Joel Mokyr on Clans, Corporations, and a Culture of Growth (Ep. 282)
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
大家好，欢迎回到《与泰勒对话》。
Today, I’m chatting with Joel Mokyr.
今天，我正在与乔尔·莫克尔聊天。
Joel is a professor at Northwestern University.
乔尔是西北大学的教授。
He has a wonderful new book out called Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000, and he is one of the economics Nobel laureates from this past year.
他出版了一本精彩的新书，名为《繁荣的两条路径：欧洲和中国的文化与制度，1000-2000 年》，他是去年的诺贝尔经济学奖获得者之一。
Joel, welcome.
乔尔，欢迎。
Thank you, Tyler.
谢谢你，泰勒。
Start by telling us, in the book, your thesis about European corporations versus Chinese clans and the importance of that difference.
首先告诉我们，在书中，您关于欧洲企业与中国宗族的论文以及这种差异的重要性。
How would you explain it?
你会如何解释呢？
Well, the difference is, basically, the kind of organizations that produce what we call local public goods, so things like food relief and education, religious services, things like that, I would think that if you look at the world, say, around 800, at the time of Charlemagne, the difference between Europe and China isn’t very large.
嗯，基本上，区别在于生产我们所谓的当地公共产品的组织类型，所以像食品救济和教育、宗教服务之类的东西，我认为如果你看看世界，比如说，在查理曼时代的800年左右，欧洲和中国之间的差异并不是很大。
At some point, during the Middle Ages, you can see this divergence getting started.
在中世纪的某个时刻，你可以看到这种分歧开始出现。
What’s happening is that, in Europe, there is more and more of a decline in the extended family or the extended kinship group, we call it clan, and instead, people get together and cooperate with other people to whom they are not related and with whom they do not share an ancestor.
正在发生的事情是，在欧洲，大家庭或大亲属群体（我们称之为氏族）越来越衰落，取而代之的是，人们与与他们没有血缘关系、没有共同祖先的其他人聚集在一起并合作。
Whereas in China, it moves exactly in the other direction.
而在中国，情况恰恰相反。
In China, you get more and more people getting organized by their extended family.
在中国，越来越多的人通过大家庭组织起来。
The reasons for that are fairly complex.
其原因相当复杂。
In Europe, it’s particularly the Catholic Church that played a major role here.
在欧洲，天主教会尤其发挥了重要作用。
This was argued quite a while ago by a guy, an anthropologist called Jack Goody, but your own colleague Jonathan Schulz wrote, what I think is one of the best papers on the subject, who pointed this out in great length and actually provided a fair amount of systematic evidence for this.
很久以前，一个名叫杰克·古迪（Jack Goody）的人类学家提出了这个观点，但是你自己的同事乔纳森·舒尔茨（Jonathan Schulz）写了一篇我认为是关于这个主题的最好的论文之一，他用很长的篇幅指出了这一点，并且实际上为此提供了相当多的系统证据。
In China, there is no Catholic Church.
在中国，没有天主教堂。
The imperial bureaucracy is more and more in cahoots with local clans to whom they actually outsource a fair amount of the things that they were supposed to do.
帝国官僚机构越来越多地与地方宗族勾结，他们实际上将相当多的本应做的事情外包给地方宗族。
As you move on out of this period of the Song dynasty into later dynasties, you see this thing growing.
当你从宋朝的这个时期进入后来的朝代时，你会看到这个东西在增长。
The problem in Europe is that the nuclear family, which became the fundamental building block of society, is too small to provide local public goods.
欧洲的问题是，作为社会基本组成部分的核心家庭规模太小，无法提供当地公共产品。
You need to cooperate with others.
你需要与他人合作。
What emerges in Europe, and quite spontaneously, is a bunch of things that provide these local public goods that you just don’t see in China.
欧洲自发地出现了一系列提供当地公共产品的东西，而这些在中国是看不到的。
For instance, we have something called universities.
例如，我们有一个叫做大学的东西。
We have monasteries.
我们有修道院。
We have autonomous cities.
我们有自治市。
All of those things are what we call corporations.
所有这些都是我们所说的公司。
What it is, is people who are not related, but what they share is not an ancestor but an objective.
它是指没有血缘关系的人，但他们共同的不是祖先，而是一个目标。
Guilds have one kind of objective, universities have another one, and so on and so forth.
行会有一种目标，大学有另一种目标，等等。
That divergence in social organization turns out, in our view, to be one of the key components of the divergence between Europe and China.
我们认为，社会组织的差异是欧洲和中国之间差异的关键组成部分之一。
Do you take that change in policy from the Catholic Church as exogenous or that it is rooted in earlier features of Western society such as the ideology of Christianity itself or maybe earlier Roman times?
您是否认为天主教会的政策变化是外生的，还是植根于西方社会的早期特征，例如基督教本身或早期罗马时代的意识形态？
What is causing what?
是什么原因造成的？
What’s the most fundamental driver here in the West?
西方最根本的驱动力是什么？
Well, there’s some debate about that.
嗯，对此存在一些争论。
They don’t, of course, tell you.
当然，他们不会告诉你。
There are, I think, two components about this, and I would not know how to weight them.
我认为这有两个组成部分，我不知道如何权衡它们。
There are two things happening here.
这里发生了两件事。
The first is that the Catholic Church really becomes quite obsessive about certain sins that they consider to be particularly egregious.
首先，天主教会确实对某些他们认为特别严重的罪恶变得非常痴迷。
One of those sins is incest.
这些罪恶之一就是乱伦。
Every society in the world prohibits marriage between siblings, but other more remote relatives is more ambiguous.
世界上每个社会都禁止兄弟姐妹之间的婚姻，但其他较远亲的婚姻则更为模糊。
The Church becomes quite obsessive about this.
教会对此非常着迷。
At the end, there are places where they actually prohibit the marriage of fifth-degree cousins.
最后，有些地方实际上禁止五代表兄弟姐妹结婚。
Now, how anybody in the Middle Ages would know who is fifth-degree cousin is, is unclear.
现在，尚不清楚中世纪的任何人如何知道谁是五代表弟。
I don’t know who my fifth-degree cousins are.
我不知道我的五代堂兄弟姐妹是谁。
Maybe you do.
也许你会。
The other thing, which is also sort of Goody’s argument, and I think there’s a great deal of truth to that, is that the Church wants to weaken any kind of organizations that compete with it for power and control in the local communities.
另一件事，也是古迪的论点，我认为这有很多道理，那就是教会希望削弱任何与其争夺当地社区权力和控制权的组织。
They also have figured out that if you organize society by nuclear families, then a certain proportion of people die without heirs.
他们还发现，如果你以核心家庭来组织社会，那么一定比例的人会在没有继承人的情况下死去。
If they die interstate without heirs, that in many cases, the property that these people own reverted to the Church.
如果他们在州际之间去世而没有继承人，那么在许多情况下，这些人拥有的财产就会归还给教会。
Pure naked greed by the Church, which was not unknown in the Middle Ages, I think, was a driver here.
我认为，教会纯粹赤裸裸的贪婪是这里的驱动因素，这在中世纪并不为人所知。
Goody convinced me that that actually is a substantial factor.
古迪让我相信这实际上是一个重要因素。
There are other arguments that have been made in this context, but I think these are the two that are most striking.
在这方面还提出了其他论点，但我认为这是最引人注目的两个。
The other question is, why is it that the clan in China is so convenient for the imperial bureaucracy to rely on?
另一个问题是，为什么中国的宗族如此方便帝国官僚机构的依赖？
Both of those things happen in parallel.
这两件事同时发生。
I would think, maybe, if I may allow one observation, in both cases, this is history as historical outcomes, as the unintended and unanticipated consequence of very different actions.
我想，也许，如果我可以允许一项观察，在这两种情况下，这都是作为历史结果的历史，作为非常不同的行动的意外和意料之外的结果。
There’s no question that the Church never, I think, foresaw the emergence of corporations in Europe, nor do I think that the Chinese imperial service ever seriously considered the possibility how this would change life in China.
毫无疑问，我认为教会从未预见到欧洲企业的出现，我认为中国帝国政府也从未认真考虑过这将如何改变中国生活的可能性。
That’s what happens.
就是这样。
You try to follow one objective and then something very different emerges over time.
你试图追求一个目标，但随着时间的推移，一些非常不同的东西就会出现。
That’s what history is all about.
这就是历史的意义所在。
Now, why are these cultural trends so persistent?
现在，为什么这些文化趋势如此持久？
I recall, in the 1990s, reading Francis Fukuyama’s book Trust.
我记得在 20 世纪 90 年代，读过弗朗西斯·福山的书《信任》。
He argued that large Chinese corporations were going to be very difficult to establish because China did not have enough trust, unlike Japan.
他认为，中国的大型企业将很难建立，因为与日本不同，中国没有足够的信任。
Now, a few decades later, that seems obviously wrong.
几十年后的今天，这似乎显然是错误的。
There are many quite large Chinese corporations, and the large Japanese corporations, they’ve maintained a foothold, but they actually haven’t done that well.
中国有很多比较大的企业，还有日本的大企业，他们也站稳了脚跟，但是他们实际上做得不太好。
Things changed quickly.
事情变化很快。
Why so much persistence here?
为什么在这里如此坚持？
That’s a very good question.
这是一个很好的问题。
There’s some debate about how much persistence there really is.
关于到底有多少持久性存在一些争论。
Particularly, the communist regime under Mao did all they could to erase the influence of clans and replace it, of course, with communist functionaries.
特别是，毛泽东领导下的共产主义政权竭尽全力消除宗族的影响，并用共产主义官员取而代之。
There’s some evidence, and some research has recently shown, that that wasn’t 100 percent successful.
有一些证据，而且最近的一些研究表明，这并不是 100% 成功的。
I think what you get, particularly in societies such as China, but in other places as well where corporations were largely absent and where your society was organized by family, is that it actually changes people’s culture and people’s values.
我认为，特别是在中国这样的社会，以及其他基本上不存在公司且社会由家庭组织的地方，它实际上改变了人们的文化和价值观。
If you look at all the work that’s been done by economists like Stephen Enke and anthropologists like Joe Henrich, they all show a very tight correlation between attitudes and cultural values and kinship, whether that’s extended kinship or nuclear family.
如果你看看斯蒂芬·恩克（Stephen Enke）等经济学家和乔·亨里奇（Joe Henrich）等人类学家所做的所有工作，就会发现态度、文化价值观和亲属关系（无论是大亲属关系还是核心家庭）之间都存在非常紧密的相关性。
I think what you could do in China and in Europe is you could maybe change your organizations, but you cannot change the state of mind.
我认为在中国和欧洲你可以做的是你可以改变你的组织，但你无法改变心态。
An interesting fact is that many of the corporations that we talk about that were established during the Middle Ages eventually disappeared or became very unimportant.
一个有趣的事实是，我们谈论的许多中世纪成立的公司最终都消失了或变得非常不重要。
For instance, guilds eventually got abolished after the French Revolution on the continent, and they were weakened in England much earlier.
例如，法国大革命后，欧洲大陆的行会最终被废除，而英国的行会则更早被削弱。
Monasteries still exist in Catholic countries, in Protestant countries, and in England.
天主教国家、新教国家和英国仍然存在修道院。
They were completely abolished.
他们被彻底废除了。
But the frame of mind and the cultural values that growing up in a nuclear family imbues, that kind of thing sticks around.
但在核心家庭中成长所灌输的心态和文化价值观，这种东西会一直存在。
Corporations, of course, remained, but they changed their form very much.
当然，公司仍然存在，但它们的形式发生了很大变化。
The one most persistent of all those corporations, interestingly enough, were universities.
有趣的是，所有这些公司中最持久的一家是大学。
Effectively, the form of universities, with the fact that they are self-governing and they’re sort of self-contained organizational units that write their own rules and their own bylaws, that thing, despite a lot of pressure on them, is still surviving, which I find very striking.
实际上，大学的形式，事实上它们是自治的，它们是一种独立的组织单位，制定自己的规则和章程，尽管它们面临很大的压力，但仍然存在，我觉得这非常惊人。
We should think about a world that consists of lots and lots of different organizations like that, in which cities, for instance, were self-governing and made their own rules.
我们应该考虑一个由许许多多不同的组织组成的世界，例如，城市是自治的并制定自己的规则。
Again, you see cooperation between people who share a location but not necessarily an ancestor.
同样，你会看到共享一个位置但不一定是祖先的人们之间的合作。
These things tend to be very persistent precisely because of institutions interacting with culture and culture feeding back into institutions.
这些事情往往非常持久，正是因为制度与文化相互作用，而文化又反馈到制度中。
They evolve or co-evolve, I should say, together.
我应该说，它们一起进化或共同进化。
That makes them, I think, much more persistent, Tyler.
我认为这让他们更加坚持不懈，泰勒。
On China’s growth
论中国的增长
Why is it so late in history that Chinese cities still have more people than, say, London or Paris, if the Chinese model is economically inferior?
如果中国模式在经济上处于劣势，为什么在历史上这么晚，中国城市的人口仍然比伦敦或巴黎多？
No, I didn’t… it isn’t economically.
不，我没有……这不经济。
We never say in the book—anyway, you will not find this—that it was economically inferior.
我们在书中从未说过——无论如何，你不会发现这一点——它在经济上处于劣势。
That’s a way of thinking that we have long abandoned.
这是我们早已抛弃的一种思维方式。
It’s different.
这是不同的。
In many ways, under the empire, the Chinese got what they wanted.
在很多方面，在帝国统治下，中国人得到了他们想要的东西。
What Europeans think of being inferior, the Chinese actually that as their objective.
欧洲人认为低人一等，中国人却以此为目标。
What they wanted, above all, was stability and internal peace, rather than what the Europeans wanted, which was progress and growth.
最重要的是，他们想要的是稳定和内部和平，而不是欧洲人想要的进步和增长。
These huge cities in China, well, remember, it’s an incredibly populated place, but in fact, urbanization in China, say, if you look at 1850 or 1900, is much lower than in Europe.
中国的这些大城市，请记住，这是一个人口极其稠密的地方，但事实上，如果你看看 1850 年或 1900 年，中国的城市化水平远低于欧洲。
The urbanization that you see now is really all post-imperial.
你现在看到的城市化确实是后帝国时代的。
In fact, a lot of it is the consequence of the last 20 and 30 years.
事实上，其中很大一部分是过去 20 到 30 年的结果。
Although you should keep in mind that since the First Opium War, Europeans have been penetrating China, and many of the European values and ideas were being mixed in with the Chinese culture.
尽管你应该记住，自第一次鸦片战争以来，欧洲人一直在渗透中国，许多欧洲价值观和思想正在与中国文化融合。
What you get is some kind of mixed product, which produced many of these cities.
你得到的是某种混合产品，它产生了许多这样的城市。
Many of these cities were what’s known as treaty ports, Hong Kong and Shanghai and so on.
其中许多城市都是所谓的通商口岸、香港和上海等。
They grew, in large part, because the Westerners that came there and settled there and actually ran their own show.
他们的成长在很大程度上是因为西方人来到那里定居并实际上经营自己的表演。
China, certainly since the death of Mao in 1976, adopted many of the European ideas and many of the European cultural values.
当然，自1976年毛泽东去世以来，中国采纳了许多欧洲思想和许多欧洲文化价值观。
As a result, what you get today in China is sort of a weird mixture of persistence of things that were around during the empire and for thousands of years, Confucian beliefs and so on, with Western values.
结果，你今天在中国看到的是一种奇怪的混合体，它是帝国时期几千年来存在的东西、儒家信仰等等与西方价值观的持续存在。
I’ll give you one example, which I find particularly striking.
我举一个例子，我觉得这个例子特别引人注目。
One of the great insights of Western society over the years has been the idea of intellectual property rights.
多年来西方社会的伟大见解之一就是知识产权的理念。
You don’t really actually see anything like that anywhere in the world.
你实际上在世界任何地方都看不到类似的东西。
The combination of a patent system and copyright and all these things, that’s a very Western European thing.
专利制度和版权以及所有这些东西的结合，这是非常西欧的事情。
The Chinese never had anything like that.
中国人从来没有过这样的事情。
The whole concept of intellectual property right was alien to Chinese thinking until about 30 or 40 years ago.
直到大约三十或四十年前，知识产权的整个概念对中国人来说还是陌生的。
Now, if you look at the data, Chinese patents have just skyrocketed.
现在，如果你看一下数据，中国的专利刚刚猛增。
Clearly, that idea has now penetrated Chinese society.
显然，这种想法现在已经渗透到中国社会。
The idea, for instance, of having self-governing autonomous universities still hasn’t quite gotten there because Chinese universities are very much run and managed by politicians, unlike, I hope, most American universities.
例如，建立自治大学的想法还没有完全实现，因为中国的大学很大程度上是由政客经营和管理的，我希望这与大多数美国大学不同。
On Europe’s growth
关于欧洲的增长
Why does it take so long for the wealthiest parts of Western Europe to surpass Chinese living standards?
为什么西欧最富裕地区的生活水平花了这么长时间才超过中国？
Say that’s happened by 1700 or 1720, that’s many centuries after this medieval divergence.
假设这发生在 1700 年或 1720 年，距离中世纪的分歧已经过去了许多个世纪。
If it takes so many centuries, is the medieval divergence really the relevant factor?
如果需要这么多世纪，中世纪的分歧真的是相关因素吗？
Why is it such a slow process?
为什么这个过程如此缓慢？
Yes, I think it is.
是的，我认为是的。
I think it’s a main factor.
我认为这是一个主要因素。
I think the idea of looking at standard of living, one thing, I’m very skeptical about how standards of living are actually measured.
我认为关注生活水平的想法，一方面，我对生活水平的实际衡量方式非常怀疑。
I know that this is what Pomeranz and other people have, and Jack Goldstone and other people have argued that the living standards in China were comparable to the West as late as 1750.
我知道这就是彭慕兰等人的观点，而杰克·戈德斯通等人则认为，早在1750年，中国的生活水平就可以与西方相媲美。
I’m not 100 percent sure that that is true.
我不能百分百确定这是真的。
Certainly, for my money, what really defines the divergence is that, technologically, the gap between the two countries starts to become visible at the time of the Renaissance, in terms of a whole bunch of things that you see growing in Europe and stagnant in China.
当然，在我看来，真正定义差异的是，从技术上来说，两国之间的差距在文艺复兴时期开始变得明显，就你看到的在欧洲增长而在中国停滞不前的一大堆事情而言。
Now, keep in mind, of course, that part of the European growth is due to the fact that they borrowed ideas from China.
当然，现在请记住，欧洲增长的部分原因是他们借鉴了中国的想法。
Then the Industrial Revolution consists, to some extent, of imports institution by Europeans trying to mimic the goods that they were importing from China—not just from China, from India as well.
然后，工业革命在某种程度上包括欧洲人试图模仿他们从中国（不仅从中国，也从印度）进口的商品的进口制度。
Pottery is a good example.
陶器就是一个很好的例子。
One of the things they really wanted from China was Chinaware.
他们真正想从中国得到的东西之一是瓷器。
That’s why it’s called Chinaware.
这就是为什么它被称为瓷器。
It took them a while to be able to match the Chinese capability in the ceramic industry, but they do so eventually.
他们花了一段时间才能够在陶瓷行业与中国的能力相媲美，但他们最终做到了。
Then they stop importing this stuff from China.
然后他们就停止从中国进口这些东西。
The same is true for, say, cotton and other products that we’re getting from the East.
对于我们从东方获得的棉花和其他产品来说也是如此。
European living standards, I think, should be measured, in part, by the fact that when the Europeans start their voyages across the globe in the late 15th and early 16th century, they are able to bring in a whole bunch of new crops and new techniques from other areas which they merely adopt.
我认为，欧洲的生活水平应该部分地通过以下事实来衡量：当欧洲人在 15 世纪末和 16 世纪初开始环球航行时，他们能够从其他地区引进大量他们只是采用的新作物和新技术。
You’ll see Europeans very soon growing tobacco and potatoes and corn and other things like that.
你很快就会看到欧洲人种植烟草、土豆、玉米和其他类似的东西。
They are the agents of global change.
他们是全球变革的推动者。
Not only that they change their own diets, they change the Chinese diets because the Europeans bring from the New World things like peanuts and sweet potatoes and things like that.
他们不仅改变了自己的饮食习惯，还改变了中国人的饮食习惯，因为欧洲人从新大陆带来了花生、红薯之类的东西。
They change the Chinese diets, but the Chinese themselves are not agents here.
他们改变了中国人的饮食习惯，但中国人本身并不是这里的代理人。
They are accepting the stuff that the Europeans did to some extent, and they’re rejecting others, but it’s the Europeans who are the agents of change here.
他们在某种程度上接受欧洲人所做的事情，并拒绝其他人所做的事情，但欧洲人才是这里变革的推动者。
They are the entrepreneurs.
他们是企业家。
They are the people who bring about the changes, Tyler.
他们是带来改变的人，泰勒。
My sense is that typifies the difference between Europeans and the Chinese.
我的感觉是，这就是欧洲人和中国人之间的差异的典型。
Europeans are more aggressive.
欧洲人更具侵略性。
They are more outward-looking.
他们更加外向。
In the end, what you see by the 1830s and 1840s, you see that the technological gap is huge, in some ways much larger than the living standards gap.
最后，到了 1830 年代和 1840 年代，你会发现技术差距是巨大的，在某些方面比生活水平差距还要大得多。
Even in the 19th century, in terms of food, the Chinese were capable of producing enough food.
即使在19世纪，就粮食而言，中国人也有能力生产足够的粮食。
The number of famines in China is probably not a lot worse than in Europe.
中国的饥荒数量恐怕并不比欧洲严重多少。
When you see what happens during the First Opium War, one English ship is blowing all of this sort of mighty empire to pieces, and the Chinese have to accept this terribly humiliating peace, you can sort of see how the technological gap has grown between the two.
当你看到第一次鸦片战争期间发生的事情时，一艘英国船将这个强大的帝国全部炸成碎片，而中国人不得不接受这种可怕的屈辱和平，你可以看到两者之间的技术差距是如何扩大的。
For me, that is much more telling than the living standards.
对我来说，这比生活水平更能说明问题。
The other thing that I should like to point out is that, when you look at Europe in the 16th and 17th century, you can see that the capability of expanding the set of useful knowledge, including science, is just growing very rapidly.
我想指出的另一件事是，当你观察 16 世纪和 17 世纪的欧洲时，你会发现扩展包括科学在内的有用知识的能力正在快速增长。
Whether there is a scientific revolution or not is a debate that I want to get into.
是否存在科学革命是我想参与的辩论。
Certainly, by 1700, Europe is on the verge of really changing our understanding of how creation works.
当然，到 1700 年，欧洲即将真正改变我们对创造如何运作的理解。
That’s not just Newton and Galileo.
这不仅仅是牛顿和伽利略。
There’s a whole body of work that is emerging.
一整套工作正在涌现。
There’s really nothing parallel like that in China.
在中国确实没有类似的事情。
China is a very sophisticated society in many ways.
中国在很多方面都是一个非常复杂的社会。
The literacy rates are high.
识字率很高。
They have a well-funded and well-organized system of education, but they don’t really continue their earlier forays into science and into new technology.
他们拥有资金充足、组织良好的教育体系，但他们并没有真正继续早期对科学和新技术的尝试。
Somebody actually went out and looked at Joseph Needham’s many volumes on Chinese technology and science, or Science and Civilisation , as he called it, and he discovered something—which I guess we all knew, but they put numbers on it—almost nothing that Needham pointed out as an innovation happens after 1400.
实际上，有人出去看了李约瑟关于中国技术和科学（或者他所说的《科学与文明》）的多卷书，他发现了一些东西——我想我们都知道，但他们在上面加上了数字——几乎没有李约瑟指出的 1400 年之后发生的创新。
There’s complete stagnation setting in and some of the things that they knew how to make in earlier times, like the sophisticated clocks that they built in the 11th century, they disappear.
一切都陷入了完全的停滞，一些他们在早期知道如何制造的东西，比如他们在 11 世纪建造的复杂的时钟，都消失了。
For me, that’s more telling than how many calories of carbohydrates were consumed on average, if we could ever calculate that correctly.
对我来说，如果我们能够正确计算的话，这比平均消耗多少碳水化合物卡路里更能说明问题。
On the fall of Song China
论宋朝的灭亡
Now, there’s another problem in Chinese history, as you well know, for instance, Song China falls to Kublai Khan, even though Song China is relatively wealthy for its time.
现在，中国历史上还有另一个问题，众所周知，例如，宋朝中国落入忽必烈之手，尽管宋朝中国在当时相对富裕。
There were other cases of so-called barbarians coming down from the north, taking over parts of what we now call China.
还有其他一些所谓的野蛮人从北方而来，占领了我们现在所说的中国的部分地区的情况。
Why is that happening?
为什么会发生这种情况？
Is that also because of the clan system?
难道也是因为氏族系统的原因？
No, no, no, no, no. I think China is simply located in a very different kind of geographical and demographic neighborhood.
不，不，不，不，不。我认为中国只是位于一个非常不同的地理和人口社区。
Essentially, it remains for all practical purposes, unified since the rise of the Song in 960.
从本质上讲，自 960 年宋朝崛起以来，出于所有实际目的，它仍然是统一的。
There’s a splitting of the Southern and Northern Song for a little while, but it’s basically a unified society, which shares a language, particularly a written language, which is very important.
南宋和北宋有一段时间的分裂，但基本上是一个统一的社会，有共同的语言，特别是书面语言，这是非常重要的。
What happens is there’s these wild people on their border that, every once in a while, invade China.
发生的事情是，这些野人在他们的边境上，每隔一段时间就会入侵中国。
That happened more than once.
这种事发生过不止一次。
It happened during the Mongols, of course, in 1279.
当然，这发生在蒙古统治时期，即 1279 年。
The Mongols actually established a dynasty, the Yuan dynasty that lasted about 80 years, if I recall correctly.
蒙古人实际上建立了一个王朝，如果我没记错的话，就是持续了大约80年的元朝。
What is interesting, Tyler, is that when these people from the steppe, and some of them were Mongols, some of them were Turkmen, some of them were actually partially Chinese, but if they are not full-blooded Han Chinese and they come in and invade, very often they become sinified.
泰勒，有趣的是，当这些来自草原的人，其中一些是蒙古人，一些是土库曼人，其中一些实际上有部分中国人的血统，但如果他们不是纯种的汉人，他们进来入侵时，很多时候他们就会被中国化。
They start speaking Chinese, they start dressing like Chinese, they behave like Chinese, they adopt Confucianism, and they accept most of the Chinese institutions, such as the imperial examination, and they get absorbed into the clan system.
他们开始说中文，开始穿得像中国人，行为举止像中国人，接受儒家思想，接受大部分中国制度，比如科举考试，并融入宗族制度。
There’s nothing like that in Europe.
欧洲没有这样的事情。
Europe really, since the early Middle Ages, is not invaded effectively by any other non-European power.
事实上，自中世纪早期以来，欧洲并未受到任何其他非欧洲国家的有效入侵。
The Ottomans try a couple of times and they get defeated.
奥斯曼人尝试了几次，但都失败了。
The Mongols try once in 1240, and then if they had taken over Europe, history would have been very different, but they turned around and go back for internal reasons.
蒙古人在1240年尝试过一次，然后如果他们接管了欧洲，历史将会大不相同，但他们由于内部原因转身回去了。
What that really means is that the Europeans are mostly confronting one another, whereas the Chinese, in most cases, are worried about people from the outside, which is they have this wall and they have this military that’s posted on the outer boundaries of China to keep the savages out.
这真正的意思是，欧洲人大多相互对抗，而中国人在大多数情况下担心来自外部的人，他们有这堵墙，他们有一支军队，部署在中国的外部边界，以防止野蛮人进入。
That creates a very different kind of world.
这创造了一个非常不同的世界。
Interestingly enough, again, one of your colleagues, at George Mason, Mark Koyama, has a bunch of papers that describe this in great detail and quite, I think, elegantly and ingeniously, how that geographical differences created the difference between the Chinese government, which remained a unified state, and Europe, which remains fragmented, basically, until the present day.
有趣的是，你在乔治梅森大学的一位同事马克·小山（Mark Koyama）有一堆论文，非常详细地描述了这一点，我认为非常优雅和巧妙地描述了这种地理差异如何造成中国政府（仍然是一个统一的国家）和欧洲（直到今天基本上仍然是支离破碎的）之间的差异。
On India
关于印度
How does historic India fit into your schema?
历史悠久的印度如何融入您的模式？
Well, if I may admit it, my knowledge of India and Indian history is probably not up to par.
好吧，如果我可以承认的话，我对印度和印度历史的了解可能达不到标准。
I’m a Europeanist who spent the last five or six years familiarizing myself with Chinese history, but in the last chapter, there is some discussion of India.
我是一个欧洲主义者，花了五六年的时间来熟悉中国历史，但在最后一章中，有一些关于印度的讨论。
My sense is that India is a different version of the Chinese clan system.
我的感觉是，印度是中国宗族制度的不同版本。
It’s organized differently because you have this combination of clans and caste in India.
它的组织方式有所不同，因为印度有这种氏族和种姓的组合。
Basically, they too are unable to create the kind of unique system that you see in Europe, in which you see these nuclear families living in a society which is organized mostly by corporations.
基本上，他们也无法创建你在欧洲看到的那种独特的体系，在欧洲，你会看到这些核心家庭生活在一个主要由公司组织的社会中。
In that sense, I would say, if I may add to that, all of the three great Asian civilizations—Middle Eastern Muslim civilization, Indian Hindu and Muslim civilizations, and China—share something, which in Europe that is the “weirdos.” It’s Europe that are the exceptions.
从这个意义上说，如果我可以补充一点的话，我想说的是，亚洲三大文明——中东穆斯林文明、印度印度教和穆斯林文明以及中国——都有一些共同点，而这在欧洲就是“怪人”。欧洲是例外。
That’s essentially the tenor of Joe Henrich’s book called The WEIRDest People, in which he points this out.
这基本上就是乔·亨里奇（Joe Henrich）所著《最奇怪的人》一书的主旨，他在书中指出了这一点。
That book, I think, has a big influence on us because it really shows, in great detail, how organizing people by nuclear family creates not only a different set of social organization but the culture that goes with it.
我认为这本书对我们有很大的影响，因为它详细地展示了核心家庭如何组织人们不仅创造了一套不同的社会组织，而且创造了与之相伴的文化。
Now, I don’t want to draw the analogy between India and China too far, but it’s kind of striking that many of those European corporations are woefully missing in India as well until the Brits show up and, in a way, show them how to do it.
现在，我不想在印度和中国之间进行过分的类比，但令人惊讶的是，许多欧洲公司在印度也不幸失踪，直到英国人出现并在某种程度上向他们展示如何做到这一点。
Even there, I think it is fairly rare, certainly until 1948, and India becomes independent.
即使在那里，我认为这种情况也相当罕见，尤其是在 1948 年印度独立之前。
The truth is, I did not really want to get too deeply into India because it’s pretentious enough for me to spend a couple of years reading Chinese history without people spending their entire lives on one village or one county.
事实是，我并不是真的想太深入印度，因为对我来说，花几年时间阅读中国历史而不让人把一生花在一个村庄或一个县上，这已经足够自命不凡了。
It’s just a huge ocean.
这只是一片巨大的海洋。
I can’t really say that I did more than dipping my toes in it.
我真的不能说我所做的只是把脚趾浸入其中。
We wanted to take a step back and look at these two big civilizations and try to see why they differed.
我们想退后一步，看看这两个伟大的文明，并试图找出它们的不同之处。
I want to stress again, we don’t make the argument that India or China failed.
我想再次强调，我们不会说印度或中国失败了。
They were doing what their preferences and their institutions, in some sense, dictated.
从某种意义上说，他们正在按照自己的偏好和机构的指示行事。
I find it always telling that the British established an East India Company that trades with India in London, but that, in Delhi, you don’t see a Western European Company or an England Company that does to the Europeans what the Europeans did to them.
我发现，英国人在伦敦建立了一家东印度公司，与印度进行贸易，但在德里，你看不到西欧公司或英国公司对欧洲人做欧洲人对他们所做的事情。
That asymmetry is already there in 1600.
这种不对称性早在 1600 年就已经存在了。
On Industrial Revolution
论工业革命
Why was there no Industrial Revolution in the Roman Empire?
罗马帝国为何没有发生工业革命？
Oh, God.
哦，上帝。
That’s a huge question.
这是一个很大的问题。
Is it coal?
是煤吗？
Is it human capital?
是人力资本吗？
Is it something else?
难道是别的什么？
Well, I think my sense would be that both Roman and Greek civilizations were, in many ways, creative, but the creativity did never really extend very much into the technological realm.
好吧，我想我的感觉是，罗马和希腊文明在很多方面都具有创造力，但创造力从未真正扩展到技术领域。
Insofar that they did science, they were mostly uninterested in applying that science to day-to-day problems.
就他们从事科学研究而言，他们大多对将科学应用于日常问题不感兴趣。
That insight, the kind of knowledge that we have about nature, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and so on and so forth, that should be applied toward material improvement, that’s not an immediate and obvious insight, nor is it an immediate and obvious insight that progress, as we understand it today, is feasible and/or desirable.
这种洞察力，即我们所拥有的关于自然、物理、化学、生物学、天文学等等的知识，应该应用于物质改进，这不是一种直接而明显的洞察力，也不是一种直接而明显的洞察力，即我们今天所理解的进步是可行的和/或可取的。
These are all insights that arose in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.
这些都是16、17世纪欧洲产生的见解。
I have referred to these things, as you surely know, as what I call the industrial enlightenment.
正如你肯定知道的那样，我将这些事情称为工业启蒙。
There is this change of mind in European’s thinking after maybe 1450 or 1500, maybe because of the printing press, maybe because of other reasons, but in which Europeans essentially start to convince themselves that they are smarter than anybody that came before them, that a lot of these great Hellenistic and Greek scientists were wrong about many things, and that they could do better.
大约在1450年或1500年之后，欧洲人的思想发生了这种思想变化，也许是因为印刷机，也许是因为其他原因，但欧洲人本质上开始说服自己，他们比他们之前的任何人都聪明，许多伟大的希腊化和希腊科学家在很多事情上都错了，他们可以做得更好。
Once you have that belief—and Francis Bacon and a whole bunch of other people were all in that tradition—in Rome, what you see is a whole bunch of clever people, but they’re not that interested in technology.
一旦你有了这种信念——弗朗西斯·培根和其他很多人都遵循这种传统——在罗马，你看到的是一群聪明的人，但他们对技术并不那么感兴趣。
Let me give you one specific example, Tyler, that I have always found particularly intriguing, although I don’t have a good answer why it happened.
让我给你举一个具体的例子，泰勒，我一直觉得这个例子特别有趣，尽管我没有一个很好的答案为什么会发生这种情况。
If you think about human needs, one of the constants of human needs, above all, is that, at some age, we need glasses.
如果你考虑人类的需求，最重要的是，人类需求的常数之一是，在某个年龄段，我们需要眼镜。
I don’t know when you start wearing glasses, but I started wearing glasses when I was in my early 40s in order to read and things like that.
我不知道你什么时候开始戴眼镜的，但我在40岁出头的时候就开始戴眼镜了，为了阅读之类的。
That’s not a cultural feature.
这不是文化特征。
That’s something that’s hard-wired in us.
这是我们根深蒂固的东西。
The Romans, certainly the upper class, were literate people, and they had glass, but they never invent spectacles.
罗马人，当然是上层阶级，是有文化的人，他们有玻璃，但他们从未发明过眼镜。
They don’t have optics, and they’re not interested in optics.
他们没有光学器件，而且对光学不感兴趣。
There’s this passage in Seneca in which he looks at a glass that has water in it.
塞内卡有这样一段话，他看着一个里面有水的玻璃杯。
He says, “Hey, it is interesting.
他说：“嘿，这很有趣。
The stuff that’s behind the glass actually is magnified.” But they never take the step of coming up with eyeglasses.
玻璃后面的东西实际上被放大了。”但他们从来没有迈出研发眼镜的一步。
You wonder why, because, clearly, if necessity is the mother of invention, this was a necessity.
你想知道为什么，因为，显然，如果必需品是发明之母，那么这就是必需品。
They never do it.
他们从不这样做。
The only thing that you see happening in Rome, and even that was very constrained, is they do come up with water mills, but the water mills remain, by and large, tools for grinding wheat, wine, and corn.
你在罗马看到的唯一一件事，即使是非常有限的，就是他们确实建造了水磨，但水磨总体上仍然是研磨小麦、葡萄酒和玉米的工具。
They don’t actually take it to the kind of extremes that Europeans did in the Middle Ages, turning it into sawmill and fulling mills, which is why factories were known as mills.
他们实际上并没有像欧洲人在中世纪所做的那样极端，将其变成锯木厂和缩绒厂，这就是工厂被称为磨坊的原因。
They never do that.
他们从不这样做。
I think the reason is because the people who made things, the artisans, the workmen, and the people who knew things and studied things, which is the scientists and the mathematicians and the teachers, never talked to each other.
我认为原因是因为制造东西的人，工匠，工人，以及了解事物和研究事物的人，即科学家、数学家和教师，从来没有互相交谈过。
What’s more, the scientists essentially looked upon hard work and manual labor with a great deal of contempt.
更重要的是，科学家们本质上非常蔑视艰苦的工作和体力劳动。
Both Plato and Aristotle make these points, but the Romans took it over.
柏拉图和亚里士多德都提出了这些观点，但罗马人继承了它。
It was a slave society.
那是一个奴隶社会。
Slave societies often look at manual labor with a great deal of condescension.
奴隶社会常常以一种居高临下的态度对待体力劳动。
In the end, I think that’s what stopped them.
最后，我认为这就是阻止他们的原因。
The other thing is, I think that if you don’t have a concept of progress and you don’t think that by studying things and investigating things and doing what we would call research in order to make the world a better place, at least from a material point of view, if you don’t have that concept, there’s not going to be an Industrial Revolution.
另一件事是，我认为，如果你没有进步的概念，你不认为通过研究事物、调查事物、做我们所说的研究，以使世界变得更美好，至少从物质的角度来看，如果你没有这个概念，就不会有工业革命。
The Chinese don’t have that concept either.
中国人也没有这个概念。
Coming back to China, I looked quite a long time for this.
回到中国，我已经为此等了很长时间了。
Basically, all the Chinese experts, that I have read, essentially said that the concept of progress is basically absent.
基本上，我读过的所有中国专家基本上都说，进步的概念基本上不存在。
Now, that’s a concept that’s emerging in Europe in the 15th to 16th century.
现在，这是 15 至 16 世纪欧洲兴起的一个概念。
By 17th century, it’s quite commonplace.
到了 17 世纪，这已经相当普遍了。
Once you have that, you can sort of see all those smart guys trying to solve practical and pragmatic problems.
一旦你有了这个，你就可以看到所有那些聪明人试图解决实际和务实的问题。
Scientists, many scientists, almost all scientists, I would think, there’s some exceptions, almost all of them said, “Look, I want to do science not only because I’m curious and not only because I want to illustrate the glory and the wisdom of the Creator; I want to do science because I want to make life better.
科学家，很多科学家，几乎所有的科学家，我想，有一些例外，几乎所有人都说，“看，我想做科学，不仅因为我好奇，也不仅仅是因为我想展示造物主的荣耀和智慧；我想做科学，因为我想让生活变得更好。
Now, whose life is a different question.
现在，谁的生活是一个不同的问题。
That is what really emerges in Europe.
这才是欧洲真正出现的情况。
No other civilization does that, Tyler.
泰勒，没有其他文明能做到这一点。
The Romans are very good at infrastructure.
罗马人非常擅长基础设施建设。
You can go see the aqueduct in Segovia or the waterworks in Istanbul, the Roman system of roads.
您可以参观塞戈维亚的渡槽或伊斯坦布尔的自来水厂以及罗马的道路系统。
Isn’t there some notion of progress behind those developments with Caesar encountering what we now call Britain, right?
凯撒遭遇我们现在所说的不列颠，这些事态发展的背后难道不存在某种进步的概念吗？
No. I think the idea that they had a concept of progress—they were practical people.
不，我认为他们有进步的观念——他们是务实的人。
They needed to bring water from here to there.
他们需要从这里把水运到那里。
They did that.
他们这样做了。
They needed to build roads so that their soldiers could march and occupy the world, or the world as they knew it.
他们需要修建道路，以便他们的士兵能够行军并占领世界，或者他们所知道的世界。
I don’t think there is a concept of progress the way we would think of it.
我认为进步的概念并不像我们想象的那样。
It’s sort of an interesting little book that I published in my series, which you may want to look at, about Pliny.
这是我在我的系列中出版的一本关于普林尼的有趣的小书，你可能想看一下。
This is somebody who really knows Pliny.
这是一个真正了解普林尼的人。
He really points this out, that Pliny, you cannot find anywhere.
他确实指出了这一点，那个普林尼，你在任何地方都找不到。
Pliny was sort of the type to summarize—essentially, a little encyclopedia of what was known—basically, there is no concept that things were getting better over time.
普林尼是那种善于总结的人——本质上是一部已知事物的小百科全书——基本上，没有任何事情会随着时间的推移而变得更好的概念。
This is a book by Richard Saller.
这是理查德·塞勒的一本书。
He was one of the great classical scholars of our time.
他是我们这个时代最伟大的古典学者之一。
Essentially, there is no concept of progress in there.
本质上，那里没有进步的概念。
There is no concept of progress in any of the Roman writers.
任何一位罗马作家都没有进步的概念。
Now, some of the engineers, obviously, were trying to make things work better, but it is not really a social movement, and as soon as a problem had been solved, they say, “Okay, we solved that, and that’s it.” Whereas in Europe, it’s never good enough.
现在，一些工程师显然正在努力让事情变得更好，但这并不是真正的社会运动，一旦问题得到解决，他们就会说：“好吧，我们解决了，就是这样。”而在欧洲，这永远不够好。
You make water mills more efficient, you make them even more efficient, and on and on and on.
你让水磨坊变得更加高效，你让它们变得更加高效，如此周而复始。
That is the engine that drives sustainable growth.
这是推动可持续增长的引擎。
The idea that whatever we have today, we can make it better.
无论我们今天拥有什么，我们都可以让它变得更好。
That’s maybe not a natural insight.
这可能不是一个自然的洞察力。
Maybe it’s not hard-wired in us.
也许这并不是我们与生俱来的。
You’ve argued that during the Industrial Revolution, the British have a notable advantage in human capital over, say, the French.
您认为，在工业革命期间，英国人在人力资本方面比法国人拥有显着的优势。
What are the ultimate roots of that advantage?
这种优势的最终根源是什么？
Where does it come from?
它从哪里来？
Is it Protestantism?
是新教吗？
Something else?
还有别的事吗？
No. In fact, are the British Protestants?
不，事实上，英国是新教徒吗？
The Anglican Church is sort of a weird mixture of a lot of Protestant belief minus the pope, right?
英国圣公会有点奇怪，是除教皇之外的许多新教信仰的混合体，对吧？
I’m not sure that you could call them Protestant.
我不确定你是否可以称他们为新教徒。
They’re kind of Anglican.
他们有点像英国圣公会教徒。
But, no, it’s not religion.
但是，不，这不是宗教。
I think that’s a load of nonsense.
我认为这是一堆废话。
What happens in Britain is, and this is something worth pointing out because this is the sort of new book that I’m writing right now.
英国正在发生的事情是，这是值得指出的，因为这是我现在正在写的新书。
It’s based on some articles you’ve seen.
它基于您看过的一些文章。
The new book is basically arguing that the main thing that gave Britain its advantage of other things was that they had more skill and that their skilled workers were better than everybody else.
这本新书基本上认为，英国之所以具有其他优势，主要是因为他们拥有更多的技能，而且他们的技术工人比其他人都更好。
The question is where do these skills come from?
问题是这些技能从哪里来？
There’s only one answer.
只有一个答案。
That is apprenticeship because there’s no engineering schools.
这就是学徒制，因为没有工程学校。
There’s no technical schools.
没有技术学校。
Basically, every skilled engineer, artisan, mechanic, shipbuilder, whatever you are looking at, they are all trained by other people like that.
基本上，每一个熟练的工程师、工匠、机械师、造船师，无论你看到什么，他们都是受过这样的其他人训练的。
Their apprentices are trained as masters.
他们的徒弟被培养成师傅。
That’s how it works.
这就是它的工作原理。
It works like that everywhere.
到处都是这样。
The difference is that, in England, the system is market-based.
不同之处在于，在英国，该体系是以市场为基础的。
In Europe and on the continent, until the French Revolution came around, this is controlled by guilds.
在欧洲和非洲大陆，直到法国大革命爆发之前，这都是由行会控制的。
It’s very heavily regulated.
它受到非常严格的监管。
It’s very heavily scripted.
这是非常有剧本的。
In England, it’s a much freer system.
在英国，这是一个更加自由的系统。
Every young lad who’s looking for a master, can go around and choose the master that he likes best and that is most suitable to him.
每一个寻找师父的小伙子，都可以四处走走，选择自己最喜欢、最适合自己的师父。
What you get is that because this market is competitive, you get a quality of education to these people, which is vastly better than it is in continent.
你得到的是，因为这个市场竞争激烈，所以你可以为这些人提供比大陆更好的教育质量。
People are more diverse.
人们更加多样化。
They’re more flexible.
他们更灵活。
They’re better trained.
他们训练有素。
Certainly, by the middle of the 18th century, this is what everybody is saying.
当然，到了 18 世纪中叶，每个人都在这么说。
The French and the Germans and the Dutch and the Austrians and the Spanish, all know that if you want to build a sophisticated piece of equipment, you need an English engineer to run it.
法国人、德国人、荷兰人、奥地利人和西班牙人都知道，如果你想建造一台复杂的设备，你需要一位英国工程师来运行它。
That’s what they do.
这就是他们所做的。
These people are all over the continent.
这些人遍布整个大陆。
Of course, Britain is worried about this, so they passed these laws prohibiting the immigration of artisans which, of course, they couldn’t enforce.
英国当然担心这一点，所以他们通过了这些禁止工匠移民的法律，当然他们无法执行。
The fact that that is so is by now, I think, not really disputed.
我认为，到目前为止，事实确实如此，这一点并没有真正的争议。
The argument that we’re making is that, inventors are all good and nice, but if you don’t have the people to scale it up and maintain it and install it and operate it, it’s not going to do you any good.
我们提出的论点是，发明家都是善良的，但如果你没有人来扩展它、维护它、安装它和操作它，它就不会给你带来任何好处。
That’s where the skills are, and that’s what they had.
这就是技能所在，这就是他们所拥有的。
We have hundreds of pages of evidence on that.
我们有数百页的证据。
We’re looking at every industry you can imagine, and it pops up over and over and over again.
我们正在研究你能想象到的每一个行业，而且它一次又一次地出现。
Several years ago, you had a piece in the Journal of Political Economy with Morgan and Cormac on living standards, and you gave a somewhat more optimistic perspective on the Industrial Revolution living standards.
几年前，您与摩根和科马克在《政治经济学杂志》上发表了一篇关于生活水平的文章，您对工业革命的生活水平给出了更为乐观的看法。
Could you explain what you find in that piece?
你能解释一下你在那篇文章中发现了什么吗？
If you’re talking about the JPE article that we published in 2023, that piece wasn’t so much about living standards.
如果您谈论的是我们在 2023 年发表的 JPE 文章，那篇文章与生活水平的关系不大。
It really was about regional distribution of Britain’s industry and how the center of gravity of the economy moved from the south to the north of England, at least temporarily, I should say.
我应该说，这确实与英国工业的区域分布以及经济重心如何从英格兰南部转移到北部有关，至少是暂时的。
It was really mostly about skill.
这实际上主要是关于技巧。
What is true, in that argument, is not so much that the living standards were increasing, but that they were just higher and that, basically, the quality of life in Britain as early as 1700 was higher than anywhere on the continent with the exception of the Netherlands.
在这个论点中，事实并非是生活水平在提高，而只是生活水平更高了，而且基本上，早在 1700 年，英国的生活质量就高于除荷兰以外的欧洲大陆任何地方。
There’s very good evidence that the British were better fed, better educated, better housed, and on and on and on.
有充分的证据表明，英国人吃得更好、受过更好的教育、住得更好，等等。
As a result, the reduced form of looking at that is height.
结果，看的简化形式就是高度。
The data showed that, on average, British soldiers, which are the people that are getting measured, were two inches taller than the French.
数据显示，接受测量的英国士兵平均比法国士兵高两英寸。
The reason for that is because, as children, they experienced better living standards.
原因是，作为孩子，他们经历了更好的生活水平。
I think that is the way of thinking about it.
我认为这就是思考问题的方式。
Now, that feeds back again into the fact that the quality of workers in general is substantially higher than it is on the continent.
现在，这再次反映出这样一个事实：工人的总体素质大大高于非洲大陆。
Therefore, their wages are higher.
因此，他们的工资更高。
The notion that they were innovative because people were trying to save labor because wages were so high in England, misses sight of the fact that the reason wages were higher was because British workers on average were more productive.
人们认为他们之所以具有创新性，是因为英国的工资如此之高，人们试图节省劳动力，但他们忽视了这样一个事实：工资较高的原因是因为英国工人的平均生产率更高。
I would be hesitant to say that I’ve ever convinced myself that living standards were rising during the sort of heyday of the Industrial Revolution.
我会犹豫地说，我曾经让自己相信，在工业革命的鼎盛时期，生活水平正在提高。
That turns out to be a complicated issue because, at the same time that Britain was developing technologically very quickly and establishing factories, they have very rapid population growth.
事实证明，这是一个复杂的问题，因为在英国快速发展技术并建立工厂的同时，他们的人口增长也非常迅速。
It’s population growth that’s driven by higher birth rates rather than by lower death rates.
人口增长是由较高的出生率而不是较低的死亡率驱动的。
What that means, of course, is that you have a very large chunk of people who are young and still not productive but need to be fed.
当然，这意味着有很大一部分人很年轻，仍然没有生产力，但需要养活。
The rise in the dependency ratio, in addition to the fact there’s more people around, is essentially putting a constraint on the rise of living standards.
抚养比的上升，加上人口的增多，本质上制约了生活水平的提高。
That abates at some point in the middle of the 19th century.
这种情况在 19 世纪中叶的某个时候有所减弱。
Then you see living standards rising very rapidly.
然后你会看到生活水平非常迅速地提高。
During the Industrial Revolution, the evidence that things were getting better is very mixed.
在工业革命期间，表明情况正在好转的证据非常复杂。
I know there are optimists and there are pessimists about this.
我知道对此有乐观者也有悲观者。
I would count myself as probably somewhere in between.
我认为自己可能介于两者之间。
Things weren’t getting a lot worse.
事情并没有变得更糟。
Things weren’t getting a lot better.
事情并没有好转。
A lot depends on for whom.
很大程度上取决于谁。
There’s groups that are gaining clearly.
有些团体正在明显获益。
There are groups that are losing clearly.
有些团体正在明显失败。
There are groups where we don’t know.
有些群体是我们不知道的。
On balance, I would say, probably overall living standards in Britain in 1840 were not much better than they were in 1760, but they were different.
总的来说，我想说，1840 年英国的总体生活水平可能并不比 1760 年好多少，但还是有所不同。
One of the reasons that people don’t do well is they live in cities, which are terrible at the time.
人们过得不好的原因之一是他们生活在城市，而当时的城市很糟糕。
This is widely described.
这被广泛描述。
The most famous book about that was, of course, Friedrich Engels’ Condition of the Working-Class in England, which was largely plagiarized from a whole bunch of doctors living in the Midlands and observing these places.
关于这方面最著名的书当然是弗里德里希·恩格斯的《英国工人阶级状况》，这本书很大程度上抄袭了一群住在中部地区并观察这些地方的医生。
That is a complication in the history of living standards during the Industrial Revolution.
这是工业革命时期生活水平历史上的一个复杂问题。
That really means that it isn’t so obvious that this was good for the people living through it.
这确实意味着，这对于经历过这种情况的人们来说是否有好处并不那么明显。
It was very good for their grandchildren.
这对他们的孙子来说非常好。
On 19th-century German science
论19世纪的德国科学
Now, in mid- to late 19th century, German science starts doing incredibly well.
现在，在 19 世纪中后期，德国科学开始取得令人难以置信的进展。
What is behind that?
这背后是什么？
I think there is a major revolution in Germany during and after Napoleon.
我认为拿破仑时期和之后的德国发生了一场重大革命。
You get a whole bunch of reforms.
你会得到一大堆改革。
Most famous are reforms, of course, in Prussia, which is the main country in the northern part of Germany, in which they completely rejiggered their administration.
当然，最著名的是普鲁士的改革，普鲁士是德国北部的主要国家，他们彻底重组了政府。
The Stein-Hardenberg reforms basically create the world’s first really effective civil service.
斯坦-哈登伯格改革基本上创造了世界上第一个真正有效的公务员制度。
At the same time, what the Germans do, they invest very heavily in human capital.
与此同时，德国人在人力资本方面投入了大量资金。
The evidence suggests that German universities and German schools were much more geared toward giving people a background in the kind of knowledge that helps creating the basis for a sort of second-generation manufacturing technology.
有证据表明，德国大学和学校更倾向于为人们提供有助于为第二代制造技术奠定基础的知识背景。
Lots of this is associated, of course, with the reform of the German university system, associated with Wilhelm von Humboldt, who essentially created what one might call the idea of the modern research university.
当然，这在很大程度上与德国大学制度的改革有关，而德国大学制度的改革与威廉·冯·洪堡有关，他基本上创造了人们所谓的现代研究型大学的理念。
There’s also these technical universities, the Technische Hochschule, which the Germans founded.
还有德国人创办的技术大学，Technische Hochschule。
There’s a recent paper by a former graduate student of mine, Ralf Meisenzahl, at Chicago Fed, who shows that the closer you were to a university in the middle of the 19th century, the more likely you were to be in advanced manufacturing.
我以前在芝加哥联邦储备银行的研究生 Ralf Meisenzahl 最近发表了一篇论文，论文表明，距离 19 世纪中叶的大学越近，进入先进制造业的可能性就越大。
I think, here it really is, to some extent, the improvement in human capital, but also the fact that the state in Prussia and in other places as well, this little state that basically convinced themselves that this was the way of the future.
我认为，在某种程度上，这确实是人力资本的改善，但也是普鲁士和其他地方的国家这一事实，这个小国家基本上让自己相信这是未来的道路。
If Germany was going to be playing with the big boys and not being wiped out by Napoleon as they were in 1806, they should build an economy based on science.
如果德国想要与大佬们一起玩耍，而不是像 1806 年那样被拿破仑消灭，他们就应该建立一个基于科学的经济。
The odd thing is that, Britain, even so, it was the leader, really was actually late in catching that answer.
奇怪的是，尽管如此，作为领导者的英国却迟迟没有找到答案。
British universities, really, by the middle of the 19th century, people start worrying about this, “Look, the Germans and the French have these more advanced institutes of higher education, and our universities are still way behind.”
英国的大学，确实，到了19世纪中叶，人们开始担心这一点，“你看，德国人和法国人都有这些更先进的高等教育机构，而我们的大学还远远落后。”
In the second half of the 19th century, there’s this sort of supposed decline of Britain because they’re still based on skills, whereas the Germans, more and more get committed to the application of scientific research to their economy.
在 19 世纪下半叶，英国出现了这种所谓的衰落，因为他们仍然以技能为基础，而德国人则越来越致力于将科学研究应用于经济。
That takes a long time, and it’s not an easy thing.
这需要很长时间，而且不是一件容易的事。
The two Germans invent things like organic chemistry: Justus von Liebig and Friedrich Wöhler.
两位德国人发明了有机化学之类的东西：贾斯图斯·冯·李比希和弗里德里希·沃勒。
They make major contributions to electricity, to internal combustion engine, to a whole range of industries.
他们为电力、内燃机以及整个行业做出了重大贡献。
A lot of that is based on science, and it’s striking, not just that German universities produce these scientists, but that businesses, particularly manufacturing, hire these people as consultants and put them on their board of governors and their board of trustees.
其中很多都是基于科学，令人震惊的是，不仅德国大学培养了这些科学家，而且企业，尤其是制造业，聘请这些人作为顾问，并将他们纳入理事会和董事会。
That’s, I think, a striking thing.
我认为这是一件引人注目的事情。
The Germans really, more than the British, realized the potential of science.
德国人确实比英国人更认识到科学的潜力。
Certainly by 1900, they’re leading the world, certainly in chemical, in electricity, in food processing industries.
当然，到了 1900 年，他们已经处于世界领先地位，尤其是在化学、电力和食品加工行业。
It is, I think, above all, human capital, but also the policies that were there to support it.
我认为，最重要的是人力资本，还有支持人力资本的政策。
On being a Nobel laureate
论成为诺贝尔奖获得者
How much of a burden on your life has your new Nobel Prize been or is it just fun?
新获得的诺贝尔奖给您的生活带来了多少负担，还是只是为了好玩？
No, I mean, it is a lot of fun.
不，我的意思是，这很有趣。
It’s really a lot of warm glow.
这确实是很多温暖的光芒。
I’m still waking up every morning and say, “Am I dreaming this?
我每天早上醒来都会说：“我这是在做梦吗？
What the hell am I doing?” It has, obviously, disrupted my life.
我到底在做什么？显然，它扰乱了我的生活。
I’m going to turn 80 this summer, so I’m sort of settled in my way, so to speak, and this has disrupted it to a great extent, and I’m still trying to cope with that.
今年夏天我就要满 80 岁了，所以可以说我已经习惯了自己的方式，这在很大程度上打乱了我的生活，我仍在努力应对这一点。
One of the things that’s working to make that worse is because I refuse to retire.
让情况变得更糟的原因之一是我拒绝退休。
Peter Howard, my friend and my colleague who’s almost exactly my age, retired 12 years ago from Brown.
彼得·霍华德 (Peter Howard) 是我的朋友兼同事，他的年龄几乎与我一样，12 年前从布朗大学退休。
He’s living in a life of leisure, and I have to go to faculty meetings and supervise 10 graduate students and teach at another graduate course.
他过着悠闲的生活，而我却要去参加教师会议、指导 10 名研究生并在另一门研究生课程中任教。
That, plus all the other things that are demanded of me, has been, shall we say, disruptive.
可以说，这一点，加上对我提出的所有其他要求，一直是破坏性的。
I sleep relatively poorly now because I wake up in the middle of the night and I go, “Oh, shit, I forgot to reply to that email and I haven’t yet committed to that invitation,” and I forget everything.
我现在睡得相对较差，因为我半夜醒来，然后我就说，“哦，糟糕，我忘了回复那封电子邮件，而且我还没有答应那个邀请”，然后我就忘记了一切。
These things happen.
这些事情都会发生。
I hope that that will fade eventually, that I’ll settle into a new pattern, but it will be probably quite different from the previous pattern, Tyler.
我希望这种情况最终会消失，我会适应一种新的模式，但它可能与以前的模式有很大不同，泰勒。
My wife is looking at me with some concern, shall we say, about how I’m having 10 balls in the air and, every once in a while, I drop one.
我的妻子用一种担忧的眼神看着我，我们可以这么说吧，她担心我在空中有 10 个球，但每隔一段时间，我就会掉下一个。
We’re about out of time.
我们快没时间了。
Joel Mokyr, thank you very much.
乔尔·莫基尔，非常感谢你。
Again, I’m a big fan of your new book with Greif and Tabellini, Two Paths to Prosperity, comparing Europe and China.
再说一次，我非常喜欢你与格赖夫和塔贝里尼合着的新书《通往繁荣的两条道路》，该书比较了欧洲和中国。
Oh, yes.
哦，是的。
Keep advertising it, Tyler.
继续做广告吧，泰勒。
Photo Credit: Shane Collins
照片来源：肖恩·柯林斯
This episode was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.
这一集是在约翰·邓普顿基金会的支持下得以实现的。