Economic historians like Ken Pomeranz rightly point out that before the Industrial Revolution, differences in median standards of living across the high civilizations of Eurasia were relatively small. A peasant in the Yangtze Valley in the late seventeenth century had a different style of life than his or her contemporary peasant in the Thames Valley, but not one that was clearly better or worse.
Ken Pomeranz等经济史学家正确地指出，在工业革命以前，亚欧大陆高度文明社会生活水平中线的差距相对较小。17世纪末长江流域的农民过着与同时代泰晤士河流域的农民不同的生活方式，但这些生活方式本身却并没有明显的优劣之分。