Alternate History Thread IV: The Sequel

[das]

Which were, to my knowledge, not radical breaks from this advanced theory of Rome's infantile world outlook. You can replace and modify structure all you want--if the wood and stone you're replacing it with is also rotten and cracked, it doesn't matter what you do with it, it's still going to fail.

Social entropy is unavoidable in any case, isn't it? All you could do is slow it down, minimise its effects and when possible rectify its results. Cultural complexity doesn't enter into it as such.

(For the record: while I might agree with the general idea of Rome's cultural primitivity as compared to some later societies, I think that the blogger is very strongly exaggerating it, and especially some of the Roman culture's characteristics that serve to prove his thesis, such as it is. I also get the impression that he is looking at the mainstream, recorded Roman culture and calling it one-sided. Well, duh - it, too, is one side of the same coin, the other being the various later counter-cultures and the Roman popular culture in general. If examined together it still would be primitive in some regards, but otherwise quite well-balanced and reasonable, at least on early stages: the problems grew with social stratification, as different cultural currents began to seriously diverge and different groups lost touch with one another, wherein lies the crisis of all the ancient societies, but those of the Greeks and the Romans in particular)

 

[Symphony D.]

Whatever. I ultimately don't particularly care about Rome and why it collapsed, I care more about the actual point he's making.

 

[das]

You mean, the one about the Graeco-Germanic combination enabling the Industrial Revolution? I suppose that does makes sense, but like all such sweeping generalisations - especially ones rooted in such a difficult to determine factor as culture - is quite unreliable, at least as far as attempts at replicating it in a different environment are concerned.

As an interesting note, I've just realised that he never does answer the "why not China" part of the question, though he might've just assumed it to be self-apparent.

 

[Symphony D.]

Deeper than that: that what is ultimately necessary to facilitate an industrial revolution is the avoidance of despotism, and that that must generally be done through a tradition of reasoned inquiry (in this case, from the Greeks) and decentralized power structures emphasizing autonomy and independence (from the Germans).

Beneath the argument of a single instance is an inferred blueprint for all instances--given that only one region did produce a revolution, and several others in different locations both in time and space didn't, there is at least some credence for this generalized theory and also some support for the notion that despotism is a sort of default mode of governance (and that it in turn hampers modes of production).

I care about the general theory, not the historic context from which it was derived.

He also might just not be done. I have a feeling that's the case, having read some other bits of the blog.

 

[Dachs]

I wrote up a long post on the whole "Rome's fall" business disputing specific points of his, but since that's really not the main focus of this discussion I guess I'll respond to that part that matters.

Deeper than that: that what is ultimately necessary to facilitate an industrial revolution is the avoidance of despotism, [...]

Beneath the argument of a single instance is an inferred blueprint for all instances--given that only one region did produce a revolution, and several others in different locations both in time and space didn't, there is at least some credence for this generalized theory and also some support for the notion that despotism is a sort of default mode of governance (and that it in turn hampers modes of production).

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers also cites political plurality as the major reason for European technological innovation during the time of the Industrial Revolution. But I'd disagree on the cause of that plurality. IMHO, Europe is geographically constrained to be politically disunited and thus perpetually in competition. The coast is irregular, and there are loads of high mountains and rivers acting as significant geographical barriers. And, at the beginning of the sixteenth century - which is one of the key points where Europe starts to take off vis-a-vis the rest of the world - Europe was the only major region in which there was significant competition between political entities necessitating the development of new technology. India, the Far East, and the Middle East had all been politically plural in the past, and would again in the future, but they were united at the wrong time, which exacerbated the lead that Europe had. Because, fundamentally, a group is not going to pursue technological innovation because they are told to or coerced to. All else being equal, innovation arises from the need to survive: Nietzsche's Untermenschen finding ways to overpower the strong. There's a good reason wars are painted as victory or death. And, of course, once that critical, overpowering advantage was secured by the European peoples, it was such a huge advantage that they could maintain it relatively easily for centuries, as Herrdoktor Kaalhauge notes. Only Europeans could destroy other Europeans, after all, which happened in the first half of the twentieth century and worked so brilliantly well.

A "cultural impetus to strive for superiority" seems like so many cow patties to me, partially because it's unprovable, and partially because other factors work so much better. Maybe I'm also not interested in being politically incorrect today.

 

[Thlayli]

Unless the Eastern Roman Empire had some secret inherent cultural superiority which allowed it to survive an extra 900-odd years, with their old systems of government essentially intact, complete with the internecine bloodletting that was common to Western Rome, I'd say that cultural tendencies didn't have as much of an effect as, say, debased coinage.

In terms of cultural mores, I wouldn't describe Roman imperialism as essentially more or less sophisticated than, say, Victorian imperialism.

 

[Masada]

I disagree with the cultural angle (to a large degree economic growth does not follow culture in any real sense of the word and for that matter industrialisation), in the strictest sense a lack of despotism is irrelevant to a large degree, France began to be industrialised under the Louis's.

Economics wise, the four factors of industrialisation are;

Capital Markets: Industrialisation costs a lot of money and requires vast access to capital
Property Rights and Rights to Retain the Results of Production: Without which there is no reason to want to create anything let alone bother to create anything, nations with poor respect for property rights still don’t do to well.
Scientific Rationalism: Being able to test hypothesis and not being locked up in the local Church/Government Building for doing something a little untoward in the eyes of the authorities is important.
Institutions: You need solid institutions, it would appear however that Democracy is to a large extent unimportant, as long as your dictatorship etc can keep its hands of and protect what you have created
Rule of Law: Not having your property stolen by the state by fiat tends to motivate people to build things
Information: Is also important, without which capitalism doesn’t function to well.

The Dutch had all of those factors functioning for them when they first began to industrialise, England followed soon after when the King lost his head and Dutch financial institutions began to make an impact in England (its interesting that one can chart a flow of Dutch capital into England as the Dutch economy matured).

Similarly France had almost all of the factors (arguably it had a superior culture) and yet it didn’t industrialise until a good 60-80 years after. Namely because it was still a Monarchy (which had this annoying habit of trying to control everything economy included), its capital markets never grew because France had a habit of defaulting on loans, it ejected the Protestants who made up the first French banks aetc.

@Dachspmg: Unfortunately I must disagree about inventions arising when you need to survive, it would seem to me that people are unwilling generally to innovate when the risk is death ie. when your starving because of bad harvests you are not likely to bother to try planting in a new way as a gamble.

But your right about the cultural impetus to strive for superiority it is a load of so many silly cows’ patties.

 

[Symphony D.]

IMHO, Europe is geographically constrained to be politically disunited and thus perpetually in competition. The coast is irregular, and there are loads of high mountains and rivers acting as significant geographical barriers.

Thanks, Jared Diamond. But geographical determinism is an exceptionally lacking answer for explaining the totality of a situation, however major a role it might play.

In terms of cultural mores, I wouldn't describe Roman imperialism as essentially more or less sophisticated than, say, Victorian imperialism.

It's really cool when people willfully misinterpret arguments. He ever argued that whatsoever, his argument was about Roman culture, not Roman imperialism, and the two are very distinct entities.

France began to be industrialised under the Louis's.

It's also pretty cool when people argue without considering the source material deeply. He also made a very sharp distinction between "Enlightened Absolutism" and "Despotism." And there is a pretty sharp distinction between the two.

Scientific Rationalism: Being able to test hypothesis and not being locked up in the local Church/Government Building for doing something a little untoward in the eyes of the authorities is important.

Hence the Greeks...

Property Rights and Rights to Retain the Results of Production: Without which there is no reason to want to create anything let alone bother to create anything, nations with poor respect for property rights still don’t do to well.
Institutions: You need solid institutions, it would appear however that Democracy is to a large extent unimportant, as long as your dictatorship etc can keep its hands of and protect what you have created
Rule of Law: Not having your property stolen by the state by fiat tends to motivate people to build things

... Unt ze Germans.

Now it's true that dictatorships have industrialized plenty of times in history. But I don't care, because they weren't the first to do it. That's exactly the point. Once one person does it falls under idea diffusion and blueprint-copying, and that's oh-so-easy to do if you pay attention well enough. That's irrelevant to this concern. The concern is what does it take for the first instance of industrialization? I don't care about anything else other than that at the moment.

Four out of the five things you listed can be argued very strongly as being derived and descended from cultural biases and viewpoints, with the fifth (Capital Markets) being an accumulation of wealth and infrastructure from long-term positive growth and development, which will more or less naturally occur in a stable and prosperous environment. To me it looks more like you're reaffirming the hypothesis than disputing it.

 

[Masada]

Point 1.

Ditto on the Jared Diamond argument fascinating and well written (if boring in some places) but seed yield determinism and geographic determinism are faulty… and he never really does get around to explaining why China failed according to his reasoning, or why it flourished when it only had rice…

Point 2.

Perhaps unfortunately in an economic sense France was not Englightened in any sense of the word. The superior organization of French Economic tyranny, corruption and incompetence does not make it Enlightened. With taxes like, la taille and la corvée busily bankrupting the countryside, with Guild Monopolies destroying competition, mercantilist government policy acting to make trade a zero sum game, warfare busily causing default, trade barriers making it cheaper to import goods even with ruinous tariffs because of mercantilist policy, letter de cahiers allowing the state to arrest and hold indefinitely without trial, a massively bloated state, rent seeking by the nobility, purchased titles and official sinecures which shrunk the tax base, forced loans and requisition, a court that sucked up 6% of the national budget, destructive central planning with a focus of micro-management cloth was controlled down to the amount of threads in it, stifling regulations which stretched as far as banning spinning machines for fully a 150 years which was combined with a truly sickening attention to regulations with 16,000 people executed for breaking the regulations about cotton, a populace to afraid to put money in banks because the state would steal it, religious intolerance, a ban on the subdivision and/or selling of land by peasants, increasing tariffs on food which of course made it more expensive for the people and helped bankrupt the poor…

Enlightened pull the other one, a select cadre of men created the system, with Louis XIV on the throne and driving it himself. Louis XIV replaced Feudalism with Feudalism; he just skipped the nobility and concentrated all the power into his own hands. France was despotism economically, it was most certainly absolutist, but where the enlightened bit comes from is beyond me? Maybe from the fine hats?

The sole figure in French history after Louis XIV who stood against this was Turgot and he managed to stall the decline and right some of the wrongs but he was removed because he was simply to successful.

Point 3:

Greek philosophy was a dead hand on intellectual thought; it atrophied for a not insignificant period of time. Scientific Rationalism owes its existence to Locke, Newton and others who if you will overthrew Aristotle and Plato. If we had kept to Aristotle and Plato alone we would not have advanced. Certainly the base of Greek philosophy was important, but does the culture matter as such? One can simply borrow the ideas of Greek Philosophy and ignore the cultural aspect of it.

Unfortunately Greek Philosophy is not something I’m terribly strong in or have access to sources to read up about it. But I do think the casual flinging of Greece, is dismissive of the complexity of the situation and ignores the fact that

Point 4.

Not to sound cynical, but blueprint copying is not a means of success, cargo culture comes to mind. If it was possible to just copy the technology then why was there a 200 year lag between the Dutch industrialising and the British, superficially they both have about the same amount of German and Greek influence. The first instance of Industrialisation was the Dutch Republic why probably because it fulfilled the four factors first,

1. Dutch property rights were well established, it had shed Feudalism pretty quickly after it ejected the Spaniards and even before then it had a large percentage of its population that lived in the cities and towns.
2. Scientific Rationalism was reasonably well established not perfectly but the Dutch never had a strong religious dead weight holding them back.
3. Dutch capital markets were advancing in leaps and bounds, they were amongst the first to use probability to calculate risk, invented at least partially in isolation the idea of government securities and used them to help it win independence from the Spaniards.
4. The Netherlands was small and had an advanced communication and transport system which helped it to trade and industrialise

Now onto your assertion that they are cultural in nature, attributing property rights to Germanic culture is not quite right, English property rights and German rights while still arguably from the same cultural basis are still wildly different. Latin based property rights still exist and never lapsed, both system have differences but arguably not major differences, certainly on the fine points from an economic point of view the Latin system is not as desirable with Spain even to this day exemplifying the worst of Latin property rights. But as an institution they are pretty well spread throughout Europe and were fairly similar, not dissimilar enough except in the worst circumstances to make a large difference (at least for most of European history). The real change comes not from the different systems but from the nations inside the different system, the Dutch and English dispensed with Feudalism first and solidified property rights to allow them to function as they should by providing incentive for production. The German states had a Germanic system of property rights but the basic reason for property rights incentives did not function because feudalism (for a period), with constant warfare and eventually with a change in German thought that attributed the ownership of the land in an abstract sense to the service of the state stunted its effects.

Point 5.

Institutions wise I’m not going to get too far into the Civil Law v. Common Law debate (for the record I do believe that Common Law confers on economies starting up a certain degree of benefit but that, that advantage closes as the economy matures). Common Law is a nowadays is largely an English and English descendant thing; most of the Continent adopted Civil Law. However it is interesting to note that the Dutch used customary law as well as Civil Law which was specifically Roman. Rule of law is important; it yet again provides incentive and protects the factors and results of production. German (which was not Common Law per-say), English and Roman law were used by the vanguard of Industrialised nations, which kind of damages the whole Germans are the only ones with rule of law argument. And before anyone gets any ideas about English Law being the completely German I would challenge you to look up the origins of Common Law and Equity or Chancellery Law.

Information is an interesting one; the Dutch were the first to widely distribute information about economics, they had the first pamphlet in the world which reported on a stock exchange, had the first commodities pamphlet, and had a populace who were sufficiently well informed about the market to actively participate not just in stock purchases, but in life insurance, insurance in general and government securities. This cannot be linked to German or Greek culture; it is a Dutch creation not the residual result of German or Greek thought. But it is not per-say a Dutch cultural creation, printing was available and Dutch venture capitalists used it.

Capital markets are again patently not Greek or German, the Greeks and Romans had them but they never gained prominence. The Venetians refined them to a large degree and improved them but the Dutch were the first nation to really profit in a large way from them. And most of the Dutch capital market innovations were original thought they were yet again not living of the dregs or Greek or German culture. Neither of which supported the notions of loans, or interest a great deal.

And before you start about how I’ve reinforced the argument, I would like to point out that I do in a sense agree with his argument but I don’t buy it completely. I’m trying to show that the Graeco-Germanic cultural combination was not the be all and end all of Industrialisation. Far from it, a great deal of industrialisation owes nothing to either of them, capital markets in a meaningful manner (at least for industrialisation) are the product of first Venice and were finished of largely by the Dutch. Property rights owe little to both in an industrialised context if we had kept to the original system of Greek and German property rights we would have ended up with a system that would not work.

Attempt at a conclusion

I find myself disagreeing with the assertion that Greek and German culture was the sole reason for industrialisation, overarching cultural archetypes were not responsible, certainly both systems failed in a great many countries with an equal amount of exposure to both.

Apologies if it was to wordy (but even if you disagree I hope it might be of some use). Don’t take my disagreement with a great deal of offence; it might have to do with political science viewing things widly different to economics… its in this case a macro v. micro argument.

I would also love to examine his argument about poor decision making in Rome with Austrian methodology; at a quick look he raises valid points.

 

[Disenfrancised]

Point 1.

Ditto on the Jared Diamond argument fascinating and well written (if boring in some places) but seed yield determinism and geographic determinism are faulty… and he never really does get around to explaining why China failed according to his reasoning, or why it flourished when it only had rice…

Uh it had a lot more than rice, and he hypothesised that the ease of chinese unification acted as a break to competition.

1. Dutch property rights were well established, it had shed Feudalism pretty quickly after it ejected the Spaniards and even before then it had a large percentage of its population that lived in the cities and towns.
2. Scientific Rationalism was reasonably well established not perfectly but the Dutch never had a strong religious dead weight holding them back.
3. Dutch capital markets were advancing in leaps and bounds, they were amongst the first to use probability to calculate risk, invented at least partially in isolation the idea of government securities and used them to help it win independence from the Spaniards.
4. The Netherlands was small and had an advanced communication and transport system which helped it to trade and industrialise

5. The Netherlands were at the heart of Northern Europe's riverine transport system which brought lots of easy capital from other states and is really what fueled 1. and 3. of your points: they had lots of cash and the need for commerical organisation, so developed advanced capital markets in response to that and brought food from all over to feed their urbanization. Ditto venice; they had supreb trade positions first, and then developed all the complex commercial rights and capital structures to harness that.

I find myself disagreeing with the assertion that Greek and German culture was the sole reason for industrialisation, overarching cultural archetypes were not responsible, certainly both systems failed in a great many countries with an equal amount of exposure to both.

Necessary is not the same as sufficent.

 

[das]

Uh it had a lot more than rice, and he hypothesised that the ease of chinese unification acted as a break to competition.

Ultimately that oft-repeated line of argument seems rather unconvincing: China did not exactly flourish in any of the numerous times of its disunity. Incidentally, the same goes for India, which was even less unified. Just having a lot of different states alone is not nearly enough, you need some other prerequisites for the European miracle. Though perhaps it is economic, and more specifically commercial, competition that is needed, as opposed to mere political competition which doesn't really strengthen regions (the famous cases in which it does seem to be mostly exceptions).

 

[Disenfrancised]

Ultimately that oft-repeated line of argument seems rather unconvincing: China did not exactly flourish in any of the numerous times of its disunity. Incidentally, the same goes for India, which was even less unified. Just having a lot of different states alone is not nearly enough, you need some other prerequisites for the European miracle. Though perhaps it is economic, and more specifically commercial, competition that is needed, as opposed to mere political competition which doesn't really strengthen regions (the famous cases in which it does seem to be mostly exceptions).

Ah well, China's disunity didn't really give rise to seperate identities, it could be considered more extremely long and low intensity periods of civil war or occupation by foreign overlords.

 

[das]

Separate identities weren't really behind the initial European boom either, I think. Geographic determinism really makes more sense here: more and more different centers could emerge in Europe than in China.

 

[Masada]

Point of Order 1:

In answer to your Netherlands ascertion (wish i could be bothered to dig up the figures i have somewhere i had a quick look, but tbh im not an Econometrician all i could find on short notice was the interest rates).

The Netherlands might well have been at heart of Europe’s riverine transport system, but consider the fact that Germany and France were internally fragmented trade zones , France had exorbitant tariffs and a system of government that emphasised exports and Germany was fragmented politically to such a degree that states often interrupted each others trade as a matter of course.

Also consider that the Netherlands was fighting Spain for an eighty odd years and war with the superpower of the day is unlikely to encourage financial investment. There were three key instruments of the Republics financing, Obligatien which were short term loans, Losrenten which were perpetual, and lijfrenten which ended on the death of the bearer all of which were sold almost exclusively to citizens simply because they are tied geographically by the nature of the financing. These financial instruments were sold to the average people who had the confidence to invest in the markets; in contrast to the other European powers which could not sell without force to the average person (most of them would have been toxic). What is of more interest to note is that Dutch interest rates where much lower, the definition of cheap capital, even on the outbreak of hostilities in say 1550, Dutch rates for normal loans were 4-5% while English rates hovered at 9-12%, French rates sate at 9%. The lower rate of interest is an incentive to not put money in the Republic, your rate of return is lower than you could otherwise get. Money did not flow into the Republic on the contrary, the difficulty associated with keeping track of loans in a foreign country and precipitous nature of the Republics health made attracting foreign capital almost impossible (excluding some loans given by foreign government although they never made up a significant portion of debt). It is also worth mentioning that nobody in Europe had the spare capital floating around to lend the Republic money, the common means of keeping money in France was under the bed, same for Germany (excluding the Hanseatic league but even then it lacked the ability to raise capital from the population as a whole a skill which the Republic had thus having a lower access to overall capital). If anything the Republic was a capital exporter, as the Republics economy matured and the marginal rate of return dropped the Republic loaned to outside parties by 1800 Dutch investment abroad had reached 1.5 billion guilders or twice the Republics average GDP, the Republic also loaned significant sums to America during the war of independence.

One does not lend money to an economy that spent eighty years fighting a superpower, barely survives and to boot has a low interest rate. The Dutch managed because of the confidence in the system without compulsion to raise capital from large segments of the population. Once the Dutch economy matured the rate of return decreased and in the eyes of the rest of the world there was even less reason to invest, even the citizens began to invest abroad because of a higher rate of return.

Point of Order 2:

If anything China should have probably thrived, it was a huge market, had an advanced road network, few internal trade barriers, low taxes, many firms and a large market to sell in. Homogeneous culture is probably not such a bad thing with regards to commerce, given that it allows you to deal on roughly equal terms with everyone else wherever you trade (although I would debate the extent of cultural homogeneity, it did and still does vary to an extent).

Although I think in a political sense it would probably have benefited from competition, you cant right bad practice if you don’t have a few different models to look at… ‘

Point of Order 3.

Might be to late, but your third point might need to be explained.

Misc

The four factors that ive mentioned are pretty widely held in Economic circles as the prime movers of industrialisation.

Note

I must admit I am stunned by the depth going on here... nobody has run in yet and screamed out "its all technological guys, everything is!" your doing better than most Economics students

 

[das]

If anything China should have probably thrived, it was a huge market, had an advanced road network, few internal trade barriers, low taxes, many firms and a large market to sell in. Homogeneous culture is probably not such a bad thing with regards to commerce, given that it allows you to deal on roughly equal terms with everyone else wherever you trade (although I would debate the extent of cultural homogeneity, it did and still does vary to an extent).

It did thrive. This isn't about prosperity, this is about industrialisation, which is if anything stifled by too much prosperity because there is no need for it. China could have benefited from advanced economic competition, but there was really no way to arrange that in East Asia to any reasonable extent.

Then there is the advanced agriculture which also made technological progress rather redundant and useless.

Although I think in a political sense it would probably have benefited from competition, you cant right bad practice if you don’t have a few different models to look at… ‘

Nah, the civil wars worked out pretty well for China in that regard, and most probably will continue to do so in the future.

 

[Masada]

True.

Here’s an indicator which must help you draw a conclusion.

Urbanization Ratio for cities larger than 10,000

Europe 1500: 7% lived in cities, 6 in cities smaller than 50,000 but larger than 10,000 while 1% lived in cities over 50,000

Leaving around 93% of the European population engaged in subsistence agriculture or slightly better.

China 1500

The amount engaged in agriculture was even closer to a 100%, more of the population as a % were engaged in farming, compared to Europe.

(The figure is not as important when you are looking at agriculture for export as a note).

A large populace is not an indicator in prowess, positive checks and all. While to be honest I’m still not sure that it did thrive, it still had a large amount of the populace who were subsistence farmers and on the whole it’s still had roughly the same per capita GDP compared to Europe (the figures themselves are not accurate but are useful).

To my knowledge it did have competition, but only having a single nation state might have conceivably reduced the scope of competition, but one also has to factor in tariffs and trade restrictions which did make more than a few nations’ economic islands in Europe. I tend to agree that competition would have been reduced but to what extent is beyond me.

I’m not sure about technological progress being made redundant by advanced agriculture. It developed some quite impressive inventions that had nothing to do with agriculture. If anything advanced agriculture should have allowed specialisation and value adding behaviour. A question we should be asking ourselves is why did China not think to use some of its inventions or improve upon them. It might have to do with Confucian thought and Conservatism as well as foreign rulers but whether or not that alone could do it is beyond me.

Just some thoughts but if you apply the 4 economic factors and you will see it fails 3 of them and partially satisfies only 1.

 

[das]

While to be honest I’m still not sure that it did thrive, it still had a large amount of the populace who were subsistence farmers and on the whole it’s still had roughly the same per capita GDP compared to Europe (the figures themselves are not accurate but are useful).

While not a very good economic indicator, the Chinese (say, under the Ming Dynasty) still were able to afford things that would've easily ruined any pre-1500 European state; their state apparatus for one. Obviously, having an unified country with developed internal trade and agriculture would allow that, no matter how poorly managed.

I’m not sure about technological progress being made redundant by advanced agriculture. It developed some quite impressive inventions that had nothing to do with agriculture. A question we should be asking ourselves is why did China not think to use some of its inventions or improve upon them. It might have to do with Confucian thought and Conservatism as well as foreign rulers but whether or not that alone could do it is beyond me.

You misunderstand. Yes, they did make many impressive inventions, but so did the Roman-era Greeks (see Hero of Alexandria). However, those inventions were indeed redundant and therefore never implemented on any meaningful scale, instead being used in superfluous ways.

It's not enough to invent something: industrialisation is more about the implementation and combination of prior inventions than about inventing new things.

The ideological factors simply don't enter into it until the 18th century or so (scrapping the Treasure Fleet was more like economical common sense than anything else, as it was deeply unprofitable and existed at a time when the northern parts of the country were constantly threatened by an invasion).

 

[flyingchicken]

Wasn't it in the aristocratic culture of the Chinese to disdain everything mercantile?

 

[Disenfrancised]

Wasn't it in the aristocratic culture of the Chinese to disdain everything mercantile?

Some groups, at some time yes, though that didn't stop merchents from getting around and getting things done .

Though if you're specifically thinking of the mandarins who shut down Zheng He, in their defense the voyages were a stupid waste of money and resources .

 

[flyingchicken]

Though if you're specifically thinking of the mandarins who shut down Zheng He, in their defense the voyages were a stupid waste of money and resources .

Nah, I was thinking of it in the general sense. I wasn't aware Zheng He was considered a merchant (I thought he had a government office of some sort, for no reason in particular).