在政治竞争、创新和增长e History of Asian Civilizations

Edited by Peter Bernholz, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Center for Economics and Business (WWZ), University of Basle, Switzerland and Roland Vaubel, Professor of Economics, University of Mannheim, Germany

Do political decentralisation and inter state competition favour innovation and growth? There has long been a lively debate surrounding this question, going back to David Hume and Immanuel Kant. This book is a new attempt to test its veracity.

The existing literature tends to assume that the beneficial effects of inter state competition have been confined to European history. By contrast, China, India and the Islamic Middle East are regarded as inherently imperial and overcentralised. However, these civilisations have not always been unified politically. In their history, there have been long spells of decentralised rule or inter state competition. The same is true for Japan. If the Hume–Kant hypothesis is correct, it should also apply to those periods. This volume analyses the qualitative and quantitative evidence.

‘It is impossible for the arts and sciences to arise, at first, among any people unless that people enjoy the blessing of a free government. . . Nothing is more favourable to the rise of politeness and learning than a number of neighbouring and independent states, connected together by commerce and policy. . . Where a number of neighbouring states have great intercourse of arts and commerce, their mutual jealousy keeps them from receiving too lightly the law from each other, in matters of taste and of reasoning, and makes them examine every work of art with the greatest care and accuracy.’
– David Hume, 1742

‘Now that the States are already in the present day involved in such close relations with each other that none of them can pause or slacken its internal civilization with out losing power and influence in relation to the rest. . . Civil liberty cannot now be easily assailed without inflicting such damage as will be felt in all trades and industries, and especially in commerce; and this would entail a diminution of the powers of the State in external relations. . . And thus it is that, notwithstanding the intrusion of many a delusion and caprice, the spirit of enlightenment gradually arises as a great good which the human race must derive even from the selfish purposes of aggrandizement on the part of its rulers, if they understand what is for their own advantage.’
– Immanuel Kant, 1784