If farms are smaller / society is less agrarian / agricultural productivity is higher then urbanization rate is higher (agriculture can't absorb as much surplus labor) and elites are less likely to be agrarian in basis
I’m not following the argument as applied based on my understanding of Italian history.
The term Malaria was coined in the Po Valley, but the southern form was more deadly.
Both northern and southern Italy have longstanding farming traditions. The big difference was Roman Empire.
North was autonomous freeholders and paterfamilias, with full autonomy. South, post Punic wars, was effectively a slave colony of large estates needed as Rome’s breadbasket.
As Rome declined, the south was the beginning of middle age serfdom as you point out. It was in radical economic decline due to loss of markets and Roman shipping.
The north had a more complex economy; perhaps the richest in Europe as a continuation of Etruscan times (HRE was just a nuisance that disappeared.) This included a strong middle class and cities and industry and trade as stated. It’s not for nothing that the Renaissance started here.
I think culture and history are culprits here, and don’t blame plasmids
The argument was exactly that the north was freeholders because of the low levels of Malaria, while the south was a slave colony because the only people who would work in the high Malaria regions are people being forced to as slaves.
You're while argument is exactly what was presented, but the post explains why the south and north originally differed. You just take for granted one region had freeholders and the other slaves.
Italy eradicated malaria in 1970. In fact there were very few cases after 1948. If malaria were the only factor causing the north-south divide then the GDPs of Northern and Southern Italy would have Solow-converged by now.
The major ports are in Northern Italy and the roads connecting Italy to the rest of Europe are in Northern Italy. If a company is trying to decide whether to build a factory in Northern Italy or Southern Italy then, well, labour and land are cheaper in the south but importing raw materials, tools machinery etc and exporting finished products is going to be cheaper in the north due to lower shipping costs. As a result, companies are not rushing in to take advantage of all that cheap labour and so the labour is doomed to remain cheap.
The argument isn't that malaria continues to directly be the cause, it is that the North has its modern economic advantages as an effect of infrastructure (physical and societal) built when malaria was impactful.
That's one take. Another take is they are full of mulattos who spent centuries spreading their Mohammed therebye given them a lower than average IQ and inferior culture to the point you might as well be in southern Libya.
Why were the North's elite "predominantly mercantile and industrial rather than agricultural" and is it tied to malaria in some way I didn't catch?
If farms are smaller / society is less agrarian / agricultural productivity is higher then urbanization rate is higher (agriculture can't absorb as much surplus labor) and elites are less likely to be agrarian in basis
This is describing a mechanism to explain why that was
Family systems are simpler in souther Italy than in Northern, and specially central Italy. Heindrich was dramatically wrong in that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1mcib4/traditional_family_systems_of_europe_from_the/
I'm very glad I have stumbled on to your Over population/New Guinea essay and wider work. Absolutely phenomenal stuff.
I’m not following the argument as applied based on my understanding of Italian history.
The term Malaria was coined in the Po Valley, but the southern form was more deadly.
Both northern and southern Italy have longstanding farming traditions. The big difference was Roman Empire.
North was autonomous freeholders and paterfamilias, with full autonomy. South, post Punic wars, was effectively a slave colony of large estates needed as Rome’s breadbasket.
As Rome declined, the south was the beginning of middle age serfdom as you point out. It was in radical economic decline due to loss of markets and Roman shipping.
The north had a more complex economy; perhaps the richest in Europe as a continuation of Etruscan times (HRE was just a nuisance that disappeared.) This included a strong middle class and cities and industry and trade as stated. It’s not for nothing that the Renaissance started here.
I think culture and history are culprits here, and don’t blame plasmids
The argument was exactly that the north was freeholders because of the low levels of Malaria, while the south was a slave colony because the only people who would work in the high Malaria regions are people being forced to as slaves.
You're while argument is exactly what was presented, but the post explains why the south and north originally differed. You just take for granted one region had freeholders and the other slaves.
Look at the two slave revolts in Sicily.
to what end, and why would that dispute that the reason for the higher level of slavery was malarial conditions?
Italy eradicated malaria in 1970. In fact there were very few cases after 1948. If malaria were the only factor causing the north-south divide then the GDPs of Northern and Southern Italy would have Solow-converged by now.
The major ports are in Northern Italy and the roads connecting Italy to the rest of Europe are in Northern Italy. If a company is trying to decide whether to build a factory in Northern Italy or Southern Italy then, well, labour and land are cheaper in the south but importing raw materials, tools machinery etc and exporting finished products is going to be cheaper in the north due to lower shipping costs. As a result, companies are not rushing in to take advantage of all that cheap labour and so the labour is doomed to remain cheap.
The argument isn't that malaria continues to directly be the cause, it is that the North has its modern economic advantages as an effect of infrastructure (physical and societal) built when malaria was impactful.
That's one take. Another take is they are full of mulattos who spent centuries spreading their Mohammed therebye given them a lower than average IQ and inferior culture to the point you might as well be in southern Libya.