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.
Razgovarajmo o milijardama. Razgovarajmo o prošlim i budućim milijardama. Znamo da je oko 106 milijardi ljudi živjelo do sada. I znamo da je većina njih mrtva. Također znamo da većina njih živi ili je živjela u Aziji. Te također znamo da je većina njih bila ili jest vrlo siromašna -- nisu živjeli jako dugo. Razgovarajmo o milijardama. Razgovarajmo o 195.000 milijardi dolara bogatstva koje trenutno postoji na svijetu. Znamo da je većina tog bogatstva stvorena nakon 1800. godine. I znamo da je većina toga trenutno u posjedu ljudi koje bismo mogli nazvati zapadnjacima: stanovnici Europe, Sjeverne Amerike, Australazije. 19 posto današnje svjetske populacije, zapadnjaci, posjeduju dvije trećine bogatstva.
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.
Ekonomski povjesničari nazivaju ovo Velikom divergencijom. Ovaj je slajd najbolje pojednostavljenje priče Velike divergencije koje vam mogu ponuditi. U osnovi, radi se o dva omjera BDP-a po stanovniku, bruto domaći proizvod po stanovniku, dakle, prosječna primanja. Prvo, crvena crta, omjer je britanskog i indijskog dohotka po glavi stanovnika. Plava crta predstavlja omjer između američkog i kineskog dohotka. Ovaj grafikon prikazuje sve do 1500. godine. Ovdje možete vidjeti da postoji eksponencijalna Velika divergencija. Počinju zajedno prilično blizu. U stvari, 1500. godine, prosječni je Kinez bio bogatiji od prosječnog Sjevernoamerikanca. Kad dođete do 1970-ih, gdje ovaj grafikon završava, prosječni je Britanac 10 puta bogatiji od prosječnog Indijca. A tu su uračunate i razlike u troškovima života. Bazirano je na paritetu kupovne moći. Prosječni Amerikanac gotovo je 20 puta bogatiji od prosječnog Kineza do 1970-ih.
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.
Zašto? Ovo nije samo ekonomska priča. Ako uzmete 10 zemalja koje su postale zapadna carstva, 1500-tih bili su prilično sićušni -- na pet posto zemljine površine, 16 posto populacije, možda 20 posto dohotka. Do 1913. godine, ovih 10 zemalja, plus Sjedinjene Države, kotrolirale su velika svjetska carstva -- 58 posto svjetskog teritorija, otprilike isti postotak populacije, i zaista visok udio, gotovo tri četvrtine, svjetske gospodarske proizvodnje. Primijetite da je većina toga odlazila je u matične zemlje, u metropole imperija, ne u njihove kolonijalne posjede.
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.
Za ovo ne možete kriviti samo imperijalizam, iako su mnogi pokušali, i to iz dva razloga. Prvo, imperiji nisu bili nikakva novost na Zapadu nakon 1500. godine. Svi su imali imperije. Nadvladali su ranije orijentalne imperije poput mogulskog i osmanskog. Imperiji, dakle, i nisu baš sjajno objašnjenje Velike divergencije. U svakom slučaju, sjetite se da Velika divergencija dostiže vrhunac 1970-ih, dosta nakon dekolonizacije. Ovo pitanje nije novo.
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?"
Samuel Johnson, veliki leksikograf, govorio je o ovome kroz lik Rasselasa u svojem romanu "Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia", objavljenom 1759. godine. "Kojim su sredstvima Europljani tako moćni; ili zašto, kad tako lako mogu doći u Aziju i Afriku radi trgovine ili osvajanja, ne mogu Azijati i Afrikanci napasti njihove obale, razviti kolonije u njihovim lukama i nametnuti zakone njihovim tradicionalnim prinčevima? Zar ne bi isti vjetar koji njih vraća, nas odveo do njih?"
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.
Ovo je odlično pitanje. I znate što, gotovo su ga istovremeno postavljali i Ostali - ljudi u ostatku svijeta -- poput Ibrahima Muteferrika, osmanskog službenika, koji je s velikim zakašnjenjem doveo tisak u Osmansko carstvo. U knjizi iz 1731. godine on pita: "Zašto kršćanske nacije koje su bile tako slabe u prošlosti u usporedbi s muslimanskima počinju dominirati tolikim zemljama u moderno doba, pa čak i pobjeđuju nekad slavne osmanske vojske?" Za razliku od Rasselasa, Muteferrika je imao odgovor na to pitanje i bio je upravu. Rekao je da je to "zbog toga što imaju zakone i pravila utemeljene na razumu." To nije geografija.
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.
Možda mislite da Veliku divergenciju možemo objasniti u okvirima geografije. Znamo da je to pogrešno jer smo napravili dva velika prirodna eksperimenta u 20. stoljeću da vidimo je li geografija važnija od institucija. Uzeli smo sve Nijemce, podijelili smo ih na otprilike pola, i onima na istoku dali smo komunizam. I vidite rezultat. Za nevjerojatno kratko vrijeme ljudi iz Njemačke Demokratske Republike, proizveli su Trabant, tzv. Trabbi, jedan od najgorih automobila ikad proizvedenih, dok su oni na zapadu proizveli Mercedes Benz. Ako mi i dalje ne vjerujete, eksperiment smo izvršili i na Korejskom poluotoku. Odlučili smo uzeti Korejce s otprilike istog geografskog područja i, primijetite, s istom osnovnom tradicionalnom kulturom, podijelili smo ih na dvije grupe i dali onima sa sjevera komunizam. Rezultat je čak veća divergencija u još kraćem razdoblju nego u Njemačkoj. Nisu se toliko razlikovali u dizajnu uniformi za pogranične stražare, ali u gotovo svakom drugom smislu, divergencija je ogromna. To me dovodi do zaključka da ni geografija ni nacionalni karakter, što su popularna objašnjenja za ovakve stvari, nisu zapravo važni.
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 ...
Važne su ideje. Institucije. Ovo je sigurno istina jer je tako rekao jedan Škot. A mislim da sam jedini Škot ovdje na TED-u u Edinburghu. Dozvolite da vam objasnim da je najpametniji čovjek na svijetu bio Škot. To je bio Adam Smith -- ne Billy Connolly, ni Sean Connery, iako je on zaista vrlo pametan. (Smijeh) Smith -- i želim da odete i poklonite se pred njegovim kipom na Royal Mileu, kip je prekrasan -- Smith je u knjizi "Bogatstvo naroda", objavljenoj 1776. godine -- to je najvažnija stvar koja se dogodila te godine... (Smijeh) Naravno. Bio je nekih lokalnih problema u nekim našim manjim kolonijama, ali...
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
"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.
"Čini se da je Kina već dugo stacionarna i vjerojatno je odavno stekla onu količinu bogatstva koja je u skladu s prirodom njenih zakona i institucija. Ali ta je količina možda manja od one koju bi, uz druge zakone i institucije, priroda kineske zemlje, klime i situacije mogla omogućiti." Ovo je tako točno i tako cool. A on je to rekao vrlo davno.
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.
Ali dobro, ovo je publika na TED-u, i ako nastavim govoriti o institucijama, nećete me više slušati. Zato ću to prevesti na jezik koji razumijete. Nazvat ćemo ih ubojitim aplikacijama. Želim vam objasniti da postoji šest ubojitih aplikacija koje su izdvojile zapad od ostatka svijeta. Slične su aplikacijama na vašem telefonu, u smislu da izgledaju vrlo jednostavno. One su samo ikonice, samo kliknete na njih. No, iza ikonica nalazi se složen kod. Isto je s institucijama. Postoji ih šest za koje mislim da objašnjavaju Veliku divergenciju. Prva je konkurencija. Druga je znanstvena revolucija. Treća, imovinska prava. Četvrta je moderna medicina. Peta je potrošačko društvo. I šesta je radna etika. Možete pokušati vidjeti jesam li koju propustio ili ih možete pokušati svesti na samo četiri, ali nećete uspjeti.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
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.
Dopustite da ukratko objasnim na što mislim. Objedinit ću rad mnogih povijesničara ekonomije dok to činim. Konkurencija znači da ne samo da su u Europi 1500. godine postojale stotine političkih jedinica, već i da je u samim jedinicama bilo konkurencije među korporacijama i vladarima. Prethodnica modernih korporacija, Korporacija grada Londona, postojala je u 12. stoljeću. Ništa slično nije postojalo u Kini, gdje je bila samo jedna jedinstvena država koja je obuhvaćala petinu čovječanstva i svatko tko je imao ikakvu ambiciju morao je položiti standardizirani test koji je trajao tri dana i bio vrlo težak. Uključivao je pamćenje ogromnog broj znakova i pisanje vrlo složenih konfucijanskih eseja.
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.
Znanstvena se revolucija razlikovala od znanosti koje je dostignuta u orijentalnom svijetu na mnogo značajnih načina, od kojih je najvažniji bio da je putem eksperimentalne metode ljudima nad prirodom dala kontrolu kakva ranije nije bila moguća. Primjer: Benjamin Robins izvršio je nevjerojatnu primjenu Newtonove fizike na balistiku. Kad to učinite, vaša artiljerija postaje precizna. Razmislite što to znači. To je zaista bila ubojita aplikacija. (Smijeh) U isto vrijeme, nigdje se drugdje ne događa znanstvena revolucija. Osmansko carstvo nije toliko daleko od Europe, ali nema znanstvenu revoluciju. Zapravo, uništili su opservatorij Taqija al-Dina jer su smatrali bogohuljenjem propitkivanje Božjeg uma.
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.
Imovinska prava: nije u pitanju demokracija, ljudi, već postojanje pravne države zasnovane na imovinskim pravima. To je ono što razlikuje Sjevernu i Južnu Ameriku. Možete se pojaviti u Sjevornoj Americi, gdje ste potpisali ugovor u kojem stoji: "Radit ću pet godina bez naknade, samo za hranu." Ali na kraju ćete dobiti 100 jutara zemlje. Ovo je darovnica za zemljište na donjoj polovici slajda. To nije moguće u Latinskoj Americi gdje zemlju drži malobrojna elita koja potječe od konkvistadora. Ovdje možete vidjeti ogromnu divergenciju kod vlasništva nekretnina na sjeveru i jugu. Većina ljudi iz ruralnog dijela Sjeverne Amerike posjedovala je nešto zemlje do 1900. godine. U Južnoj Americi gotovo nitko nije. To je još jedna ubojita aplikacija.
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.
Moderna medicina je krajem 19. stoljeća počela dolaziti do velikih otkrića u borbi protiv zaraznih bolesti koje su ubijale mnogo ljudi. To je bila još jedna ubojita aplikacija -- ali baš suprotno od ubojite, jer je udvostručila, a potom i više nego udvostručila životni vijek čovjeka. To je učinila čak i u europskim imperijima. Čak i u mjestima poput Senegala, od početka 20. stoljeća, velik je napredak učinjen u javnom zdravstvu i životni vijek počeo je rasti. Ništa brže nije rastao nakon što su ove zemlje dobile nezavisnost. Imperiji nisu bili baš toliko loši.
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.
Potrebno vam je potrošačko društvo da bi industrijska revolucija imala svrhu. Potrebni su ljudi koji kupuju gomilu odjeće. Svi ste kupili komad odjeće u posljednjih mjesec dana. Garantiram. To je potrošačko društvo i ono stimulira gospodarski rast više nego tehnološke promjene. Japan je bio prvo društvo izvan zapada koje je to prihvatilo. Alternativa, koju je predlagao Mahatma Gandhi, bila je trajna institucionalizacija siromaštva. Danas vrlo malo Indijaca misli da je trebalo krenuti putem Mahatme Gandhija.
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.
Na kraju, radna etika. Max Weber je mislio da je ovo specifično za protestante. Bio je u krivu. Svaka kultura može steći radnu etiku ako postoje institucije koje će stvoriti poticaj za rad. Ovo znamo jer danas radna etika nije više samo fenomen protestanata sa zapada. Zapravo, zapad je izgubio radnu etiku. Danas prosječan Korejac godišnje radi 1000 sati više od prosječnog Nijemca -- tisuću. To je dio vrlo neobičnog fenomena, a to je kraj Velike divergencije.
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.
Tko sad ima radnu etiku? Pogledajte rezultate iz matematike kod 15-godišnjaci. Na vrhu međunarodne tablice, prema najnovijem istraživanju PISA, nalazi se šangajska oblast u Kini. Razlika između Šangaja i Ujedinjenog Kraljevstva i SAD-a velika je poput razlike između Ujedinjenog Kraljevstva i SAD-a naspram Albanije i Tunisa. Vjerovatno pretpostavljate da zato što je iPhone dizajniran u Kaliforniji, ali sklopljen u Kini da zapad i dalje vodi u tehnološkim inovacijama. U krivu ste. Po pitanju patenata, nema sumnje da istok vodi. Ne samo da je Japan već neko vrijeme na čelu, već je Južna Koreja dostigla treće mjesto, a Kina samo što nije prestigla Njemačku. Zašto? Jer se ubojite aplikacije mogu preuzeti. One su dostupne svima. Svako društvo može usvojiti ove institucije, a kad to učine, postižu ono što je zapad uspio nakon 1500. godine, samo brže.
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.
Ovo je Velika rekonvergencija, i najveća priča vašeg života. Jer ste njeni svjedoci. Naša generacija je ta koja će biti svjedok kraja dominacije zapada. Prosječni Amerikanac bio je više od 20 puta bogatiji od prosječnog Kineza. Sada je samo 5 puta, a uskoro će biti 2,5 puta.
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.
Zato želim završiti s tri pitanja za buduće milijarde, blizu 2016. godine, kad SAD prepusti mjesto vodećeg gospodarstva Kini. Prvo: Mogu li se ove aplikacije izbrisati i jesmo li trenutno u tom procesu na zapadu? Drugo pitanje je je li redoslijed preuzimanja važan? I bi li Afrika mogla pogriješiti u tom redoslijedu? Očigledna implikacija povijesti moderne ekonomije jest da je vrlo teško prijeći u demokraciju prije nego što ste ustanovili pouzdane zakone o privatnom vlasništvu. Upozorenje: to možda neće funkcionirati. I treće, može li Kina bez treće ubojite aplikacije? To je pitanje koje je John Locke sistematizirao kad je rekao da je sloboda ukorijenjena u pravima privatnog vlasništva i zaštiti zakona. Ovo je osnova zapadnog modela predstavničke vlade. Ova slika pokazuje uništavanje studija kineskog umjetnika Aija Weiweija u Šangaju ranije ove godine. Sad je ponovno slobodan, nakon privremenog pritvora, kao što znate. Ali mislim da njegov studio nije obnovljen.
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.
Winston Churchill je jednom definirao civilizaciju na predavanju koje je održao sudbonosne 1938. godine. Mislim da je ovim riječima uspio pogoditi srž: "To znači društvo zasnovano na mišljenju civila. Znači da su nasilje, vladavina ratnika i despotskih vođa, uvjeti logora i rata, pobune i tiranije zamijenjeni parlamentom u kojemu nastaju zakoni i nezavisnim sudovima u kojima se ti zakoni drugo primjenjuju. To je civilizacija -- i na njenom tlu neprekino rastu sloboda, utjeha i kultura", ono do čega je TED-ovcima najviše stalo, "Kad civilizacija vlada zemljom, širi i smireniji život omogućen je masama." To je istina.
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.
Ne mislim da je propast zapadne civilizacije neizbježna jer ne mislim da povijest funkcionira po ovakvom životnom ciklusu, koji je predivno ilustrirao Thomas Cole na svojim slikama "Put imperija". Povijest ne funkcionira tako. To nije način na koji se zapad uzdigao i ne mislim da će tako pasti. Zapad može pasti vrlo iznenadno. To se događa složenim civilizacijama jer uglavnom funkcioniraju na rubu kaosa. To je jedan od najdubljih uvida proteklih iz povijesnih studija složenih institucija poput civilizacija. Ipak se možemo održati, usprkos ogromnom teretu duga koji smo nagomilali, usprskos dokazu da smo izgubili radnu etiku i drugih povijesnih talismana. No, jedno je sigurno, Velika divergencija došla je do kraja, ljudi.
Thanks very much.
Veliko hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
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?
Bruno Giussani: Niall, zaima me tvoje mišljenje o drugoj regiji svijeta koja cvijeta, a to je Latinska Amerika. Što misliš o tome?
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.
Niall Ferguson: Ja zapravo ne govorim samo o usponu istoka. Govorim o usponu Ostalih, svega što nije zapad, što uključuje i Južnu Ameriku. Jednom sam pitao kolegu s Harvarda: "Ej, je li Južna Amerika dio Zapada?" On je bio stručnjak za povijest Latinske Amerike. Rekao je: "Ne znam. Morat ću razmisliti o tome." To nam govori nešto zaista važno. Mislim da, ako pogledate što se događa posebno u Brazilu, ali i Čileu, koji je po mnogo čemu predvodio put u transformiranju ekonomskih institucija, čeka ih svijetla budućnost. Tako da je moja priča zapravo isto toliko o konvergenciji u Amerikama koliko o konvergenciji u Euroaziji.
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.
BG: I stječe se dojam da Sjeverna Amerika i Europa baš i ne obraćaju pažnju na ove trendove. Uglavnom se bave jedni drugima. Amerikanci misle da će europski model sutra propasti. Europljani misle da će američki proračun sutra eksplodirati. I čini se da je to jedino što ih zanima u posljednje vrijeme.
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.
NF: Mislim da je fiskalna kriza koju danas vidimo u razvijenom svijetu, s obje strane Atlantika, u biti ista stvar, samo u drugom obliku, u smislu političke kulture. To je kriza koja ima svoj strukturni aspekt -- to dijelom ima veze s demografijom. Ali, naravno, ima veze i s velikom krizom koja je pratila pretjeranu moć, pretjerane pozajmice u privatnom sektoru. Ta kriza, koja je privukla toliko pažnje, uključujući moju, mislim da je površni fenomen. Financijska kriza relativno je malen povijesni fenomen, koje je samo ubrzao ovu veliku promjenu, kojom se završava 500 godina dominacije zapada. Mislim da je u tome njezina prava važnost.
BG: Niall, thank you. (NF: Thank you very much, Bruno.)
BG: Niall, hvala ti. (NF: Hvala, Bruno)
(Applause)
(Pljesak)