OK, I'm finally back at home in my library and able to consult my books. I'd like to add a lengthy comment so rather than edit my comment above I'm creating another one.

First, I misplaced where I read the thought I summarized above: Rather than The Anarchy it was in the excellent The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan. Second, as others have zealously pointed out, the term "Northern Europe" is not appropriate, it should be England and the Low Countries. The reason I said "North" was to show the contract with Southern Europe, which, starting by the period in which EIC was founded has started to lag behind.

This is one of the most most important points that I took away from The Silk Roads: The Long Divergence(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Divergence) is usually formulated in terms of Europe vs "The East" (e.g. Ottomans, India, and China), which makes the discussion very complicated and polarizing due to additional factors of religion, widely varying cultures, etc. However, there was a similar divergence that happened between Southern Europe (Spain & Italy) and North East Europe* . This is very interesting because it cannot be easily explained by religions influence (e,.g. Islam) and Orientalism, nor it can easily be explained away by easy access to the Atlantic route to Asia. I now think that a key component of this divergence One of the key components (which I didn't not know before and learned from these two books) is the formation of the large companies like the EIC.

In mid-1550s a number of companies with geographic ambitions were founded. I especially admire the Company of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands and Places Unknown, founded in 1551 for its fantastic name (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscovy_Company)! However, England was still at the periphery of trade action at this time. "In teh last years of the sixteenth century, circumstances came together to provide the context for a miracle in the Low Countries" (SR, p. 245). The Dutch began their amazing growth. The Verenigde Cost-Indische Compaigne (VOC), was founded in 1602, two years after the EIC, but the Dutch wee much more successful than the British. An interest start "Some have suggested that 3 million paintings were produced in the seventeenth century alone" in the Lowlands (SR p. 249) This shows the tremendous wealth in the region as well as the rise of bourgeois taste. Population almost doubled in England and Low Countries between 1500 and 1800, concentrated in large towns.

The VOC initially kicked EIC's ass: in mid 1600s they were shipping around 3x as much value as EIC (SR, pp. 258). But then there was a war between the English and Dutch which lead to a maritime revolution in England in second half of the seventieth century. After which began EIC's rise against the VOC and England's naval supremacy (EIC gave up east Asia and focused on India).

The above developments was the beginning of the end of Southern European powers, e.g. Venice and of course the Ottomans and Central Asia.

So many interesting things to talk about here, but, as they say, "Hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet." I cannot resist to point out a few:

* According to SR (p. 269), the efforts to bail out EIC by the government in the second half of 1700s led to the Tea Act. So, EIC's greed may have spurred the American Revolution

* The possibility of a pact between England the Ottoman Empire is one of the great what-ifs of history: Queen Elisabeth courted Mehmet III with gifts and letters (and contacted Safiye Sultan, too, as a friend): she sent an organ to Constantinople in 1599 with Thomas Dallam, who gained admiration of the sultan when he played it so much so that he was offered "tow wyfes, either tow of his Concubines or els tow virgins of the beste I could Chuse" (for more of this great trip see https://www.amazon.com/Sultans-Organ-London-Constantinople-a...)

* The invention of a joint stock company (I mistakenly called it LLC in my original comment) which EIC and VOC were examples, is one of the most important business inventions of mankind. The Muscovy company I mentioned above is the first one