Do christian turks exists

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There are many books dedicated to the economic system of the Ottoman State, 
Well funny enough I was talking precisely about that with a couple of Turkish Economic Historian complaining that there was almost no literature on premodern ottoman economic history because of the double barrier of the language and the type of sources that could be found. But most likely you know better.

it was not simply a feudal agriculture, it had a large feudal agricultural population but your neglecting the Ottoman trade routes, its proffessional class, its exports and produce.
The ottoman empire was late technicly wise since the beginning. One example: the arsenal of Istanbul is usually singled out as an achievement of the ottoman industries but it was actually a mere agregate of workshops whereas the Venetian Arsenale was more of an assembly line (ie organisational advantages). What did the merchants (most of them non Turk) bought in the Empire? Primary products and re-exports, non comparative advantage for the Ottoman industries (which existed at a large scale by the way).

For example, Bursa was not just one of the richest states in the region but in the entire world due being a centre of textiles.
� produced in Iran. Take Venice as a comparison: it was a big port and a major industrialized city as early as the 13th century.

The Ahilik system based on Central Asian Ak Saqalik, the Charshi/Bazaars and so on are evidence against your claims.
What's that?

Let's not forget how colonialist empires like the Brittish or French aquired such immense wealth. They were also largely agricultural and relied on feudal land lords.
England was not a feudal state after the 13th-14th century and France got rid of the last big lords in the 16th-early seventeenth century. Ie before the imperial and industrial expansion. 

The economic advantage they had was "America" and "Slavery". If the Ottomans had state authorised the slave trade like Western European powers did she also would have benefitted from it in the same way.
True for America but merely because it provided land. Concerning slavery please refer to my reading note here (Also for a different point of. There was no clear correlation slave trade/wealth. See Portugal for instance, it went on for ages and never managed to threaten the English world domination, same is true for France. view see this video around the 25th minute but for you to know the man is specialist of China not the Atlantic trade)

As inhumane as it sounds, Ottomans missed out economically speaking not being a part of the slave trade.
A third or so of the Algerine population was slave� never became a powerful state.

Imagine having hundreds of acres of land and have it worked for free, unimaginable capitol was made from this.
The slaves in the antebellum Souther US states costed 90$ a year on average, while a white labourer costed 110$ in the North� hence they were saving the faboulous amont of 20$. Reference: CARVILLE, Earle and HOFFMAN, Ronald (Dec., 1980),  The Foundation of the Modern Economy: Agriculture and the Costs of Labor in the United States and England, 1800-60, The American Historical Review, 85/5, p.1055-1094.

With all this finance they could fund an industrial revolution much more easily than the Ottoman's could.
Right the fact that England's growth started in 1600 is not a problem for you and neither the fact that the true effects of the industrial revolution started in 1850 (bit late for slavery no?).  see video #2

However, the Ottomans did start to industrialize, they had factories, were building a train network and modernizing from the early Tanzimat period.
So were Qing China and late Tokagawa/Meiji Japan and Japan did much better. 

The Brittish Empire or just Britain? how can you compare a province of an Empire to another Empire. 
In main Ottoman cities literacy rate was not below that of Britain, in the 1800's there were primary schools, colleges, universities for most city 
You started by comparing London and Istanbul. Be my guess. I have a vague idea for London (around 85% by 1830 of the Londoner could sign by something else than a cross and knew their exact age). What about Istanbul?

What has Westernization got to do with anything, being Westernized doesn't make anybody "better" or "worse", infact many Arab regimes are more Western in organisation than Turkey is, many African states are highly Westernized but not very prosperous or advanced in comparison to non-Western modern nations like China, Indonesia and so on.
Lets say that the West has proved to have an efficient model. Other models are theoretically possible, but none has emerged yet. The UAE are too small ans specific to be really a model (as if we said, just do like Norway put the oil bonanza in a national pension fund�). 

It is my 1000th post yeah!

Edited by Maharbbal - 29-Mar-2007 at 21:44