[PEN-L:11357] Re: Re: Re: colonialism

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx> 09/20/99 03:36PM >>>
Louis,
     The argument is not that Columbus had some
great love of exploring.  The argument is that
capitalism was more insitutionally developed in Europe
and that there was thus a greater motive force from
a desire to make profit in Europe than in Northeast
Asia, where certainly there was a technical capability
to go to the Americas.
      The question remains:  Why didn't they?  The
Russians went there later from a much greater
distance.

((((((((((((

Charles: When you say the question is why didn't they, isn't the answer that they didn't change from the way they had been before ? What is the mystery about their retaining their status quo ?

The question seems somewhat loaded, because it sounds like maybe you are saying "they should have", i.e. they should have developed capitalism as the Europeans did.

But if somebody thinks the change that took place in Europe has turned out to be a disaster for humanity , then the obvious answer to the question "Why didn't the Chinese travel to the Americas and establish slavery and colonialism ?"  is they thought it would be a bad idea, or such a horrible idea never occurred to them.

The more pertinent question seems to be "why did the Europeans ?", why did the Europeans open the Pandora's box of capitalism ?

CB