Frank-Landes Debate, Page 5
David Landes: Yes, okay, so we have to look after 1800 and figure out why. Until 1800, Asia far ahead of Europe, not technologically.
Andre Gunder Frank: Yes.
David Landes: I mean, Asia, no Asia was far behind, particularly in the invention and use of machinery. (Grinding noise) Where the Europeans. (Grinding noise) Awfully hard to talk. What? That must be an Asian camera.
Andre Gunder Frank: It shows how far behind we are. In Japan, this wouldn't happen.
David Landes: Oh, my. Anyway. Asia far ahead of Europe, not so. In anything connected with war, with oceanic navigation, as against traditional coasting and moving along coasts and keeping close to the land, the ability to get lost in the middle of the ocean, that's a European invention. It has to do with the science of latitude, not longitude, latitude and thanks to this, Europeans are able to overcome unfavorable currents and unfavorable winds all along the West Coast of Africa. They go as far West as what's now South America and swing east around African into the Indian Ocean. Europeans, with, in all the things that mattered, way ahead of Asia. The one thing that they hadn't learned yet and don't learn until the beginning of the 18th century, is how to make porcelain. But, that was not a crucial difference technologically. The dinosaur/mammal argument, well, I don't know, images like that leave me a little nonplused. Something you once, something about Europe before 1800 that will explain development after 1800. Of course I want it, because Europe has already taken the lead before 1800. If you're going to wait for 1800 you're going to say, my, my, my, machines suddenly appeared. Machines don't suddenly appear, they have a long history behind them, it takes a lot of mistakes before you make machines that can work and the Europeans went through all this, it was not an easy job. No one else was doing this kind of thing. Why? And that brings me to factor prices which you feel is important and I, are important, and I agree. Yeah, well, factor prices matter. In particular, the price of labor. Even Adam Smith, who thinks the Chinese are so wealthy, points out that labor costs are substantially lower. Why? In the, also, lower labor costs, well, because population density was higher and there were many more people who could do the work. Europe, from the middle ages on, faces a scarcity of labor problem, which is intensified by the fact that lots of people, if they don't like the country they live in, are ready to move to other countries. That's a major consideration. It means rulers have to treat their people better than they would otherwise do and it also has a great deal to do with the determination of the price of labor and the response to the high price of labor. So, I think from that point of view, yes, I do deal with these questions. I know you've read the book, but I want you to re-read it, and I want all the people who haven't read it, to read it. Preferably, to buy it, and because... No, not because you'll make me richer. Because I know that when a book is bought it is generally read by more than one person. That it generally is read by 2 or 3 people, at least, and that way I will have an even bigger audience. And that's all I will say now about these issues.
William Fowler: The second question will be from Professor Frank to Professor Landes. And so Professor Landes will have an opportunity to answer this question and Professor Frank will comment. Allow me please to read the question.
“Why do you neglect or deny that our empirical grounds virtually all of the last three decades and more of historical research showing the relatively high development of the East and low development of the West prior to 1750? Moreover, on theoretical grounds, how can you simultaneously and contradictorily maintain that an essential and essentially unchanging millennially old element of Western culture is primarily responsible for the rise of the West and the industrial revolution and yet that culture also changes in response to changing circumstances, in other words, how do you resolve the contradiction posed about this very problem in his “The East in the West” book by Jack Goody, who argues that is logically impossible to rely on a permanent condition to explain a changing event or eventual change? I can collegially offer you an answer that is stronger and better than any you make in your book. But let's first see what you say and do, here and now.” Professor Landes.
David Landes: Well, I've already said that I do not neglect or deny on empirical grounds virtually all the last three decades or more of historical research showing the relatively high development of the East. It simply isn't so. I read the same people that Gunder Frank reads. Mr. Pomeranz on China, some of the other new work on China and so on. The work on India. One, a lot of them agree with me and, as a matter of fact, if you read ReOrient you will see that some of them are cited therein. The ones that don't agree with me don't impress me, because I don't see anything happening in Asia comparable to what's going on in Europe. I don't see the kind of mechanical inventions, the response to problems in Europe that we have else where. Why that should have been so is an interesting question and we can talk some more, but in the mean time, it's just not happening. And, so I think that we have this continuing effort in Europe to try and solve problems in production and productivity, but, also, we find that this effort rests on older attitudes. These attitudes go back to Judeo-Christian notions, they have a lot to do with the attitudes toward nature, toward the ability of man to master nature and the like. I will not go into these in detail except to say that from this point of view, Europe is significantly different from other societies. But, having said that, the question is, not that there is an essential and essentially unchanging, I quote, millennially old element of Western culture. Because the Western culture also has to learn to change and also has to respond to new opportunities. I mean, when you start getting machines and you have to train a work force for this, especially a work force that comes from the land. This takes a real effort of education, you have to transmit all kinds of ideas that these people didn't bring with them. You must not think that these attitudes last unchanging throughout history. One of the most important aspects of the European story is how successful they were at inculcating attitudes toward work and toward the use of tools and so on, on people who had never done this and teaching them new ways of production and that's a very important story.
Andre Gunder Frank: You don't realize that you have a fifth cardinal ally at the world history department who cut out the heart of my question to you.
David Landes: Oh.
Andre Gunder Frank: Yes.
David Landes: Well, then you can't blame me.
Andre Gunder Frank: No, I'm not. But I'm going to pose it to you and answer it for you or let you answer it later. Anyway, but only in short-hand, that's about the contradictions and inconsistencies in your argument and, in particular, about your central argument. I count at least 20 pages in here in which you flatly contradict what you say on other pages and in which you contradict your main thesis. And one of them is on page 202, you criticize Aristotle. Please, be my guest. On page 202, and you'll find it underlined, I'm sure.
David Landes: You marked this book up terribly.
Andre Gunder Frank: Well, that's right. On page 202. Did you find it okay? Aristotle? Right there.
David Landes: Correct.
Andre Gunder Frank: Okay. You criticize Aristotle for trying to, “explain phenomena by the essential nature of things.” Well, your whole argument is essentialist. You do exactly what you criticize Aristotle for doing and then later on page 174. Do you want to look it up?
David Landes: That's not later, that's before.
Andre Gunder Frank: That's before.
David Landes: Yes.
Andre Gunder Frank: It's later in here.
David Landes: 174 comes before 202.
Andre Gunder Frank: Yes it does.
David Landes: Okay, alright.
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