this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Trade. Specifically, trade overseas (sea transport is much faster than land transport to the point of qualitative difference) allowed by long-distance ships. This seems to have had dramatic effects from very early on centred around the Mediterranean (e.g. Bronze age, Hellenic world, Rome, etc for more detail see Broodbank's The Making of the Middle Sea). The secret to merchants' capital and hence merchants' power is found in ch5 of Kapital:
Even in the relatively even playing field of the Mediterranean, this creates the ability of one party, the capitalist, to hold an overwhelming advantage of knowledge of (closer to) the entire process of exchange, instead of one part. In addition, this creates impetus to find new sources of valuable materials (a source of relative surplus value) spurring expansion. These twin impulses help drive and enable early European expansion. The next key to super-imperialism lies in the medieval monasteries.
Moving quickly (for more detail; Landes The Invention of Time and parts of Crosby The Measure of Reality), medieval monks became very fixated on routine, schedule, fixed times unchanged by the movement of the sun, etc. This made them efficient workers, and it spread into the cities. This conception of time (time composed of homogenous, discrete units instead of heterogenous, continous movement) is a necessary precondition for the existence of the capitalist mode of production, but here we are interested in its relationship to the construction of the modern escapement clock (as opposed to e.g. water clocks, sun-dials, etc).
Modern clocks (basically the kind where time is measured by discrete intervals of sounds; the tick) arise from this conception of time, as a way to create clocks that are more consistent. At first, a main goal of such clocks was to regulate monastery life better; it spread to cities and burghers from there. At this point, we are at the pendulum clocks, and these serve well for use on land. However, the clock has applications for navigation.
In sea navigation you wanna know how far North/South you are (latitude) and how far East/West (longitude). Latitude is much easier to find to an accurate degree than longitude, so it was a major limiting factor in naval navigation. The pendulum clock allowed for much more accurate longitudinal readings, but pendulums do not work at sea. Even more complicated, smaller, mechanical clocks were needed, and they were created. This allowed Europe to reinforce its naval navigation advantage regarding trade.
From 1492 and even earlier, the ships developed through mass trade in the mediterranean saw Europe become a global middleman, buying (or stealing) goods in places where they were common and selling them in places where they were rarer. This was ultimately the source of European wealth and power, as they enjoyed a collective near monopoly on (direct) intercontinental trade, flow of information and military movement.
Europe's dependence on those ships gave it impetus to develop more intricate clocks and ships, and the wealth flowing into Europe gave it the means. As Europe shifted more towards exporting manufactured goods, this created impetus for methods to rapidly produce tons of shit. As manufacture turned into industry (meaning; as the machine was invented and the human turned into a mere motive power and machine-minder), a more controllable motive power was needed, and coincidentally existed in large quantities in the centre of manufacture (Britain).
The information gap also makes resistance, or even intention to resist more difficult:
Conditions of production (e.g. extraordinarily brutal slavery, unprecendented ecocide, etc) are similarly in "the hidden abode of production on whose threshold there hangs the notice 'No admittance except on business'"(279-80), so for example while someone might reject trading furs for alcohol if they knew the alcohol was made with horrific slave labour, the conditions of international trade kept most knowledge in European hands. Without being aware of the conditions of oppression, without lines of communication, without immediate knowledge of the Europeans' goals, etc, co-ordinated defence against Europe is difficult.
Why did Europe come to dominate sea trade?
This is not the reason but a key reason: Baltic rough sea ship building tech met Mediterranean large scale ship building tech via the vikings. Outcome is caravel hulls. Strap cannons on and now your ship is the naval equivalent of a nomadic horse archer army. You can hit anything with cannons and just retreat to blue waters before anyone could hit back.
Mediterranean ship building was built for scale but mostly joined large blocks of light wood together using mortoise and tenons. This meant ships could be large but were also brittle. Rough seas would snap the boat. But there were still large enough that people could put cannons on them as soon as small cannons were a thing.
In the Baltic, the seas are always rough. So shipbuilders used thin overlapping strips of heavy wood, which were nailed together, called "Clinker built". These thin strips of wood could twist and flex in rough seas so your ship wouldn't break. But you could only build ships so big in this style. Viking long ships could never fit a cannon.
Were viking traders first met Mediterranean shipping would've been around the Iberian peninsula. So its little wonder that the Spanish and Portuguese were the first intercontinental European empires. The Portuguese were considered the "first" though. And were far more Naval based than the Spanish. Once they got into the Indian ocean they became sea Mongols because they could strike anyone with impunity, claiming dominion over the entire indian ocean. Check out Afonso De Albuquerque for Portuguese exploits in the Indian ocean.