1.Competition: In the 15th century, China was the most advanced civilisation in the
world, while Europe was a backwater. But then things changed and by the late 18th
century Adam Smith could observe that China had been "long stationary". What
happened? Ferguson argues that Europe's fragmented political structure led to
competition and encouraged Europeans to seek opportunities in distant lands. The
increasingly insular China, by contrast, stagnated.
2. Science: The 16th and 17th centuries were the age of science, with an
extraordinary number of breakthroughs occurring. This revolution was, Ferguson
writes, "by any scientific measure, wholly European". In the Muslim world, clericism
curtailed the spread of knowledge, while in Europe, aided by the printing press, the
scope of scholarship dramatically widened. Ultimately, breakthroughs in science led
to improvements in weaponry, further cementing the west's advantage.
3. Property: Why did the empire established by the English in north America in the
17th century ultimately prove so much more successful than that established by the
Spanish in south America a century earlier? It was, Ferguson contends, because the
English settlers brought with them a particular conception of widely distributed
property rights and democracy, inherited from John Locke. This proved a far better
recipe for success than the Spanish model of concentrated wealth and
authoritarianism.
4. Modern science: According to Ferguson, modern medicine was the west's "most
remarkable killer application". Western medical advances in the 19th and 20th
centuries increased life expectancies across the world, including in the colonies. The
French in particular, largely thanks to a lofty conception of their imperial mission,
brought significant improvements to public health in western Africa, developing
effective vaccinations for diseases such as smallpox and yellow fever.
5. Consumption: The west's dominance of the rest of the world was not only
achieved by force; it was also, as Ferguson shows, achieved through the market.
The industrial revolution in 18th and 19th century Britain created a model of
consumerist society that has proved irresistible, as shown, for example, by the way
that the western style of dressing has swept the globe. Yet there's a paradox: how
was it that an economic system designed to offer infinite choice has ended up
homogenising humanity?
6. Work ethic: As Max Weber noted a century ago, Protestantism was a form of
Christianity that encouraged hard work (and just as importantly, Ferguson adds,
reading and saving). It isn't a coincidence, he says, that the decline of religion in
Europe has led to Europeans becoming the "idlers of the world" (while the more
religious US has remained hard-working). Interestingly, Ferguson also argues that
China's embrace of hard work is partly because of the spread there of Protestantism.