important institutional differences that emerged after the
Black Death then created the background upon which the
more significant divergence between the East and the
West would play out during the seventeenth, eighteenth,
and nineteenth centuries.
But where do the small institutional differences that start
this process of divergence arise in the first place? Why did
Eastern Europe have different political and economic
institutions than the West in the fourteenth century? Why
was the balance of power between Crown and Parliament
different in England than in France and Spain? As we will
see in the next chapter, even societies that are far less
complex than our modern society create political and
economic institutions that have powerful effects on the lives
of their members. This is true even for hunter-gatherers, as
we know from surviving societies such as the San people
of modern Botswana, who do not farm or even live in
permanent settlements.
No two societies create the same institutions; they will
have distinct customs, different systems of property rights,
and different ways of dividing a killed animal or loot stolen
from another group. Some will recognize the authority of
elders, others will not; some will achieve some degree of
political centralization early on, but not others. Societies are
constantly subject to economic and political conflict that is
resolved in different ways because of specific historical
differences, the role of individuals, or just random factors.
These differences are often small to start with, but they
cumulate, creating a process of institutional drift. Just as
two isolated populations of organisms will drift apart slowly
in a process of genetic drift, because random genetic
mutations cumulate, two otherwise similar societies will
also slowly drift apart institutionally. Though, just like genetic
drift, institutional drift has no predetermined path and does
not even need to be cumulative; over centuries it can lead
to perceptible, sometimes important differences. The
differences created by institutional drift become especially
consequential, because they influence how society reacts
to changes in economic or political circumstances during
critical junctures.