(^22) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
times that of Europe, 100 times that of America.^5 Hence early and al
most universal marriage, without regard to material resources.*
In contrast, Christian and especially western Europe accepted
celibacy, late marriage (not until one could afford it), and more widely
spaced births. Medieval Europeans saw children as a potential burden
in time of need. Recall the stories of Hansel and Gretel and Tom
Thumb—the children left in the forest to die far from the eyes of their
parents. The riverine civilizations maximized population; the Euro
peans focused on small households and strategies of undivided inher
itance and interfamilial alliance.
So, numbers alone do not tell the story, and some would say that
when health and animal support are factored in, Europe may have
brought more energy to agriculture (per area of cultivation) than the
much more numerous populations of Asia. Such peasant throngs,
moreover, tempted Asian rulers to undertake ostentatious projects
based on forced labor. These would one day be the wonder and scan
dal of European visitors—great tourist attractions—astonishing by the
contrast between overweening wealth and grinding poverty. "The
splendours of Asian courts, the religious and funerary monuments and
hydraulic engineering works, the luxury goods and skilled craftsman
ship seemed merely to testify that political organisation could squeeze
blood out of stones if the stones were numerous enough. "t
The Europeans did not have to build pyramids.** Europe, particu
larly western Europe, was very lucky.
- In effect, this pattern of maximum reproduction enhanced political power, in terms
both of combat fodder and of material for territorial expansion. In the last analysis, this
was the story of Chinese aggrandizement over less prolific societies,
î Jones, The European Miracle, p. 5. Jones cites one apologist as arguing that many
of these projects may not have involved that many workers after all, that they may have
been spread out over time and taken generations to complete, and that the laborers
may have been volunteers motivated by religious fervor (p. 10). Anyone who can be
lieve that will believe anything: these projects typically used armed overseers and en
tailed spectacularly high death rates. On the losses that went with construction of the
Grand Canal and the Great Wall of China—we are talking of millions of dead—see
ibid., p. 9.
** That's not quite true: the Europeans also had their despotisms. Visitors today to the
great basilica at Vezelay may be interested to learn that the serfs who were conscripted
to build it rose three times in revolt against the church authorities. Animals also paid;
cf. the cathedral at Laon, which stands atop a hill and has in its tower the statues of four
oxen, facing north, south, east, and west, commemorating the beasts that died haul
ing up stone from the plain below. But better oxen than people. And that was a kind
of apology.
For a more recent example, cf. the railway line (1840s) from St. Petersburg to
Moscow—a corpse for every tie.