The rise of the British merchants

So seldom do so many of the topics I want to talk about converge on a single article, many people don't realise that this industrialised world we lived in had a bottleneck in history not too long ago. And that bottleneck was in 17-18th century Enlightened England. The legacy of it? The world domination of the British merchant class.

It all started when during some time in the Renaissance, about 1400s, the British merchants were living in the upper-middle class, and trade was making alot of money. In the studies done, the merchants were found to have the highest number of children as compared with the normal peasant, that is about 4 children per merchant to about 1.5 child per peasant. (Of course kings have more children, but their proportion in the country is so small that it didn't really matter) These children inherit the family fortune, as well as genetic traits and the upbringing of their wealthy families. However there were only a fixed amount of social positions in England, and naturally, the traits of the peasants get pushed out of the society (took a few hundred years for that to happen). So what happened is that England was the first to evolve and be dominated by merchants and the industry of trade.

Now, the first few things you need to know about merchants is that trade flourish in peaceful countries, so the large number of merchants in England pushed the government for a number of policies for a stable country, such as lowering crime. And of course everyone knows that England was situated on an island separated from Europe and so wasn't too affected by wars, especially when defended by the large Royal Navy. Together with flourishing trade was also flourishing Science, since Britain wasn't controlled by the Catholic Church and so scientific talents were free to publish. This then cumulated into the Industrial Revolution, and brought fourth every merchant's dream of capitalism.

And so there you have it, with the Industrial Revolution, the British merchants literally took over the world. The British East India Company was perhaps the largest trading company in the world, when assimilated by the British Empire, about a quarter of the world was under its rule, spreading the ideas of the Industrial Revolution like wildfire. Although Spain was large during that time, it was economically much poorer, so European competitors on seeing British lead also industrialised and practised capitalism. And that was enough to transform the world forever, even when Communism tried to overthrow capitalism, ultimately they failed.

It is stunning to think that just because of one group of people on one island off the coast of Europe living only a few centuries ago, the world was overran by British merchants and their ideas. And that the modern, industrialised, liberal global society is modelled from them.