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142-872: Scholars contrast the concept of a free market with the concept of a coordinated market in fields of study such as political economy , new institutional economics , economic sociology , and political science . All of these fields emphasize the importance in currently existing market systems of rule-making institutions external to the simple forces of supply and demand which create space for those forces to operate to control productive output and distribution. Although free markets are commonly associated with capitalism in contemporary usage and popular culture , free markets have also been components in some forms of market socialism . Historically, free market has also been used synonymously with other economic policies. For instance proponents of laissez-faire capitalism may refer to it as free market capitalism because they claim it achieves

284-409: A Pareto optimum . A free market does not directly require the existence of competition; however, it does require a framework that freely allows new market entrants. Hence, competition in a free market is a consequence of the conditions of a free market, including that market participants not be obstructed from following their profit motive . An absence of any of the conditions of perfect competition

426-510: A Western and an Eastern one, each with their own emperors, capitals, and governments, although ostensibly they still belonged to one formal Empire. The Western Roman Empire provinces eventually were replaced by Northern European Germanic ruled kingdoms in the 5th century due to civil wars, corruption, and devastating Germanic invasions from such tribes as the Huns , Goths , the Franks and

568-449: A monopoly would very likely appear should there be no regulation. It is crucial to prevent misuse of monopoly power , as this can lead to delivery of poor services with very high prices. This includes for example the telecommunications , water , gas , or electricity supply . Often, regulated markets are established during the partial privatisation of government controlled utility assets. A variety of forms of regulations exist in

710-922: A price system , private property and the recognition of property rights , voluntary exchange , and wage labor . In a capitalist market economy , decision-making and investments are determined by every owner of wealth, property or production ability in capital and financial markets whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets. Economists , historians , political economists and sociologists have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free-market capitalism, state capitalism and welfare capitalism . Different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership , obstacles to free competition and state-sanctioned social policies . The degree of competition in markets and

852-654: A free market often argue that some market failures require government intervention. Economists Ronald Coase , Milton Friedman , Ludwig von Mises , and Friedrich Hayek have responded by arguing that markets can internalize or adjust to supposed market failures. Two prominent Canadian authors argue that government at times has to intervene to ensure competition in large and important industries. Naomi Klein illustrates this roughly in her work The Shock Doctrine and John Ralston Saul more humorously illustrates this through various examples in The Collapse of Globalism and

994-455: A higher price than the equilibrium price receive the difference as consumer surplus . The model is commonly applied to wages in the market for labor. The typical roles of supplier and consumer are reversed. The suppliers are individuals, who try to sell (supply) their labor for the highest price. The consumers are businesses, which try to buy (demand) the type of labor they need at the lowest price. As more people offer their labor in that market,

1136-559: A major influence on the world today. Latin language has been the base from which Romance languages evolved and it has been the official language of the Catholic Church and all Catholic religious ceremonies all over Europe until 1967, as well as an or the official language of countries such as Italy and Poland (9th–18th centuries). In AD 395, a few decades before its Western collapse, the Roman Empire formally split into

1278-410: A maximum price they are willing to pay for an item, and sellers have a minimum price at which they are willing to offer their product. The point at which the supply and demand curves meet is the equilibrium price of the good and quantity demanded. Sellers willing to offer their goods at a lower price than the equilibrium price receive the difference as producer surplus . Buyers willing to pay for goods at

1420-705: A millennium, while the West Roman Empire lasted for only about a century and a half. Significant theological and ecclesiastical differences led Western Europeans to consider the Christians in the Byzantine Empire as heretics. In 1054 CE, when the church in Rome excommunicated the patriarch of Byzantium , the politico-religious division between the Western church and Eastern church culminated in

1562-619: A plea to the Pope in Rome to send military aid to restore the lost territories to Christian rule. The result was a series of western European military campaigns into the eastern Mediterranean, known as the Crusades. Unfortunately for the Byzantines, the crusaders (belonging to the members of nobility from France, German territories, the Low countries, England, Italy and Hungary) had no allegiance to

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1704-693: A population of 100 million. From the time of Caesar (100–44 BC) to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Rome dominated Southern Europe , the Mediterranean coast of Northern Africa and the Levant , including the ancient trade routes with population living outside. Ancient Rome has contributed greatly to the development of law, war, art, literature, architecture, technology and language in the Western world , and its history continues to have

1846-405: A preference for an absence of non-market pressures on prices and wages such as those from discriminatory government taxes , subsidies , tariffs , regulations , or government-granted monopolies . In The Pure Theory of Capital , Friedrich Hayek argued that the goal is the preservation of the unique information contained in the price itself. According to Karl Popper, the idea of the free market

1988-494: A regulated market. These include controls, oversights , anti-discrimination , environmental protection , taxation , and labor laws . In a regulated market, the government regulatory agency may legislate regulations that privilege special interests , known as regulatory capture . Regulation is subject to changes over time, due to both technological advances as well as the change in attitude towards regulation in general. An example for industries that are no longer regulated

2130-519: A result, its political, legal , linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread throughout the Western world . In the aftermath of the Second World War , decolonizing efforts were employed by all Western powers under United Nations (ex- League of Nations ) international directives. Most of colonized nations received independence by 1960. Great Britain showed ongoing responsibility for the welfare of its former colonies as member states of

2272-737: A scramble for new markets for European industrial products and financial services in Africa, the Americas, Eastern Europe, and especially in Asia (Western powers exploited their advantages in China for example by the Opium Wars ). This resulted in the " New Imperialism ", which saw a shift in focus from trade and indirect rule to formal colonial control of vast overseas territories ruled as political extensions of their mother countries. The later years of

2414-485: A series of political developments in Asia in the last decades of the 14th century, which put an end to further European exploration of Asia: namely the new Ming rulers were found to be unreceptive of religious proselytism by European missionaries and merchants. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Turks consolidated control over the eastern Mediterranean , closing off key overland trade routes. The Portuguese spearheaded

2556-659: A share of the profits (based on the overall performance of their enterprise) in addition to receiving their fixed wage or salary. The stronger incentives to maximize productivity that he conceives as possible in a socialist economy based on cooperative and self-managed enterprises might be accomplished in a free-market economy if employee-owned companies were the norm as envisioned by various thinkers including Louis O. Kelso and James S. Albus . Socialists also assert that free-market capitalism leads to an excessively skewed distributions of income and economic instabilities which in turn leads to social instability. Corrective measures in

2698-625: A system of ecclesiastical proscription or imprisonment, but without using torture, and seldom resorting to executions. This very profitable Central European Fourth Crusade had prompted the 14th century Renaissance (translated as 'Rebirth') of Italian city-states including the Papal States , on eve of the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation (which established the Roman Inquisition to succeed

2840-574: A truly laissez-faire system would be anti-capitalist and socialist . American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker saw themselves as economic free-market socialists and political individualists while arguing that their "anarchistic socialism" or "individual anarchism" was "consistent Manchesterism ". Various forms of socialism based on free markets have existed since the 19th century. Early notable socialist proponents of free markets include Pierre-Joseph Proudhon , Benjamin Tucker and

2982-457: A unique civilization, differentiating from others like Islam , giving rise to the concept of Western civilization. By the 15th century, Renaissance intellectuals solidified this concept, associating Western civilization not only with Christianity but also with the intellectual and political achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Historians, such as Carroll Quigley in "The Evolution of Civilizations" , contend that Western civilization

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3124-537: A universalization of money -based social relations , a consistently large and system-wide class of workers who must work for wages (the proletariat ) and a capitalist class which owns the means of production—developed in Western Europe in a process that led to the Industrial Revolution . Capitalist systems with varying degrees of direct government intervention have since become dominant in

3266-505: A vast Middle Eastern area, when it ended. Conquest was enforced using the Roman legions and then through cultural assimilation by eventual recognition of some form of Roman citizenship's privileges. Nonetheless, despite its great legacy, a number of factors led to the eventual decline and ultimately fall of the Roman Empire . The Roman Empire succeeded the approximately 500-year-old Roman Republic ( c. 510–30 BC). In 350 years, from

3408-478: Is speculation , where transactions are made to profit from short term fluctuation, rather from the intrinsic value of the companies or products. This criticism has been challenged by historians such as Lawrence Reed , who argued that monopolies have historically failed to form even in the absence of antitrust law. This is because monopolies are inherently difficult to maintain as a company that tries to maintain its monopoly by buying out new competitors, for instance,

3550-736: Is a term to describe the ancient Roman society that conquered Central Italy assimilating the Italian Etruscan culture , growing from the Latium region since about the 8th century BC, to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea . In its 10-centuries territorial expansion, Roman civilization shifted from a small monarchy (753–509 BC), to a republic (509–27 BC), into an autocratic empire (27 BC – AD 476). Its Empire came to dominate Western, Central and Southeastern Europe, Northern Africa and, becoming an autocratic Empire

3692-850: Is also closely associated with Christianity , the dominant religion in the West, with roots in Greco - Roman and Jewish thought . Christian ethics , drawing from the ethical and moral principles of its historical roots in Judaism , has played a pivotal role in shaping the foundational framework of Western societies. Earlier civilizations, such as the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians , had also significantly influenced Western civilization through their advancements in writing, law codes, and societal structures. The convergence of Greek-Roman and Judeo-Christian influences in shaping Western civilization has led certain scholars to characterize it as emerging from

3834-507: Is considered a market failure . Regulatory intervention may provide a substitute force to counter a market failure, which leads some economists to believe that some forms of market regulation may be better than an unregulated market at providing a free market. Friedrich Hayek popularized the view that market economies promote spontaneous order which results in a better "allocation of societal resources than any design could achieve". According to this view, market economies are characterized by

3976-646: Is credited with creating the modern university, the modern hospital system, scientific economics, and natural law (which would later influence the creation of international law ). European culture developed a complex range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism , mysticism and Christian and secular humanism , setting the stage for the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, which fundamentally altered religious and political life. Led by figures like Martin Luther , Protestantism challenged

4118-528: Is estimated to have first reached one billion in 1804. Also, the new philosophical movement later known as Romanticism originated, in the wake of the previous Age of Reason of the 1600s and the Enlightenment of 1700s. These are seen as fostering the 19th century Western world' s sustained economic development. Before the urbanization and industrialization of the 1800s, demand for oriental goods such as porcelain , silk , spices and tea remained

4260-579: Is incentivizing newcomers to enter the market in hope of a buy-out. Furthermore, according to writer Walter Lippman and economist Milton Friedman, historical analysis of the formation of monopolies reveals that, contrary to popular belief, these were the result not of unfettered market forces, but of legal privileges granted by government. American philosopher and author Cornel West has derisively termed what he perceives as dogmatic arguments for laissez-faire economic policies as free-market fundamentalism . West has contended that such mentality "trivializes

4402-484: Is paradoxical, as it requires interventions towards the goal of preventing interventions. Although laissez-faire has been commonly associated with capitalism , there is a similar economic theory associated with socialism called left-wing or socialist laissez-faire , also known as free-market anarchism , free-market anti-capitalism and free-market socialism to distinguish it from laissez-faire capitalism. Critics of laissez-faire as commonly understood argue that

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4544-463: Is sometimes necessary to protect a country's economy from better-developed and more influential economies, while providing the stability necessary for wise long-term investment. Milton Friedman argued against central planning , price controls and state-owned corporations , particularly as practiced in the Soviet Union and China while Ha-Joon Chang cites the examples of post-war Japan and

4686-628: Is the rail service or airlines in the US. On the other hand, there are also industries that did not need regulation in the past, but are in need of it now. This includes for example the real estate market . Another category are the markets that encountered major changes in regulatory approaches due to various crises . A prime example are stock exchanges following stock market crashes . The practice of regulating markets dates back centuries when ancient societies relied on standardised weights and measurements and practised punishment for theft and fraud. For

4828-684: Is the time when the Huns (part of the ancient Eastern European tribes named barbarians by the Romans) from modern-day Hungary penetrated into the Dalmatian (modern-day Croatia ) region then originating in the following 150 years in the Roman Empire officially splitting in two halves. Also the time of the formal acceptance of Christianity as Empire's religious policy, when the Emperors began actively banning and fighting previous pagan religions . The Eastern Roman Empire included lands south-west of

4970-477: Is to be sought... only among those who are called Catholic or orthodox Christians, that is, guardians of truth and followers of right." Over time, the Western Christianity gradually identified with the "Catholic" label, and people of Western Europe gradually associated the "Orthodox" label with Eastern Christianity (although in some languages the "Catholic" label is not necessarily identified with

5112-667: Is where the idea of "the West" began to emerge. The Eastern Roman Empire , governed from Constantinople , is usually referred to as the Byzantine Empire after AD 476, the traditional date for the fall of the Roman Empire and beginning of the Early Middle Ages . The survival of the Eastern Roman Empire protected Roman legal and cultural traditions, combining them with Greek and Christian elements, for another thousand years. The name Byzantine Empire

5254-731: The ancient Western world was partly preserved during this period due to the survival of the Eastern Roman Empire and the introduction of the Catholic Church ; it was also greatly expanded by the Arab importation of both the Ancient Greco-Roman and new technology through the Arabs from India and China to Europe. Since the Renaissance, the West evolved beyond the influence of the ancient Greeks and Romans and

5396-471: The 15th to 20th centuries . This influence persists through the exportation of mass culture, a phenomenon often referred to as Westernization . There was debate among some in the 1960s as to whether Latin America as a whole is in a category of its own. Western culture , also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, or Western society, refers to the diverse culture of

5538-521: The Atlantic slave trade between the 1490s and the 1800s, which also contributed to the development of African intertribal warfare and racist ideology. Before the abolition of its slave trade in 1807, the British Empire alone (which had started colonial efforts in 1578 , almost a century after Portuguese and Spanish empires) was responsible for the transportation of 3.5 million African slaves to

5680-743: The Black Sea and bordering on the Eastern Mediterranean and parts of the Adriatic Sea . This division into Eastern and Western Roman Empires was later reflected in the administration of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Greek Orthodox churches, with Rome and Constantinople debating over whether either city was the capital of Western religion . As the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches spread their influence,

5822-533: The British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35,500,000 km (13,700,000 sq mi), 24% of the Earth's total land area. At its apex, the phrase " the empire on which the sun never sets " described the British Empire, because its expanse around the globe meant that the sun always shone on at least one of its territories. As

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5964-543: The British —derived from colonization , and immigration of Europeans —factors that grounded such countries to the West. Depending on the context and the historical period in question, Russia was sometimes seen as a part of the West, and at other times juxtaposed with it. Running parallel to the rise of the United States as a great power and the development of communication–transportation technologies "shrinking"

6106-762: The Dalmatia , a region of interest to the maritime medieval Venetian Republic moneylenders and its rivals, such as the Republic of Genoa) rebelling against the Venetian economic domination. What followed dealt an irrevocable blow to the already weakened Byzantine Empire with the Crusader army's sack of Constantinople in April 1204, capital of the Greek Christian -controlled Byzantine Empire , described as one of

6248-471: The Eastern world known as the Orient (from Latin oriens  'origin, sunrise, east'). The West is considered an evolving concept; made up of cultural, political, and economic synergy among diverse groups of people, and not a rigid region with fixed borders and members. Definitions of "Western world" vary according to context and perspectives. Some historians contend that a linear development of

6390-821: The German Empire . At the close of the Spanish–American War in 1898 the Philippines , Puerto Rico , Guam and Cuba were ceded to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Paris . The US quickly emerged as the new imperial power in East Asia and in the Pacific Ocean area . The Philippines continued to fight against colonial rule in the Philippine–American War . By 1913,

6532-661: The Hellenistic Jewish culture from which the earliest Christians and the Greek New Testament emerged. The eventual Christianization of Europe in late-antiquity would ensure that Christianity , particularly the Catholic Church , remained a dominant force in Western culture for many centuries to follow. Western culture continued to develop during the Middle Ages as reforms triggered by

6674-830: The Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia . Japan was involved primarily during the Meiji period (1868–1912), though earlier contacts with the Portuguese, Spaniards and Dutch were also present in the Japanese Empire 's recognition of the strategic importance of European nations. Traditional Japanese society became an industrial and militarist power like the Western British Empire and the French Third Republic , and similar to

6816-635: The Industrial Revolution , would produce powerful social transformations, political and economic institutions that have come to influence (or been imposed upon) most nations of the world today. Historians agree that the Industrial Revolution has been one of the most important events in history. The course of three centuries since Christopher Columbus' late 15th century's voyages, of deportation of slaves from Africa and British dominant northern- Atlantic location, later developed into modern-day United States of America , evolving from

6958-538: The Lange model ) where publicly owned enterprises are coordinated by various degrees of economic planning , or where capital good prices are determined through marginal cost pricing. Advocates of free-market socialism such as Jaroslav Vanek argue that genuinely free markets are not possible under conditions of private ownership of productive property. Instead, he contends that the class differences and inequalities in income and power that result from private ownership enable

7100-619: The Medieval Inquisition ). There followed the discovery of the American continent, and consequent dissolution of West Christendom as even a theoretical unitary political body, later resulting in the religious Eighty Years War (1568–1648) and Thirty Years War (1618–1648) between various Protestant and Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire (and emergence of religiously diverse confessions ). In this context,

7242-746: The Mediterranean basin and Europe , and later circulated around the world predominantly through colonization and globalization . Historically, scholars have closely associated the idea of Western culture with the classical era of Greco-Roman antiquity . However, scholars also acknowledge that other ancient cultures, like Ancient Egypt , the Phoenician city-states , and several Near-Eastern cultures stimulated and fostered Western civilization. The Hellenistic period also promoted syncretism , blending Greek, Roman, and Jewish cultures. Major advances in literature, engineering, and science shaped

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7384-679: The Middle Ages Western culture in fact entered other global-spanning cultures during the colonial 15th–20th centuries. Historically colonialism had been justified with the values of individualism and enlightenment . The concepts of a world of nation-states born by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, coupled with the ideologies of the Enlightenment, the coming of modernity , the Scientific Revolution and

7526-507: The New World , which today constitutes much of the "geographical" Western world. Starting from the late 1960s, certain parts of the Western world have become notable for their diversity due to immigration . The idea of "the West" over the course of time has evolved from a directional concept to a socio-political concept that had been temporalized and rendered as a concept of the future bestowed with notions of progress and modernity. The origins of Western civilization can be traced back to

7668-479: The Oxford English dictionary , the earliest reference to the term "Western world" was from 1586, found in the writings of William Warner . Countries that are considered to constitute the West vary according to perspective rather than their geographical location. Countries like Australia and New Zealand, located in the Eastern Hemisphere are included in modern definitions of the Western world, as these regions and others like them have been significantly influenced by

7810-523: The People's Republic of China , though this is disputed, since the People's Republic of China, as communist, had friendly relations—at certain times—with the Soviet bloc, and had a significant degree of importance in global geopolitics. Some Third World countries aligned themselves with either the US-led West or the Soviet-led Eastern bloc. A number of countries did not fit comfortably into this neat definition of partition, including Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, and Ireland , which chose to be neutral. Finland

7952-499: The Pope in Rome as the Holy Roman Empire (Latin Christian revival of the ancient Roman Empire, under perpetual Germanic rule from AD 962) inheriting ancient Roman Empire's prestige but offending the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople, and leading to the Crusades and the East–West Schism. The crowning of the Emperor by the Pope led to the assumption that the highest power was the papal hierarchy , quintessential Roman Empire's spiritual heritage authority, establishing then, until

8094-493: The Ricardian socialists . These economists believed that genuinely free markets and voluntary exchange could not exist within the exploitative conditions of capitalism . These proposals ranged from various forms of worker cooperatives operating in a free-market economy such as the mutualist system proposed by Proudhon, to state-owned enterprises operating in unregulated and open markets. These models of socialism are not to be confused with other forms of market socialism (e.g.

8236-480: The Roman Empire , the destination of a massive influx of pagans (meaning "non-Christians" ) Bulgars and Slavs , an area where Catholic and Orthodox Christianity met, as well as the meeting point between Islam and Christianity. The Papal Inquisition was established in AD 1229 on a permanent basis, run largely by clergymen in Rome, and abolished six centuries later. Before AD 1100, the Catholic Church suppressed what they believed to be heresy, usually through

8378-409: The Vandals by their late expansion throughout Europe. The three-day Visigoths's AD 410 sack of Rome who had been raiding Greece not long before, a shocking time for Greco-Romans , was the first time after almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and St. Jerome , living in Bethlehem at the time, wrote that "The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken." There followed

8520-516: The Western world and continue to spread. Capitalism has been shown to be strongly correlated with economic growth . For classical economists such as Adam Smith , the term free market refers to a market free from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and artificial scarcities. They say this implies that economic rents , which they describe as profits generated from a lack of perfect competition , must be reduced or eliminated as much as possible through free competition. Economic theory suggests

8662-471: The ancient Mediterranean world . Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome are generally considered to be the birthplaces of Western civilization—Greece having heavily influenced Rome—the former due to its impact on philosophy , democracy , science , aesthetics , as well as building designs and proportions and architecture ; the latter due to its influence on art , law , warfare , governance , republicanism , engineering and religion . Western Civilization

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8804-539: The fall of the Byzantine Empire ), granting Portugal navigation, war and trade monopoly for any newly discovered lands, and competing Spanish navigators. It continued with the rise of the Dutch East India Company by the destabilizing Spanish discovery of the New World , and the creation and expansion of the English and French colonial empires, and others. Even after demands for self-determination from subject peoples within Western empires were met with decolonization , these institutions persisted. One specific example

8946-463: The medieval renaissances , the influence of the Islamic world via Al-Andalus and Sicily (including the transfer of technology from the East, and Latin translations of Arabic texts on science and philosophy by Greek and Hellenic-influenced Islamic philosophers), and the Italian Renaissance as Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople brought ancient Greek and Roman texts back to central and western Europe. Medieval Christianity

9088-496: The sack of AD 455 lasting 14 days, this time conducted by the Vandals , retaining Rome's eternal spirit through the Holy See of Rome (the Latin Church ) for centuries to come. The ancient Barbarian tribes, often composed of well-trained Roman soldiers paid by Rome to guard the extensive borders, had become militarily sophisticated "Romanized barbarians", and mercilessly slaughtered the Romans conquering their Western territories while looting their possessions. The Roman Empire

9230-528: The telescope and acceptance of heliocentrism . 18th century scholars continued to refine Newton's theory of gravitation , notably Leonhard Euler , Pierre Louis Maupertuis , Alexis-Claude Clairaut , Jean Le Rond d'Alembert , Joseph-Louis Lagrange , Pierre-Simon de Laplace . Laplace's five-volume Treatise on Celestial Mechanics is one of the great works of 18th-century Newtonianism. Astronomy gained in prestige as new observatories were funded by governments and more powerful telescopes developed, leading to

9372-502: The 13th and 14th centuries, a number of European travelers, many of them Christian missionaries , had sought to cultivate trading with Asia and Africa . With the Crusades came the relative contraction of the Orthodox Byzantine 's large silk industry in favor of Catholic Western Europe and the rise of Western Papacy . The most famous of these merchant travelers pursuing East–west trade was Venetian Marco Polo . But these journeys had little permanent effect on east–west trade because of

9514-527: The 19th century saw the transition from "informal imperialism" ( hegemony ) by military influence and economic dominance, to direct rule (a revival of colonial imperialism ) in the African continent and Middle East . During the socioeconomically optimistic and innovative decades of the Second Industrial Revolution between the 1870s and 1914, also known as the " Beautiful Era ", the established colonial powers in Asia (United Kingdom, France, Netherlands) added to their empires also vast expanses of territory in

9656-483: The Americas, a third of all slaves transported across the Atlantic. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved in 1806 by the French Revolutionary Wars ; abolition of the Roman Catholic Inquisition followed. Due to the reach of these empires, Western institutions expanded throughout the world. This process of influence (and imposition) began with the voyages of discovery , colonization, conquest, and exploitation of Portugal enforced as well by papal bulls in 1450s (by

9798-435: The Byzantine Emperor and established their own states in the conquered regions, including the heart of the Byzantine Empire . The Holy Roman Empire would dissolve on 6 August 1806, after the French Revolution and the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine by Napoleon . The decline of the Byzantine Empire (13th–15th centuries) began with the Latin Christian Fourth Crusade in AD 1202–04, considered to be one of

9940-422: The Commonwealth of Nations . But the end of Western colonial imperialism saw the rise of Western neocolonialism or economic imperialism. Multinational corporations came to offer "a dramatic refinement of the traditional business enterprise", through "issues as far ranging as national sovereignty, ownership of the means of production, environmental protection, consumerism, and policies toward organized labor." Though

10082-404: The Eastern European world such as the East and South Slavic peoples. Roman Catholic Western and Central Europe, as such, maintained a distinct identity particularly as it began to redevelop during the Renaissance. Even following the Protestant Reformation , Protestant Europe continued to see itself as more tied to Roman Catholic Europe than other parts of the perceived civilized world . Use of

10224-632: The European spice trade with Asia, who had journeyed overland to the Far East contributing to geographical knowledge of parts of the Asian continent. They are of enormous significance in Western history as they marked the beginning of the European exploration, colonization and exploitation of the American continents and their native inhabitants . The European colonization of the Americas led to

10366-825: The Great Schism or the East–West Schism . Even though friendly relations continued between the two parts of the Christendom for some time, the crusades made the schism definitive with hostility. The West during these crusades tried to capture trade routes to the East and failed, it instead discovered the Americas . In the aftermath of European colonization of the Americas , an idea of the "Western" world, as an inheritor of Latin Christendom emerged. According to

10508-647: The Human Mind (1794), from primitive society to agrarianism , the invention of writing, the later invention of the printing press and the advancement to "the Period when the Sciences and Philosophy threw off the Yoke of Authority". French writer Pierre Bayle denounced Spinoza as a pantheist (thereby accusing him of atheism ). Bayle's criticisms garnered much attention for Spinoza. The pantheism controversy in

10650-548: The Islamic world, due to the successful Second Agricultural , Commercial , Scientific , and Industrial revolutions (propellers of modern banking concepts). The West rose further with the 18th century's Age of Enlightenment and through the Age of Exploration 's expansion of peoples of Western and Central European empires, particularly the globe-spanning colonial empires of 18th and 19th centuries. Numerous times, this expansion

10792-608: The Protestant Reformation (1517) may be viewed as a schism within the Catholic Church . German monk Martin Luther , in the wake of precursors, broke with the pope and with the emperor by the Catholic Church's abusive commercialization of indulgences in the Late Medieval Period , backed by many of the German princes and helped by the development of the printing press , in an attempt to reform corruption within

10934-547: The Protestant Reformation, the civilization of Western Christendom . The earliest concept of Europe as a cultural sphere (instead of simple geographic term) is believed to have been formed by Alcuin of York during the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century, but was limited to the territories that practised Western Christianity at the time. The Latin Church of western and central Europe split with

11076-660: The Reinvention of the World . While its supporters argue that only a free market can create healthy competition and therefore more business and reasonable prices, opponents say that a free market in its purest form may result in the opposite. According to Klein and Ralston, the merging of companies into giant corporations or the privatization of government-run industry and national assets often result in monopolies or oligopolies requiring government intervention to force competition and reasonable prices. Another form of market failure

11218-463: The West can be traced from Ancient Greece and Rome , while others argue that such a projection constructs a false genealogy. A geographical concept of the West started to take shape in the 4th century CE when Constantine , the first Christian Roman emperor, divided the Roman Empire between the Greek East and Latin West . The East Roman Empire , later called the Byzantine Empire , continued for

11360-466: The Western Church). This was in note of the fact that both Catholic and Orthodox were in use as ecclesiastical adjectives as early as the 2nd and 4th centuries respectively. Meanwhile, the extent of both Christendoms expanded, as Germanic peoples, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, Scandinavia, Finnic peoples, Baltic peoples, British Isles and the other non-Christian lands of the northwest were converted by

11502-782: The Western Church, while Eastern Slavic peoples, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Russian territories, Vlachs and Georgia were converted by the Eastern Orthodox Church . In 1071, the Byzantine army was defeated by the Muslim Turco-Persians of medieval Asia , resulting in the loss of most of Asia Minor . The situation was a serious threat to the future of the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire . The Emperor sent

11644-523: The Western World. The term "Western" encompasses the social norms , ethical values , traditional customs , belief systems , political systems , artifacts and technologies primarily rooted in European and Mediterranean histories. A broad concept, "Western culture" does not relate to a region with fixed members or geographical confines. It generally refers to the classical era cultures of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome that expanded across

11786-524: The authority of the Catholic Church and promoted ideas of individual freedom and religious reform , paving the way for modern notions of personal responsibility and governance. The geopolitical divisions in Europe that created a concept of East and West originated in the ancient tyrannical and imperialistic Graeco-Roman times. The Eastern Mediterranean was home to the highly urbanized cultures that had Greek as their common language (owing to

11928-502: The beginning of the 20th century, labour groups at times have had regulatory roles in some markets. Regulation is considered a polarising issue. Those in favour of regulating usually see it as beneficial to the wider society, for example regulations targeting ecological , racial , or religion related issues. Those against regulation see it as a tool for lobbying or as a source for creating unfair competition . Some advocates of free market generally see any regulation except for

12070-462: The butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Supporters of this view claim that spontaneous order is superior to any order that does not allow individuals to make their own choices of what to produce, what to buy, what to sell and at what prices due to

12212-415: The church. Both these religious wars ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which enshrined the concept of the nation-state , and the principle of absolute national sovereignty in international law . As European influence spread across the globe, these Westphalian principles , especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and to the prevailing world order. In

12354-606: The city of Constantinople (today's Istanbul ) in modern-day Turkey as the "New Rome" when he picked it as capital of his Empire (later called " Byzantine Empire " by modern historians) in AD 330. This internal conflict of legacies had possibly emerged since the assassination of Julius Caesar three centuries earlier, when Roman imperialism had just been born with the Roman Republic becoming "Roman Empire", but reached its zenith during 3rd century's many internal civil wars . This

12496-452: The competition and free market mechanisms. Winston Churchill supported this view by the following statement: "Land is the mother of all monopoly". The American economist and social philosopher Henry George , the most famous proponent of this thesis, wanted to accomplish this through a high land value tax that replaces all other taxes. Followers of his ideas are often called Georgists or geoists and geolibertarians . Léon Walras , one of

12638-602: The concern for public interest" and "makes money-driven, poll-obsessed elected officials deferential to corporate goals of profit – often at the cost of the common good". American political philosopher Michael J. Sandel contends that in the last thirty years the United States has moved beyond just having a market economy and has become a market society where literally everything is for sale, including aspects of social and civic life such as education, access to justice and political influence. The economic historian Karl Polanyi

12780-407: The discovery of new planets, asteroids , nebulae and comets , and paving the way for improvements in navigation and cartography . Astronomy became the second most popular scientific profession, after medicine . A common metanarrative of the Enlightenment is the "secularization theory". Modernity, as understood within the framework, means a total break with the past. Innovation and science are

12922-507: The distance between both the Atlantic Ocean shores, the US became more prominently featured in the conceptualizations of the West. Between the eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, prominent countries in the West such as the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand have been once envisioned as ethnocracies for Whites . Racism is cited as a contributing factor to European colonization of

13064-567: The drive to find oceanic routes that would provide cheaper and easier access to South and East Asian goods, by advancements in maritime technology such as the caravel ship introduced in the mid-1400s. The charting of oceanic routes between East and West began with the unprecedented voyages of Portuguese and Spanish sea captains. In 1492, European colonialism expanded across the globe with the exploring voyage of merchant, navigator, and Hispano-Italian colonizer Christopher Columbus . Such voyages were influenced by medieval European adventurers after

13206-457: The driving force behind European imperialism in Asia, and (with the important exception of British East India Company rule in India) the European stake in Asia remained confined largely to trading stations and strategic outposts necessary to protect trade. Industrialization , however, dramatically increased European demand for Asian raw materials; and the severe Long Depression of the 1870s provoked

13348-661: The early 4th century, the central focus of power was on two separate imperial legacies within the Roman Empire: the older Aegean Sea Greek heritage (of Classical Greece ) in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the newer most successful Tyrrhenian Sea Latin heritage (of Ancient Latium and Tuscany ) in the Western Mediterranean. A turning point was Constantine the Great 's decision to establish

13490-823: The eastern Greek patriarchates in the Christian East–West Schism , also known as the "Great Schism", during the Gregorian Reforms (calling for a more central status of the Roman Catholic Church Institution), three months after Pope Leo IX 's death in April 1054. Following the 1054 Great Schism , both the Western Church and Eastern Church continued to consider themselves uniquely orthodox and catholic. Augustine wrote in On True Religion: "Religion

13632-687: The economic system." David McNally of the University of Houston argues in the Marxist tradition that the logic of the market inherently produces inequitable outcomes and leads to unequal exchanges, arguing that Adam Smith 's moral intent and moral philosophy espousing equal exchange was undermined by the practice of the free market he championed. According to McNally, the development of the market economy involved coercion, exploitation and violence that Smith's moral philosophy could not countenance. McNally also criticizes market socialists for believing in

13774-553: The equilibrium wage decreases and the equilibrium level of employment increases as the supply curve shifts to the right. The opposite happens if fewer people offer their wages in the market as the supply curve shifts to the left. In a free market, individuals and firms taking part in these transactions have the liberty to enter, leave and participate in the market as they so choose. Prices and quantities are allowed to adjust according to economic conditions in order to reach equilibrium and allocate resources. However, in many countries around

13916-440: The federal government subsidizes owners of fertile land to not grow crops in order to prevent the supply curve from further shifting to the right and decreasing the equilibrium price. This is done under the justification of maintaining farmers' profits; due to the relative inelasticity of demand for crops, increased supply would lower the price but not significantly increase quantity demanded, thus placing pressure on farmers to exit

14058-440: The form of social welfare , re-distributive taxation and regulatory measures and their associated administrative costs which are required create agency costs for society. These costs would not be required in a self-managed socialist economy. Criticism of market socialism comes from two major directions. Economists Friedrich Hayek and George Stigler argued that socialism as a theory is not conducive to democratic systems and even

14200-475: The formation of complex transactional networks that produce and distribute goods and services throughout the economy. These networks are not designed, but they nevertheless emerge as a result of decentralized individual economic decisions. The idea of spontaneous order is an elaboration on the invisible hand proposed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations . About the individual, Smith wrote: By preferring

14342-448: The founders of the neoclassical economics who helped formulate the general equilibrium theory , had a very similar view. He argued that free competition could only be realized under conditions of state ownership of natural resources and land. Additionally, income taxes could be eliminated because the state would receive income to finance public services through owning such resources and enterprises. The laissez-faire principle expresses

14484-579: The good, representing the modern values of rationalism , while faith is ruled by superstition and traditionalism. Inspired by the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment embodied the ideals of improvement and progress. Descartes and Isaac Newton were regarded as exemplars of human intellectual achievement. Condorcet wrote about the progress of humanity in the Sketch of the Progress of

14626-442: The government or other organizations oversee the market, control the forces of supply and demand , and to some extent regulate the market actions. This can include tasks such as determining who is allowed to enter the market and/or what prices may be charged. The majority of financial markets such as stock exchanges are regulated, whereas over-the-counter markets are usually not at all or only moderately regulated. One of

14768-563: The growth of South Korea's steel industry as positive examples of government intervention. Critics of a laissez-faire free market have argued that in real world situations it has proven to be susceptible to the development of price fixing monopolies. Such reasoning has led to government intervention, e.g. the United States antitrust law . Critics of the free market also argue that it results in significant market dominance , inequality of bargaining power , or information asymmetry , in order to allow markets to function more freely. Critics of

14910-433: The interests of the dominant class to skew the market to their favor, either in the form of monopoly and market power, or by utilizing their wealth and resources to legislate government policies that benefit their specific business interests. Additionally, Vanek states that workers in a socialist economy based on cooperative and self-managed enterprises have stronger incentives to maximize productivity because they would receive

15052-550: The late 18th century saw Gotthold Lessing attacked by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi over support for Spinoza's pantheism. Lessing was defended by Moses Mendelssohn , although Mendelssohn diverged from pantheism to follow Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in arguing that God and the world were not of the same substance (equivalency). Spinoza was excommunicated from the Dutch Sephardic community, but for Jews who sought out Jewish sources to guide their own path to secularism, Spinoza

15194-426: The law of supply and demand influences prices toward an equilibrium that balances the demands for the products against the supplies. At these equilibrium prices, the market distributes the products to the purchasers according to each purchaser's preference or utility for each product and within the relative limits of each buyer's purchasing power . This result is described as market efficiency, or more specifically

15336-515: The legacies of Athens and Jerusalem , or Athens, Jerusalem and Rome . In ancient Greece and Rome, individuals identified primarily as subjects of states, city-states, or empires, rather than as members of Western civilization. The distinct identification of Western civilization began to crystallize with the rise of Christianity during the Late Roman Empire . In this period, peoples in Europe started to perceive themselves as part of

15478-529: The line between Eastern and Western Christianity was moving. Its movement was affected by the influence of the Byzantine empire and the fluctuating power and influence of the Catholic church in Rome. The geographic line of religious division approximately followed a line of cultural divide . In AD 800 under Charlemagne , the Early Medieval Franks established an empire that was recognized by

15620-399: The market. Those interventions are often done in the name of maintaining basic assumptions of free markets such as the idea that the costs of production must be included in the price of goods. Pollution and depletion costs are sometimes not included in the cost of production (a manufacturer that withdraws water at one location then discharges it polluted downstream, avoiding the cost of treating

15762-530: The most benevolent state would face serious implementation problems. More modern criticism of socialism and market socialism implies that even in a democratic system, socialism cannot reach the desired efficient outcome. This argument holds that democratic majority rule becomes detrimental to enterprises and industries, and that the formation of interest groups distorts the optimal market outcome . The general equilibrium theory has demonstrated that, under certain theoretical conditions of perfect competition ,

15904-432: The most economic freedom. In practice, governments usually intervene to reduce externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions ; although they may use markets to do so, such as carbon emission trading . Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit . Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation , competitive markets ,

16046-616: The most essential ones as costly and inefficient. Western world The Western world , also known as the West , primarily refers to various nations and states in the regions of Western Europe , Northern America , and Australasia ; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. The Western world likewise is called the Occident (from Latin occidens  'setting down, sunset, west') in contrast to

16188-580: The most important events, solidifying the schism between the Christian churches of Greek Byzantine Rite and Latin Roman Rite . An anti-Western riot in 1182 broke out in Constantinople targeting Latins. The extremely wealthy (after previous Crusades ) Venetians in particular made a successful attempt to maintain control over the coast of Catholic present-day Croatia (specifically

16330-497: The most part, market regulations have been imposed by the central governments and to a lesser extent by interest groups. One notable example of such interest groups is medieval guilds . They were associations of merchants and artisans that controlled the practise of their profession in their particular area. Guilds defined requirements for practising their profession, which usually meant that only guild members could practise their profession or sell their goods within their city. Since

16472-686: The most profitable and disgraceful sacks of a city in history. This paved the way for Muslim conquests in present-day Turkey and the Balkans in the coming centuries (only a handful of the Crusaders followed to the stated destination thereafter, the Holy Land ). The geographical identity of the Balkans is historically known as a crossroads of cultures, a juncture between the Latin and Greek bodies of

16614-402: The number and complexity of the factors involved. They further believe that any attempt to implement central planning will result in more disorder, or a less efficient production and distribution of goods and services. Critics such as political economist Karl Polanyi question whether a spontaneously ordered market can exist, completely free of distortions of political policy, claiming that even

16756-528: The official language of the empire. The inhabitants called themselves Romans because the term "Roman" was meant to signify all Christians . The Pope crowned Charlemagne as Emperor of the Romans of the newly established Holy Roman Empire , and the West began thinking in terms of Western Latins living in the old Western Empire, and Eastern Greeks (those inside the Roman remnant of the old Eastern Empire). In

16898-511: The older empire of Alexander the Great and of the Hellenistic successors ), whereas the West was much more rural in its character and more readily adopted Latin as its common language. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the medieval times (or Middle Ages ), Western and Central Europe were substantially cut off from the East where Byzantine Greek culture and Eastern Christianity became founding influences in

17040-403: The only valid method of arriving at truth". Its precursors were John Milton and Baruch Spinoza . Meeting Galileo in 1638 left an enduring impact on John Milton and influenced Milton's great work Areopagitica , where he warns that, without free speech , inquisitorial forces will impose "an undeserved thraldom upon learning". The achievements of the 17th century included the invention of

17182-458: The ostensibly freest markets require a state to exercise coercive power in some areas, namely to enforce contracts , govern the formation of labor unions , spell out the rights and obligations of corporations , shape who has standing to bring legal actions and define what constitutes an unacceptable conflict of interest . Demand for an item (such as a good or service) refers to the economic market pressure from people trying to buy it. Buyers have

17324-431: The overt colonial era had passed, Western nations, as comparatively rich, well-armed, and culturally powerful states, wielded a large degree of influence throughout the world, and with little or no sense of responsibility toward the peoples impacted by its multinational corporations in their exploitation of minerals and markets. The dictum of Alfred Thayer Mahan is shown to have lasting relevance, that whoever controls

17466-408: The possibility of fair markets based on equal exchanges to be achieved by purging parasitical elements from the market economy such as private ownership of the means of production , arguing that market socialism is an oxymoron when socialism is defined as an end to wage labour . Coordinated market economy A regulated market ( RM ) or coordinated market is an idealized system where

17608-572: The ratification of the Constitution of the United States by thirteen States on the North American East Coast before end of the 18th century. In the early-19th century, the systematic urbanization process (migration from villages in search of jobs in manufacturing centers) had begun, and the concentration of labor into factories led to the rise in the population of the towns. World population had been rising as well. It

17750-410: The reasons for regulation can be the importance of the regulated activity – meaning the harm suffered should the industry fail would be so fatal that regulators ( governments , legislators ) cannot afford the risk. This includes fields like banking or financial services . Secondly, it is common for some markets to be regulated under the claim that they are natural monopolies , or that

17892-507: The returns to land and other natural resources are economic rents that cannot be reduced in such a way because of their perfect inelastic supply. Some economic thinkers emphasize the need to share those rents as an essential requirement for a well functioning market. It is suggested this would both eliminate the need for regular taxes that have a negative effect on trade (see deadweight loss ) as well as release land and resources that are speculated upon or monopolised, two features that improve

18034-570: The role of intervention and regulation as well as the scope of state ownership vary across different models of capitalism. The extent to which different markets are free and the rules defining private property are matters of politics and policy. Most of the existing capitalist economies are mixed economies that combine elements of free markets with state intervention and in some cases economic planning . Market economies have existed under many forms of government and in many different times, places and cultures. Modern capitalist societies—marked by

18176-462: The seas controls the world. Eric Voegelin described the 18th-century as one where "the sentiment grows that one age has come to its close and that a new age of Western civilization is about to be born". According to Voeglin the Enlightenment (also called the Age of Reason ) represents the "atrophy of Christian transcendental experiences and [seeks] to enthrone the Newtonian method of science as

18318-404: The society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. Smith pointed out that one does not get one's dinner by appealing to the brother-love of the butcher, the farmer or the baker. Rather, one appeals to their self-interest and pays them for their labor, arguing: It is not from the benevolence of

18460-567: The successful and deadliest war with the Phoenicians began in 218 BC to the rule of Emperor Hadrian by AD 117, ancient Rome expanded up to twenty-five times its area. The same time passed before its fall in AD 476. Rome had expanded long before the empire reached its zenith with the conquest of Dacia in AD 106 (modern-day Romania ) under Emperor Trajan. During its territorial peak, the Roman Empire controlled about 5,000,000 square kilometres (1,900,000 sq mi) of land surface and had

18602-458: The support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of

18744-827: The term West as a specific cultural and geopolitical term developed over the course of the Age of Exploration as Europe spread its culture to other parts of the world. Roman Catholics were the first major religious group to immigrate to the New World , as settlers in the colonies of Spain and Portugal (and later, France ) belonged to that faith. English and Dutch colonies, on the other hand, tended to be more religiously diverse. Settlers to these colonies included Anglicans , Dutch Calvinists , English Puritans and other nonconformists , English Catholics , Scottish Presbyterians , French Huguenots , German and Swedish Lutherans , as well as Quakers , Mennonites , Amish , and Moravians . Ancient Rome (6th century BC – AD 476)

18886-531: The then-occupied and presently independent Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and Warsaw Pact countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, East Germany (now united with Germany), and Czechoslovakia (now split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia). The Third World consisted of countries, many of which were unaligned with either , and important members included India, Yugoslavia , Finland ( Finlandization ) and Switzerland ( Swiss Neutrality ); some include

19028-429: The water), therefore governments may opt to impose regulations in an attempt to try to internalize all of the cost of production and ultimately include them in the price of the goods. Advocates of the free market contend that government intervention hampers economic growth by disrupting the efficient allocation of resources according to supply and demand while critics of the free market contend that government intervention

19170-413: The world governments seek to intervene in the free market in order to achieve certain social or political agendas. Governments may attempt to create social equality or equality of outcome by intervening in the market through actions such as imposing a minimum wage (price floor) or erecting price controls (price ceiling). Other lesser-known goals are also pursued, such as in the United States, where

19312-545: Was accompanied by Catholic missionaries , who attempted to proselytize Christianity. In the modern era, Western culture has undergone further transformation through the Renaissance , Ages of Discovery and Enlightenment , and the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions . The widespread influence of Western culture extended globally through imperialism , colonialism , and Christianization by Western powers from

19454-587: Was as important as Voltaire and Kant. During the Cold War , a new definition emerged. Earth was divided into three "worlds". The First World , analogous in this context to what was called the West , was composed of NATO members and other countries aligned with the United States. The Second World was the Eastern bloc in the Soviet sphere of influence , including the Soviet Union (15 republics including

19596-567: Was born around AD 500, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire , leaving a vacuum for new ideas to flourish that were impossible in Classical societies. In either view, between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance, the West (or those regions that would later become the heartland of the culturally "western sphere") experienced a period of decline, and then readaptation, reorientation and considerable renewed material, technological and political development. Classical culture of

19738-415: Was first used centuries later, after the Byzantine Empire ended. The dissolution of the Western half, nominally ended in AD 476, but in truth a long process that ended by the rise of Catholic Gaul (modern-day France ) ruling from around the year AD 800, left only the Eastern Roman Empire alive. The Eastern half continued to think of itself as the Eastern Roman Empire until AD 610–800, when Latin ceased to be

19880-487: Was highly critical of the idea of the market-based society in his book The Great Transformation , stating that any attempt at its creation would undermine human society and the common good: "Ultimately...the control of the economic system by the market is of overwhelming consequence to the whole organization of society; it means no less than the running of society as an adjunct to the market. Instead of economy being embedded in social relations, social relations are embedded in

20022-407: Was the requirement that post-colonial societies were made to form nation-states (in the Western tradition), which often created arbitrary boundaries and borders that did not necessarily represent a whole nation, people, or culture (as in much of Africa), and are often the cause of international conflicts and friction even to this day. Although not part of Western colonization process proper, following

20164-650: Was under the Soviet Union's military sphere of influence (see FCMA treaty ) but remained neutral and was not communist, nor was it a member of the Warsaw Pact or Comecon but a member of the EFTA since 1986, and was west of the Iron Curtain . In 1955, when Austria again became a fully independent republic, it did so under the condition that it remain neutral; but as a country to the west of the Iron Curtain, it

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