Economic growth and technological advance interact and drive the rise Essay

Economic growth and technological advance interact and drive the rise of Western Civilization through 1500 - Essay Example hnological advancement had prompted for the start of the Age of Discovery, which lead to the start of the rising power of the Western European region. The start of economic growth in the Western European region was when the status of private property rights was changed and given more emphasis in line with the Protestant work ethic. According to Robert Higgs in his article "The Rise of the West," this change in the status had provided people more incentive to accumulate capital, hence the development of capitalism and start of economic progress followed: "Fundamental to that sustained dynamism was the gradually improving status of private property rights. So long as people cannot count on a reasonable prospect of reaping the fruits of their efforts and investments, they have little or no incentive to work hard or to accumulate physical, human, and intellectual capital. And without such accumulation, no ongoing economic progress is possible. More reliable private property rights did not just drop from heaven, however. For the most part, the merchants acquired the protection of such rights by paying off the robber barons and aspiring kings who constituted the fragmented ruling stratum of Western Europe (Higgs 2002)." As the status of private property rights changed, accumulation of intellectual capital had been rewarded in relation to trade. New technological advancements had enabled agriculture to flourish in the region. The significant inventions such as water mills and new farming techniques had enabled better and more plenty production of agricultural goods. According to the "Technology in the Middle Ages" page of San Jose State University website, "In addition to the redesign of the plow, the way the crops were grown changed in Medieval Europe when farmers changed from a two-field crop rotation to a three-field crop rotation beginning in the 8th century (SJSU.edu 2009)." Two other significant agricultural technologies had helped grow the production of crops in