The Long Nineteenth Century: 19th Century

The possible victory of Germany in World War II (WWII) is the standard counterfactual for the Long Nineteenth Century (see the Notes below and the video above). Although interesting, I'm not sure it's the best counterfactual, at least from the standpoint of World-Systems Theory (WST).

From the WST perspective a more interesting counterfactual is "What If WWI, the Great Depression and WWII had never happened". What would the history of Long Twentieth Century have been?

If we have systems models of the major countries in both the 19th and 20th Centuries, we can forecast the 19th Century models into the 20th Century to create an alternative history where WWI, the Great Depression and WWII never happened. When then compare the actual paths of the comparable 20th Century models to see what was actually different.

One possible problem is that the data for the 19th Century, the War and Inter-War Periods are not great for most countries in the World-System. However, what we can do is focus on the estimated Systems Models which do show variability across the major countries over the time period (0-2000+, see examples here).

In future posts, I will start with the World System (WL19 and WE20) and then go on to the other major countries in the Long Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Germany, the UK, France, the US, Italy, Japan, Russia, etc.).

I have already started with some countries, for example France as an example (here). From the FRL19 model, it turns out that the Great Depression and possibly the collapse during WWI can be predicted in France from 19th Century data. The same is not the case for the DEL19D Model (Pasdirtz, 1981).

Notes

The Long Nineteenth Century a term for the 125-year period beginning with the onset of the French Revolution in 1789, and ending with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. It was coined by the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg, and later popularized by the British historian Eric Hobsbawm.
The Man in the High Castle is an alternative history novel by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1962, which imagines a world in which the Axis powers won World War II.
Hypothetical Victory of the Axis powers over the Allies of the Second World Wa r (1939–1945) a popular topic in the alternate history sub-genre of speculative fiction and in scholarly works that discuss the possible alternative path of history.
Pasdirtz, G. W. (1981) Instability and Late Nineteenth Century German Development UW-Madison Thesis.

Wikipedia

Historiography of the causes of World War I Historians writing about the origins of World War I have differed over the relative emphasis they place upon the factors involved. Changes in historical arguments over time are in part related to the delayed availability of classified historical archives.
Schroeder, Paul W. Stealing Horses to Great Applause: The Origins of the First World War Reconsidered (2025), influential essays by a leading historian
Schroeder, Paul W. (2007). "Necessary conditions and World War I as an unavoidable war". In Levy, Jack; Goertz, Gary (eds.). Explaining War and Peace: Case Studies and Necessary Condition Counterfactuals. Routledge. pp. 147–236. ISBN 978-1-134-10140-5.
Schroeder, Paul W. (2004). "Embedded Counterfactuals and World War I as an Unavoidable War". Systems, Stability, and Statecraft: Essays on the International History of Modern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan US. ISBN 978-1-4039-6357-4.
The Long Nineteenth Century a term for the 125-year period beginning with the onset of the French Revolution in 1789, and ending with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. It was coined by the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg, and later popularized by the British historian Eric Hobsbawm.
Kennedy, M. (2014) Britain entering first world war was 'biggest error in modern history': Niall Ferguson
Crafts, N. (2014) Walking wounded: The British economy in the aftermath of World War I
What is the Best Counterfactual for the Long Nineteenth Century?
The Man in the High Castle is an alternative history novel by Philip K. Dick, first published in 1962, which imagines a world in which the Axis powers won World War II.
Hypothetical Victory of the Axis powers over the Allies of the Second World Wa r (1939–1945) a popular topic in the alternate history sub-genre of speculative fiction and in scholarly works that discuss the possible alternative path of history.
Pasdirtz, G. W. (1981) Instability and Late Nineteenth Century German Development UW-Madison Thesis.
Timeline of the Great Depression The initial economic collapse which resulted in the Great Depression can be divided into two parts: 1929 to mid-1931, and then mid-1931 to 1933. The initial decline lasted from mid-1929 to mid-1931.
Timeline of British History 19th Century
Timeline of British History 20th Century
Timeline of German History comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Germany and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Germany. See also the list of German monarchs and list of chancellors of Germany and the list of years in Germany.
Geopolitical Economy a contemporary Marxist approach to understanding the capitalist world historically. It was proposed by Radhika Desai in her Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire as a critique of contemporary mainstream theories of International political economy (IPE) and International relations (IR).
Geography of Germany a country in Central and Western Europe that stretches from the Alps, across the North European Plain to the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. It is the second-most populous country in Europe after Russia, and is seventh-largest country by area in the continent. The area of Germany ranked 63rd and covers 357,600 km² (138,070 sq mi), consisting of 349,250 km² (134,846 sq mi) of land and 8,350 km² (3,224 sq mi) of waters, smaller than Japan but larger than the Republic of the Congo.
Rostow's Stages of Growth The Rostovian take-off model (also called "Rostow's Stages of Growth") is one of the major historical models of economic growth based on Auguste Comte's earlier "law of three stages." It was postulated by W. W. Rostow in his book The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (1960). The model postulates that economic modernization occurs in five basic stages, of varying length (The Stages of Economic Growth pdf file).

The role of the British Empire in the 19th Century (map in the Notes) was an important part of the Minsky-Kindleberger Framework for understanding the events of the Early 20th Century.

The Explanation of this book [...Charles Kindleberger (2013) World in Depression, 1929-1939...] is that the 1929 depression was so wide, so deep and so long because the international economic system was rendered unstable by British inability and United States unwillingness to assume responsibility for stabilizing it...(pps. 291-292)

The qualitative Minsky-Kindleberger Framework (M-K) can actually be tested using Systems Theory and I will present some of the results in this post. The M-K Framework is important because it is the only explanation of the Great Depression that looks at the entire World-System.

To test the M-K Framework, I compared the Growth Component (W1) from four different World System models: (1) W19 BAU, Business-As-Usual, no Geopolitical Inputs, estimated from (1800-1900) and then forecast into the 20th Century, (2) W19 UK-Input, Geopolitical Inputs from the "declining" UK Hegemonic Leader (3) WE20 BAU, estimated from 1900-1950, and (4) WE20 RU-Input, input from the RU20 model.**

The outputs from the models are graphed at the beginning of this post. Both the W19 BAU and the W19 UK-Input models produce collapse, supporting the M-K Framework. The WE20 models produce steady states around 1950. The WE20 BAU model peaks after 1950 and the WE20 RU-Input model peaks after the Great Depression, and then stabilizes around 1950.

I've added the W19 US-Input model to the graph above. It too would have stabilized the World System but at a lower level of growth.***

These results add to the M-K Framework the definition of Systemic Stability. The World System during the early 20th Century was unstable. The Hegemonic Leader, Great Britain,was collapsing and could not provide stability. The emerging Hegemonic Leader, the US, was not yet a World Power but could have stabilized the system if it had not been preoccupied with the Great Depression. Russia could have also stabilized the system but was preoccupied by the Russian Revolution.****

Notes

** The WE20 RU-Input model was discovered by estimating models with inputs from all the WWII participants. It is interesting because it stabilizes the World-System during the Great Depression as does the WE20 US-Input model. None of the other models create stability (see the AIC Statistics below).

*** Note that none of these models forecast the Great Depression. I've dealt with that issue here and here. The Great Depression was the result of an Economic Bubble created by recovery from WWI. The Bubble was popped by the Stock Market Crash of 1929.

**** I should also point out that Germany, as the instigator of the World Wars, was also unstable (see Late Nineteenth Century Development in Germany).

The Long Nineteenth Century a term for the 125-year period beginning with the onset of the French Revolution in 1789, and ending with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. It was coined by the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg, and later popularized by the British historian Eric Hobsbawm.

For information about data sources and how the models were constructed, see the Boiler Plate.

Declining British Empire

The British Empire lasted from the Late 16th to the Early 20th Century.

The map above shows the growth of the British Empire over time (from Jorstrand17).

W_19 BAU Model

The W_19 BAU model was estimated from 1800-1900. It can then be forecast out to 1950 to see, counterfactually, what would have happened in the early 20th Century if WWI, the Great Depression and WWII had never happened.

Measurement Matrix

The Measurement Matrix for the W_19 BAU model shows the weights given to each indicator variable. The state variables components are: (1) W1 = (Growth-T) an environmental growth controller explaining 92% of the variation in the indicators. (2) W2 = (T-XREAL+Q+L) an environmental-export employment controller explaining an addition 7% of the variation. (3) W3 = (XREAL -Q - T) A Real Export-Economic growth controller explaining another 0.3 % of the variation.

There are three other state variables that are interesting but explain little variance: (4) W4 = (X - XREAL) Export Prices, (5) W5 = (Q - N - X) Malthusian Exports and (6) W6 = (N - L - Q) Malthusian Employment.

System Matrix

You can run the W_19 BAU Model here.

The System Matrix for the W_19 BAU model has three unstable roots and, as can be seen from the graphic at the beginning of this post, the W19 model collapses in the early 20th Century. The collapse is the result of negative feedback loops especially from W2 = (T-XREAL+Q+L), environmental-export employment controller, to W1 = (Growth-T), the environmental growth (the coefficient is F[1,2] = -0.020318992).