Origins and Growth of the Global Economy: From the Fifteenth Century Onward (review)

Few scholars are confident enough to believe that they can describe the history of the "origins and growth of the global economy" in 275 pages. But Ronald Seavoy, an emeritus professor of history at Bowling Green State University, uses that history to illuminate two themes: to show that the global economy is built on the foundation of European commercial imperialism and "to show that the global economy as it is currently evolving is capable of producing consumer cultures in all nations that adopt policies to increase exports" (p. 1). The book, however, did not convince this reader. His hypothesis suffers from many overarching generalizations. At times, Seavoy seems to be describing development throughout the South. At other times, he explicitly limits his purview to West Africa.

Although the book is footnoted, the arguments are built on secondary source analysis, and they also occasionally suffer from lack of clarity. Moreover, the book raises but does not answer several key questions. First, if the global economy could produce consumer cultures everywhere, why hasn't it? Moreover, is the production of consumer cultures the best way to summarize global economic development? Finally, where do production-oriented countries such as Japan fit into this model?

Seavoy occasionally interrupts his arguments to criticize other scholars whom he calls wrong because their arguments are invalid or "politically correct," as if that is sufficient to explain why they got the analysis wrong and why his is right (pp. 145–47, 149, 151). Moreover, in his view, these scholars are inclined to use "weasel words" (pp. 145, 148). But if the work of the scholars before him is so inadequate, why not begin the book with an overview of why our existing hypotheses about global economic development are insufficient? Instead, Professor Seavoy begins with an overview of European commercial imperialism. He argues that its purpose "was to mobilize the labor of resident populations to produce larger amounts of exchange commodities than they would normally produce so that the surplus could be exported and sold on anonymous markets" (pp. 4–5). Commercial imperialism "became permanent because European nations had sufficient military and naval power" (p. 5). But the imperialism was not permanent. Settlers throughout North and South America demanded their freedom in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Chapter 2 examines commerce and taxation in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Here is where Seavoy begins to relate imperialism to a consumption-oriented society. He notes that parliamentary leaders understood that in order to generate enough taxes to pay for the state, England had to increase the volume, value, and variety of artisan manufacturing and maritime commerce. This chapter compares the British variety of political economy with that of the Spanish and Dutch and also examines imperialism in the colonies and in India.

In chapter 3 Seavoy notes that nineteenth-century imperialism differed from earlier imperialism because it was impelled by technology "and the vacuum of power that existed in all subsistence cultures" (p. 121). Thus, he argues, governing elites in subsistence cultures participated on terms offered by imperial nations. Professor Seavoy notes that many nations (from Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the Spanish colonies of the Americas) do not fit his overarching generalization, but that does not lead him to question its utility. On page 127 Seavoy finally admits that Russia, Japan, and the United States do not fit his rubric because these nations industrialized. But he does not explain how or why.

The focus on consumers gets lost in the chapters that follow. Chapter 4 defines "the revolution" as the forcible intrusion of imperial commerce and governance into subsistence culture. Chapter 5 then updates his thesis to fit the global economic governance structure. In this analysis, political, social, and technological trends are absent.

Chapter 6 describes how big corporations became global corporations. He sees these corporations as providing global public goods—raising the level of material welfare for those citizens...