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【國際政治經濟典籍導讀課程・蕭少滔 023A】西方歷史學者 Ian Morris 也論證「東升西降」，可信嗎？（上）

🕑 Added 2025-06-09 05:01:03 +0000 UTC

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堅離地書院 College

Will share with Alex 🙏

Elaine Yip

謝謝蕭少滔先生和沈教授的對談分享~

lyk

My read on the book was subtly different. I think Ian is simply saying what the title of the book is saying — why the west is ruling, for now. His point is there is no innate biological advantage that locked-in long term competitive advantages in the west. Culture and institutions are the consequences, not the cause of their dominance thus far. Leadership alters the pace but not the overall trajectory if you stretch the time period long enough. There is nothing that inherently prevents the east from overtaking the west, and he made projections as such, but I don’t think he is saying that it is inevitable. Land used to be the primary limiting factor of growth in the agricultural society. Whenever we get close to the growth ceiling, famine, climate change, disease, migration and state failure knock it back down again. But that changed with the Industrial Revolution. Factory output is not capped by land size like the yield on farmland. Then for the first time in human history humans broke through that ceiling to grow, and with the advent of powerful ships that enabled long voyages, the west took advantage of it, overcame some limitations of geography and created the largest trade network on earth across the Atlantic — thus far. That is the reason why the west has been dominating. If there is no inherent disadvantages that will subdue the east, and you make a projection forward, chances are the east will overtake the west at some point in the future. But that is not to say for example climate change, change in technology (AI) or nuclear war could not alter that projection.