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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4380 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 26, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Is the explanation for why coastal areas with ocean access are consistently richer than more inland areas really as simple as "ocean access = international trade hub = money"? E.g.,

-south India vs north India

-west Europe vs east Europe

-coastal USA vs middle USA

-Japan/Korea/Taiwan vs coastal China vs inland China

Is there more to it, like say a particular path dependence in each of these regions? Are there significant exceptions (either now or historically)?

Even ignoring them being able more easily to be hubs (that is, middlemen), because shipping over water is just so enormously cheaper than by land, they're able more easily to acquire whatever resources they need at lower cost, and export likewise.

It isn't quite only coasts. Rivers matter too (hence, Chicago).

unchartedterritories.substack.com likes talking about this kind of thing.

Moving stuff by boat is a lot more efficient than moving it by land, meaning you can support more people in one place, and easily ship raw goods in and manufactured products out. Not to mention that it's easier to reinforce and defend coastal settlements from barbaric hill people in the "interior". There's often a city near a river's mouth, and another where the river becomes impassable to ocean-going boats (and there's often a portage there, if the river is still navigable on the other side). Alternatively, bridges and fords can serve the same purpose: I think London was the site of a ford, which the Romans built a bridge across. Also, I recently ran across a video about how Lewiston in Idaho is a Pacific sea port.

For the Roman empire (pre- and post-), here's a map of travel times and an ACOUP post about grain shipments, trade, and wealth equilibria.

I think Southern India had a cool bit of luck, in that if you sailed down the Red Sea and continued east out the Gulf of Aden past the Horn of Africa, you'd end up in Thiruvananthapuram. So they got Greek travelers, and Arab traders by sea (instead of Arab conquerors by land), plus two separate colonies of Jews fleeing disasters in Judea.

For east Europe, we can notice the Baltic Sea area had a different climate, too.

For China, look at the history of the Grand Canal.

For exceptions, maybe Persia and modern Switzerland might count? West Virginia is kind of the opposite of an exception.

Switzerland controlled mountain passes between Italy and Germany. Shipping by sea might be cheaper, but sailing all the way from Genoa to the mouth of the Rhine is still more expensive that travelling across the Alps to Basel and sailing down the Rhine.

Tyranny of the wagon equation.

An ox requires a certain amount of food each day. This is true whether it’s hauling trade goods, soldiers, or that food. The further you’re planning to go, the more of your weight has to go towards feeding your transport. It’s even worse for military maneuvers, since your destination is unlikely to sell you supplies.

Boats have a much, much better rate of return, reducing the cost of doing business immensely. So ocean access is like a multiplier on state capacity. At one point, Rome was importing a ridiculous percentage of its food from across the Mediterranean. In turn, that freed up labor for metallurgy and bureaucracy and all those other structural advantages.

Some rough numbers:

Efficiency of transportation. Transport has a cost, and the farther things go, the more the buyer has to pay. This is expressed as a proportion of agricultural produce consumed per mile of transportation. For human bearers and beasts of burden, that cost is 1/30. If goods are transported by cart, it's 1/60. For transport largely by boats, it's 1/300 along rivers, or 1/1500 for transport by sea (exceptionally extensive canal and river systems may come close to this as well). Most cities fall in the range between cart and river travel.

Yes, freer movement of people and goods is highly correlated with greater economic prosperity. Probably the closest thing to an absolute "law of nature" in the field of economics.

While access to trade is the main factor, Eastern Europe and the North of India and China also share particular security vulnerabilities i.e. historical risk of being invaded and then economically exploited by nomadic tribes. That said, there aren't really any major exceptions to the trade=wealth rule that come to mind; even remote inland cities that became wealthy did so by supplying some rare resource to global markets, such as Potosi in the 16th century with silver, central Asian cities acting as intermediaries in the silk trade, etc.

The security vulnerability is a great point. I wonder to what extend this affects political leanings. I recall reading that one of the more consistent differences in conservative vs liberal psychology is that zero-sum thinking is stronger in the former while positive-sum thinking is stronger in the latter.

I would imagine that if most of your interactions with the outside world come in the form of positive sum trade, then you'd be more inclined towards liberalism/xenophilia. In contrast, if most of your interactions with the outside world come in the form of security/border disputes, you'd be much less so. (Then again, island/EEZ disputes still happen plenty so maybe not.)

It's certainly true that west Europe and coastal USA are more liberal-minded than their inland neighbors, but it's difficult to tease out if this is the main driver or more a direct economic effect. Also not really sure how this well this trend holds for north vs south India or for coastal vs inland China.

The security vulnerability is a great point.

Its also true that in many parts of the world, and many times, being on the coast was a very insecure position due to coastal raiders. Despite the economic advantages, very few ancient major cities are actually located on the coast itself. The sweet spot seems to be for the nation to have a coast, but not actually place its major cities directly on it. Even Rome is about 20 miles inland.

Aren't most large ancient cities located around or near rivers because agriculture enabled a bigger population size? I'm not sure if fishing alone and trade were sufficient to support large cities at the time. How devastating were coastal raiders? I imagine a coastal city should be able to field its own navies.

They tend to have milder weather too

I'm pretty sure that's the main reason, yes. They also tend to be more touristy and may have a better lifestyle to attract the high earners.

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