Western Dominance Ended 25 Years Ago｜Jeffery sachs

章节 1：历史回溯：工业革命与西方主导权的兴衰（1820-1950）

📝 本节摘要：

本章开篇，萨克斯教授首先简要驳斥了“美国在科技上仍主导中国”的观点，并预言非洲将是未来的重要增长极。随后，他将视角拉回历史，阐述了19世纪工业革命（特别是蒸汽机的商业化）如何成为全球力量对比的决定性转折点。利用安格斯·麦迪森（Angus Maddison）的数据，他指出1820年亚洲曾占据全球产出的60%，但随后的“百年国耻”、殖民主义及内战导致中印两国在1950年跌入谷底，全球产出份额降至18%。当时的西方学界（如贡纳尔·米达尔）普遍对亚洲持悲观宿命论看法。

[原文] [Jeffery Sachs]: the idea that the United States still dominates China in technology I think is not correct in almost any sphere i actually think that Africa's best hope is a close partnership with China africa's share of the world economy which is 5% today by the end of the 21st century reaches 30% of world output what a different world that would be

[译文] [Jeffery Sachs]: 认为美国在科技领域仍然主导中国的想法，我认为在几乎任何领域都是不正确的。实际上我认为非洲最好的希望是与中国建立紧密的伙伴关系。非洲在世界经济中的份额今天只有5%，但到21世纪末将达到世界产出的30%，那将是一个多么不同的世界。

[原文] [Jeffery Sachs]: the 19th century was a decisive century in changing the world balance of power even the 19th century change had much longer antecedance but the 19th century was the century in which European power came to dominate Asia and Africa and by the end of the 19th century essentially almost all of Asia and Africa either formally or informally were under European imperial control

[译文] [Jeffery Sachs]: 19世纪是改变世界力量平衡的决定性世纪，尽管19世纪的变革有着更长的前因，但19世纪是欧洲力量开始主导亚洲和非洲的世纪。到19世纪末，基本上几乎所有的亚洲和非洲地区，无论是在形式上还是非形式上，都处于欧洲帝国的控制之下。

[原文] [Jeffery Sachs]: underlying that remarkable shift of global power was the industrialization of Europe the industrial revolution began in the middle of the 18th century both with uh advances in mechanization in many sectors but most importantly with the advent of the steam engine a great invention developed in China a thousand years ago but not commercialized uh in the same way and commercialized in Britain in the 18th century

[译文] [Jeffery Sachs]: 这一显著的全球权力转移背后的根本原因是欧洲的工业化。工业革命始于18世纪中叶，既包括许多部门机械化的进步，但最重要的是蒸汽机的出现。这是一项伟大的发明，虽然一千年前就在中国被开发出来，但没有以同样的方式实现商业化，而是在18世纪的英国实现了商业化。

[原文] [Jeffery Sachs]: and that single invention in my view was the most decisive change in the world because it created a measure of energy and power that was unparalleled in history and during the 19th century especially Britain but increasingly other European powers and then later in the 20th century the United States used the advantages of early industrialization to essentially uh control almost all of the world either through direct imperial control or through indirect measures of finance and econ economy

[译文] [Jeffery Sachs]: 在我看来，这单一的发明是世界上最具决定性的变革，因为它创造了一种历史上无与伦比的能源和动力尺度。在19世纪，特别是英国，以及越来越多的其他欧洲强国，随后在20世纪是美国，利用早期工业化的优势，基本上控制了几乎整个世界，无论通过直接的帝国控制，还是通过金融和经济的间接手段。

[原文] [Jeffery Sachs]: and what this graph shows is a well-known data series created by the late macroeconomic historian Angus Madison of the Netherlands trying to estimate the share of world output in different regions of the world using a purchasing power parody system of measurement and in 1820 still Asia was 60% of the world output and about 60% of the world population

[译文] [Jeffery Sachs]: 这张图表展示的是由已故荷兰宏观经济历史学家安格斯·麦迪森（Angus Maddison）创建的一组著名数据系列，试图利用购买力平价（Purchasing Power Parity）的测量体系来估算世界不同地区的全球产出份额。在1820年，亚洲仍占世界产出的60%，以及世界人口的约60%。

[原文] [Jeffery Sachs]: what it meant was that in 1820 the differences of per capita income in the world were not very large and that means that wherever the population was that was approximately the share of world output as well and Asia was still 60% or so of world output with China and India being the two giant economies of the world and still much larger than the European economies and the United States barely existed at that point it was a very small settlement on the eastern border of North America

[译文] [Jeffery Sachs]: 这意味着在1820年，世界上的人均收入差异并不大，也就是人口在哪里，那里的世界产出份额也就大致相当。亚洲当时仍占世界产出的60%左右，中国和印度是世界上的两大经济体，规模仍远大于欧洲经济体。而美国在当时几乎还不存在，它只是北美东部边界上一个非常小的定居点。

[原文] [Jeffery Sachs]: but the green curve which is the Asia share of GDP look what happens to it over the period from 1820 to 1950 what China loosely calls the century of humiliation this is the period in which the western dominance became complete and in the two biggest countries of the world India became of course a colony of the British Empire and China became essentially dominated by Western powers starting with the first opium war in 1839 and then followed by the second opium war and by the Taiping Rebellion which by some measures was the largest civil war in world history with tens of millions of people perishing

[译文] [Jeffery Sachs]: 但是看这条代表亚洲GDP份额的绿色曲线，看看它在1820年到1950年期间发生了什么，即中国通常所说的“百年国耻”。这是西方主导地位变得完全确立的时期。在世界上最大的两个国家中，印度当然成了大英帝国的殖民地，而中国基本上被西方列强所主导，始于1839年的第一次鸦片战争，紧接着是第二次鸦片战争，以及太平天国运动（Taiping Rebellion）。以某些标准衡量，太平天国运动是世界历史上规模最大的内战，导致数千万人丧生。

[原文] [Jeffery Sachs]: and by the end of the century China also facing the onslaught of the one industrialized nation of this region which was Japan which more or less successfully industrialized after 1868 so China and India fell into uh great disarray and into economic uh dependency and that continued throughout uh the first half of the 20th century in China of course because of revolution because of uh civil war because of Japanese invasion followed by more civil war

[译文] [Jeffery Sachs]: 到（19）世纪末，中国还面临着该地区唯一工业化国家——日本的猛烈攻击，日本在1868年后或多或少成功实现了工业化。因此，中国和印度陷入了巨大的混乱和经济依赖。这种情况贯穿了20世纪上半叶，在中国，当然是因为革命、内战、日本侵略，以及随后的更多内战。

[原文] [Jeffery Sachs]: so that by 1950 or by the founding of the people's republic of China and at the moment of the independence of India 1947 Asia was impoverished uh and its share of world output rather than being 60% was around 18% of world output

[译文] [Jeffery Sachs]: 所以到1950年，或者说中华人民共和国成立以及1947年印度独立之时，亚洲已是一贫如洗，其在世界产出中的份额不再是60%，而是降到了18%左右。

[原文] [Jeffery Sachs]: when I was a student one of the first books I read was called Asian Drama by Gunnar Mirdall who was a Swedish economist and a Nobel laureate it was filled with doom gloom and determinism and western vision of Asia as being a poor and subservient region of course

[译文] [Jeffery Sachs]: 当我还是学生时，我读的第一批书里有一本叫《亚洲的戏剧》（Asian Drama），作者是瑞典经济学家、诺贝尔奖得主贡纳尔·米达尔（Gunnar Myrdal）。书里充满了厄运、悲观和宿命论，当然还有西方视角下认为亚洲是一个贫穷和从属地区的看法。