Also this stuff never happens by design. Some entrepreneur notices things and the costs, make a decision, suddenly more products exist, organic trading routes appear. There is no need for computers or grand design or hyper-managerial government. The market solves the problem
In the US context that's largely true, with the government providing useful regulations after the fact (allowing national corporations, railroad right-of-way law, etc.).
The exception being guys like JP Morgan who organized industry cartels that acted as private "central planners", part of which turned into the current Federal Reserve Bank.
But for countries like China and many others in Asia with strong state capacity, industrial policy was planned top-down for the "commanding heights" of industry like: roads, rail, shipping, airlines, telecom, steel, energy, etc., and that actually worked very well, faster than private markets alone, with the benefit of existing tech and models to follow.
We are talking about a sophisticated international trading system that happened 600 years ago. Clearly you don’t need anything like that to make it happen. Let alone Ancient Rome, Greece, Assyria, Sumer…
> There is no need for computers or grand design or hyper-managerial government.
The response above is just pointing out that although you don't need a grand design or hyper-managerial government, it can be done using that approach too.
