導(dǎo)讀：在過去的幾個(gè)世紀(jì)中，西方國(guó)家在國(guó)家興盛方面大顯身手。歷史學(xué)家尼爾·費(fèi)格森問道：為何西方如此成功，而不是其它地區(qū)呢?他提出西方文化中的一系列重要思想，稱之為促進(jìn)財(cái)富、穩(wěn)定、創(chuàng)新的“六大致命應(yīng)用程序”。他說，在新世紀(jì)里，這些應(yīng)用程序?qū)⒌玫焦蚕怼?/strong>
演講文本(中英文)：
Let's talk about billions.
我們來說說數(shù)以億計(jì)。
Let's talk about past and future billions.
我們來說說過去和將來的數(shù)以億計(jì)。
We know that about 106 billion people have ever lived.
眾所周知在地球上生活過的人有1060億。
And we know that most of them are dead.
當(dāng)然大多數(shù)人已經(jīng)不在人世了。
And we also know that most of them live or lived in Asia.
我們還知道他們大多數(shù)人生活在或曾經(jīng)生活在亞洲。
And we also know that most of them were or are very poor did not live for very long.
我們還知道他們大多數(shù)人非常貧窮壽命不長(zhǎng)。
Let's talk about billions.
我們來說說數(shù)以億計(jì)。
Let's talk about the 195,000 billion dollars of wealth in the world today.
我們來說說現(xiàn)今世界高達(dá)195萬億美元的財(cái)富。
We know that most of that wealth was made after the year 1800.
這些財(cái)富的大部分是從1800年開始被創(chuàng)造的。
And we know that most of it is currently owned by people we might call Westerners:
而現(xiàn)在 這些財(cái)富的主要擁有者是西方人:
Europeans, North Americans, Australasians.
歐洲人 北美人和澳洲人。
19 percent of the world's population today,
僅占世界人口19%的西方人，
Westerners own two-thirds of its wealth.
擁有了全球三分之二的財(cái)富。
Economic historians call this "The Great Divergence."
經(jīng)濟(jì)歷史學(xué)家稱之為大分流。
And this slide here is the best simplification of the Great Divergence story I can offer you.
這個(gè)幻燈片能夠最好地展示簡(jiǎn)化版的大分流故事。
It's basically two ratios of per capita GDP,per capita gross domestic product,so average income.
上面是兩個(gè)人均GDP比率，也就是人均國(guó)內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值，平均收入。
One, the red line,is the ratio of British to Indian per capita income.
紅色的那條線，代表英國(guó)和印度的人均收入之比。
And the blue line is the ratio of American to Chinese.
而藍(lán)色那條則是美國(guó)與中國(guó)的人均收入之比。
And this chart goes back to 1500.
這幅圖追溯到1500年。
And you can see here that there's an exponential Great Divergence.
大家可以看到大分流的走勢(shì)。
They start off pretty close together.
這兩條曲線一開始非常接近。
In fact, in 1500,the average Chinese was richer than the average North American.
事實(shí)上在1500年，中國(guó)人普遍比美國(guó)人富有。
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.
而到了二十世紀(jì)70年代，也就是這幅圖時(shí)間的結(jié)點(diǎn)，英國(guó)人平均比印度人富十倍。
And that's allowing for differences in the cost of living.
這就產(chǎn)生了生活消費(fèi)的差異。
It's based on purchasing power parity.
這是建立在購買力對(duì)等基礎(chǔ)上的。
The average American is nearly 20 times richer than the average Chinese by the 1970s.
到了二十世紀(jì)70年代美國(guó)人平均比中國(guó)人富二十倍。
So why?
這是為什么?
This wasn't just an economic story.
這并不僅僅只是一個(gè)經(jīng)濟(jì)問題。
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.
看看這十個(gè)后來成為帝國(guó)的西方國(guó)家，在1500年時(shí) 這些國(guó)家都很小僅占全球土地面積的5%，人口僅占世界人口的16%，而收入在全球僅占20%。
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.
到了1913年,包括美國(guó)在內(nèi)的這十個(gè)國(guó)家，控制了全球大片土地占據(jù)了全球58%的勢(shì)力范圍，而人口也占到了世界人口的58%左右，創(chuàng)造了全球近四分之三的財(cái)富。
And notice, most of that went to the motherland,to the imperial metropoles,not to their colonial possessions.
請(qǐng)注意大部分財(cái)富都流入了這些國(guó)家，流入了帝國(guó)的大都市里，而不是殖民地。
Now you can't just blame this on imperialism,though many people have tried to do so,for two reasons.
你不能僅僅責(zé)怪帝國(guó)主義,盡管很多人這么做,原因有二。
One, empire was the least original thing that the West did after 1500.
第一 1500年以后帝國(guó)到處都是。
Everybody did empire.
大家都建立帝國(guó)。
They beat preexisting Oriental empires like the Mughals and the Ottomans.
之前建立的東方帝國(guó)被打敗了,例如莫臥兒帝國(guó)和奧斯曼帝國(guó)。
So it really doesn't look like empire is a great explanation for the Great Divergence.
所以大分流并不見得是帝國(guó)造成的。
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.
這不是一個(gè)新問題了。
Samuel Johnson,the great lexicographer,it throughhis character Rasselas in his novel Rasselas, Prince ofAbissinia,published in 1759.
著名詞典編纂家，塞繆爾·約翰，通過他1759年所著小說《幸福谷-拉塞拉斯王子的故事》中的人物拉塞拉斯，提出了這個(gè)問題。
By what means are the Europeans thus powerful;or why, since they can so easily visit Asia andAfrica for trade or conquest,cannot the Asiaticks and Africans invade their coasts,plant coloniesin their ports,and give laws to their natural princes?
歐洲人何以如此強(qiáng)大?他們?yōu)楹文軌蜉p而易舉地來到亞洲和非洲進(jìn)行貿(mào)易或征服，而亞洲人和非洲人為何無力入侵他們的海岸線，化其通商口岸為殖民地，并控制他們的王子呢?
The same wind that carries them back would bring us thither?
既然是同一股風(fēng) 為何它只將他們送回家卻將我們送去他們那里?
That's a great question.
這個(gè)問題問得很好。
And you know what,it was also being asked at roughly the same time by the Resterners-by thepeople in the rest of the world like Ibrahim Muteferrika,an Ottoman official,the man whointroduced printing, very belatedly,to the Ottoman Empire who said in a book published in1731,Why do Christian nations which were so weak in the past,compared with Muslim nationsbegin to dominate so many lands in modern times and even defeat the once victoriousOttoman armies?
無獨(dú)有偶，幾乎在同一時(shí)期西方國(guó)家之外的人,其中有伊布拉希姆·穆特費(fèi)黎加，一位奧斯曼帝國(guó)的大官，也是后來將印刷術(shù)，引入奧斯曼帝國(guó)的人，在他1731年出版的一本書里，他說： 與穆斯林國(guó)家相比，基督教國(guó)家原先顯得弱不經(jīng)風(fēng)，但他們何以在現(xiàn)代統(tǒng)治了大片土地，甚至戰(zhàn)勝了曾經(jīng)盛極一時(shí)的奧斯曼帝國(guó)?
Unlike Rasselas,Muteferrika had an answer to that question,which was correct.
和拉塞拉斯不同，穆特費(fèi)黎加對(duì)問題做了回答，答案還是正確的。
He said it was because they have laws and rules invented by reason.
他說：因?yàn)樗麄冎贫撕侠淼姆煞ㄒ?guī)。
It's not geography.
這跟地理無關(guān)。
You may think we can explain the Great Divergence in terms of geography.
你們可能認(rèn)為我們能從地理的角度解釋大分流。
We know that's wrong,because we conducted two great natural experiments in the 20thcentury to see if geography mattered more than institutions.
這個(gè)思路是錯(cuò)誤的，我們?cè)?0世紀(jì)進(jìn)行了兩次自然試驗(yàn)來證明地理和制度究竟哪個(gè)作用更大。
We took all the Germans,we divided them roughly in two,and we gave the ones in the Eastcommunism,and you see the result.
我們把德國(guó)，分成了兩部分，在東德推行共產(chǎn)主義，結(jié)果大家都看到了。
Within an incredibly short period of time,people living in the German Democratic Republicproduced Trabants, the Trabbi,one of the world's worst ever cars,while people in the Westproduced the Mercedes Benz.
在極短的一段時(shí)間里，東德人生產(chǎn)了衛(wèi)星牌汽車，世界上性能最差的車型之一，而西德人卻生產(chǎn)出了梅賽德斯奔馳。
If you still don't believe me,we conducted the experiment also in the Korean Peninsula.
這如果還不足以說明問題，我們又在朝鮮半島進(jìn)行了試驗(yàn)。
And we decided we'd take Koreans in roughly the same geographical place with, notice, thesame basic traditional culture,and we divided them in two, and we gave the Northernerscommunism.
我們決定將生活在同一地理位置擁有共同文化習(xí)俗的朝鮮人，分為兩部分 并在北朝鮮實(shí)行共產(chǎn)主義。
And the result is an even bigger divergence in a very short space of time than happened inGermany.
結(jié)果 朝韓兩方在更短的時(shí)間內(nèi)出現(xiàn)了大分流，比起德國(guó)的更甚。
Not a big divergence in terms of uniform design for border guards admittedly,but in almostevery other respect,it's a huge divergence.
我承認(rèn) 他們邊防軍制服的款式區(qū)別不大，但在其它方面，雙方存在極大差異。
Which leads me to think that neither geography nor national character,popular explanations forthis kind of thing,are really significant.
這讓我不得不想到地理國(guó)家特征，以及其它主流解釋，都站不住腳。
It's the ideas.
真正發(fā)揮作用的是思想。
It's the institutions.
是制度。
This must be true because a Scotsman said it.
這千真萬確，這可是一位蘇格蘭人說的。
And I think I'm the only Scotsman here at the Edinburgh TED.
我想我是這里唯一的蘇格蘭人。
So let me just explain to you that the smartest man ever was a Scotsman.
我來解釋一下世界上最聰明的人是一個(gè)蘇格蘭人。
He was Adam Smith,not Billy Connolly, not Sean Connery though he is very smart indeed.
他就是亞當(dāng)·斯密，不是比利·康諾利或肖恩·康納利，雖然他也很聰明。
Smith-and I want you to go and bow down before his statue in the Royal Mile;it's a wonderfulstatue Smith, in the Wealth of Nations published in 1776 that's the most important thing thathappened that year.
斯密，你們都應(yīng)該到他在皇家麥爾大道的雕像前鞠一躬;這座雕像非常宏偉，斯密在1776年發(fā)表了《國(guó)富論》,這可是當(dāng)年最了不起的歷史事件。
You bet.
難道不是嗎?
There was a little local difficulty in some of our minor colonies, but...
雖然當(dāng)時(shí)我們一些次要的殖民地出了點(diǎn)問題。
China seems to have been long stationary,and probably long ago acquired that fullcomplement of riches,which is consistent with the nature of its laws and institutions.
他說：中國(guó)似乎已經(jīng)停滯很久了，也許在很久以前 中國(guó)創(chuàng)造財(cái)富的能力已經(jīng)發(fā)揮到了極致，而這取決于該國(guó)法律和制度的性質(zhì)。
But this complement may be much inferior to what, with other laws and institutions,thenature of its soil, climate, and situation might admit of.
但是如果中國(guó)采用其它形式的法律和制度,那么這一能力，反而無法在同樣的土壤，氣候和條件下得到完全發(fā)揮。
That is so right and so cool.
這說得一點(diǎn)不假。
And he said it such a long time ago.
在那么久以前他就說出了這番話。
But you know, this is a TED audience,and if I keep talking about institutions,you're going toturn off.
但是我面對(duì)的是TED觀眾，如果我繼續(xù)談?wù)撝贫?，你們可能就聽不下去了?BR> 不知你們是否記得，到了二十世紀(jì)七十年代，大分流在殖民時(shí)期結(jié)束后又過了很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間最終走到了盡頭。
So I'm going to translate this into language that youcan understand.
所以 我要把它翻譯成通俗易懂的語言。
Let's call them the killer apps.
我們就把這些制度稱作致命 應(yīng)用程序吧。
I want to explain to you that there were six killerapps that set the West apart from the rest.
我會(huì)逐一介紹六個(gè)致命應(yīng)用程序解釋它們?nèi)绾巫屛鞣矫摲f而出。
And they're kind of like the apps on your phone,in the sense that they look quite simple.
它們就像你手機(jī)上的應(yīng)用程序，因?yàn)樗鼈兌己苋菀咨鲜帧?BR> They're just icons; you click on them.
它們就像一個(gè)個(gè)圖標(biāo)手指一點(diǎn)就行了。
But behind the icon, there's complex code.
然而在圖標(biāo)背后則是復(fù)雜的程序。
It's the same with institutions.
制度也是如此。
There are six which I think explain the Great Divergence.
我認(rèn)為這六個(gè)應(yīng)用程序能夠解釋大分流的形成。
One, competition.
第一 競(jìng)爭(zhēng)。
Two, the scientific revolution.
第二 科技革命。
Three, property rights.
第三 產(chǎn)權(quán)。
Four, modern medicine.
第四 現(xiàn)代醫(yī)藥。
Five, the consumer society.
第五 消費(fèi)者導(dǎo)向社會(huì)。
And six, the work ethic.
第六 職業(yè)道德。
You can play a game and try and think of one I've missed at,or try and boil it down to justfour,but you'll lose.
你可以玩這個(gè)游戲看看我有沒有漏掉什么，或者試試看能不能砍掉兩個(gè)，但是你輸定了。
Let me very briefly tell you what I mean by this,synthesizing the work of many economichistorians in the process.
通過綜合經(jīng)濟(jì)歷史學(xué)家的觀點(diǎn)，我來簡(jiǎn)短解釋一下我的意思。
Competition means,not only were there a hundred different political units in Europe in 1500,butwithin each of these units,there was competition between corporations as well as sovereigns.
競(jìng)爭(zhēng)意味著，1500年,歐洲不僅擁有100多個(gè)政治單位，而在這些單位中，既有組織間的競(jìng)爭(zhēng),又有主權(quán)國(guó)家之間的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)。
The ancestor of the modern corporation, the City of London Corporation,existed in the 12thcentury.
公司集團(tuán)的鼻祖,倫敦金融城集團(tuán)，存在于12世紀(jì)。
Nothing like this existed in China,where there was one monolithic state covering a fifth ofhumanity,and anyone with any ambition had to pass one standardized examination,whichtook three days and was very difficult and involved memorizing vast numbers of characters andvery complex Confucian essay writing.
中國(guó)沒有這樣的制度，中國(guó)的人口占世界總?cè)丝诘奈宸种?國(guó)家實(shí)現(xiàn)中央集權(quán)制度，胸懷大志的人必須通過統(tǒng)一的科舉考試，一考就是三天,考試難度很大，要求記憶大量漢字，還要寫繁冗復(fù)雜的儒家文章。
The scientific revolution was different from the science that had been achieved in the Orientalworld in a number of crucial ways,the most important being that, through the experimentalmethod,it gave men control over nature in a way that had not been possible before.
科技革命與東方的科學(xué)成就在很多重要方面都有不同，其中最大的不同之處就是科技革命通過實(shí)驗(yàn)性方法，讓人們用前所未見的方式掌控自然。
Example: Benjamin Robins's extraordinary application of Newtonian physics to ballistics.
本杰明?羅賓斯將牛頓物理學(xué)運(yùn)用到彈道研究就是個(gè)很好的例子。
Once you do that,your artillery becomes accurate.
這么做，能夠保證炮彈打擊的精準(zhǔn)度。
Think of what that means.
這意味著什么。
That really was a killer application.
這個(gè)應(yīng)用程序果然厲害。
Meanwhile, there's no scientific revolution anywhere else.
同時(shí) 科技革命只發(fā)生在西方。
The Ottoman Empire's not that far from Europe,but there's no scientific revolution there.
奧斯曼帝國(guó)離歐洲并不遠(yuǎn)，而這里并沒有發(fā)生科技革命。
In fact, they demolish Taqi al-Din's observatory,because it's considered blasphemous toinquire into the mind of God.
該國(guó)政府拆毀了科學(xué)家達(dá)茲?艾-丁的天文觀測(cè)臺(tái)，認(rèn)為該觀測(cè)臺(tái)窺視上帝褻瀆圣靈。
Property rights: It's not the democracy, folks;it's having the rule of law based on privateproperty rights.
產(chǎn)權(quán)：而不是民主，同志們;通過法律管理私有知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)。
That's what makes the difference between North America and South America.
北美洲和南美洲為何如此不同。
You could turn up in North America having signed a deed of indenture saying, I'll work fornothing for five years.
你到北美洲去簽一個(gè)契約說：我愿意無償工作五年。
You just have to feed me.
你只要管我飯吃就行。
But at the end of it, you've got a hundred acres of land.
而五年之后 你得到了一百公頃的土地。
That's the land grant on the bottom half of the slide.
這張幻燈片下面的就是土地贈(zèng)與書。
That's not possible in Latin America where land is held onto by a tiny elite descended from the conquistadors.
但在拉丁美洲,這是不可能的這里的土地,都集中在極少數(shù)西班牙征服者后裔手上。
And you can see here the huge divergence that happens in property ownership betweenNorth and South.
你們看南北美洲由于產(chǎn)權(quán)不同而出現(xiàn)了大分流。
Most people in rural North America owned some land by 1900.
到1900年為止北美洲的大部分人都擁有了土地。
Hardly anyone in South America did.
而在南美洲 擁有土地的人寥寥無幾。
That's another killer app.
這又是一個(gè)致命應(yīng)用程序。
Modern medicine in the late 19th century began to make major breakthroughs against theinfectious diseases that killed a lot of people.
19世紀(jì)末期,現(xiàn)代醫(yī)藥在治療致命傳染病方面取得重大突破。
And this was another killer app the very opposite of a killer,because it doubled, and then morethan doubled, human life expectancy.
這又是一個(gè)致命應(yīng)用程序,但這個(gè)程序并不致命,反而將人類的壽命提高了一倍又一倍。
It even did that in the European empires.
現(xiàn)代醫(yī)藥在歐洲帝國(guó)的殖民地中 也發(fā)揮了作用。
Even in places like Senegal,beginning in the early 20th century,there were major breakthroughsin public health,and life expectancy began to rise.
即使是在塞內(nèi)加爾(西非國(guó)家)，公共衛(wèi)生也在20世紀(jì)早期，取得了重大突破，延長(zhǎng)了人們的壽命。
It doesn't rise any faster after these countries become independent.
而這些國(guó)家獨(dú)立之后,人們的壽命并沒有繼續(xù)增加。
The empires weren't all bad.
所以說帝國(guó)也不見得都是不好的。
The consumer society is what you need for the Industrial Revolution to have a point.
工業(yè)革命在一個(gè)消費(fèi)者導(dǎo)向社會(huì)進(jìn)行才有實(shí)際意義。
You need people to want to wear tons of clothes.
你需要大量需要購買衣服的人。
You've all bought an article of clothing in the last month;I guarantee it.
你們上個(gè)月肯定都買過衣服;我敢保證。
That's the consumer society,and it propels economic growth more than even technologicalchange itself.
正是消費(fèi)者導(dǎo)向社會(huì)，推動(dòng)了經(jīng)濟(jì)的增長(zhǎng),其力量超過了技術(shù)革新本身。
Japan was the first non-Western society to embrace it.
日本是第一個(gè)非西方國(guó)家以消費(fèi)為導(dǎo)向的社會(huì)。