Niall Ferguson: The 6 killer apps of prosperity

[Developereo]

It's an old video but I don't remember it being debated here.

Briefly, according to Ferguson, the six "killer apps" that allowed the West to dominate the rest are:

1- competition: only the 'fittest' survive to go and do battle with the outside world. On the other side, too much rigidity and central management can lead to complacency which, in turn, can lead to decay. The unspoken subtext is that a minimum level of stability is needed to incubate ideas and technologies. The example he gives is of the warring nations of Western Europe who vanquished the much larger established empires in the rest of the world. Another classic example is the ancient Greek city states holding their own against the mighty Persian empire.

2- scientific revolution: it is not just scientific discovery that matters (the Chinese had plenty of that), but the scientific method of experimentation and multidisciplinary cross pollination that gave the West an extra edge. The example he gives (from another video) is that the Chinese invented the mechanical (water) clock centuries earlier, but the British became the premier clock-makers whose clocks became the pride of the Imperial Chinese palace.

3- property rights: pursuit of private property feeds ambition and propels people to take risks for personal rewards. This is why, according to him, predominantly feudal societies can never compete against societies with more equitable spread of property ownership.

4- modern medicine: in the contemporary context, improved medicine increased the population and the pool of able workers. Greater life expectancy also promoted stability. However, I believe this may actually be detrimental now: there is a 'sweet spot' of age for maximum productivity. Modern medicine increased the population within that sweet spot, because people used to die too young before these advances. However, newer advances in medicine are now skewing the demographics towards an older mean, which actually overburdens the system.

5- consumer society: innovation and advancement only flourish if there is a market for the products. If people view consumerism as bad and value frugality, then there is no market for risks, and there is less incentive for engineers to innovate and for explorers to venture out and stake out new claims.

6- work ethic: I am not sure what explanation he gives why the West had a better work ethic than the rest. He discounts religion since there is no correlation between the two. Moreover, he shows (in another video) where the work ethic is now reversed -- in many ways, the West lags behind the Asian countries in work ethic.


So, make sense? Is he missing any crucial elements, or is this a sufficient recipe for a nation's material success?

 

[kalu_miah]

Good post, I will comment on it later when I can make some time.

An obvious and major oversight, he forgot to talk about sustainability.

 

[Developereo]

An obvious and major oversight, he forgot to talk about sustainability.

He doesn't say it here, but one of his other major themes is that empires are not a finished work of art to be preserved. Rather, they are complex entities which are constantly on the brink of collapse. Empires are like a delicate mechanism that is constantly re-balancing and re-calibrating itself. It is precisely this dynamism which defines successful empires; once they lose it, decay is inevitable and the collapse is measured, not in centuries, but in decades.

I suppose, according to him, these six factors above constitute the dynamism needed both to achieve and to sustain an empire.

 

[kalu_miah]

He doesn't say it here, but one of his other major themes is that empires are not a finished work of art to be preserved. Rather, they are complex entities which are constantly on the brink of collapse. Empires are like a delicate mechanism that is constantly re-balancing and re-calibrating itself. It is precisely this dynamism which defines successful empires; once they lose it, decay is inevitable and the collapse is measured, not in centuries, but in decades.

I suppose, according to him, these six factors above constitute the dynamism needed both to achieve and to sustain an empire.

Those are of course valid points, empires need dynamism to survive. I cover this issue here:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-...orld-order-road-map-future-8.html#post2758071

But by sustainability, I was talking about environmental sustainability:
Sustainability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hunting gathering societies were sustainable, human civilizations are not, usually, as they mostly destroy themselves by outgrowing their given environment. The earlier civilizations destroyed their local environments before they disintegrated, but the recent ones, like the Western civilization and their offspring's through out the world, the newly industrialized countries, are poised to trash the entire planet and its eco-system. While the more vulnerable populations like Maldives, Bangladesh and other coastal areas, as well as arid regions in Africa, will be paying the price as climate refugees:
Effects of global warming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We live in one planet and every economic activity affects the planetary system in some way. One cannot just do something in their own "sovereign" country and avoid responsibility. In my eyes, that is a crime against humanity.

"Consumerism" or the so called "prosperity" like Mr. Ferguson is promoting, is the obsolete model. What we need is a responsible and sustainable model, as well as a model that ensures social justice. Economics must include the cost of polluting the air, the water, the soil, the emission of green house etc.:
Green economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Those are of course valid points, empires need dynamism to survive. I cover this issue here:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-...orld-order-road-map-future-8.html#post2758071

But by sustainability, I was talking about environmental sustainability:
Sustainability - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hunting gathering societies were sustainable, human civilizations are not, usually, as they mostly destroy themselves by outgrowing their given environment. The earlier civilizations destroyed their local environments before they disintegrated, but the recent ones, like the Western civilization and their offspring's through out the world, the newly industrialized countries, are poised to trash the entire planet and its eco-system. While the more vulnerable populations like Maldives, Bangladesh and other coastal areas, as well as arid regions in Africa, will be paying the price as climate refugees:
Effects of global warming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We live in one planet and every economic activity affects the planetary system in some way. One cannot just do something in their own "sovereign" country and avoid responsibility. In my eyes, that is a crime against humanity.

"Consumerism" like Mr. Ferguson is promoting, is the obsolete model. What we need is a responsible and sustainable model, as well as a model that ensures social justice. Economics must include the cost of polluting the air, the water, the soil, the emission of green house etc.:
Green economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

let me comment. what is capitalism?

imagine a man running from a lion. right now, the camera is on the man, as it has been since 1850. the man is running very, very damn fast. amazingly fast. olympic fast. we're impressed. we want to be that man.

however, the man starts tiring out and running slower, because there's less and less food on the ground for him to scavenge. the lion starts appearing in the camera. and when the food runs out...

you can starve the lion. this lion is amazing. if you eat, it grows. if you eat less, it shrinks naturally. we can starve the lion, but only if we stop this mad dash and can avoid the lion in the first place.

 

[Developereo]

I agree that runaway capitalism/consumerism is unsustainable, but his point is that a certain amount of consumerism is needed to propel society to push its boundaries and innovate. Let's remember that Western expansion started with Vasco de Gama venturing out to find new spice routes.

Consumerism and property rights are two sides of the same coin. One provides the push (necessity) for innovation and risk taking, while the other provides the pull (reward). Since the consumerism genie is not going back in the bottle, one could argue that consumerism combined with resource contention will provide the impetus for major innovation. This is where the next superpowers will be determined -- who can come up with the "best" solutions to this problem.

 

[kalu_miah]

I agree that runaway capitalism/consumerism is unsustainable, but his point is that a certain amount of consumerism is needed to propel society to push its boundaries and innovate. Let's remember that Western expansion started with Vasco de Gama venturing out to find new spice routes.

Consumerism and property rights are two sides of the same coin. One provides the push (necessity) for innovation and risk taking, while the other provides the pull (reward). Since the consumerism genie is not going back in the bottle, one could argue that consumerism combined with resource contention will provide the impetus for major innovation. This is where the next superpowers will be determined -- who can come up with the "best" solutions to this problem.

We have a finite planet with finite resources. It is important that we manage it well and not trash the whole place. And this means that we need to use all of human creativity and imagination to tame consumerism genie and put it back into the sustainable bottle. Otherwise, when 7-10 billion people start consuming and disposing like the US of A, we will have a situation like Wall-E:
WALL-E - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Audio]

We have a finite planet with finite resources. It is important that we manage it well and not trash the whole place. And this means that we need to use all of human creativity and imagination to tame consumerism genie and put it back into the sustainable bottle. Otherwise, when 7-10 billion people start consuming and disposing like the US of A, we will have a situation like Wall-E:
WALL-E - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Imagine a machine able to dissect waste into usable atoms, molecules, compounds. Cca 50 years away. Just sayin'...

 

[Kompromat]

Derived from the series , Is west history ? from the BBC.

 

[EjazR]

Nial Ferguson is one of those "East-West" Historians who want to come up with some sort of unified theory of civilisation with these building blocks in mind.

Ian Morris, author of Why the West rules for now is another.
Global power: On top of the world | The Economist

The main thing to recognize is that western preponderance is only a recent phenomenon starting around 1500AD. And the rise and fall of great powers is a constant phenomenon.

 

[Developereo]

tame consumerism genie and put it back into the sustainable bottle.

Not sure how. The entire global economy is based on pushing consumerism. Revenues must increase every quarter; so must GDP. Countries are climbing over each other to maximize their growth rate.

Derived from the series , Is west history ? from the BBC.

Yeah. The book and the series go into this concept much deeper. The above video is just a short summary of his ideas.

Nial Ferguson is one of those "East-West" Historians who want to come up with some sort of unified theory of civilisation with these building blocks in mind.

Ian Morris, author of Why the West rules for now is another.
Global power: On top of the world | The Economist

The main thing to recognize is that western preponderance is only a recent phenomenon starting around 1500AD. And the rise and fall of great powers is a constant phenomenon.

Ferguson actually has some neocon tendencies. He believes that the West's formula (these six killer apps) are a unique contribution of Western civilization and that the Asian powers are rising because they have adopted the Western formula. He also believes that the West is in (reversible) decline because it has forsaken one or more of these 'apps'.

 

[Broccoli]

Here is good interview of Ferguson.

Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University and Senior Research Fellow at the universities of Oxford and Stanford, explains why the rule of law keeps the power of both the executive and public in check; why it needs to evolve over time and cannot be instituted overnight; why perhaps the West has misunderstood social media in China and how the Mainland might look to Hong Kong for insights into strengthening its legal institutions.

Short clip from same interview where he talks about China.

Historian Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University and Senior Research Fellow at the Universities of Oxford and Stanford, says the moment of truth has arrived for China.