Noah Smith, an economist who also happens to be a nerd, made a very pointedly observation which has a lot of water to it:
What Westeros needs, more than anything, is universal literacy. The maesters and septons are holding the continent back. @mattyglesias
— Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) 3. Juni 2013
And that leads to the main problem: books are pretty expensive in Westeros, and there is no such thing as public libraries. So even if the peasants would be able to read, what exactly would they read? I'd say, however, that spreading literacy would create demand, and that demand could lead to innovation regarding the printing press. Westeros should at least start to teach all knights and lords, because a terrifying amount of them is horribly uneducated.
I think this is a particularly fascinating aspect of Martin's world. In Westeros the Citadel and the Iron Throne have a much greater monopoly on learning and political power, respectively, than their historical counterparts in late Medieval Europe. This is certainly bad for human development. The Iron Throne has little competitive incentive for political reform, and the Maesters have the power and inclination to reject any technological or social reforms they didn't invent themselves.
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, Westeros' linguistic uniformity makes a common language of learning (in our world, Latin) unnecessary, which seems to make the Citadel a bit more open to common people.
Seeing how quickly the high Septon has been able to control the small folk, I'm sure the upper crust of Westeros is going to wish the commoners were a little more educated too.
ReplyDeleteWesteros also needs a bank analogous to the Iron Bank of Braavos, in order to promote economic development and the rise of a middle class. Of course, this requires a monarch who won't treat such a bank as his/her personal piggy bank (looking at you, Cersei).
ReplyDeleteFor this, the main thing you need is security. That means you need the rule of law, which runs counter to all the Westerosi believe about government.
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