Joel Mokyr interview

An interview of Joel Mokyr by Ana Swanson from the Washington Post.

Why did the industrial revolution start in Europe, rather than in China? In part because,

It isn’t just that China doesn’t have an Industrial Revolution, it doesn’t have a Galileo or a Newton or a Descartes, people who announced that everything people did before them was wrong. That’s hard to do in any society, but it was easier to do in Europe than China. The reason precisely is because Europe was fragmented, and so when somebody says something very novel and radical, if the government decides they are a heretic and threatens to prosecute them, they pack their suitcase and go across the border.

So exit options can matter. One government doesn't like your ideas, move onto the next.