Dan Snow's History Hit - A Short History of Humans

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

Why are humans the only species to have escaped – only very recently – the subsistence trap, allowing us to enjoy a standard of living that vastly exceeds all others? And why have we progressed so unequally around the world?Professor Oded Galor is an economist and the founding thinker behind Unified Growth Theory, which seeks to uncover the fundamental causes of development, prosperity and inequality over the entire span of human history. Oded joins Dan on the podcast to offer an explanation of the progress that has taken place over the past two hundred years and that has allowed the human species to progress with great disparity.This episode was produced by Hannah Ward, the audio editor was Dougal Patmore.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. You know, I like to keep you guessing on this part. You never know what you're going to get. You're going to get a little vignette, a little 18th century history of a particular person, a particular moment, a particular battle, a particular invention or breakthrough. And every so often, we go big, we go wide. I love it. We talk about the whole history of humankind in one episode.

And today, my friends, is one of those days. The journey of humanity with a professor of economics at Brown University, the founding thinker behind the unified growth theory. I mean, that sounds awesome. And this, in a new book, in a new project, he's seeking to uncover the fundamental cause of development, prosperity, and inequality over the entire span of human history. Imagine having the confidence to sit down and do that. Wow. Good luck to him. It is Oded Galore and the

prof and I chat about what is going on on this funny little planet. How did a bunch of intelligent apes work out how to grow a bit more food, stay settled, deal with their own sewage, domesticate some animals. And you know what? 15,000 years later, they're flying a drone on Mars. It's the greatest story in the history of the known universe. It is astonishing to me that everybody you meet in the street is not talking about this. It is unbelievable. What are we doing here? How did we get here? And where are we going? This is what Odette Galore and I talk about in the next half an hour. Gulp down that beetroot shake. You're going to eat all your superfood. You're going to eat all your brain food because

Odette Galore. Enjoy. Odette, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. It is my great pleasure to be in your podcast. Can you characterize for me that before the Industrial Revolution, before this great upheaval of the 19th century, what was the reality in terms of how we sustained ourselves, basically what we would survive on? So I suppose that the person that put it in the best possible terms is Hobbes that suggested that human life prior to the Industrial Revolution

was nasty, brutish and short. So if we think about human life as early as 250 years ago, it is quite apparent that humans were preoccupied by issues of survival and reproduction. Living standards was very close to the subsistence and life expectancy fluctuated in a very narrow range of 25 to 40. So human life was very different than what we experience today. Nasty, brutish, and short. And you, you're not very Whiggish. Things didn't get better. There was no arc of history here bending towards justice. You argue that it was actually probably worse being a poor person in Paris in the 18th century than it was perhaps being a citizen of Babylon 4,000 years before. Indeed. So if we reviewed the progression of humans over the course of human history, we can detect what is defined as a Malthusian epoch, in the sense that it is a time period, almost 99.9% of human existence,

0.9% of human existence, in which human societies are evolving in such a way that the standard of living and life expectancy is hardly changing over time. Nevertheless, it is a time period that has great dynamism in other dimensions, in the sense that technology is advancing, population is advancing, and humans are adapting to their environment. But nevertheless, despite this progress, much of the advancement in technological progress is converted into more people rather than more prosperous people. Why is that? That's because of our propensity to have children, our annoying habits of having sex with each other? If we're able to support these gigantic populations, even before the Industrial Revolution, we're able to support much greater populations.

Why were we not able to create prosperity for those populations? Why the nature of that subsistence growth? So this is the time period in which prosperity is converted into reproductive success in the sense that when people have more resources, they are able to sustain more of their children, more of their children will reach their reproductive age, more children will be born. And as a result of it, the resources that are created by technological progress are ultimately shared by increasingly

larger population till the impact of technological progress is eliminated entirely. So in the course of human history, we see the progress of technology. We see that resources are expanding, but population is expanding proportionately. And as I said before, the reason is that these resources are ultimately channeled towards consumption of adults and consumption of children. More of the children survive, and ultimately there is a proportionate increase in technology and population over 99.9% of human existence. Can I ask a side note here? You're an economist looking at these gigantic, substructural patterns of behavior. When historians talk about ideas and religions and

leaders, do you have any interest or sympathy for that? Is that something that you see move the dial in any way in the gigantic time periods that you study? So that's a fantastic question. And in fact, The Journey of Humanity, the book that I just released a few weeks ago, is trying to detect what I define as the wheels of change, namely the fundamental forces that govern the journey of humanity since the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa nearly 300,000 years ago. And part of what we learn from the journey of humanity is that this journey, to a large extent, was governed by the evolution of these fundamental forces that we can speak about.

the evolution of these fundamental forces that we can speak about. Now, the forces that historians are referring to are important, they're fascinating, but ultimately they do not alter the fundamental forces that I detect, in the sense that from time to time they can accelerate the pace of these wheels of change, time to time that can accelerate the pace of these wheels of change. They can slow down the pace of change, but they do not alter the fundamental forces that are operating behind the scene. So if societies are adopting cultural traits that are growth enhancing, the wheels of change will operate more rapidly. If societies are adopting institutions that are gross enhancing, yet again, the wheels of change will operate more rapidly. But in the end, if we really want to understand, and if we really want to understand the roots of inequality as we see today, we have

to focus on these fundamental forces, on the ways of change. Right. Well, then let's talk about the greatest change in human history. Is the Industrial Revolution of the, people say 19th century. I obviously always put in a little call for the 18th century there. But is that early modern Industrial Revolution? How significant is that in this great sweep of human history? So Industrial Revolution is important, but to a large extent, it's a red herring in the sense that what ultimately governs the process of development is the gradual acceleration in technological progress in the course of human history. Think about it in the following fashion.

Humans originated in Africa 300,000 years ago. Now, there are some people, I mean, some group of people that are operating in Africa with a very sophisticated human brain that emerge in the course of evolution. And naturally, they're able to innovate. The pace of innovation is not parallel to the pace of innovation that we see today. We are referring to stone tools and the replacement of one stone tool with slightly more sophisticated stone tool over a prolonged period of time. But nevertheless, any innovation permits the size of the human population to be larger than before. And why is it so? Because when resources are expanding, more children can survive, more children can be born, and as a result of it, the size of the human population is gradually changing.

So in the course of human history, we see these wheels of change, namely technological progress, the size of the human population, and adaptation of the human population that are operating relentlessly and reinforcing one another. We start with some size of population in Africa and then we see some technological progress that supports a larger size. But this larger size of population implies more potential innovators and as a result of it, the next wave of technological progress arrives even earlier and more people are supported. And as a result of it, more advanced technology and more human adaptation. So in the course of human history, we see that from the emergence of Homo sapiens 300,000 years ago, till the eve of industrialization, we move from stone tool technologies to steam engine technologies. And from the eve of the

agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago, to the midst of the industrial revolution, the size of the human population increases 400-fold, from 2.5 million people about 12,000 years ago to about 1 billion people in the midst of industrialization. So despite this epoch of stagnation, in which living standards are hardly changing and life expectancy is hardly changing, we see great dynamism in the context of the size of the human population, the rate of technological progress, and human adaptation. And then in the eve of industrialization, the rate of technological progress, the pace of progress is so rapid that at a certain point, humans must start to invest in the education of their

children so as to allow them to navigate this rapidly changing technological environment. The environment becomes stormy and as a result of it, education becomes an essential tool to allow people to navigate this stormy environment. So parents start to invest in the education of their children. But naturally, they have very limited resources. Their consumption is very close to the subsistence. So how can they afford investing more in the education of their children? By having fewer of them.

So we start to see the decline in fertility in the course of the demographic transition, and this suddenly frees the growth process from the counterbalancing effect of population. Technological progress is no longer counterbalanced by population growth. Technological progress now is converted into more prosperous people rather than into more people. So back to your question about the Industrial Revolution, the Industrial Revolution is simply a point in this technological acceleration. It is not industrialization per se that makes the difference. It is the change in the technological environment that requires education.

And the fact that people start to invest in the education of their children implies that they have fewer of them. And these forces that counterbalance each other are eliminating and prosperity is being generated. That is obviously very elegant. It's a very elegant solution. But surely technology matters. I mean, surely the fact that you're able to feed the global north, and now as part of this giant globalized network because of beef from Argentina and the great plains of Ukraine and Alberta and Saskatchewan, producing cereals for Western Europe and other parts of North America, those integrated networks are surely essential here as well. Are you saying they all follow this dash for education?

Indeed. So there are a lot of forces that are operating in tandem. But in the end, there are certain wheels of change that are governing this journey, which is, as I said, the interaction between the size of the human population, the adaptation of the human population, and technological progress. And these forces are augmented by additional forces. For instance, globalization that occurs in the 15th century, the 16th century, and is accelerating over time is certainly permitting greater prosperity to take place, greater demand for human capital to emerge. And in fact, it accelerates this process in developed societies

and slow down this process in less developed societies. And this is very interesting and important to understand. So in fact, think about it in the context of trade relationship between India and England. So at the beginning of the 18th century, if you look at the two societies, they're not very different in their technological advancement in the context of the textile industry. In fact, the textile industry in the mid of the 18th century in India is quite developed. But then trade relationship is being formed by the two societies due to globalization and colonization. India is specializing in the production of primary goods, of agricultural goods. England is specializing in the production of industrial goods. And the fact is that in India,

the demand for education is declining even further because education is not needed in the production of agricultural good and primary goods. And as a result of it, the gains from trade are converted into more people rather than into richer people. There is no demand for education. There is no fertility decline, and the fertility decline is delayed by about 150 years. In England, on the other hand, the demand for human capital increases due to the specialization in the production of industrial goods, the demographic transition is expedited, and the transition to modern growth is becoming more pronounced than otherwise. So of course, globalization is very important

and it accentuates this process between the two societies. But nevertheless, the wheels of change are ultimately what governs this evolutionary process. In one place, the wheels of change are rotating more rapidly due to globalization. In other places, in developing countries, the wheels of change are rotating at a much slower pace. And as a result of it, a huge divergence is emerging in the world economy. And then since that 19th century, life expectancy in the global north,

as we said, Western world, however we want to describe it, increased, doubled per capita incomes, it got up 20-fold, you you point out as well as the global population going up by something like 14 fold the numbers are extraordinary but let's come back to that disparity in that time lag this is a question that i'm fascinated by my love of maritime history has given me quite a particular slant on this question and i'm aware that it's not just carvel built ships and gunpowder the is the to this question. But why? Why Western Europe, this little backwater of the Eurasia, this rainy backwater? What happened in Western Europe that made it the seat of this acceleration?

So that's a fantastic question. So naturally, when people would like to understand the global inequality in the context of colonialism, the question that should be asked and is often asked is why is it the case that the North is colonizing the South rather than the opposite? And this is related to the question that you raised in the sense of why do we see the rise of Europe? Why Europe rather than China? And why do we see Europe in general.

And a way to understand it is in the context of what I will define as cultural fluidity, cultural diversity, and cultural homogeneity. So let's focus for a moment on China versus Europe. If we think about the 13th century, the 12th century and earlier, China is dominating the world technologically and it is the most prosperous nation on the planet. And as you said, Europe is lagging behind. Part of the reason is that China is isolated geographically. China is able to homogenize the population to create cohesiveness that is very important for productivity over this time period. On the other hand, what we see over this time period is that Europe is being a crossroad of civilizations. Because of geographical fragmentation, we see the emergence of nation states across Europe, and we see great political competition and conflict within the European continent.

So over this time period, prior to industrialization, cultural fluidity in Europe is in fact a detrimental force in the context of productivity, and China is dominating the world. But then when technological progress is accelerating and industrial revolution is looming in the horizon, we see something that is very different. Cultural fluidity becomes essential in the ability of societies to adopt different cultural norms, to adopt different technological norms. The scientific revolution is taking place,

enlightenment is taking place, and ultimately industrialization is taking place in Europe rather than in China. Namely, the homogeneity of China becomes a liability when there is a need for major change that will allow you to adapt to a new technological regime, to a new cultural regime, etc. So, as I said, it is about fluidity, cultural fluidity,

diversity that exists in Europe that is absent in China over this time period. Listen to Dan Snow's history hit. We're talking about everything really, the journey of humankind. So more coming up. How much of a tyrant really was Julius Caesar? And it's very interesting to think about why it's Caesar in particular when there have been many political assassinations in the past millennia, why Caesar's has been the one that is brought up again and again. Would we have ever stood a chance against the first dinosaurs? In the Jurassic, you see dinosaurs get bigger and you see meat-eating dinosaurs grow into things like the size of buses. And did Helen of Troy really have the power to launch a thousand ships?

She is always derided as this sort of terrible adulteress, but at least as old as Homer, at least the 8th century BCE, is a counter-tradition in which Helen doesn't go to Troy. She's never Helen of Troy, she's Helen of Egypt. Well, you can expect all of this and more from The Ancients on History Hit. Join us twice a week, every week, as we explore some of the greatest moments of our ancient past. Subscribe to The Ancients wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder.

Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. And part of that cultural fluidity is political fragmentation. Indeed. And then, Odette, I guess you get that inequality is exaggerated because of the power that these European and North American empires are able to project into

other parts of the world, like the global south. Right. So there are two dimensions of this inequality. So there is one element that is inequality across nations. And the second one is inequality within nations. And the journey of humanity is basically trying to resolve two fundamental mysteries at once. The mystery of growth, namely, why is it the case that societies experience this tremendous transformation in the standard of living in the past 200 years, after literally 300,000 years of stagnation? And what is the source of this enormous inequality that was created in the world economy in the past 200 years? And the argument that is raised in the journey of humanity is that much of

the inequalities we see today was originated due to the differential timing of the takeoff from stagnation to growth across the globe. Some societies took off as early as the beginning of the 19th century, others only very recently. And since this takeoff on average was associated with a 14-fold increase in the standard of living, an enormous gap was created in the world economy. The ratio of income per capita between the richest and the poorest regions of the world, two or 250 years ago, was about 3 to 1. The ratio today can be 20 to 1, 40 to 1, even 100 to 1.

So much of this inequality was created during the transition from stagnation to growth. And as a result of it, the journey of humanity is focusing on the elements that permitted some societies to move earlier than others. And it traces it back to institutional factors, cultural factors, geographical factors, and human diversity. And it suggests that much of the inequality that we see across the globe today, why some countries are rich and others are poor, can be traced to forces that operated in the distant past, hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, and even tens of thousands of years ago. And this realization is very important, not in order to say that history is a fate, but in fact, to learn from history and to design country-specific policies, history-specific

policies that can alleviate poverty and inequality across the globe. So in fact, again, there is great optimism there. By learning the history of each particular region, by learning the history of each particular individual country, we can design history-specific policy, country-specific policy that will mitigate inequality across the globe. And the interesting element is that these policies are ultimately progressive policies. So typically, when we think about progressive policies, some people advance progressive policies because of moral reasons. In fact, the journey of humanity suggests to us that progressive policies are effective from an economic viewpoint. Namely, gender equality, pluralism and respect for difference are key for universal prosperity in the long run.

And what does that tell us, therefore, given that today the world looks like it's dominated by states that are super states, enormous, China is once again having its moment, the USA, Russia, what does that tell us about the ideal size of a polity if you're looking at development? Is Western Europe in terms of political arrangement the model if we want to see rapid technological change? Historically, cultural fragmentation, political fragmentation in Europe that is geographically based was instrumental for political competition, technological competition, and ultimately to the rise of Europe. Now, when we think about today's world, we see that in fact, Europe is unifying itself politically and economically. One may ask whether in fact

this is a good policy for the future in the sense that ultimately you diminish political competition, economic competition across close by nations. But in fact the world is changing. Scale is very important and new political and economic entities are emerging and as a result of the unification of Europe in this respect is very wise in the sense that it is creating a political entity, an economic entity that can compete with North America, that can compete with Southeast Asia. So the competition is still present and the competition is essential to assure technological progress, to assure political competition in the sense that

liberties and freedom will ultimately prevail in the long run, but they're present now in a different scale. In the past, it was Switzerland versus Austria versus Germany, and now it is the European Union versus China and Southeast Asia versus North America. So the forces are still there. The importance of competition is still there. It is simply in a different scale. Historians never like to do any future prediction, but because you're an economist,

I'm allowed to ask you about the future. What can you tell us about the patterns that you've observed, the trajectory that you have outlined in this gigantic project? Where are we going next? So the journey of humanity is projecting hope and optimism. And this is not based on naivete on the part of the author of the book. It is based on careful reading of history. When you think about human history and you think about devastating effects that occurred in the past, unfortunately, there are plenty of them, both in the context of pandemics and in the context of devastating wars. If you think about Europe in the context of the 14th century, the Black Death is decimating 40% of the European population. People that are living through this catastrophe are in horror and shock.

catastrophe are in horror and shock. And nevertheless, humanity is emerging out of the black dust, stronger and with greater resolve. Technological progress is taking place, labor saving technologies. We see the decline in feudalism due to the fact that there is scarcity of labor and ultimately perhaps even industrialization and property rights that are associated with this change. We think about more recent events, the 20th century. The world is devastated by World War I, by World War II, by the Spanish flu, by the Great Depression. And again, people that are living through these catastrophes are devastated to an extreme. But ultimately, when we think about the grand arc of human history, it appears that humanity is not deviating from its relentless march forward. And most recently, in the context

of COVID-19, again, enormous amount of gloom surrounded many people about the fact that perhaps we are going to change our ways of life forever. And again, modern technology, mRNA technologies rescued us within a very short time period from these potential predictions and ultimately removed this gloom from us. And now again, humanity is very concerned about the Ukraine crisis and the terrible humanitarian crisis that took care in this region.

And again, if you think about the Ukrainian people, they will be devastated for years and for decades. This is enormous trauma, but would humanity be derailed as a result of it? History suggests this is not the case. So if I project based on what I see in human history about the future, it appears that progress is accelerating over time. There is a huge change in the quality of human lives. Think about it. Two and a half centuries ago, one fourth of newborns did not reach their first birthday, and one half of them

did not reach their reproductive age. Today, the death of a child is an unusual tragedy. This is an enormous progress, and this progress will be maintained. Yes, the world will be affected adversely by enormous shocks from time to time, but it appears that humanity has great strengths, and these wheels of change will continue to rotate and propel humanity into a better and better future. I am glad to hear you're optimistic. I have found personally Ukraine and Russia to be very disappointing. And I'd love to have your opinion on this. Have you struggled with the fact that we can celebrate so much

from our scientific, engineering, medical, cultural development over these 300,000 years? And yet this year we've had such a brutal lesson that our politics, the people in charge of us, we are at the whim of the appetites of these weak humans like Vladimir Putin. And there has not been a kind of corresponding move forward in terms of our ability to seize control of our own destinies.

I share your concern on the one hand, but on the other hand, again, I read the events a little differently in the sense that what I take from the event are two important trends. The first one is the quest for freedom. The fact that the Ukrainian people decided to battle Russian aggression and to a large extent managed to defeat Russian aggression is really uplifting. And it shows us again the level of the quest for freedom at the level of the individual, but at the level of the nation as a whole. And we see that somehow the quest for freedom is able to prevail against an enormous force. So this is really an uplifting phenomena from my viewpoint, because it suggests to me that as we move into the future, at the moment that people learn the value of freedom, it is very difficult

to take it away from them. And this is perhaps some sort of prediction about the decline of authoritarian regimes in the years to come, in the decades to come, in the centuries to come. But there is an additional important trend that I can observe here, and this is the inability of the Russians to use their military efficiently. And typically, when we think about authoritarian regime and brutal regimes, we think about their comparative advantage in the context of their ability to use brutality, to use their military force. And here we see the failure of authoritarian regime, even in the context of something that used to be their comparative advantage. We understand in the era of communism that they didn't know how to manage the economy

and they generated a complete calamity and catastrophe for their people. But now it turns out that they're not able even to maneuver their armies properly. And this is really uplifting in the sense that, yes, I think what I learned from this crisis is that freedom is very important for people and it will be very hard to crush. And second, the authoritarian regimes are so inefficient that they're not able even to use force properly, and consequently, they will be defeated in the long run. I agree. I just wish they didn't have nuclear weapons. Anyway, thank you very much,

Oded. That was amazing. Tell us what your gigantic book is called. My book is called The Journey of Humanity, The Origins of Wealth and Inequality. It was released simultaneously in 30 different languages across the globe, and it is accessible to any reader. Brilliant. Thank you very much indeed. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone.