England’s maritime acumen enabled it to nimbly switch trade partners at will, keeping it an economic step ahead of all competitors.

As Karl Tagon said, «List all your assets, kid.» Maritime acumen, backstabbing acumen and hypocrisy acumen. I once linked a book with non-British view of the question: “Vampire of Europe”.

They also saw bottomless markets. The English system, therefore, didn’t seek (just) simple plunder, but also to develop a global trade system with England at the center. Unlike deepwater navigation, which developed in response to the economic need, industrialization was an outgrowth of opportunity.

And the Romans didn’t seek (just) simple plunder, but also to develop an indefinitely expanding tribute system with Rome at the center. So?

Had the Industrial Revolution happened anywhere else on the planet, there would have been a market crash as the prices of goods would have cratered due to insufficient demand.

If all those factories have suddenly built themselves elsewhere, prices would fall. Uh…
The author seems to assume supply & demand balance applies only to the consumer products, and the rest is shaped by fairy dust.

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/nyse-pulls-plan-environmentally-sustainable-asset-class-2024-01-17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvxxdZpMFHg

I’m wondering about the urge to securitize other things, like carbon.

What stops TPTB from nationalizing oxygen in the atmosphere, and charging us for it’s use; and punishing badthinkers by denying use of the resource?

Industry cooperation consists of standards boards and such. Perhaps the archetype of such is PCI-DSS.

The regulatory state creates tens of millions of jobs for middle-class women.

Real-estate securitization is how the banking system generates its good credit. Real-estate titling is monopolized by the court system, which lets the member banks of the Federal Reserve System inflate the unit of account (the dollar) by refinancing the nation’s real estate over and over. It is the four thousand member banks of the Federal Reserve System, and not the twelve Federal Reserve banks, that drive inflation, because substantially all dollars “in” banks originate with—that is, are created by—mortgage transactions. Everyone needs space and shelter, so the threat of homelessness is employed to keep the human resources “locked in”. One virtue of this arrangement is that trickle-down is minimized because the dollars created return to shareholders instead of bleeding out to jobs-havers, minimizing consumer inflation.

I’d suggest Britain became relatively wealthy in spite of, not because of, their empire building proclivities. Italy; France; Germany; others became similarly wealthy with a lot less ‘White Man Burdening.’

Also don’t like his emphasis on consumption, as if selling toilet paper is the only activity of an economy. There is the thing about adding value; creating wealth; producing things that make us better off, even if our population is small in number. Do you want to live among 100 wealthy people? A 1000 comfortable people? Or 10,000 in squalor?