Lad os tale om milliarder Lad os tale om forrige og fremtidige milliarder. Vi ved at omkring 106 milliarder mennesker har levet her. Og vi ved at de fleste af dem er døde. Vi ved også at de fleste af dem lever eller har levet i Asien. Og vi ved også at de fleste af dem var eller er meget fattige -- lever ikke særligt længe. Lad os tale om milliarder. Lad os tale om den 195.000 milliarder dollars store formue i verden i dag. Vi ved at det meste af den formue er skabt efter året 1800. Og vi ved at det meste af den er for øjeblikket ejet af folk vi kan kalde vesterlændinge: Europæer, nordamerikanere og australiere. 19 procent af verdens befolkning i dag. Vesterlændinge ejer totredjedele af dens formue.
Let's talk about billions. Let's talk about past and future billions. We know that about 106 billion people have ever lived. And we know that most of them are dead. And we also know that most of them live or lived in Asia. And we also know that most of them were or are very poor -- did not live for very long. Let's talk about billions. Let's talk about the 195,000 billion dollars of wealth in the world today. We know that most of that wealth was made after the year 1800. And we know that most of it is currently owned by people we might call Westerners: Europeans, North Americans, Australasians. 19 percent of the world's population today, Westerners own two-thirds of its wealth.
Økonomihistorikere kaldet dette "Den store adskillelse" Og denne slide er den bedste simplificering af historien om Den store adskillelse jeg kan tilbyde jer. Det er basalt set to forhold mellem per person BNP, per person bruttonationalprodukt, altså gennemsnitlig indkomst. Den røde linje er forholdet mellem en britisk og indisk gennemsnitsindkomst. Og den blå linje er forholdet mellem en amerikansk og en kinesisk. Denne graf går tilbage til 1500. Og du kan se her at adskillelsen vokser eksponentielt. De starter temmelig ens. Faktisk, i 1500, var den gennemsnitlige kineser rigere end den gennemsnitlige nordamerikaner. Når du kommer til 1970'erne, som er hvor denne graf ender, er den gennemsnitlige brite mere end 10 gange rigere en den gennemsnitlige inder. Og der er korrigeret for for forskelle i priser. Det er baseret på købekraftspariteter. Den gennemsnitlige amerikaner er omtrent 20 gange rigere end den gennemsnitlige kineser i 1970'erne.
Economic historians call this "The Great Divergence." And this slide here is the best simplification of the Great Divergence story I can offer you. It's basically two ratios of per capita GDP, per capita gross domestic product, so average income. One, the red line, is the ratio of British to Indian per capita income. And the blue line is the ratio of American to Chinese. And this chart goes back to 1500. And you can see here that there's an exponential Great Divergence. They start off pretty close together. In fact, in 1500, the average Chinese was richer than the average North American. When you get to the 1970s, which is where this chart ends, the average Briton is more than 10 times richer than the average Indian. And that's allowing for differences in the cost of living. It's based on purchasing power parity. The average American is nearly 20 times richer than the average Chinese by the 1970s.
Hvordan det? Dette er ikke bare en økonomisk historie. Hvis du tager de 10 lande som blev de vestlige imperier, i 1500 var de ret bette -- fem procent af verdens landoverflade, 16 procent af det befolkning, måske 20 procent af dets indkomst. Men i 1913, disse 10 lande, plus USA, kontrollerede enorme globale imperier -- 58 procent af verdens territorium, omtrent den samme procentdel af dets befolkning, og en virkelig stor, omtrent trefjerdedeles andel af det globale økonomiske output. Og bemærk, det meste af det gik til moderlandene, til imperiernes metropoler, ikke til deres koloniale besiddelser.
So why? This wasn't just an economic story. If you take the 10 countries that went on to become the Western empires, in 1500 they were really quite tiny -- five percent of the world's land surface, 16 percent of its population, maybe 20 percent of its income. By 1913, these 10 countries, plus the United States, controlled vast global empires -- 58 percent of the world's territory, about the same percentage of its population, and a really huge, nearly three-quarters share of global economic output. And notice, most of that went to the motherland, to the imperial metropoles, not to their colonial possessions.
Men du kan bare ikke skyde skylden på imperialismen -- selvom mange mennesker har forsøgt det -- af to grunde. For det første, imperier var den mindst originale ting som Vesten gjorde efter 1500. Alle skabte imperier. De slog eksisterende østlige imperier som Mogulerne og Osmannerne. Så det ser virkeligt ikke ud som om imperier er nogen god forklaring for Den store adskillelse. Under alle omstændigheder, som I måske husker, den store adskillelse nåede sit højdepunkt i 1970'erne, betragtelig tid efter afkoloniseringen. Dette er ikke et nyt spørgsmål.
Now you can't just blame this on imperialism -- though many people have tried to do so -- for two reasons. One, empire was the least original thing that the West did after 1500. Everybody did empire. They beat preexisting Oriental empires like the Mughals and the Ottomans. So it really doesn't look like empire is a great explanation for the Great Divergence. In any case, as you may remember, the Great Divergence reaches its zenith in the 1970s, some considerable time after decolonization. This is not a new question.
Samuel Johnson, den store ordbogsforfatter, udtrykte det gennem sin karakter Rasselas i hans roman "Rasselas, prins af Abessinien" udgivet i 1759. "Af hvilken grund er europæerne så magtfulde, siden de så let kan besøge Asien og Afrika for handel eller erobring, hvorfor kan asiater og afrikanere ikke invadere deres kyster, plante kolonier i deres havne og give ordre til deres fyrster? De samme vinde som bringer dem tilbage burde bringe os derhen?"
Samuel Johnson, the great lexicographer, [posed] it through his character Rasselas in his novel "Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia," published in 1759. "By what means are the Europeans thus powerful; or why, since they can so easily visit Asia and Africa for trade or conquest, cannot the Asiaticks and Africans invade their coasts, plant colonies in their ports, and give laws to their natural princes? The same wind that carries them back would bring us thither?"
Det er et godt spørgsmål. Og ved I hvad, det er også blevet stillet nogenlunde samtidigt af restlændingene -- af folket i resten af verden -- som Ibrahim Muteferrika en Osmannisk embedsmand, manden der indførte trykning, meget forsinket, til det Osmanniske rige -- som skrev i en bog udgivet 1731: "Hvorfor er de kristne nationer, som var så svage før i tiden sammenlignet med de muslimske nationer, begyndt at dominere så mange lande i moderne tider og endda vinder over de før så sejrrige Osmanniske hære?" Modsat Rasselas havde Muteferrika et svar på spørgsmålet som var korrekt. Han skrev det var "fordi de har love og regler udledt af fornuften." Det handler ikke om geografi.
That's a great question. And you know what, it was also being asked at roughly the same time by the Resterners -- by the people in the rest of the world -- like Ibrahim Muteferrika, an Ottoman official, the man who introduced printing, very belatedly, to the Ottoman Empire -- who said in a book published in 1731, "Why do Christian nations which were so weak in the past compared with Muslim nations begin to dominate so many lands in modern times and even defeat the once victorious Ottoman armies?" Unlike Rasselas, Muteferrika had an answer to that question, which was correct. He said it was "because they have laws and rules invented by reason." It's not geography.
Du tror at vi kan forklare den store adskillelse ud fra geografi. Men vi ved at det er forkert, fordi vi har udført to store naturlige eksperimenter i det 20'ende århundrede for at se om geografi betød mere end institutioner. Vi tog alle tyskerne og delte dem i 2 dele, hvor vi gav den ene del til den østlige kommunisme og I ser resultatet. Indenfor et ufatteligt kort tidsrum producerede menneskerne der levede i DDR trabanter, trabierne, en af verden værste biler nogensinde, mens tyskerne i vest producerede Mercedes Benz. Hvis du stadigvæk ikke tror mig, så udførte vi også forsøget på den Koreanske halvø. Og vi besluttede at tage koreanerne i nogenlunde samme geografiske område med, bemærk, den samme basale traditionelle kultur og vi delte dem i to, og vi gav de nordlige kommunisme. Og resultatet er en endnu større forskel i et meget kort tidsrum end hvad der skete i Tyskland. Indrømmet, ikke den store forskel hvad angår design af grænsevagternes uniformer, men i enhver anden henseende er det en kæmpe forskel. Hvilket får mig til at mene at hverken geografi eller nationalkarakter, populære forklaringer for den slags ting, betyder noget.
You may think we can explain the Great Divergence in terms of geography. We know that's wrong, because we conducted two great natural experiments in the 20th century to see if geography mattered more than institutions. We took all the Germans, we divided them roughly in two, and we gave the ones in the East communism, and you see the result. Within an incredibly short period of time, people living in the German Democratic Republic produced Trabants, the Trabbi, one of the world's worst ever cars, while people in the West produced the Mercedes Benz. If you still don't believe me, we conducted the experiment also in the Korean Peninsula. And we decided we'd take Koreans in roughly the same geographical place with, notice, the same basic traditional culture, and we divided them in two, and we gave the Northerners communism. And the result is an even bigger divergence in a very short space of time than happened in Germany. Not a big divergence in terms of uniform design for border guards admittedly, but in almost every other respect, it's a huge divergence. Which leads me to think that neither geography nor national character, popular explanations for this kind of thing, are really significant.
Det er ideerne. Det er institutionerne. Dette må være rigtigt fordi det er sagt af en skotte. Jeg tror jeg er den eneste skotte tilstede her på Edinburgh TED. Så lad mig forklare for jer at den klogeste mand som nogensinde har levet var en skotte. Han var Adam Smith -- not Billy Connoly, not Sean Connery -- selvom har er meget smart. (Latter) Smith -- og jeg vil have jer til at gå hen og knæle for hans statue på the Royal Mile. Det er en fantastisk statue -- Smith, i "Nationernes velstand" udgivet i 1776 -- det var den vigtigste begivenhed som skete det år .. (Latter) Helt sikkert. Der var en lille lokal besværlighed i en af vores mindre kolonier, men ...
It's the ideas. It's the institutions. This must be true because a Scotsman said it. And I think I'm the only Scotsman here at the Edinburgh TED. So let me just explain to you that the smartest man ever was a Scotsman. He was Adam Smith -- not Billy Connolly, not Sean Connery -- though he is very smart indeed. (Laughter) Smith -- and I want you to go and bow down before his statue in the Royal Mile; it's a wonderful statue -- Smith, in the "Wealth of Nations" published in 1776 -- that's the most important thing that happened that year ... (Laughter) You bet. There was a little local difficulty in some of our minor colonies, but ...
(Latter)
(Laughter)
"Kina syntes ikke at have udviklet sig længe og har sandsynligvis for længe siden fuldbyrdet den rigdom som ligger indenfor dets love og institutioners muligheder. Men denne fuldbyrdelse er måske meget lavere end hvad, med andre love og institutioner, naturen af dets jord, klima og situation giver mulighed for." Det er så rigtigt og så cool. Og han sagde det for så længe siden.
"China seems to have been long stationary, and probably long ago acquired that full complement of riches which is consistent with the nature of its laws and institutions. But this complement may be much inferior to what, with other laws and institutions, the nature of its soil, climate, and situation might admit of." That is so right and so cool. And he said it such a long time ago.
Men som I ved, dette er et TED publikum og hvis jeg fortsætter med at tale om institutioner falder I i søvn. Så jeg vil oversætte det til et sprog i kan forstå. Lad os kalde dem killer apps. Jeg vil forklare for jer at der er seks killer apps som gav Vesten et forspring fra resten. De er killer apps på samme måde som dem på jeres mobil, I den betydning at de ser simple ud. Det er bare ikoner, du klikker på. Men bag ikonet er det kompleks programmering. Det er det samme med institutioner. Der er seks som jeg mener kan forklare den store adskillelse. Et, konkurrence. To, den videnskabelige revolution. Tre, ejendomsret. Fire, moderne medicin. Fem, forbrugersamfundet. Og seks, arbejdsetik. Du kan spille et spil med tanken om at jeg har glemt en, eller du kan koge det ned til kun fire, men du vil tabe.
But you know, this is a TED audience, and if I keep talking about institutions, you're going to turn off. So I'm going to translate this into language that you can understand. Let's call them the killer apps. I want to explain to you that there were six killer apps that set the West apart from the rest. And they're kind of like the apps on your phone, in the sense that they look quite simple. They're just icons; you click on them. But behind the icon, there's complex code. It's the same with institutions. There are six which I think explain the Great Divergence. One, competition. Two, the scientific revolution. Three, property rights. Four, modern medicine. Five, the consumer society. And six, the work ethic. You can play a game and try and think of one I've missed at, or try and boil it down to just four, but you'll lose.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Lad mig kort fortælle hvad jeg mener med dette og undervejs sammenfatte arbejdet fra mange økonomihistorikere. Konkurrence betyder at ikke bare var der hundreder af forskellige politiske enheder i Europa i 1500, men indenfor hver af disse enheder, var der konkurrence mellem virksomheder, såvel som herskere. Stamfaderen til moderne selskaber, the City of London Corporation eksisterede i 12-hundredetallet. Intet tilsvarende eksisterede i Kina, der var bare en monolitisk stat omfattende en femtedel af menneskeheden, og enhver med hvilken som helst ambition skulle bestå én standardiseret eksamen, som tog tre dage og var meget svær og bestod af at huske en stort antal skrifttegn og skrive afhandlinger om meget indviklet konfuciansk lærdom.
Let me very briefly tell you what I mean by this, synthesizing the work of many economic historians in the process. Competition means, not only were there a hundred different political units in Europe in 1500, but within each of these units, there was competition between corporations as well as sovereigns. The ancestor of the modern corporation, the City of London Corporation, existed in the 12th century. Nothing like this existed in China, where there was one monolithic state covering a fifth of humanity, and anyone with any ambition had to pass one standardized examination, which took three days and was very difficult and involved memorizing vast numbers of characters and very complex Confucian essay writing.
Den videnskabelige revolution var anderledes fra den videnskab som blev opnået i den orientalske verden på en række afgørende punkter, den mest vigtige er brug af den eksperimentelle metode. Den giver mennesker kontrol over naturen på en måde som ikke var mulig før. Eksempelvis: Benjamin Robins ekstraordinære anvendelse af Newtons fysik indenfor ballistik. Når du kan gøre dette bliver dit artilleri præcist. Tænk på hvad det betyder. Det var virkeligt en Killer applikation. (Latter) Samtidigt var der ingen videnskabelig revolution nogen andre steder. Det Osmanniske imperium var ikke langt fra Europa, men der er ingen videnskabelig revolution der. Faktisk ødelagde de Taqi al-Din's observatorium fordi det betragtedes som blasfemisk at undersøge guds skaberværk.
The scientific revolution was different from the science that had been achieved in the Oriental world in a number of crucial ways, the most important being that, through the experimental method, it gave men control over nature in a way that had not been possible before. Example: Benjamin Robins's extraordinary application of Newtonian physics to ballistics. Once you do that, your artillery becomes accurate. Think of what that means. That really was a killer application. (Laughter) Meanwhile, there's no scientific revolution anywhere else. The Ottoman Empire's not that far from Europe, but there's no scientific revolution there. In fact, they demolish Taqi al-Din's observatory, because it's considered blasphemous to inquire into the mind of God.
Ejendomsret: Det er ikke demokrati folkens, det er at regere på basis af love baseret på privat ejendomsret. Det er hvad der gør forskellen mellem Nordamerika og Sydamerika. Du kunne dukke op i Nordamerika efter at have underskrevet en kontrakt om: "Jeg vil arbejde gratis de næste fem år. For kost og logi." Men bagefter havde du hundrede hektar land. Dette var udlodning af land i bunden af denne slide. Dette er ikke muligt i Sydamerika hvor jorden er ejet af en lille elite der nedstammer fra Conquistadorene. Og I kan her se den store forskel som der er på jordejerskab mellem nord og syd. De fleste folk i den landlige Nordamerika ejede noget jord i 1900. Stort set ingen i Sydamerika gjorde. Her er en anden killer app.
Property rights: It's not the democracy, folks; it's having the rule of law based on private property rights. That's what makes the difference between North America and South America. You could turn up in North America having signed a deed of indenture saying, "I'll work for nothing for five years. You just have to feed me." But at the end of it, you've got a hundred acres of land. That's the land grant on the bottom half of the slide. That's not possible in Latin America where land is held onto by a tiny elite descended from the conquistadors. And you can see here the huge divergence that happens in property ownership between North and South. Most people in rural North America owned some land by 1900. Hardly anyone in South America did. That's another killer app.
Moderne medicin i slutningen af 18-hundrede tallet fik nogle store gennembrud i kampen mod infektioner som dræbte en masse mennesker. Og dette var en anden killer app -- faktisk det modsatte af en dræber, fordi den fordoblede, og derefter mere en fordoblede et menneskes forventede levetid. Den gjorde det endda ude i de europæiske imperier. Selv steder som Senegal hvor der i starten af det 20'ende århundrede var der store gennembrud i den offentlige sundhed og levetiden begyndte at stige. Den begyndte ikke at stige hurtigere efter at disse lande blev selvstændige. Imperier var ikke kun af det onde.
Modern medicine in the late 19th century began to make major breakthroughs against the infectious diseases that killed a lot of people. And this was another killer app -- the very opposite of a killer, because it doubled, and then more than doubled, human life expectancy. It even did that in the European empires. Even in places like Senegal, beginning in the early 20th century, there were major breakthroughs in public health, and life expectancy began to rise. It doesn't rise any faster after these countries become independent. The empires weren't all bad.
Forbrugersamfundet er hvad du behøver for at den industrielle revolution har et formål. Du behøver at folk ønsker at bære tonsvis af tøj. I har alle købt et stykke tøj indenfor den sidste måned -- jeg garantere det. Det er forbrugersamfundet og det driver den økonomiske vækst mere end den teknologiske udvikling gør. Japan var det første ikke vestlige samfund til at omfavne det. Alternativet, som var foreslået af Mahatma Gandhi, var at institutionaliserer fattigdomen og gøre den permanent. Meget få indere i dag ønsker at Indien havde fulgt Mahatma Gandhis vej.
The consumer society is what you need for the Industrial Revolution to have a point. You need people to want to wear tons of clothes. You've all bought an article of clothing in the last month; I guarantee it. That's the consumer society, and it propels economic growth more than even technological change itself. Japan was the first non-Western society to embrace it. The alternative, which was proposed by Mahatma Gandhi, was to institutionalize and make poverty permanent. Very few Indians today wish that India had gone down Mahatma Gandhi's road.
Til sidst, arbejdsetik. Max Weber troede at det var noget særligt protestantisk. Han tog fejl. Enhver kultur kan tilegne sig arbejdsetik, hvis der er institutioner tilstede der skaber incitamenter for at arbejde. Vi ved dette fordi at i dag er arbejdsetik ikke længere et protestantisk, vestligt fænomen. Faktisk, har Vesten tabt sin arbejdsetik. I dag arbejder den gennemsnitlige koreaner tusind timer mere om året end den gennemsnitlige tysker -- et tusinde. Og dette er en del af et virkeligt ekstraordinært fænomen som er slutningen på Den store adskillelse.
Finally, the work ethic. Max Weber thought that was peculiarly Protestant. He was wrong. Any culture can get the work ethic if the institutions are there to create the incentive to work. We know this because today the work ethic is no longer a Protestant, Western phenomenon. In fact, the West has lost its work ethic. Today, the average Korean works a thousand hours more a year than the average German -- a thousand. And this is part of a really extraordinary phenomenon, and that is the end of the Great Divergence.
Hvem har arbejdsetikken nu? Kig på disse matematiske færdigheder hos 15-årige. I toppen af den internationale liga ifølge den seneste PISA undersøgelse, er Shanghai distriktet i Kina. Forskellen mellem Shanghai Storbritannien og USA er lige så stor som forskellen mellem UK og USA og Albanien og Tunesien. I forstiller jer nok at fordi IPhone var designet i Californien men samlet i Kina så er Vesten stadig førende indenfor teknologisk innovation. I tager fejl. Målt på antal patenter er der ingen tvivl om at Østen er foran. Ikke bare har Japan været foran i noget tid, Sydkorea kommer ind på en tredjeplads og Kina er lige ved at overhale Tyskland. Hvorfor? Fordi Killer apps kan blive downloadet. Det er open source. Ethvert samfund kan indfører disse institutioner og de vil gøre det, de vil opnå det som vesten opnåede efter 1500 -- bare hurtigere.
Who's got the work ethic now? Take a look at mathematical attainment by 15 year-olds. At the top of the international league table according to the latest PISA study, is the Shanghai district of China. The gap between Shanghai and the United Kingdom and the United States is as big as the gap between the U.K. and the U.S. and Albania and Tunisia. You probably assume that because the iPhone was designed in California but assembled in China that the West still leads in terms of technological innovation. You're wrong. In terms of patents, there's no question that the East is ahead. Not only has Japan been ahead for some time, South Korea has gone into third place, and China is just about to overtake Germany. Why? Because the killer apps can be downloaded. It's open source. Any society can adopt these institutions, and when they do, they achieve what the West achieved after 1500 -- only faster.
Det er Den store gensamling, og det er den største fortælling i vores levetid. Fordi det sker for øjnene af jer. Det er vores generation som er vidner til afslutningen af Vestens dominans. Den gennemsnitlige amerikaner plejede at være 20 gange rigere end den gennemsnitlige kineser. Nu er det kun fem gange og snart vil det blive 2,5 gange.
This is the Great Reconvergence, and it's the biggest story of your lifetime. Because it's on your watch that this is happening. It's our generation that is witnessing the end of Western predominance. The average American used to be more than 20 times richer than the average Chinese. Now it's just five times, and soon it will be 2.5 times.
Så for at slutte med tre spørgsmål om de fremtidige milliarder, umiddelbart efter 2016 når USA har tabt sin plads som økonomisk nummer et til Kina. Det første er om man kan slette disse apps og er vi i gang med at gøre det i den vestlige verden? Det andet spørgsmål er: Har rækkefølgen af download en betydning? Og har Afrika gjort det i den forkerte rækkefølge? En grundlæggende lære fra moderne økonomisk historie er at det er svært at overgå til demokrati før du har etableret sikring af den private ejendomsret. Advarsel: Det vil ikke virke. Og for det tredje, kan Kina klare sig uden killer app nummer tre? Det er den som John Locke systematiserede da han sagde at frihed var grundfæstet i den private ejendomsret og retssikkerhed gennem lovgivning. Dette er grundlaget for den vestlige model for repræsentativ regering. Dette fotografi viser nedrivningen af af den kinesiske kunster Ai Weiweis atelier i Shanghai tidligere på året. Hen er nu på fri fod igen efter at være fængslet, som I ved, i et stykke tid. Men jeg tror ikke har atelier er blevet genopbygget.
So I want to end with three questions for the future billions, just ahead of 2016, when the United States will lose its place as number one economy to China. The first is, can you delete these apps, and are we in the process of doing so in the Western world? The second question is, does the sequencing of the download matter? And could Africa get that sequencing wrong? One obvious implication of modern economic history is that it's quite hard to transition to democracy before you've established secure private property rights. Warning: that may not work. And third, can China do without killer app number three? That's the one that John Locke systematized when he said that freedom was rooted in private property rights and the protection of law. That's the basis for the Western model of representative government. Now this picture shows the demolition of the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's studio in Shanghai earlier this year. He's now free again, having been detained, as you know, for some time. But I don't think his studio has been rebuilt.
Winston Churchill definerede engang civilisation i et foredrag han holdt i det skæbnesvangre år 1938. Jeg tror at disse ord sætter det på spidsen: "Det betyder et samfund baseret på borgernes vilje. Det betyder at vold, regering af krigsherrer og despotiske fyrster, tilstanden af lejre og krig, af optøjer og tyranni , giver plads til forsamlinger hvor love er lavet, uafhængigt retsvæsen hvor disse love er opretholdt over længere perioder. Dette er civilisation -- i hvis jord gror fremdeles frihed, tryghed og kultur." Det er alt hvad TEDstere bekymrer sig mest om. "Når civilisation regerer i alle lande, vil et rigere og mindre farligt liv være muligt for de brede masser af folk." Det er så rigtigt.
Winston Churchill once defined civilization in a lecture he gave in the fateful year of 1938. And I think these words really nail it: "It means a society based upon the opinion of civilians. It means that violence, the rule of warriors and despotic chiefs, the conditions of camps and warfare, of riot and tyranny, give place to parliaments where laws are made, and independent courts of justice in which over long periods those laws are maintained. That is civilization -- and in its soil grow continually freedom, comfort and culture," what all TEDsters care about most. "When civilization reigns in any country, a wider and less harassed life is afforded to the masses of the people." That's so true.
Jeg tror ikke af nedgangen i vestlig civilisation er uafvendelig, fordi jeg tror ikke at historien fungere efter en slags livscyklus model, smukt illustreret af Thomas Cole i malerierne "Imperiernes gang". Det er ikke måden hvorpå historien arbejder. Det er ikke måden hvorpå Vesten steg og jeg tror ikke det er måden Vesten vil falde. Vesten kan kollapse meget hurtigt. Komplekse civilisationer gør det fordi de fungere, for det meste af tiden, på kanten af kaos. Det er en af de dybere indsigter som er kommet frem af historiske studier af komplekse institutioner så som civilisationer. Nej vi vil hænge på på trods af den kæmpe byrde af gæld vi har optaget, på trods af at vi har tabt vores arbejdsetik og andre dele af vores historiske arv. Men en ting er sikkert Den store adskillelse er forbi, venner.
I don't think the decline of Western civilization is inevitable, because I don't think history operates in this kind of life-cycle model, beautifully illustrated by Thomas Cole's "Course of Empire" paintings. That's not the way history works. That's not the way the West rose, and I don't think it's the way the West will fall. The West may collapse very suddenly. Complex civilizations do that, because they operate, most of the time, on the edge of chaos. That's one of the most profound insights to come out of the historical study of complex institutions like civilizations. No, we may hang on, despite the huge burdens of debt that we've accumulated, despite the evidence that we've lost our work ethic and other parts of our historical mojo. But one thing is for sure, the Great Divergence is over, folks.
Mange tak.
Thanks very much.
(Bifald)
(Applause)
Bruno Giussane: Niall, Jeg er nysgerrig efter at tage dig til en anden region i verden som boomer, nemlig Latinamerika. Hvad er dit syn på det?
Bruno Giussani: Niall, I am just curious about your take on the other region of the world that's booming, which is Latin America. What's your view on that?
Niall Ferguson: Jeg taler ikke kun om at Østens rejser sig, jeg taler om at Resten rejser sig, herunder Sydamerika. Jeg spurgte en gang en af mine kollegaer på Harvard: "Hej, er Sydamerika en del af Vesten?" Han var ekspert i latinamerikansk historie. Han svarede:"Jeg ved det ikke, jeg bliver nødt til at tænke over det." Dette fortæller os noget meget vigtigt. Jeg tror at hvis du kigger på hvad der sker ikke bare i Brasilien, men også i Chile, som på mange måder var landet som startede med at forandre sine økonomiske institutioner, er der bestemt en stor fremtid. Så min historie er ligeså meget om konvergens i de to Amerika'er som det er en historie om konvergens i Euroasien.
Niall Ferguson: Well I really am not just talking about the rise of the East; I'm talking about the rise of the Rest, and that includes South America. I once asked one of my colleagues at Harvard, "Hey, is South America part of the West?" He was an expert in Latin American history. He said, "I don't know; I'll have to think about that." That tells you something really important. I think if you look at what is happening in Brazil in particular, but also Chile, which was in many ways the one that led the way in transforming the institutions of economic life, there's a very bright future indeed. So my story really is as much about that convergence in the Americas as it's a convergence story in Eurasia.
BG: Der er den forestilling om at Nordamerika og Europa ikke rigtigt er opmærksom på disse trends. For det meste er de bekymrede om om hinanden. Amerikanerne tror af den europæiske model vil brase sammen i morgen. Europæerne tror at det amerikanske budget vil eksplodere i morgen. Og det er alt hvad vi har beskæftiget os med på det seneste.
BG: And there is this impression that North America and Europe are not really paying attention to these trends. Mostly they're worried about each other. The Americans think that the European model is going to crumble tomorrow. The Europeans think that the American budget is going to explode tomorrow. And that's all we seem to be caring about recently.
NF: Jeg tror at finanskrisen som vi ser i den udviklede verden lige nu -- på begge sider af Atlanten -- grundlæggende er den samme ting som har forskellige former afhængigt af den politiske kultur. Og at krisen har strukturelle facetter -- Det handler delvist om demografi. Men det har selvfølgeligt også at gøre med den massive krise som fulgte efter overdrevne spekulation og overdrevne låntagning i den private sektor. Denne krise som har fået megen opmærksomhed, også af mig, tror jeg er et overfladefænomen. Den finansielle krise er i virkeligheden et forholdsvist lille historisk fænomen, som bare har accelereret det kæmpe skift som afslutter det halve årtusinde med vestlig opstigning. Det er det som har betydning.
NF: I think the fiscal crisis that we see in the developed World right now -- both sides of the Atlantic -- is essentially the same thing taking different forms in terms of political culture. And it's a crisis that has its structural facet -- it's partly to do with demographics. But it's also, of course, to do with the massive crisis that followed excessive leverage, excessive borrowing in the private sector. That crisis, which has been the focus of so much attention, including by me, I think is an epiphenomenon. The financial crisis is really a relatively small historic phenomenon, which has just accelerated this huge shift, which ends half a millennium of Western ascendancy. I think that's its real importance.
BG: Niall, mange tak (NF: Selvtak Bruno)
BG: Niall, thank you. (NF: Thank you very much, Bruno.)
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