> Zheng He's mid-fifteenth century voyages of exploration sailed four times as far with twenty times as many sailors as Columbus, and could land ten times as many soldiers at Dar es Salaam and Trincomalee as Cortez would land at Vera Cruz. [... ] But the political balance in the Ming court changed, the follow-up expeditions were cancelled, and the exploration program abandoned.
OK. That is an explanation for why the existing bureaucrats would want to stop the voyages. But a more far-sighted emperor would have set up a new bureaucracy with a guaranteed draw on the treasury, and thus bureaucrats whose jobs depended on the continuation of voyages...
True. I wonder if that was a matter of just not having the idea, or of the de facto institutional constraints. If you can do it, setting up institutions or groups with incentives aligned with new forms of revenue is usually profitable in the right conditions (an East India Company from China?).
Recursively, I guess - the DoD published last week about their GAMECHANGER [sic] NLP AI built specifically to try to navigate their own budget, which is a very Stanislaw Lem thing to happen.
The Stalin/Latour move here, I suppose, would be for each person in power to build a couple of independent personal AIs monitoring their government and each other; when in doubt, bring in another actor. I tried once to talk a fifth-line government officer into building one of those (with a less ethically objectionable approach); still think it'd be an interesting thing to do.
No one likes to think of it like this, but first and last and always, you have to win the fight. You have what laws you can defend from the lawless, the rapacious, and the inimical, and only such laws.
Up against the distributed, relentless, and well-funded rapacity of the Pirate Kingdom, the Chinese did not -- perhaps not _could not_, but certainly _did not_ -- construct a sufficient response. Their focus was on land and their margin was tiny (do not forget how nearly starved everyone was, or why the Taiping inspired successors); their culture could not rapidly shake off "is it proper?" in place of the piratical "does it work?". (European aristocracies never did make that transition, either, just as they didn't have a choice, either; you industrialize, or you do what the industrial power says. And none of them were ever so insulated as a Chinese imperial court, never so necessarily committed to the forms upon which power in the system depends.)
If you want a less blood-drenched phrasing, the Chinese State could not stay a learning organization once the landed aristocracy got past a certain degree of control of the whole of the economy. Because it could not be a learning organization, necessity would produce convulsions, rather than adjustments. (Having the Taiping Rebellion bookended by Opium Wars is not something that's happened to anyone else, and it should be noted that the comparable Great War in Europe dissolved three and a half out of the four participating empires.)
Delightful work Professor, thank you, here’s hoping some large part does find its way into the history. Question, in your ranking of great empires—Chinese, Roman, Persian, British—where might the Ottoman and Mongol fit?
Thanks for a great essay. In Europe, constant warfare made the local aristocrats technology friendly. Whether it was a new type of armor, better steel, long bows, cannon, machine guns or atomic bombs, attaining and maintaining political power meant alignment and adjustment in the face of new technologies. Europe has gone through a thousand years of such technological change, though some of the technologies are so old that we now forget that they were ever new. (Actually, you can probably trace this back at least two thousand years if you care to.)
China and Japan both have had episodes where the ruling class examined new technologies then decided that they were politically dangerous and suppressed them. Things like naval power and firearms could be destabilizing. China has always had a centralized system that was inherently conservative. We're seeing it in action now, and I doubt China's current leaders realize the price they will be paying for maintaining power. I'll just say that in 200 or 300 years, you or some successor will write an interesting updated version of this essay.
> Zheng He's mid-fifteenth century voyages of exploration sailed four times as far with twenty times as many sailors as Columbus, and could land ten times as many soldiers at Dar es Salaam and Trincomalee as Cortez would land at Vera Cruz. [... ] But the political balance in the Ming court changed, the follow-up expeditions were cancelled, and the exploration program abandoned.
This https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-chinese-history/article/cessation-of-zheng-hes-voyages-and-the-beginning-of-private-sailings-fiscal-competition-between-emperors-and-bureaucrats/8FE45F3210A4DF174A4EC2B30868D433 is the best explanation I've read so far about the end (and the start as well) of those voyages as part of a conflict between Emperor and bureaucrats over control of fiscal resources. Basically, the Emperor had authority to pay voyages from the treasury but full control of the tribute that came back, so, while they were profit-making by themselves, they created a net transfer of fiscal resources from the bureaucracy to the Emperor. The former, of course, did not like it...
OK. That is an explanation for why the existing bureaucrats would want to stop the voyages. But a more far-sighted emperor would have set up a new bureaucracy with a guaranteed draw on the treasury, and thus bureaucrats whose jobs depended on the continuation of voyages...
True. I wonder if that was a matter of just not having the idea, or of the de facto institutional constraints. If you can do it, setting up institutions or groups with incentives aligned with new forms of revenue is usually profitable in the right conditions (an East India Company from China?).
Creating bureaucracies is possible. Controlling them and keeping them aimed at the right target... more difficult. Cf.: Franklin Ford: Robe & Sword...
Recursively, I guess - the DoD published last week about their GAMECHANGER [sic] NLP AI built specifically to try to navigate their own budget, which is a very Stanislaw Lem thing to happen.
The Stalin/Latour move here, I suppose, would be for each person in power to build a couple of independent personal AIs monitoring their government and each other; when in doubt, bring in another actor. I tried once to talk a fifth-line government officer into building one of those (with a less ethically objectionable approach); still think it'd be an interesting thing to do.
URL?
https://theintercept.com/2023/09/20/pentagon-ai-budget-gamechanger/
No one likes to think of it like this, but first and last and always, you have to win the fight. You have what laws you can defend from the lawless, the rapacious, and the inimical, and only such laws.
Up against the distributed, relentless, and well-funded rapacity of the Pirate Kingdom, the Chinese did not -- perhaps not _could not_, but certainly _did not_ -- construct a sufficient response. Their focus was on land and their margin was tiny (do not forget how nearly starved everyone was, or why the Taiping inspired successors); their culture could not rapidly shake off "is it proper?" in place of the piratical "does it work?". (European aristocracies never did make that transition, either, just as they didn't have a choice, either; you industrialize, or you do what the industrial power says. And none of them were ever so insulated as a Chinese imperial court, never so necessarily committed to the forms upon which power in the system depends.)
If you want a less blood-drenched phrasing, the Chinese State could not stay a learning organization once the landed aristocracy got past a certain degree of control of the whole of the economy. Because it could not be a learning organization, necessity would produce convulsions, rather than adjustments. (Having the Taiping Rebellion bookended by Opium Wars is not something that's happened to anyone else, and it should be noted that the comparable Great War in Europe dissolved three and a half out of the four participating empires.)
Delightful work Professor, thank you, here’s hoping some large part does find its way into the history. Question, in your ranking of great empires—Chinese, Roman, Persian, British—where might the Ottoman and Mongol fit?
Thanks for a great essay. In Europe, constant warfare made the local aristocrats technology friendly. Whether it was a new type of armor, better steel, long bows, cannon, machine guns or atomic bombs, attaining and maintaining political power meant alignment and adjustment in the face of new technologies. Europe has gone through a thousand years of such technological change, though some of the technologies are so old that we now forget that they were ever new. (Actually, you can probably trace this back at least two thousand years if you care to.)
China and Japan both have had episodes where the ruling class examined new technologies then decided that they were politically dangerous and suppressed them. Things like naval power and firearms could be destabilizing. China has always had a centralized system that was inherently conservative. We're seeing it in action now, and I doubt China's current leaders realize the price they will be paying for maintaining power. I'll just say that in 200 or 300 years, you or some successor will write an interesting updated version of this essay.