or two ideas that I want to make sure we're on the same page, mercantilism and Colombian exchange. Those are two terms you've probably heard of before, but they're going to be really big ones for what we're doing next week, which, by the way, if you have not heard, it is extremely likely that we will be back in person starting on Monday. Just a heads up on that. So...
I want to make sure, like I said, I want to make sure we're clear on these. We'll get into much more detail about both of them next week. But to start off with the concept of mercantilism, which I think you might have learned about in middle school. It used to be the case that you would learn about it in middle school.
The big idea here, though, is mercantilism is an economic theory. But it's an economic theory that almost everybody in Europe is practicing at the time. And it turns into a kind of competition. It's a game. You can think of it as mercantilism is a game and everybody's playing, even if you don't know you're playing.
But there's three big ideas about mercantilism that are expressed in the image here. So the first part of mercantilism is because there's this belief that there's a limited amount of wealth in the world, if you have wealth, somebody else doesn't. And that wealth is measured in gold and silver. And the gold and silver gets melted down into what we call bullion, which are basically like these standardized bars of gold and silver.
So the thing about mercantilism is, you can think of it, it's a game, and the scoreboard is how much gold and silver do you have in your treasury. Well, how do you get more gold and silver? Well, that's where the second image comes in.
You have to maintain a favorable balance of trade. By that we mean you have to export more things, in other words, sell more stuff to other countries than you buy from other countries, which are imports. And if you can do that, you have a favorable balance of trade, and over time, you will accumulate more gold and silver, and you will win.
But the third aspect, and kind of the wild card of all of that, is manufacturing. You have to make stuff. Why?
Well, because that's the stuff that you're going to sell to other countries. So the basic idea, if you're going to do this well, is you're going to get raw materials. and then you're going to turn them into manufactured goods and then sell them to get more and so on and so forth, that's going to lead to more exports than imports. That's going to lead to more bullion, and that's how you win the mercantilism game. So that's the basic idea, the three parts to mercantilism.
Again, we'll get into this in more detail next week, but I want to make sure we're clear. Because, let's take a concrete example here. Okay, and this is the second slide, the top right corner of the sheet if you printed it out. Let's look, for example, at England versus Spain. And no, this isn't European soccer.
This is the game of mercantilism. And they were, in fact, playing this game against each other at the time. So England and Spain are playing each other in the mercantilism game, okay?
But before the season starts, Spain is the heavy, heavy favorite. Why are they the heavy favorite? Because they have the first, third, and fourth largest silver mines in the world in their colonies. They are getting so much silver bullion in Spain. And so you immediately think, okay, if the point is whoever has the most bullion wins, then why doesn't Spain win?
Spain should win automatically. Good point. But let's stop and take a look for a moment at what exactly England is doing. First, England is focusing on manufacturing stuff, on making stuff.
Then they are selling that stuff to states in Africa. Manufactured goods going to states in Africa. So... They're exporting stuff.
With the profits of those exports, they are then purchasing slaves, which they are shipping to North America, where it becomes free labor from the owner's perspective. Those slaves are then working for free in North America to produce things like cotton, tobacco, and sugar, which are then going back to England. Now, you might remember, I think you still learned this in middle school, this is what's known as the triangle trade.
But as you'll see next week, the triangle trade is really the middle school version of what's going on here because it's much more complex. And we'll wait to go into the full complexity next week. But for right now, let me point this out. What does England do with those raw materials?
Well, they turn them into manufactured goods. But they're not only selling them to Africa, they're turning around and selling them back to their colonies in North America. And because they are the colonies of England, England makes them buy their manufactured goods from England. They have no choice in the matter.
So check it out. What you have is a very favorable balance of trade. You've got manufactured goods being exported and very little being imported.
So now let's go back to Spain. They're sitting on literal mountains of silver bullion. What are they doing with all that bullion? Well, in point of fact, they're shipping over half of it to Asia. It goes to the Philippines, where they then spend it in Japan, China, and India.
For what? For manufactured goods from China and India. Guys, the good stuff has always come from China and India.
It's always been that way. But look at what is happening here. Spain has a very unfavorable balance of trade. They're taking the thing that they should be accumulating and shipping it and importing everything.
Notice, they're not exporting anything. So, yes, it's true. Spain starts off with more bullion than anybody else, and yet they end up losing the mercantilism game. Why?
Because they have no manufacturing, and they have a horribly unfavorable balance of trade. That's the point I want to instill on you today, that it doesn't really make sense why by 1750 England is dominating and Spain is not, unless you understand that the whole system of mercantilism is based on more than just the bullion. There's two other aspects to it.
Okay. I think some of you forget that I can see you. Second concept is the Columbian Exchange, which is so-called because of Christopher Columbus.
Not because he exchanged anything, but because it happened after him. But I want to point out by saying that it is not a trade route. What we're looking at next week is how the unification of the eastern and western hemispheres leads to new trade routes that are really global. But a lot of people confuse that because the Columbian Exchange, it seems sort of like a trade route, but it's not.
What it is instead is a process of biological diffusion. We've seen diffusion of goods. We've seen diffusion of ideas.
This is diffusion of life. Think about it. The two hemispheres, the eastern hemisphere, which we sometimes call the old world or Afro-Eurasia, and the… Western Hemisphere or New World of the Americas, they have been completely separated since the last Ice Age.
With the exception of maybe the Vikings and the Polynesians, or from at least one person's perspective, Zheng He's fleet, there has been no contact of life between those two things. Specifically, though, what we're talking about are domesticated plants. wild plants as well, domesticated animals and wild animals, and microbes. Now in terms of domesticated plants, we could further divide those into two groups.
You got food crops, that is domesticated plants, those that are grown for food, and you got cash crops. Cash crops, some of them you could eat, like for example sugar, but the purpose is to make more money than you invested. In terms of...
domesticated animals. Some animals are domesticated for food. But remember, even that could be subdivided because you got food where you actually consume the animal, and then you got secondary products, like consider a chicken.
You've got the meat from the chicken, but you also have eggs or cows. You've got the beef, but you've also got the milk. But then some animals are domesticated for their ability to do work, like moving people, for example.
Many domesticated animals are used to transport or to pull a plow, something like that. In the case of microbes, what we're talking about are diseases. There's no really subdivision there.
Now, you have this image on your slide for this, and you're not going to write anything here. But I'm going to pair you up with somebody and... I'm going to give you about three or four minutes, and here's what I want you to do.
Do not write anything down, but look at this chart. You and your partner off the top of your head, how many of these things can you remember that come from the old world, and how many of these come from the new world? Try to get like two, three, four maybe from each of these. How many off the top of the head can you remember? Don't write it down.
Just brainstorm with your partner. So I'm pairing you up now. I'm going to give you about three or four minutes off the top of your head. How many of these things can you name right now? But one thing I'm going to give you a heads up on.
Next week, I'm also going to make the argument that if the Columbian Exchange is about biological diffusion, obviously plants, animals, and microbes belong there, but I'm going to suggest that maybe human beings should be part of that as well, especially when you consider that there are humans from one part of the world being moved to another part of the world, even if against their will, that are going to have some dramatic consequences. maybe not so great as the plants, animals, and microbes, but significant ones. At least that's what I'm going to argue. Now, the term Columbian Exchange actually comes from this book that was written by Alfred Crosby and published in 1972. So for the rest of class, you're going to read an interview with him.
It's two pages. Do not print it out. It's a very easy read. Like it's short and it's really easy to read.
Okay. But the first page of it, he talks a little bit about the history of trying to get it published. The book was published in 1972, but it took him years and years and years to get somebody to publish it because nobody really understood what he was trying to say.
And what I want you to think about, you don't need to write anything here. But I want you to think about, like, why did people think that was so weird at the time? Because it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to us now.
But then when you get to the second page, as you're reading it, I want you to pay attention to what are the plants, animals, and microbes that he thinks are the most important in the Columbian Exchange. Then you're going to answer questions about that on Schoology. Now, the questions are not hard, and they're basically, I just told you this, what are the animals, plants, and microbes that he thinks are the most important? So if you're reading it, pay attention.
It's not hard, I promise you. However, the last question is the most important question, and you have to do this before you leave class here. Because here's the thing.
Crosby says that in his view. The most important thing that ever happened in human history was the Columbian Exchange. But I want to know, which do you think affected human history more? Was it the Neolithic Revolution, when human beings, like all human beings, were hunters and gatherers, and then people start domesticating plants and animals for their food? Or do you agree that it was the Columbian Exchange?
when those plants, animals, and microbes are now going back and forth between two previously cut-off parts of the world? Or do you think it was the Industrial Revolution, where humans develop machines to do work for them instead of muscle power? There's no wrong answer. There's no right answer. Well, the wrong answer is none.
It's your opinion. But I genuinely want to know what you think about this. So answer it honestly and just tell me why you think so because I'm genuinely curious. Okay? So let me have your attention here.
The rest of class, read the interview, answer the questions, give me your opinion. Okay? Then you have no homework tonight. Tomorrow is supposed to be an asynchronous day.
Please listen to me here, though. You have an asynchronous weekend. Because here's what's going to happen.
Tomorrow morning, I'm going to post a link to the second video of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's 55 minutes. You've got to watch it. You've got to watch it all. Don't speed through it.
And there will be a PDF that you want to print out or you could use Kami. You're going to take notes as you watch the film. Okay. There are no questions to answer. There's no like focus questions or any of that stuff.
But here's the thing. You could start it tomorrow and then finish it sometime over the weekend. You could do it all tomorrow.
You could do none of it tomorrow. I just need you to pledge you're going to watch the whole thing and take the notes on the sheet that I put up there sometime before Monday. Are we clear on that? Like, I'm just trusting you to do it, but the advantage of that is, A, you have no other homework, and B, you do it whenever you can do it. Do it in little bits.
I don't care. Just get it done by Monday. All right. So unless you have questions and there are a couple of you, I hope to stick around because I want to. I know you have questions.
Unless you have questions, get out of here. Read the PDF. It's super. I mean, it's not hard.
Then answer the questions on Schoology and you're done. And the link to the video and the thing you take notes on will be up there tomorrow morning. Have a great weekend, guys, and it looks like I'll see you in person on Monday. Bye-bye.
Hit me. I was hoping you'd stick around. So, yes.
Hold on. I'm having a hard time with my screen here. Give me just a second, okay? All right, that's the first step.