Alternative hypothesis: it’s all about Malthus trap. Humanity took off exactly when the snowball effect of knowledge accumulation start inducing more economical growth that human fecondity could compete with. I like the idea because it then explain China as well, but I didn’t start looking for hard evidence so feel free to share this kernel.
Except my intuition is that the Roman’s managed to evade mathlusian living conditions.
Partial evidence: slavery an institution makes very little sense at the mathlusian boundary. Why pay for a slave when human labor costs the amount of food that it covers. (That’s the price of human labor in a mathlusian world)
Slaves reproducing themselves is nonmalthusian, but rare. Romans captured slaves in war and enslaved debtors. I think the only time in history chattel slaves reproduced themselves is the New World, which was quite nonmalthusian.
Alternative hypothesis: it’s all about Malthus trap. Humanity took off exactly when the snowball effect of knowledge accumulation start inducing more economical growth that human fecondity could compete with. I like the idea because it then explain China as well, but I didn’t start looking for hard evidence so feel free to share this kernel.
Except my intuition is that the Roman’s managed to evade mathlusian living conditions.
Partial evidence: slavery an institution makes very little sense at the mathlusian boundary. Why pay for a slave when human labor costs the amount of food that it covers. (That’s the price of human labor in a mathlusian world)
Slaves reproducing themselves is nonmalthusian, but rare. Romans captured slaves in war and enslaved debtors. I think the only time in history chattel slaves reproduced themselves is the New World, which was quite nonmalthusian.