a comparative backwater of half that number?

I mean, if you look at the numbers Europe was showing signs of industrialization early on, growth in manufacturing and a population spurt. But the backlash was too strong. The revolutionaries in France, the toppled king in Britain. That...gruesome scene in Belgium when the loomers rose up.

How could this all of turned around? The Mughuls came in too quickly. They'd had no chance to recover.
 
OOC: why would the Meiji restoration have still happened without European colonizers nearby?


IC: I don't think it's very likely, because for the past five centuries Europe had been a backwater, and with the Imperial Church dominating everything, there was no progress. so I can't imagine the God-emperor giving up his power and alowing post-medieval technology to develop in Europe.

that said, maybe a reformer or schismatic person could have broken the power of the church and rapidly industrialized, but that's a long shot.
 
What, you mean Europe would be allowed that by the surrounding Empires of Carthage and Caledonia? Not a chance.

The German colonists in America did pull it off, but then they were a small nation and on the far side of the sea, so no one minded. The others learned not to repeat that mistake when their forces conquered the American continents and vassalised the Colombians.
 
Hrmm.

It's hard. Granted, there's nothing per se wrong with the Round eyes, but....

Remember, Europe was divided into warring nation states. So if you develop a better way of mining coal or making steel, the state's would have an interest in preventing its spread. Compare this to the Middle Kingdom, where the Imperial government essentially created an area for goods and ideas to travel freely from Gold Mountain to Mongolia. And look at how divided Europe is geography; lots of mountains, lots of rivers...

Moreover, to industrialize you need a dynamic commercial sector. Yet Christianity forbids interest! How can you modernize with a religion that basically bans banking?

It gets better. Industrialization took off in Gold Mountain, where the labor shortage, combined with absurdly profitable agriculture and a dynamic economy based on the export of jade, furs, wood and gold took off. Right? Yet how do you get an analagous situation in Europe?

Frankly, unless you can make them Buddhist, I don't think they'll ever stop their navel gazing...
 

Hendryk

Banned
Moreover, to industrialize you need a dynamic commercial sector. Yet Christianity forbids interest! How can you modernize with a religion that basically bans banking?
Sometimes I think we're being too hard on the Christians. After all, the Muslims did pull it off, and from what I understand the two religions aren't that far apart. At least they share the same creation myths, and their dogmas overlap to a large extent.

I'll go out on a limb and say that Europe might have been able to reach an industrial level of development (or at least proto-industrial) if it had had access to Chinese technology, especially paper and the printing press. Of course, the trick would be to get such inventions to reach them somehow, no mean feat considering the distances involved and the fact that overland travel to the Far Occident was always a risky endeavor until comparatively recent times, what with all those steppe nomads raiding the caravans.
 
Britain really is the place to go I think.
It has very good resources and due to being a island isolated from the continent proper it has the most chance of one kingdom growing to united it.

I would say though that European society just isn't right for industrialisation. There's really too much of a individualistic element to the way people there think.
 
I take offense to the notion that Europeans were innately unsuited to economics. From 500 H. up till the Mughal conquest the presence of large merchant families, and trading companies defined European economics. While these were largely based up kinship and marriage unlike Sino and Mughal joint stock companies, they possessed surprising reach and acumen. The fortunes made by Venetian and portugese merchant houses off of north african gold and ivory are legendary and can be seen by the countless cathedrals decorating the european landscape. The jews, filled the niche of bankers and still play a prominent role in both European and world economics. Likewise the hundreds of thousands of European immigrants throughout Mughalstan's colonies are amongst the most industrious people the world has ever known. When Ashanti expelled its europeans in 1380 you saw how quickly its economy collapsed.

Likewise the dutch, english and greeks have always possessed some of the world's most sophisticated textile industries. While they may not have kept up with industrialization, I dare say how could they after Mughal colonization. They found themselves mostly put to work provided raw materials for the factories and steam looms of Gujarat and Bengal.

Not to sound too critical to the Mughals, they certainly did do some wonderful things for europe such as providing it with a common language of government and high culture, extensive infrastructure, and a unified system of government (apart from those orthodox heathens in Rus) but I'm sick and tired of European history being so readily dismissed.
 
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And immediate Meji in the First Industrial age? Without Chinese Tech , it's impossible.But , in the last three decades , the European miracle proves that the Europeans are not inherently incapable .

Look at the natural resources that Europe has - a vast , fertile temperate zone , massive coal and oil reserves , and prodigous quantity of ores . If the Europeans suceeded in getting their act together earlier , or the Mughals were less religiously tolerant /failed to codify their sucession ( remember , the Mughals almost collapse at one point due to religious conflicts and sucession wars) , or that Ming dynasty Zhongguo was not so rabidly pro enterpries and expansionistic, it is safe to say the Europeans could have been up to plug the gap . ( And the Confucian Faction was quite formidable IIRC in the first years of the dynasty)

Before the Mughal conquest , large , centralized states began reappearing within Europe - who knows what that could lead to given time
 
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