Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

The demographic cycle may be divided into four stages which we have designated by the first four letters of the alphabet. These four stages can be distinguished in respect to four traits: the birthrate, the death rate, the number of the population, and its age distribution. The nature of the four stages in these four respects can be seen in the following table:

The Demographic Cycle

Stage

A

B

C

D

Birthrate

High

High

Falling

Low

Death rate

High

Falling

Low-

Rising

Numbers

Stable

Rising

Stable

Falling

Age Distribution

Many young (below 18)

Many in prime (18-45)

Many middle-aged (over 30)

Many old (over 50)

The consequences of this demographic cycle (and the resulting demographic explosion) as it diffuses outward from western Europe to more peripheral areas of the world may be gathered from the following table which sets out the chronology of this movement in the four areas of western Europe, central Europe, eastern Europe, and Asia:

In this table the line of greatest population pressure (the demographic explosion of Type B population) has been marked by a dotted line. This shows that there has been a sequence, at intervals of about fifty years, of four successive population pressures which might be designated with the following names:

Anglo-French pressure, about 1850

Germanic-Italian pressure, about 1900

Slavic pressure, about 1950

Asiatic pressure, about 2000

This diffusion of pressure outward from the western European core of Western Civilization can contribute a great deal toward a richer understanding of the period 1850-2000. It helps to explain the Anglo-French rivalry about 1850, the Anglo-French alliance based on fear of Germany after 1900, the free-world alliance based on fear of Soviet Russia after 1950, and the danger to both Western Civilization and Soviet Civilization from Asiatic pressure by 2000.

These examples show how our understanding of the problems of the twentieth century world can be illuminated by a study of the various developments of western Europe and of the varying rates by which they diffused outward to the more peripheral portions of Western Civilization and ultimately to the non-Western world. In a rough fashion we might list these developments in the order in which they appeared in Western Europe as well as the order in which they appeared in the more remote non-Western world:

Developments in Western Europe

Developments in Asia

1. Western ideology

1. Revolution in weapons

2. Revolution in weapons (especially

firearms)

2. Revolution in transport and

communication

3. Agricultural Revolution

3. Revolution in sanitation and medicine

4. Industrial Revolution

4. Industrial Revolution

5. Revolution in sanitation and medicine

5. Demographic explosion

6. Demographic explosion

6. Agricultural revolution

7. Revolution in transportation and communications

7. And last (if at all), Western ideology

Naturally, these two lists are only a rough approximation to the truth. In the European list it should be quite clear that each development is listed in the order of its first beginning and that each of these traits has been a continuing process of development since. In the Asiatic list it should be clear that the order of arrival of the different traits is quite different in different areas and that the order given on this list is merely one which seems to apply to several important areas. Naturally, the problems arising from the advent of these traits in Asiatic areas depend on the order in which the traits arrive, and thus are quite different in areas where this order of arrival is different. The chief difference arises from a reversal of order between items 3 and 4.

The fact that Asia obtained these traits in a different order from that of Europe is of the greatest significance. We shall devote much of the rest of this book to examining this subject. At this point we might point out two aspects of it. In 1830 democracy was growing rapidly in Europe and in America. At that time the development of weapons had reached a point where governments could not get weapons which were much more effective than those which private individuals could get. Moreover, private individuals could obtain good weapons because they had a high enough standard of living to afford it (as a result of the Agricultural Revolution) and such weapons were cheap (as a result of the Industrial Revolution). By 1930 (and even more by 1950) the development of weapons had advanced to the point where governments could obtain more effective weapons (dive-bombers, armored cars, flamethrowers, poisonous gases, and such) than private individuals. Moreover, in Asia, these better weapons arrived before standards of living could be raised by the Agricultural Revolution or costs of weapons reduced sufficiently by the Industrial Revolution. Moreover, standards of living were held down in Asia because the Sanitation-Medical Revolution and the demographic explosion arrived before the Agricultural Revolution. As a result, governments in Europe in 1830 hardly dared to oppress the people, and democracy was growing; but in the non-European world by 1930 (and even more by 1950) governments did dare to, and could, oppress their peoples, who could do little to prevent it. When we add to this picture the fact that the ideology of Western Europe had strong democratic elements derived from its Christian and scientific traditions, while Asiatic countries had authoritarian traditions in political life, we can see that democracy had a hopeful future in Europe in 1830 but a very dubious future in Asia in 1950.

From another point of view we can see that in Europe the sequence of Agricultural-Industrial-Transportation revolutions made it possible for Europe to have rising standards of living and little rural oppression, since the Agricultural Revolution provided the food and thus the labor for industrialism and for transport facilities. But in Asia, where the sequence of these three revolutions was different (generally: Transportation-Industrial-Agricultural), labor could be obtained from the Sanitary-Medical Revolution, but food for this labor could be obtained only by oppressing the rural population and preventing any real improvements in standards of living. Some countries tried to avoid this by borrowing capital for railroads and steel mills from European countries rather than by raising capital from the savings of their own people, but this meant that these countries became the debtors (and thus to some extent the subordinates) of Europe. Asiatic nationalism usually came to resent this debtor role and to prefer the role of rural oppression of its own people by its own government. The most striking example of this preference for rural oppression over foreign indebtedness was made in the Soviet Union in 1928 with the opening of the Five-Year plans. Somewhat similar but less drastic choices were made even earlier in Japan and much later in China. But we must never forget that these and other difficult choices had to be made by Asiatics because they obtained the diffused traits of Western Civilization in an order different from that in which Europe obtained them.