Too bad no human society, ever, has risen out of a dark age without such a thing. Oh, wait... there's ACTUAL HISTORY. We did just fine without any equivalent.


Prove it. Where is the evidence for this? On what basis, at all, do you make this assertion. I don't even recall it being mentioned in the books. Given that they were unable to step in and tell everyone what year it was, the evidence actually suggests they were in as bad a way as everyone else. Meanwhile, we DO know for a fact that the Tower betrayed Manetheren, one of the strongest forces for the Light in the Trolloc Wars. Without the White Tower, and their excessive influence, Tetsuan would not have been in a position to act on her jealousy. Sure the Tower made it right by deposing and stilling her, but without the Tower & its dominance, she would never have been in a position to do that much damage. Without the Tower's exclusivity policies, Manetheren might have had their own channeling corps to augment their defenses, and not dump it all on Eldrene's shoulders.

As for Hawkwing, had the Tower had their way, his unified empire would not have existed to defeat the Trolloc invasion, and there would have been another round of Trolloc Wars. As for the War of the Hundred Years, what exactly did the Tower do to ameliorate that one? They demanded hostages from Ishara, despite her doing them the great favor of getting her husband to lift the siege of Tar Valon, and kept up the practice for a thousand years. There is no proof or even suggestions, of any tangible aid they rendered in Andor aside from graciously giving them permission to exist.

A law of the land no land would accommodate willingly unless the Tower rammed it down their throats.

Because she had a plurality of the vote. She herself described her military situation right before that meeting where she got the vote as inferior to her opponents - they might have won an actual battle.

Your point being...

And how much good was Andor's friendship worth? Even when they thought the Two Rivers belonged to them, the TR had to do for themselves. Perrin made his own rapprochement with the Seanchan without Andor's involvement at all. Ghealdan is on Perrin's side, thanks to his own actions, and none at all of Elayne's. Arad Domon had all they could do to keep their own city near the Mountains of Mist from selling mineral resources to Tarabon, let alone invading the Two Rivers to loot tabac and sheep. And anyway, LONGBOWS. Strategic defensibility. Home turf. Inability of any nation to keep their own borders under control. All of which would preclude any invasion from succeeding.

And once again...it's not a question of her policies vis a vis the Two Rivers, but of her RIGHT to say anything on the subject. Rand had no objectionable policies towards Andor, and a majority of the Houses ended up supporting her claim anyway, but Elayne still objected to Rand's phrasing of support because his choice of words implied authority over the selection. If Rand can't give Elayne the throne he saved from Rahvin, she certainly has no right to give the Two Rivers their de jure freedom, which already was the de facto status.

And they are characters in a series with a theme of how people are often wrong about stuff. I'm just fine ignoring the characters' opinions. Especially when the most moral & virtuous character in the entire series joins the Children of the Light.

People come to join their empire out of fear? Most of the negative opinions expressed by their new subjects have to do with the alien origins of their new rulers, not the actual policies or weight of their rule. Even major characters who are firmly opposed to them grudgingly admit their rule is just fine for the 99 percent who are not channelers.

By channelers and their friends. The one character who both cares for channelers and is known to be objective about assessments, Galad, has no problem with them. And what do the Children do that the Tower does not? Punish people for channeling? Vehemently deny Darkfriends in their midst, and punish anyone who questions the official doctrine? Torture people for minor offenses? The only difference is that the Children are even-handed and consistent in their condemnation of channeling, while the Aes Sedai punish everyone else for doing what they themselves do. Also, the Children have not been shown murdering recruits who fail to prove that the Children are the most important thing in their lives.
And the widespread use of the term "witches" indicates popularity?

So what? What does that have to do with ANYTHING? People don't wait on her permission before doing what benefits themselves, and they adopted their use without ANY ruler in their country to tell them to. There is certainly no word of Dobraine or the Aes Sedai having anything to do with the project. Likely once it was built, the service was offered to customers who took them up on it. The most controlling monarchy in WoT is still a long way from a communist-style command economy.

They don't need to! They are there already. It might take generations to ADVANCE technology, but not to adopt the finished and working versions. The steamwagons are already making runs between Cairhien and Tear. Aludra has jumped over several early steps in the development of firearms, moving up to 18th or 19th century levels, and explosive shells, rather than starting at the beginning with the simple cast bombards and mortars of the 13th century, with rocks for ammunition. And when it comes to One Power transportation technology, as I noted, the Kin are going into that business with Elayne getting a cut. The financial incentives are going to tip that in her favor too.

I meant prove the applicability to WoT. I am right at this moment wearing a shirt with Freidrich von Hayek's face on it. I don't need you to teach me about economics. What I need is some concrete example of what you are talking about besides a simplistic statement like "trade, good."

That's the way it is in the real world too. And, by the way, people all over the world use that stuff. So clearly trade is functioning just fine.
That was Mat, and I fail to see the relevance to the discussion as to whether or not Andor needs or benefits much from a Sea Folk port on their riverbank. In fact, as one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries, with all those internal mineral resources you mention, more trade might hurt them, as it might level the playing field. When you're on top, a level playing field is a set back.

And no one's definition of "reliable" includes "relying on a rare ability occurring in 1% of the population and requiring two decades to develop." Hence the demand that will arise for the steam power.

No, they don't. They are traders who treat passage as a gift. They are not mentally set up to provide mass transportation, because they see their ships as important cultural artifacts, not simple profit machines. They are a trading culture, and their ships only serve in that as transportation for the commodities they supply. If they were in the large-scale transport business, they would not have such taboos about paying for passage and require the lip service fiction of an exchange of gifts. In Andor, which has no internal waterways, the steamwagons are the best hope for mass transit.

- Andor has no internal waterways. They have two rivers which are at opposite ends of the country they effectively control, and which flow through the narrow part of the country. They no more have internal waterways than the US has internal oceans. Their waterways are exclusively for foreign travel and transportation. Meanwhile getting goods to and from those rivers will need INTERNAL transportation, which will have to be land-based.
- Central control helps NOTHING economically, aside from possibly the control of the center. Trade especially develops better when left to its own devices and goods find their own market. There are simply too many decisions to make in trade for a central authority to make them effectively. A simple feedback mechanism governs the movement of trade goods and routes, and all central control does is interfere with and adversely affect that flow. There's a reason why the human body is governed in a similar manner, rather than by conscious choices - if we had to decide which hormones to release and when and how much, we'd quickly kill ourselves in ignorance, whereas the autonomic nervous and endocrine systems use feedback to regulate and incredibly complex and interdependent system. Central control is like the brain trying to consciously govern heartbeat and breathing. Sometimes there is a good or immediate reason to do so (like falling under water) but for the most part, you're better off letting such things work themselves out, and the same goes for trade and transportation. If people need to get places or send goods, they will find a way to get them there. If they don't really need to go there or send stuff there, it will simply be a waste of national revenues that could be spent on something more useful, like cannons or soldiers.
- Central control is not a phrase that applies to foreign trade and commerce. All Elayne can do is tell Andorans where they can and cannot ship their goods, which she can't even really do without cooperation from other countries, otherwise it is too easy to label a crate "Illian", put it on a riverboat and "accidentally" switch it to a Tear-bound vessel once out of Elayne's reach.
- Central control is also not a thing when a foreign culture with no loyalties or allegiance to the government is handling the trade. The big issue with the trade from the Sea Folk enclave is that it will NOT be under Andoran control. They can bring in foreign goods fast and cheap and under-priced so as to hurt Andoran industry, and cause Andorans to lose money. All those new business Elayne sees starting up in Caemlyn could be hurt by traders like the Sea Folk, who don't play by Andoran rules, selling whatever they want. Does Elayne want them bringing in silk from Seanchan or Shara to compete with what her Cairhienin subjects may import from the Aiel traders, thus hurting one of her countries and the trade of her sister's people as well? What if they find a cheap source for wool that means the eastern part of Andor starts buying wool from the Sea Folk instead of her allies in the Two Rivers?

And you don't see how that can be problem for OTHER merchants and farmers? Not to mention, this is still all crap once the steamboats get launched, and Andor is a country that has a very long east-west axis, with the Sea Folk only bringing goods to the extreme end, so they will still need those other methods to get stuff from the border to the city or the other end of the country, just like they do now. All it does is provide another entry point to the country, for the exclusive use of the Sea Folk, which will probably annoy the other countries Andor has been trading with for years, at the least, and at the worst, deprive existent Andoran ports and merchants out of business. Oh, and they have to pay higher prices, and receive lower price for their own goods, because now they have to bargain with the Sea Folk.

The point of all this is, the trade situation is too complex and self-contradictory (if you were paying attention, you'd have seen we both made points that contradicted other points of our own) to be universally labeled a good or bad thing. Overall, the trade issue will probably be neutral for Andor, which means no corresponding advance to make up for the Andorans who get inconvenienced by a deal that only benefited Elayne.