What Makes Great Powers Great?

"All roads lead to Rome."

This Western proverb means that the Roman Empire was once the center of the world. And behind the glory of that empire were its well-maintained roads. Those roads enabled merchants of many ethnic backgrounds to trade, and carts and carriages traveled along them, helping usher in the empire’s golden age. In short, Rome’s roads were a kind of “open road” through which civilization spread and other cultures were embraced, and thus a symbol of “openness.” That is why Plutarch once observed, “No factor did more to make Rome powerful than its way of assimilating the defeated.”

There are quite a few cases besides the Roman Empire in which a nation prospered through “openness.”

The Netherlands, which gained independence from Spain in 1648, grew rapidly through maritime trade and emerged as a center of art, culture, and science. Around this time, the Dutch East India Company—the world’s first joint-stock company and the first modern corporation—was also established. There are even records showing that about 75% of the world’s merchant ships at the time were Dutch vessels, indicating that the Netherlands once dominated the seas of the world. The reason the Netherlands was able to enter its golden age after independence was that it guaranteed freedom—especially freedom of religion.

Under Spanish colonial rule, the Netherlands had seen Calvinism become highly popular, particularly among merchants, but no faith other than Catholicism was tolerated. This was because King Philip II of Spain had cast himself as the defender of Catholicism and persecuted Protestants (the Geuzen). But the harsher the repression became, the fiercer the resistance grew, and in the end the Netherlands won its independence. Afterward, the Dutch made religious tolerance a core value, and by guaranteeing religious freedom, they attracted large numbers of people from across Europe who had suffered persecution.

Among those who migrated to the Netherlands were skilled artisans and merchants with exceptional talents. In this process, new shipbuilding technologies and innovative financial techniques were introduced, enabling the Netherlands to develop even further. In other words, by accepting people of many different backgrounds through religious freedom, the Netherlands was also able to embrace their superior abilities and technologies and thereby enjoy a golden age. By contrast, Spain, which championed Roman Catholicism and blood purity, gradually entered a path of decline as non-Catholics departed.

The United States’ rise into the ranks of the superpowers can also be understood in a similar context.

In 1862, at the height of the Civil War, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln enacted the Homestead Act in order to draw several western states to his side. Under this law, Lincoln promised to grant 200,000 pyeong of public land to male heads of household aged 21 or older who engaged in westward settlement for five years, charging only processing fees. Moreover, in the case of foreigners, the law even guaranteed the acquisition of citizenship. As a result, after the Civil War ended, many people from Europe immigrated to the American West. It was at this very moment that the “American Dream” emerged.

Thereafter, the United States was able to leap forward as a rising industrial power thanks to a supply of inexpensive labor composed of large numbers of immigrants, and with the addition of new technologies and advanced management methods, it developed rapidly. As a result, the U.S. economy recorded an average annual growth rate of about 5% from the 1870s until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. During roughly the same period, Britain’s economic growth rate was on a steady decline, falling to 2.1% in the 1870s and 1.6% in 1880, which shows just how remarkable America’s economic growth was. In short, the “American Dream,” grounded in “openness,” became the driving force behind America’s expansion.

Ultimately, ancient Rome, the Netherlands, and the United States all laid the foundation for national prosperity and military strength by maintaining an open posture and absorbing external resources. Had they remained consistently closed and exclusionary, their histories might have turned out completely differently.

Indeed, the examples mentioned above call to mind Genghis Khan’s famous saying: “Those who build walls perish; those who build roads prosper.” The Qin dynasty, which built the Great Wall, collapsed a mere 15 years after unifying the Central Plains. Likewise, Joseon, which shut its roads on the grounds that they could become routes for foreign invasion in wartime, disappeared into history. That is why early Silhak scholars such as Je Ga Park pointed out that “a country is poor because carts cannot travel.” In this way, it is difficult to prosper within closed walls. Since the very purpose of a wall is to guard and defend, that may be only natural.

Therefore, if a nation wishes to avoid decline and pursue growth, it must actively strive for globalization and an open society. In other words, it must secure “openness.” It is now time for us as well to boldly tear down the fences of our closed walls and open new roads.

---

Original title: 강대국의 비결은 어디에 있을까

Author: Seong-woo Jeong

Date: 2020-12-23

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=free_opinion&pn=12&idx=23374