You are not considering all the variables. Your view is too simpleton.
Dude, it's you who thinks a disease is the cause of the divergence between the East and the West and can explain 800 years of world history.
Of course the end result was bad after over the hundreds of years that Asia fell behind the West in terms of industrialization. In that sense it was defeating and China ended up killing 57 million in a Cultural Revolution to deal with the adverse effects of the inefficiencies and further retarding their economic development. But now they've suddenly started to catch up, because they had no choice. And they offered the release value for the Westerners to be able to continue to live the high life with the least effort.
But over the 1000 or so years that it worked for China, it was because it provided social harmony. Rice production requires communal irrigation and thus very strong local social integration, sharing, and harmony. This is why the Chinese are innately collectivist and into political connections as a method of production.
Real wage are 100% determined by the labor productivity(1), if real wages were higher in Europe than Asia, that means labor was more productive in Europe than in Asia.
If labor was more productive in Europe than in Asia, that means that Europe had already started its industrialization (2).
Therefore higher European real wages are not the caused of Industrialization since they are its consequences.
You can only refute this reasoning if you deny (1) and (2), but (1) and (2) an economic truth. If you don't understand why, then you have some learning to do.
I suggest you do more studying. And open your mind to many more variables than you are considering before you jump to erroneous simpleton conclusions.
I suggest you to stop having such a materialistic view of humans and history, and to learn more about economics.
[1] Don't forget my up thread point about the USA having the most ideal geography in the world for physical trade being bissected by navigable from North-to-South Mississippi River and having coasts on both Atlantic and Pacific. This advantage will fade as we grind into the Knowledge Age with localized production with 3D printing.
I don't say that environmental factors (such as disease or geography) don't have an impact. But they aren't the main driver of history, the main driver of history is the culture.
When you produce something efficiently that means that there is labor available to produce something else in the economy (a nascent new market) and that the output is cheaper so their is savings available to buy the products of the nascent new market. It's not bad, it's good.
Not at all. You follow Karl Marx I see. You could have only 1% of the population producing all the GDP and that wouldn't necessary make the rest of the people in the country more productive. Saudi Arabia is perhaps an example.
What I have said is 100% correct, there is no question about that. You should read this book to understand why:
http://www.amazon.com/Economic-Sophisms-Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric-Bastiat/dp/1452856095I don't see why you are talking about Marx at all.
If you don't get what I have written that means you don't understand basic economics and I cannot help you, only you can make the work needed. I will re-quote myself with slight clarification because there is nothing more to say on that subject:
When you produce a product more efficiently (by saving labor) that means that there is labor available to produce something else in the economy (a nascent new market) and that means the product is cheaper on the marketplace (because prices converge to costs in a free market, and since there is less labor needed to produce the same result, the cost and price drop) so there is increase savings available in the pocket of customers (its cheaper to buy the product) which allows them to buy the products of the nascent new market.