WEBVTT

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Prof: Last time--so last
time we discussed two factors

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that limited--that retarded and
limited your progress.

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Remember, I'm describing that
Europe was in a pretty bad

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situation.

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One was sort of
mental--cultural,

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there was a mindset that
largely focused on the

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supernatural and did not have
that mindset to question

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received wisdom and to test
whatever they believed against

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what they saw in reality.

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The second was a food and
population balance that left

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vast numbers of people in
conditions of near starvation.

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Around 1750--around 1700,
Europe started to outgrow these

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limitations and we started
talking about that last time.

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We saw how the scientific
revolution,

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given great impetus by Newton,
he wasn't the only one but the

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fabulous success in explaining
the universe that Newton's three

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very simple laws--
you learned that certainly in

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high school if not in junior
high school--

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explained how all the heavens
work and that was an amazing

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creation of the human mind and
it had tremendous import and

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started what's been called the
Enlightenment.

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That sort of changed the mental
set into something more

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progressive,
and then as you've read in--I

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hope in your course packet the
introduction of foods from

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America sort of cut down--
got rid of the physical

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limitation on population and
economic well being in Europe,

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that the amount of food went
way up.

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So this--especially the
food--increased the European

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population.

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There's all kinds of different
numbers available but anywhere

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from 62% up to a doubling of the
European population due to the

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introduction of American foods.

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Now the standard belief about
population at that time was that

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population is a wonderful thing.

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau who we've
talked about,

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who was abandoning his own
children by the car load to

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control his individual
family's--

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the number of children they had
to cope with--

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in terms when he thought about
the grand--

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the political system he said,
"that government under

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which the citizens do most
increase and multiply is

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infallibly the best.

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Similarly, the government under
which a people diminishes in

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number and wastes away is the
worst."

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He's very clear that not only
is high population good but it's

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infallibly good.

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Benjamin Franklin,
around 1751,

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argues about this.

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"There were upwards of one
million English souls in

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America,"
This is before the Revolution.

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"This million doubling
supposed but once in 25

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years," which is not a bad
estimate of the doubling time of

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American population at that
time, due largely to

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immigration.

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"Doubling once every 25
years, within and another--will,

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in another century be more than
the people of England.

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What an accession of power that
will be."

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And the realization of American
increase in numbers and

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therefore increase in power was
very important in the history of

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that time.

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After the French and Indian
War, before our Revolution that

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you know of,
the settlement that the English

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got Canada,
which was barren wasn't worth

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very much at the time,
and the French kept the islands

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in the Atlantic which were very
rich,

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sugar and plantations,
slavery of course.

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The French kept those and the
English took Canada.

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Why?

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To keep the Americans in check
because they knew that the

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Americans would get very strong.

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Thomas Jefferson often said,
'population is power,' so in

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1800 when the U.S.

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was only ten years old,
so very fragile in terms of our

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military strength and everything
like that.

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Napoleon had recently--Spain
had owned Louisiana which was

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the whole vast territory to the
west of the 13 colonies,

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and during the Napoleonic Wars,
Napoleon got charge of them.

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He was going to send French
troops there to occupy Louisiana

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because they were such a big and
important territory,

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but the U.S.,
of course, objected.

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We were having this huge
population growth,

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immigration,
they were flooding over the

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Appalachian Mountains into the
territories.

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The next boundary was the
Mississippi River,

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and America did not want any of
the European powers taking

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control there.

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The French Ambassador in
America realized that America

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was growing so rapidly in power
and he thought Napoleon's idea

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to send troops was stupid,
that Napoleon would lose the

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war.

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This guy was very clever,
he did one thing,

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he sent to Napoleon a summary
of the American Census of 1800.

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Remember that in The
Constitution we have to take a

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census.

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There was one taken in 1800 and
it showed such a great rate of

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American population increase
that that's all he had to send.

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It showed that the U.S.

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population was doubling every
22 years, not the 25 that

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Benjamin Franklin had estimated.

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Napoleon got the message
immediately;

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there was no way that France
was going to be able to hold

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Louisiana against American
objections.

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What did Napoleon do?

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Sold it to us for a pittance,
basically a pittance,

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because he knew he could not
hold it;

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the power of population.

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Now why did governments love
large populations?

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Why was it power?

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Two things, one a lot of men
and what do you do with men?

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Take them into the army so you
have big military power,

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also more people farm more
land, produce more food,

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and other goods.

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Then what can you do?

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You can tax it,
so the governments get a lot of

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tax and a lot of people if they
have a big population.

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There was no question in
anyone's mind that a big and

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growing population was just a
wonderful sort of thing.

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What they didn't realize is one
of the things that I'm trying to

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get across in this class,
that that system works for a

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situation where you have no
limitation on land or resources.

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It's like I've been--I was
describing for Africa where the

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population was small and land
was large,

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then population is--can be a
benefit in the way just

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described.

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The reality,
for Europe especially,

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was different.

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After 1750, again largely due
to the American foods,

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people filled the European
countrysides to overflowing

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capacity.

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These are quotes from various
sources back then.

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"Mountains spilled over
with people, cities grew and the

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plains became full,
but this increase in population

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brought more mouths to feed.

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Population rose and the
resources could not match the

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population."

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When you have more consumers
then goods,

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law of supply and demand,
prices rose,

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people couldn't afford what
they previously could afford,

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and poverty deepened.

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In this period in Europe people
often moved--migrated seasonally

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to get jobs because they didn't
have enough income from their

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own land.

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They would go to where some
harvest--

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they were needed to harvest or
needed to work on a building

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project,
but at this time this

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population of people wandering
around looking for some sort of

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work increased so much that the
line between migration and

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vagabondage,
becoming just a vagabond,

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was crossed by hundreds of
thousands of Europeans.

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They were just wandering around
looking for some kind of work to

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keep them alive for a little bit
longer.

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This was written--noticed and
written about a lot at the time.

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They flooded the highways,
roads were opening up at the

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time.

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They flooded the highways of
France, Germany,

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the low countries,
all of these places this was

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noticed.

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Children at the time--again you
read there's crowded orphanages

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and foundling homes,
women and children--very large

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number of beggars arose at this
time.

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Women and children begged on
church steps and on roadsides.

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This problem of poverty as I've
mentioned was much observed,

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much worried about,
much commented upon,

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and in fact,
all of the great intellectuals

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of the day,
whose names we still know,

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commented upon it.

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You all know Edward Gibbon?

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Gibbon wrote,
The Decline and Fall of the

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Roman Empire,
one of the most famous

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intellectuals of that time.

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Right after that he wrote,
"In the civilized world

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the most numerous class is
condemned to ignorance and

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poverty."

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Why were people poor?

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Well the general consideration
then: they were poor because

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they were in some way deficient.

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The idea was that God had given
some people--

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kings and aristocrats--the
abilities and capability to rule

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and all the others were
relegated to the lower classes.

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They just didn't--they had bad
heredity,

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they were lazy,
they were "the wrong

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sort," they were inherently
incapable that their nature,

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their human nature,
they didn't really have genetic

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ideas back then,
was to be incapable of leading

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the good kind of life.

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Well, this was a nice theory
and people who are upper class

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enough to get an education to
write about it could live

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comfortably with that theory.

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Then America opens up for
colonization and guess what

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happens?

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Who moves to America?

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The poorest people,
especially from England.

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The lower classes moved to
Australia at a somewhat later

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time,
and then they empty out the

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prisons going to Australia so
they have really the lower

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classes.

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What happens to America?

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As I've just showed you the
people work hard,

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they're industrious,
they make a lot of money,

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they get ahead,
everything looks very good in

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America and so the theory just
didn't fit observation.

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As I've mentioned,
people are, by now,

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paying attention to what's
around them and this idea that

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Americans had been so poor in
England but they moved to

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America and things get better.

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The question arose:
why were the poor so poor in

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England?

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Kind of an obvious question;
again not the first time that

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this question had been asked.

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The Bible, and again sorry
for--keep referring to religion

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but you cannot,
just cannot discuss Western

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intellectual history without
going there because that was the

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basis of the way people thought.

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What the Bible says,
Ecclesiastes,

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'when goods increase they are
increased that eat them.'

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If you have more stuff,
population grows and they eat

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the food.

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Very close to what we'll see
Malthus says later.

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Edmund Burke,
who as you know is now

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considered the father of
conservative political

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philosophy: "The laboring
people are only poor because

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they are numerous;
numbers in their nature imply

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poverty."

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In a fair distribution--what
liberals were saying share

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equally,
"In a fair distribution

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among a vast multitude none can
have much."

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He was talking against
spreading the wealth because

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under that condition if you
spread the wealth everybody is

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extremely poor.

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Those kind of thoughts started
people thinking about the

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relationship between population
and resources.

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What was that?

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There's this sort of a fairly
new way of thinking about

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things.

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Where did they turn to?

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Again, in the spirit of the
Enlightenment,

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science was the leading source
of intellectual new ideas and

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natural history was going on--
was getting going at that time,

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studying of plants and animals
in their natural habitats,

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just like all your TAs for this
course.

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Adam Smith, among others,
paid great attention to what

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the naturalists were saying.

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In The Wealth of
Nations,

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1776, "Every species of
animal naturally multiples in

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proportion to the means of their
subsistence and no species can

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ever multiply beyond it."

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Then he explicitly says,
"Men, like all other

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animals, naturally multiply in
proportion to their means of

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subsistence."

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So he's immediately applying an
ecological law from the study of

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animals to people.

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Well how fast can humans
multiply?

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David Hume, another one of the
luminous philosophers,

13:49.620 --> 13:54.190
1742: "Almost every man
who thinks he can maintain a

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family will have one,
and the human species at this

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rate of propagation would more
than double every

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generation."

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Adam Smith again got some of
the problem;

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he realized that if wages
increased, if things started to

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get better and wages increased,
this would lead to an increase

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in population.

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He explicitly says,
if people have more money

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they're going to be able to feed
their children more and they

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will stay alive,
and there will be a decline in

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mortality,
and the population will grow.

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He--very surprising--did not
close the circle and did not--

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never apparently realized that
this growth in the population

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would mean more competitors for
the jobs and would push wages

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back down again.

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That was the great achievement
of Malthus--and all this

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interest in what is the cause of
poverty, and there were many

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other things.

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There was an enclosure movement
in England at the time where the

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lands on which the peasants had
lived were being closed in and

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controlled by the squires,
the country squires and so

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forth;
a lot of other things going on.

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This was the kind of
argumentation that was going on

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at the time.

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Malthus was the one that
realized that population and

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wages and mortality were in a
negative--what we now call a

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negative feedback loop.

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If wages increased,
as I've just said,

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then population grows and if
population grows the competition

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for jobs and for food and for
everything else pushes wages

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back down,
or pushes prices back up so if

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you earn the same you're still
getting less.

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In short, although the
population could grow and the

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economy on a gross scale could
grow, the per capita income,

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he basically said,
could not grow.

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In the strongest statement of
this,

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and he went through many
editions with many different

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statements,
but in the strongest statement

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economic progress is basically
impossible;

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looked at from the point of
view of per capita income,

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the living standards of the
average person.

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Malthus was very clever and
thought more deeply about it and

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he was aware of two
contradictory changes that were

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happening throughout the
eighteenth century;

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he writes in 1798,
at the end of the eighteenth

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century.

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As I've mentioned and you've
read there's no question that

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agriculture was improving,
not only American foods,

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but also agronomy was coming in
as a science and people were

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learning,
even with the same crops,

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to improve the crops,
to improve their livestock,

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to fertilize better,
to rotate fields better.

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They were learning to grow more
food.

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Nevertheless,
even though there was more food

16:55.820 --> 17:00.500
around poverty was growing,
and that was also very clear at

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the time.

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His argument is based on a few
very simple kinds of statements.

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Contrary to some previous
thinkers who envisioned the

17:11.546 --> 17:16.236
relation between population and
resources as there's a fixed

17:16.240 --> 17:18.150
amount of resources.

17:18.150 --> 17:18.950
There's a pie.

17:18.950 --> 17:22.210
We now use the expression pie;
there's a pie and depending on

17:22.207 --> 17:25.997
how many people there are you
divide the pie into smaller and

17:26.000 --> 17:27.140
smaller slices.

17:27.140 --> 17:29.990
The more people,
the smaller slices of the pie.

17:29.990 --> 17:34.910
That is completely wrong and
never has been correct.

17:34.910 --> 17:42.120
All people do some kind of work
and the pie grows with each

17:42.124 --> 17:45.784
person some--
the pie grows to a certain

17:45.777 --> 17:49.557
degree and the question is how
much does the pie grow?

17:49.558 --> 17:51.988
For instance again,
in the United States at the

17:51.987 --> 17:54.527
time,
we had these vast lands to the

17:54.530 --> 17:58.780
west where we were killing or
had killed the Indians and they

17:58.775 --> 18:02.615
were very few of them anyway,
so that allowed each new

18:02.619 --> 18:04.949
person--so as the population
grows--

18:04.950 --> 18:08.160
again when you have no
limitation of resources--

18:08.160 --> 18:10.940
a new family is living on the
frontier,

18:10.940 --> 18:12.760
the frontier becomes crowded.

18:12.759 --> 18:14.819
American population was growing
very fast;

18:14.818 --> 18:16.808
they were having lots of kids,
lots of immigrants,

18:16.810 --> 18:17.990
where do the new people go?

18:17.990 --> 18:21.570
They just move some miles to
the west and they get a

18:21.567 --> 18:25.987
beautiful new farm and the land
is just as good as what was left

18:25.988 --> 18:29.988
behind and they grow as much as
the farmers that they left

18:29.987 --> 18:30.897
behind.

18:30.900 --> 18:34.690
The population increases,
the gross economy increases,

18:34.690 --> 18:39.740
and the per capita standard of
living does not decrease because

18:39.744 --> 18:44.314
this guy has the same amount of
resources as the previous

18:44.309 --> 18:45.859
generation had.

18:45.858 --> 18:49.778
This was not the condition in
Europe, or in England,

18:49.781 --> 18:53.321
or the rest of--actually all
across Eurasia.

18:53.318 --> 18:57.598
Here the law of diminishing
returns takes effect because

18:57.595 --> 18:59.845
land starts to be limiting.

18:59.848 --> 19:02.948
When land is limiting--people
are naturally smart,

19:02.950 --> 19:04.090
what do they do?

19:04.088 --> 19:07.848
If there's beautiful land,
fertile land by a river,

19:07.848 --> 19:11.448
of course they farm that first,
and so as the population grows

19:11.451 --> 19:14.771
that gets taken up,
all the good land comes under

19:14.768 --> 19:16.298
the plow and is good.

19:16.298 --> 19:20.178
Population keeps growing,
well the next set of people

19:20.181 --> 19:24.301
have to go to less good land,
maybe drier land,

19:24.296 --> 19:28.366
maybe hillier land,
and their productivity is not

19:28.372 --> 19:32.392
quite as good as the previous
group that got the best land.

19:32.390 --> 19:36.690
Population keeps growing and
people have to move high on the

19:36.692 --> 19:38.732
mountaintops,
into dry areas,

19:38.729 --> 19:40.989
into desert areas,
into swampy areas,

19:40.990 --> 19:46.470
in all kinds of areas where
their production is not going to

19:46.471 --> 19:47.681
be as high.

19:47.680 --> 19:52.420
The average income,
from say farming,

19:52.420 --> 19:58.250
decreases as you use less good
land and so things--

19:58.250 --> 20:02.080
conditions get worse and
finally all the land is used up

20:02.076 --> 20:05.206
and there's no land for farmers
whatsoever.

20:05.210 --> 20:09.960
This is the law of diminishing
returns.

20:09.960 --> 20:14.100
If you travel around you can
really see the law of

20:14.103 --> 20:19.133
diminishing returns happen--
a mix of how people always do

20:19.128 --> 20:22.298
some work,
but when there isn't much

20:22.298 --> 20:27.688
resource to take advantage of
they can accomplish very little.

20:27.690 --> 20:32.250
Quite a few years ago I was
traveling in the highlands of

20:32.250 --> 20:35.310
Bolivia and Peru,
and a lot of native Indian

20:35.308 --> 20:37.128
markets there--
very colorful,

20:37.125 --> 20:41.365
tourists love to go to them--
but you watch the ladies sit

20:41.366 --> 20:46.236
down and they have a blanket in
front of them and they display

20:46.241 --> 20:49.931
their wares and they--
it's all agricultural and

20:49.933 --> 20:53.193
they'll have maybe a few fruits,
and a little bit of this and a

20:53.192 --> 20:56.232
little bit of that,
and they have almost nothing,

20:56.231 --> 20:58.851
almost no stock on the blanket.

20:58.848 --> 21:02.258
They've grown this over the
past say months or something;

21:02.259 --> 21:05.049
they've walked all the way
maybe even days to get to a

21:05.045 --> 21:07.615
market, and then they have very
little to sell.

21:07.618 --> 21:10.788
Even if they could sell
everything that they brought at

21:10.786 --> 21:13.656
some sort of a profit they
didn't have enough--

21:13.660 --> 21:18.410
their total amount that they
would take home was still very,

21:18.412 --> 21:19.542
very little.

21:19.538 --> 21:23.358
They were producing some,
but not very much.

21:23.358 --> 21:25.298
In the cities--I have to tell
you one story.

21:25.298 --> 21:28.848
I was in Lima in Peru,
this same trip,

21:28.848 --> 21:32.598
and a lot of street vendors
doing stuff and I saw one guy

21:32.597 --> 21:36.367
had a pair of socks up there,
and he had some sort of a

21:36.366 --> 21:38.316
knitting needle or something.

21:38.318 --> 21:41.078
He was holding up the sock and
as he was talking to the crowd,

21:41.078 --> 21:43.698
jabbing the sock with his
knitting needle,

21:43.700 --> 21:45.190
and he was saying,
'You can't destroy this sock.

21:45.194 --> 21:46.154
You can't destroy this sock.

21:46.150 --> 21:48.600
It'll last the rest of your
life.' Bash, bash,

21:48.598 --> 21:48.978
bash.

21:48.980 --> 21:52.430
I'm watching for a while and
I'm skeptical but the socks

21:52.431 --> 21:53.311
seemed okay.

21:53.309 --> 21:56.139
I thought, the poor guy;
I bought the pair of socks.

21:56.140 --> 21:59.000
Those socks,
I could not destroy them,

21:59.003 --> 22:01.563
I used them for about 20 years.

22:01.559 --> 22:02.309
It was really true.

22:02.308 --> 22:07.088
He was making some sort of a
meager living but it wasn't

22:07.090 --> 22:07.700
good.

22:07.700 --> 22:12.830
If he had a better job,
if there were more resources

22:12.825 --> 22:18.745
that he could utilize--his low
wages would not drag down the

22:18.753 --> 22:19.963
average.

22:19.960 --> 22:22.620
You must realize of course that
when one says a phrase like

22:22.622 --> 22:24.312
that,
that he could--there were

22:24.311 --> 22:26.111
resources that he could
utilize--

22:26.108 --> 22:29.878
brings up a vast consideration
of power and everything else.

22:29.880 --> 22:33.650
What other resources and who
gets to utilize them and so

22:33.651 --> 22:34.201
forth.

22:34.200 --> 22:38.830
It's a much more--of course I
say a little bit and there's

22:38.827 --> 22:42.967
much, much more to say about all
of these things.

22:42.970 --> 22:49.510
The law of diminishing returns
reduces the average

22:49.512 --> 22:53.242
productivity,
but there's a counter-veiling

22:53.238 --> 22:56.468
trend which he also was aware of
that I've just mentioned.

22:56.470 --> 22:59.500
That the productivity of the
land was increasing,

22:59.500 --> 23:03.540
again through the new foods and
new agricultural technologies.

23:03.538 --> 23:07.088
These two factors work in
opposite directions,

23:07.090 --> 23:11.750
and Malthus had to make some
sort of a guess as to how these

23:11.746 --> 23:14.426
two factors would balance out.

23:14.430 --> 23:16.580
Which would predominate?

23:16.578 --> 23:20.598
Would the introduction of new
technology improve faster than

23:20.604 --> 23:23.814
the law of diminishing returns
decreased it,

23:23.808 --> 23:27.968
and his conclusion was that
technology would be somewhat

23:27.972 --> 23:31.832
stronger then the law of
diminishing returns so that

23:31.833 --> 23:35.023
total productivity--
per capita productivity and

23:35.021 --> 23:38.851
total productivity--
would indeed keep increasing.

23:38.848 --> 23:42.988
He thought it would increase
sort of at a constant sort of a

23:42.988 --> 23:43.478
rate.

23:43.480 --> 23:52.090
In graph terms,
let me see if I can get right

23:52.093 --> 24:04.233
to this graph--here's--this is
the standard kind of graph about

24:04.230 --> 24:06.580
Malthus.

24:06.578 --> 24:08.938
Here is the way he thought that
resources,

24:08.940 --> 24:12.810
mostly food in his--in the
case--the time that he was

24:12.806 --> 24:16.086
talking about--
he thought they would increase

24:16.086 --> 24:20.086
in a more or less regular way,
per every year if you consider

24:20.087 --> 24:20.887
these years.

24:20.890 --> 24:23.880
Every year would increase by
about the same amount.

24:23.880 --> 24:26.490
He called that an arithmetic
growth.

24:26.490 --> 24:32.710
We now call it a linear growth.

24:32.710 --> 24:37.290
He and everyone else knew that
population can grow faster than

24:37.288 --> 24:41.938
that, so you probably understand
a little bit about exponential

24:41.943 --> 24:42.773
growth.

24:42.769 --> 24:45.519
If each couple has four
surviving children,

24:45.519 --> 24:48.479
not unreasonable when there's a
moderate amount of food,

24:48.480 --> 24:50.500
and then these children have
four and so on,

24:50.500 --> 24:54.030
the population does not grow
4,6, 8,

24:54.029 --> 24:57.519
10,12--a linear kind of thing.

24:57.519 --> 25:01.409
It grows 4,8,
16,32, 64 you're used to

25:01.406 --> 25:04.556
counting this way from bits.

25:04.558 --> 25:08.338
That's called exponential
growth where each generation

25:08.343 --> 25:11.273
doubles or improves by some
percentage.

25:11.269 --> 25:16.279
I've just made this graph at
growing 10% a year.

25:16.278 --> 25:19.468
No matter where you--and the
growth is like that,

25:19.470 --> 25:22.220
that's an exponential curve,
and all exponential curves look

25:22.222 --> 25:24.652
like that,
you can change your scales but

25:24.653 --> 25:26.663
they all look exactly like that.

25:26.660 --> 25:29.290
It doesn't matter where you
start.

25:29.288 --> 25:34.028
You can start in England where
these two curves would be pretty

25:34.034 --> 25:38.864
much matched at the time Malthus
was writing or you can start in

25:38.855 --> 25:42.985
America where resources are way
above population at the

25:42.988 --> 25:45.608
beginning,
but then you just wait,

25:45.609 --> 25:48.479
America starts filling up more
and more rapidly,

25:48.480 --> 25:49.600
as the population grows.

25:49.598 --> 25:53.468
10% of a large population adds
more people in a year then 10%

25:53.468 --> 25:56.468
of a small population,
so as time goes on the

25:56.472 --> 25:59.262
increment per year gets bigger
and bigger,

25:59.259 --> 26:05.819
and eventually it outruns
resource growth.

26:05.818 --> 26:10.748
This was Malthus' mathematical
formulation of his ideas and he

26:10.752 --> 26:14.802
believed it to be an
inevitability that this was an

26:14.796 --> 26:19.166
iron law of economics,
and that you couldn't avoid

26:19.167 --> 26:24.107
this and so human population was
doomed to a per capita misery

26:24.112 --> 26:25.492
kind of thing.

26:25.490 --> 26:28.930
He put it in this particular
mathematical form,

26:28.934 --> 26:32.534
but as you can see,
the mathematical form doesn't

26:32.530 --> 26:33.880
really matter.

26:33.880 --> 26:37.810
As long as population can grow
faster than resources you're

26:37.810 --> 26:40.930
eventually going to get into
this situation.

26:40.930 --> 26:44.000
Even if population grows
linearly, if it grows at a

26:44.000 --> 26:46.950
faster pace than resources,
you're back into this

26:46.950 --> 26:47.810
situation.

26:47.808 --> 26:53.908
The idea, the simple idea is
that population can grow

26:53.907 --> 26:59.797
faster than resources and I
think that's for sure true.

26:59.798 --> 27:05.978
Malthus was certainly partly
correct.

27:05.980 --> 27:08.630
He was right and he was also
wrong,

27:08.630 --> 27:12.060
and he has been--you've
probably heard Malthus always

27:12.064 --> 27:16.164
gets discussed since he wrote a
big subject of controversy,

27:16.160 --> 27:18.970
and I think the current sort of
fashion is to,

27:18.970 --> 27:19.830
is to put him down.

27:19.828 --> 27:23.058
How many people have heard
discussions of Malthus?

27:23.058 --> 27:26.248
In how many does he come out
well?

27:26.250 --> 27:29.250
How many does he come out badly?

27:29.250 --> 27:31.800
It's about split.

27:31.798 --> 27:37.358
In certain kinds of circles
it's unfashionable to be a

27:37.361 --> 27:39.671
Malthusian nowadays.

27:39.670 --> 27:43.110
He was right and he was wrong,
and what was he right about?

27:43.108 --> 27:45.398
First he had
apparently--although the

27:45.403 --> 27:48.273
historians argue about
this--quite an accurate

27:48.269 --> 27:49.289
description.

27:49.288 --> 27:54.658
This Malthusian situation is an
accurate description of Europe

27:54.661 --> 27:57.921
from about 1200 to into the
1700s,

27:57.920 --> 28:01.800
so for about 500 years very
strong arguments can be made

28:01.804 --> 28:05.624
with whatever data is available
that Europe was in this

28:05.616 --> 28:07.026
Malthusian trap.

28:07.028 --> 28:09.818
It also, as I'll show you in a
minute,

28:09.818 --> 28:12.718
that as the industrial
revolution took hold,

28:12.720 --> 28:15.260
he was still right for almost
another century,

28:15.259 --> 28:18.179
and then things changed.

28:18.180 --> 28:20.500
He didn't have this--he had a
crystal ball,

28:20.497 --> 28:22.917
he was pretty good,
but he didn't have a real

28:22.923 --> 28:24.583
modern model crystal ball.

28:24.578 --> 28:31.468
There are two things that he
did not foresee.

28:31.470 --> 28:35.140
He lived at the very beginning
of the industrial revolution and

28:35.144 --> 28:37.224
didn't really realize it's
power.

28:37.220 --> 28:38.940
So when he saw it,
he thought he thought

28:38.939 --> 28:41.699
production of all sorts,
not only agriculture,

28:41.700 --> 28:46.190
would increase kind of linearly
but constant increments every

28:46.185 --> 28:48.465
year,
but in fact the way it has

28:48.474 --> 28:51.584
turned out is that not only can
population increase

28:51.580 --> 28:54.240
exponentially,
but production can increase

28:54.238 --> 28:57.068
exponentially,
and for the same reason

28:57.070 --> 28:57.990
basically.

28:57.990 --> 29:00.820
When you produce,
if you're in this scientific--

29:00.818 --> 29:06.718
this post enlightenment era
where we know science makes life

29:06.720 --> 29:10.080
better--
then as your economy increases

29:10.082 --> 29:14.652
you have more money and you
devote a certain fraction of it

29:14.650 --> 29:18.100
to research,
to a technology and so as your

29:18.103 --> 29:22.203
economy grows every year you put
more and more money into

29:22.199 --> 29:25.309
research,
so in the same way that if it's

29:25.309 --> 29:27.819
a percentage of your total
income--

29:27.818 --> 29:30.818
total national income or
something that you invest,

29:30.818 --> 29:33.338
and you get a good product out
of it then just like population,

29:33.338 --> 29:36.288
every year you will have more
income,

29:36.288 --> 29:39.768
more gross national product,
more when you invest a certain

29:39.769 --> 29:44.179
fraction you have more,
and also technology and science

29:44.184 --> 29:46.124
grows exponentially.

29:46.118 --> 29:51.078
What happened is that
eventually technology

29:51.076 --> 29:56.266
grew--production--just as fast
as population,

29:56.268 --> 30:00.038
and in fact,
somewhat faster than

30:00.044 --> 30:02.054
population.

30:02.048 --> 30:05.348
We sort of realized that when
we say that our economy grows

30:05.354 --> 30:09.094
like 2% a year we don't say--
we sometimes say it grew by a

30:09.087 --> 30:11.707
$100 million dollars year,
something like that,

30:11.713 --> 30:13.673
but more often--
which is a linear statement,

30:13.671 --> 30:15.271
$100 million,
$100 million,

30:15.269 --> 30:19.329
$100 million--but if you say 2%
then next year you have 2% of

30:19.329 --> 30:23.409
102%,
and then next year 2% of 104%,

30:23.414 --> 30:26.664
it grows faster and faster.

30:26.660 --> 30:31.710
Again, this kind of percentage
increase in technology in

30:31.710 --> 30:36.670
production has exactly the same
limit as population.

30:36.670 --> 30:38.440
That there must be no external
limits;

30:38.440 --> 30:42.520
no resources that are limiting.

30:42.519 --> 30:46.609
Now of course we realize we do
have to worry about the limits

30:46.607 --> 30:48.037
of the environment.

30:48.039 --> 30:51.929
People have multiplied;
people have basically filled up

30:51.926 --> 30:54.876
the earth and the--
we're using everything that

30:54.881 --> 30:58.211
looks like we're using virtually
everything that humans can use,

30:58.210 --> 31:00.220
and there's not much left.

31:00.220 --> 31:04.590
So the question is,
can we continue to increase our

31:04.593 --> 31:05.733
production?

31:05.730 --> 31:09.840
We don't know the answer to it.

31:09.838 --> 31:14.288
The second thing that Malthus
didn't foresee was a big drop in

31:14.288 --> 31:15.528
the birth rate.

31:15.528 --> 31:21.608
He again, acting sort of in the
Newtonian mode of pronouncing

31:21.614 --> 31:25.674
scientific laws that were
inviolable,

31:25.670 --> 31:28.400
and inevitable,
he said the sex drive was an

31:28.397 --> 31:31.717
instinct--
people liked sex--and that

31:31.724 --> 31:36.664
would not go away so they would
keep reproducing.

31:36.660 --> 31:38.640
Now he was also aware of
contraception,

31:38.637 --> 31:41.237
people were doing various
things even at that time,

31:41.240 --> 31:43.220
and it was certainly an
awareness.

31:43.220 --> 31:46.320
He was so--he was a
minister--he was so morally

31:46.324 --> 31:50.244
opposed to that that he just
would not really consider that

31:50.238 --> 31:56.648
people would ever do that,
so he dismissed that kind of

31:56.653 --> 31:57.583
idea.

31:57.578 --> 32:01.208
What happened,
that in some sense makes him

32:01.211 --> 32:03.971
wrong,
is that after about another 100

32:03.972 --> 32:07.492
years after he writes,
production increases enough to

32:07.490 --> 32:11.520
keep up with population and the
birth rate starts dropping and

32:11.516 --> 32:14.416
we're going to talk about both
of these--

32:14.420 --> 32:17.140
both of those things.

32:17.140 --> 32:21.480
When you think about Malthus
getting into these discussions

32:21.483 --> 32:24.783
that the strict formulation of
his ideas,

32:24.778 --> 32:29.118
that we can't make any economic
progress and disaster is

32:29.122 --> 32:32.432
imminent,
that's clearly not the case,

32:32.430 --> 32:36.980
but if you just slightly
rephrase his questions and ask

32:36.980 --> 32:41.870
not whether you have a dead stop
to population growth--

32:41.868 --> 32:45.538
to economic growth--but that in
those countries and those places

32:45.536 --> 32:50.256
with very dense populations,
even though economic growth is

32:50.260 --> 32:54.070
present there,
would the people be better off

32:54.068 --> 32:56.018
with a lesser population?

32:56.019 --> 33:00.889
Is Malthus right not in the
extreme but in the reality that

33:00.894 --> 33:02.854
you can--
even in very dense

33:02.851 --> 33:05.661
populations--you can have some
economic growth,

33:05.660 --> 33:08.990
but would the people be better
off if they had less--

33:08.990 --> 33:12.610
a lower population?

33:12.608 --> 33:19.228
Then instead of asking whether
food is your limiting factor,

33:19.230 --> 33:23.520
asking whether the environment
is your limiting factor and

33:23.518 --> 33:27.638
that--
with those rather small changes

33:27.640 --> 33:34.910
in what he said makes Malthus as
relevant today as at any time.

33:34.910 --> 33:46.080
Let's look at some of the
things that I've been talking

33:46.075 --> 33:47.725
about.

33:47.730 --> 33:52.700
You've all seen--you've seen
this graph before and you

33:52.699 --> 33:58.419
remember this is for Roman times
but characteristic up to--

33:58.420 --> 34:01.170
from way, way back almost into
the 1700s.

34:01.170 --> 34:05.490
that 1,000 females are born,
not very different for males,

34:05.490 --> 34:09.210
most of them die--about half of
them die as infants,

34:09.210 --> 34:12.360
then childbirth and they keep
dying and eventually there's

34:12.364 --> 34:13.254
very few left.

34:13.250 --> 34:18.060
This is the number that are
born and the number that are

34:18.057 --> 34:18.667
left.

34:18.670 --> 34:22.160
The reason I show this again is
because there's one number here

34:22.155 --> 34:25.005
that I didn't describe before,
but is one way of

34:25.010 --> 34:27.310
characterizing this
E_0 is--

34:27.309 --> 34:31.359
E is for the expectancy of
life, how long you're going to

34:31.360 --> 34:34.110
live at age 0,
at your birth.

34:34.110 --> 34:37.880
When a child is born how long
do you expect them to live?

34:37.880 --> 34:42.280
Of course that may be say 70
years old nowadays.

34:42.280 --> 34:45.440
My mother, for instance,
is 97 and so her life

34:45.436 --> 34:49.766
expectancy is like 102,
so the life expectancy depends

34:49.773 --> 34:54.803
on when you're measuring it and
so this is life expectancy at

34:54.802 --> 34:59.832
birth and at this time it was
just under 21 years of age.

34:59.829 --> 35:05.279
We've see here that when the
death rate is such as to have

35:05.278 --> 35:10.268
this kind of a life expectancy,
that something like a third of

35:10.273 --> 35:13.583
the women are doing all the
reproducing because the others

35:13.583 --> 35:15.993
are dead,
and if it's a third they have

35:15.994 --> 35:18.964
to have six children to keep the
population going,

35:18.960 --> 35:23.380
but since a lot of that third
is infertile or sick,

35:23.380 --> 35:28.200
or unmarried or whatever,
the average has to be six--

35:28.199 --> 35:31.749
the women who actually can
reproduce have to produce a lot

35:31.753 --> 35:32.193
more.

35:32.190 --> 35:36.130
It turns out that that's about
the limit.

35:36.130 --> 35:42.530
That much--with an expectancy
of life of much less than that,

35:42.530 --> 35:46.300
much less than 20 or even maybe
get it down to 20,

35:46.300 --> 35:51.500
your group, your population
goes extinct.

35:51.500 --> 35:55.600
Think mathematically just a
little bit that if the average

35:55.601 --> 35:59.921
lifespan is 20 years then in
every one of those 20 years,

35:59.920 --> 36:04.840
an equal number every year,
1/20^(th) of the population is

36:04.838 --> 36:07.858
going to die and 1/20^(th) is
5%.

36:07.860 --> 36:16.220
You can think of a 5% death
rate as sort of the maximum.

36:16.219 --> 36:20.549
5% of the population dies every
year is kind of a maximum that

36:20.548 --> 36:22.038
humans can sustain.

36:22.039 --> 36:25.699
More than that and you have a
lower E_0;

36:25.699 --> 36:32.209
your population goes out of
existence.

36:32.210 --> 36:35.060
As time goes on,
I've shown you this slide also,

36:35.059 --> 36:39.909
conditions get a little better
so here is the way this graph--

36:39.909 --> 36:43.409
this is rather stylized,
we don't have great data to

36:43.409 --> 36:46.049
make such a graph,
but this shows the life

36:46.052 --> 36:47.992
expectancy between 20 and 25
years,

36:47.989 --> 36:52.769
which we think is more or less
the characteristic of humans for

36:52.771 --> 36:55.451
a long time,
and then very slowly over

36:55.445 --> 36:57.625
thousands of years it gets
better,

36:57.630 --> 37:01.210
and up here you're maybe at 25.

37:01.210 --> 37:04.810
At 20--at 25 years,
so 25 years--if people are

37:04.809 --> 37:09.289
going to live on average 25
years that means 1/25^(th) of

37:09.289 --> 37:14.259
them die every year,
1/25^(th) is 4%.

37:14.260 --> 37:22.920
When you see a death rate of
4%, which can be expressed as 4

37:22.920 --> 37:28.940
per 100 or 40 per 1,000--did I
say 40%?

37:28.940 --> 37:32.340
I meant 4%.

37:32.340 --> 37:36.650
What has happened over these
thousands of years is that we

37:36.648 --> 37:40.428
managed to keep 1% more people
alive every year.

37:40.429 --> 37:44.879
From here we're keeping the
death rate as maybe 5% a year

37:44.882 --> 37:48.542
and the death rate here is maybe
4% a year,

37:48.539 --> 37:53.549
so keep those numbers in mind
as a primitive kind of minimum

37:53.550 --> 37:57.490
using say the 25,
that 40 per 1,000 deaths and

37:57.489 --> 38:01.169
the population is going to be
fairly stable,

38:01.170 --> 38:03.960
so 40 per 1,000 people.

38:03.960 --> 38:12.670
That's what was going on
through most of human history.

38:12.670 --> 38:16.180
Now if you look at the actual
numbers for Europe,

38:16.179 --> 38:25.329
you see that Eastern Europe has
a--this is the death rate of not

38:25.333 --> 38:30.713
40 per 1,000 but 38 per 1,000
here.

38:30.710 --> 38:35.140
Very, very little bit better
than the rate at which you

38:35.143 --> 38:39.253
really can't keep your
population alive anymore.

38:39.250 --> 38:42.510
This continues in Eastern
Europe until 1860,

38:42.514 --> 38:44.264
until Civil War time.

38:44.260 --> 38:45.610
This is the Civil War in
America.

38:45.610 --> 38:50.010
Russia frees its Serfs at about
this time;

38:50.010 --> 38:53.270
you've got a lot of the great
Russian authors and musicians

38:53.268 --> 38:55.458
who are starting at around that
time.

38:55.460 --> 39:01.280
So in Eastern Europe if you
measure standard of living by

39:01.284 --> 39:05.654
the death rate,
the death rate has improved

39:05.652 --> 39:12.332
very little over the 40 or 50;
50 is from thousands of years

39:12.329 --> 39:14.279
ago--then the 40.

39:14.280 --> 39:19.710
Then modernization takes over
and it falls very slowly.

39:19.710 --> 39:23.300
Western Europe,
where the enlightenment hit

39:23.300 --> 39:26.100
first,
is doing better at this time,

39:26.096 --> 39:29.236
and the line is sort of where
Genghis Khan--

39:29.239 --> 39:30.879
the line between Eastern and
Western Europe was basically

39:30.876 --> 39:34.486
where Genghis Khan--
the Mongols occupied Europe.

39:34.489 --> 39:39.859
Here in 1800 Western Europe
already has a death rate down to

39:39.855 --> 39:40.305
28.

39:40.309 --> 39:43.019
Remember I told you in the
1700s the Western foods come in

39:43.016 --> 39:46.096
and things start getting better,
so the death rate has been

39:46.097 --> 39:49.317
dropping at least all during the
1700s and depending on what

39:49.315 --> 39:53.205
historian you read,
possibly before the 1700s.

39:53.210 --> 39:58.960
Eastern Europe 100 years later,
this is 1800 and this is 1890,

39:58.963 --> 40:03.593
Eastern Europe is 100 years
behind Western Europe,

40:03.585 --> 40:05.845
more than 100 years.

40:05.849 --> 40:11.259
Europe has already--Western
Europe has progressed somewhat

40:11.260 --> 40:17.240
and at this level the population
is increasing quite rapidly.

40:17.239 --> 40:22.629
During this period,
again population is increasing,

40:22.630 --> 40:25.230
resources and production are
increasing somewhat,

40:25.230 --> 40:30.570
but the balance is not in favor
of standard of living.

40:30.570 --> 40:35.130
For instance food.

40:35.130 --> 40:37.170
Grain accounts for,
during this period,

40:37.170 --> 40:40.300
about 80% of the calories of
the poor and even for the upper

40:40.300 --> 40:43.230
classes who had more meat,
and eggs, and this kind of

40:43.228 --> 40:44.508
stuff it was about 50%.

40:44.510 --> 40:49.420
You can look basically at grain
prices and wages and grain

40:49.416 --> 40:53.286
prices and tell how the people
were living.

40:53.289 --> 40:56.529
In Strasburg,
which is very favorably

40:56.534 --> 41:00.994
situated on land on the Rhine,
just on the border between

41:00.987 --> 41:04.057
Germany and France,
sometimes it's Germany and

41:04.056 --> 41:07.116
sometimes it's France,
between 1400 and 1500 for

41:07.123 --> 41:09.963
instance,
the amount of work needed to

41:09.960 --> 41:14.630
purchase a month's worth of
wheat was in the range of 60 to

41:14.625 --> 41:15.585
80 hours.

41:15.590 --> 41:20.220
This is just before the
Reformation for instance,

41:20.219 --> 41:21.859
60 to 80 hours.

41:21.860 --> 41:25.180
By 1540, populations were
already increasing,

41:25.179 --> 41:27.919
it had risen to over 100 hours
and it doesn't--

41:27.920 --> 41:32.870
and then it keeps going and it
doesn't come back down to 100

41:32.873 --> 41:34.893
hours until the 1880s.

41:34.889 --> 41:39.289
We're talking very;
very late the people are not

41:39.291 --> 41:41.181
living better.

41:41.179 --> 41:44.409
The wages of German workers,
again measured in grain,

41:44.409 --> 41:47.629
because prices go up and down,
but how much grain can you buy

41:47.630 --> 41:49.940
whether you work is the
important number.

41:49.940 --> 41:54.420
It fell roughly 50% between
1500 and 1650.

41:54.420 --> 42:00.250
The percentage of males in
Frankfurt in Germany with enough

42:00.248 --> 42:06.578
property to be citizens fell
from 75% in 1723 to 33% in 1811.

42:06.579 --> 42:10.589
We're watching the population
get impoverished.

42:10.590 --> 42:13.710
Massive unemployment in Germany
caused wages to fall below

42:13.706 --> 42:17.006
subsistence levels,
especially in the 1840s,

42:17.012 --> 42:22.352
and living standards in Germany
showed no signs of improvement

42:22.353 --> 42:25.073
before 1850 at the earliest.

42:25.070 --> 42:29.320
We're talking very modern
times, well into the industrial

42:29.320 --> 42:33.800
revolution, and things are not
getting better if you look at

42:33.798 --> 42:35.468
per capita income.

42:35.469 --> 42:39.409
Again, population is growing,
the total national economy is

42:39.414 --> 42:42.614
growing, but per capita you're
not improving.

42:42.610 --> 42:46.910
In England, buying power
started falling in the 1500s and

42:46.907 --> 42:51.357
didn't recover to that level
until well into the nineteenth

42:51.358 --> 42:52.278
century.

42:52.280 --> 42:57.630
In Paris, bread consumption did
not increase per capita,

42:57.625 --> 43:01.605
did not increase between 1637
and 1854.

43:01.610 --> 43:05.060
Pastureland didn't increase,
so the same amount of meat

43:05.063 --> 43:08.843
basically was produced with some
improvement because of some

43:08.835 --> 43:12.705
cattle breeding,
but now it was divided among

43:12.713 --> 43:14.973
more people,
and not only that,

43:14.969 --> 43:18.259
but because potatoes had come
in and potatoes could keep more

43:18.264 --> 43:21.724
people alive,
a lot of pastureland was taken

43:21.724 --> 43:26.774
away from pastureland and put
into potatoes so basically meat

43:26.773 --> 43:30.143
became very scarce in European
diets.

43:30.139 --> 43:34.049
Again, it decreased between the
Middle Ages and 1800,

43:34.045 --> 43:36.295
it doesn't start recovering.

43:36.300 --> 43:39.440
Forests did not increase,
in fact were cut down to have

43:39.442 --> 43:42.702
more land for agriculture,
so wood becomes scarce for

43:42.697 --> 43:44.217
housing,
for heating,

43:44.217 --> 43:47.657
for heating houses,
for building houses and so

43:47.661 --> 43:48.351
forth.

43:48.349 --> 43:54.539
What happened during this
period is that people--

43:54.539 --> 43:57.689
standard of living was going
down, they managed to stay

43:57.693 --> 43:59.283
alive,
they had to work harder and

43:59.277 --> 44:02.277
harder,
the hours that they worked to

44:02.278 --> 44:07.388
get--to maintain themselves
alive kept increasing and yet

44:07.394 --> 44:10.414
they didn't make any progress.

44:10.409 --> 44:14.389
We're talking about ballpark
100 years into the industrial

44:14.393 --> 44:17.043
revolution which we now--
that's what you learned in high

44:17.039 --> 44:18.919
school,
the industrial revolution is

44:18.922 --> 44:22.492
such a wonderful thing and it
improved incomes and the modern

44:22.485 --> 44:24.975
world during the industrial
revolution.

44:24.980 --> 44:27.850
But in actual fact the data
shows that's really not the

44:27.853 --> 44:30.033
case,
that for about 100 years the

44:30.032 --> 44:33.602
industrial revolution while
making tremendous progress and

44:33.599 --> 44:36.729
total national economies are
growing very big,

44:36.730 --> 44:40.540
the per capita income of all
but the very upper classes

44:40.538 --> 44:42.088
doesn't really grow.

44:42.090 --> 44:46.280
By this time of course Malthus
is dead and we know he's been

44:46.275 --> 44:50.385
laughing in his grave because he
was very controversial.

44:50.389 --> 44:53.799
When he was alive he was very
controversial and it really

44:53.802 --> 44:56.242
wasn't until the Irish potato
famine,

44:56.239 --> 45:00.329
about which you have read,
and massive numbers of people

45:00.329 --> 45:06.289
died for lack of resources,
a bug killing the potatoes.

45:06.289 --> 45:09.089
Then people said,
'oh yeah Malthus was right,'

45:09.092 --> 45:10.652
and then it kept going.

45:10.650 --> 45:15.320
His idea that progress could
just be eaten up by population

45:15.320 --> 45:19.590
growth turns out to be
characteristic of many hundreds

45:19.590 --> 45:24.500
of years of European history and
the rest of the world also of

45:24.501 --> 45:25.551
course.

45:25.550 --> 45:30.950
Now an amazing thing happens in
this to start changing the story

45:30.947 --> 45:33.257
and it happens in France.

45:33.260 --> 45:34.430
What happens?

45:34.429 --> 45:39.339
The French, which looked up
until about 1800,1750 or so,

45:39.335 --> 45:43.345
looked like any other
population in Europe.

45:43.349 --> 45:46.609
They had lots and lots of
children, but then they stopped

45:46.614 --> 45:48.194
having a lot of children.

45:48.190 --> 45:51.130
It just came out of the blue,
and what changed?

45:51.130 --> 45:55.010
The age of marriage didn't
change a lot so that wasn't the

45:55.007 --> 45:55.957
cause of it.

45:55.960 --> 45:58.660
The age at first birth didn't
change a lot,

45:58.663 --> 46:02.073
they weren't getting married
then delaying childbirth,

46:02.074 --> 46:04.074
that stayed about the same.

46:04.070 --> 46:09.270
The interval between babies
didn't change very much so they

46:09.268 --> 46:14.378
were not using much control
within marriage apparently.

46:14.380 --> 46:18.190
Once they got married they just
started popping out babies.

46:18.190 --> 46:22.220
But, they stopped having
children at a young age.

46:22.219 --> 46:26.509
The age of--the age at first
birth doesn't change much,

46:26.512 --> 46:30.092
the age at last birth changes
by ten years.

46:30.090 --> 46:35.170
Families stop having children
about ten years earlier,

46:35.168 --> 46:40.918
chopping out a very large
fraction of their fertile years.

46:40.920 --> 46:44.540
This behavior is called
"stopping behavior"

46:44.539 --> 46:47.879
and we see it all around the
world eventually.

46:47.880 --> 46:50.240
No one understood what was
going on but they were

46:50.239 --> 46:52.139
horrified,
they knew it was happening,

46:52.139 --> 46:54.609
it was--
people were well aware of it

46:54.610 --> 46:57.320
and they were quite horrified by
it.

46:57.320 --> 47:00.760
Any of you that watch
television know that John Adams

47:00.755 --> 47:04.385
and his wife Abigail went to
Europe about that time,

47:04.389 --> 47:07.329
I think it was 1782,
and she especially was

47:07.331 --> 47:11.251
distressed at the French
people's "feeble commitment

47:11.253 --> 47:14.473
to family life,"
exemplified by the French

47:14.474 --> 47:18.544
families only having three or
four children rather than the

47:18.536 --> 47:22.176
eight or ten that you were
supposed to have.

47:22.179 --> 47:25.819
Americans at the time were
having eight or nine.

47:25.820 --> 47:28.430
They were equally
horrified--this is again from

47:28.429 --> 47:31.719
the Adams', they were equally
horrified by the French upper

47:31.719 --> 47:33.989
classes easy acceptance of
adultery.

47:33.989 --> 47:36.799
This they found was,
and this is John Adams

47:36.800 --> 47:40.820
speaking, "an indication of
the general moral and social

47:40.815 --> 47:42.485
disintegration."

47:42.489 --> 47:48.709
He said, "The French are
not a moral people."

47:48.710 --> 47:51.610
What happens is all this
behavior which was wildly

47:51.614 --> 47:55.424
decried by everyone,
within a century after France

47:55.416 --> 47:59.586
starts doing it,
all of Europe takes off and

47:59.585 --> 48:02.435
starts doing the same thing.

48:02.440 --> 48:09.250
Here is a graph of that.

48:09.250 --> 48:11.840
This graph starts in the year,
and we'll talk about it later,

48:11.840 --> 48:15.840
where fertility has already
dropped by about 10% and here's

48:15.840 --> 48:20.350
France and this states that--
when the fertility change has

48:20.347 --> 48:23.367
already been going on to the
1820s,

48:23.369 --> 48:25.969
when it's actually started
before that,

48:25.969 --> 48:29.579
and then every other country in
Europe starts dropping its

48:29.583 --> 48:31.553
fertility within this period.

48:31.550 --> 48:36.840
It goes down by--in this space
of time--by 30%,

48:36.842 --> 48:39.262
an enormous change.

48:39.260 --> 48:46.610
Even though France starts it
early and everybody's horrified

48:46.610 --> 48:52.590
by it, in fact,
everybody starts copying this.

48:52.590 --> 48:56.690
This is Europe but in another
century, Asia,

48:56.690 --> 48:59.840
and Latin America--follow suit.

48:59.840 --> 49:05.650
This is really a major change
in what it means and how one

49:05.650 --> 49:08.710
lives life as a human being.

49:08.710 --> 49:12.020
I've stressed the biology of
reproduction,

49:12.021 --> 49:16.711
of course we have a biological
drive to keep having sex and

49:16.708 --> 49:18.888
that produces children.

49:18.889 --> 49:23.469
The culture or the cultural
religion presses upon people to

49:23.471 --> 49:28.131
keep their birth rates up and
this goes on for thousands and

49:28.132 --> 49:33.032
thousands of years of human
history until the late 1800s,

49:33.030 --> 49:38.450
early for France and then all
of a sudden all around Europe

49:38.445 --> 49:44.325
and then later in the world this
very fundamental way of being a

49:44.329 --> 49:46.009
human changes.

49:46.010 --> 49:50.070
The big question in demography,
since this was noticed a long

49:50.070 --> 49:52.440
time ago, what cause this
change?

49:52.440 --> 50:01.360
Why did all of a sudden with
no--why did this all happen?

50:01.360 --> 50:03.860
The people at the time were
absolutely dumbfounded,

50:03.860 --> 50:07.130
and dumbfounded especially that
it should happen in France,

50:07.130 --> 50:10.150
because at that time France was
at the height of its power,

50:10.150 --> 50:12.800
it was about the richest
country in Europe,

50:12.800 --> 50:16.250
it was the most powerful,
it was the most advanced in

50:16.253 --> 50:18.353
learning,
all the Philosophes were there,

50:18.346 --> 50:21.686
the encyclopedia was there,
it was the top of the world.

50:21.690 --> 50:28.420
Why should, of all places on
earth, the richest people on

50:28.422 --> 50:32.032
earth--stop having children?

50:32.030 --> 50:34.510
Now--it wasn't important at
that time,

50:34.510 --> 50:35.730
it wasn't considered to be
important,

50:35.730 --> 50:39.780
but of course France is a
totally Catholic country and so

50:39.782 --> 50:44.272
why should a Catholic country be
the first one and way ahead of

50:44.269 --> 50:47.309
everyone else to reduce its
birthrate?

50:47.309 --> 50:50.609
Historians have come up with
all--we don't know the answer,

50:50.605 --> 50:52.475
let me tell you that right out.

50:52.480 --> 50:56.310
But, historians do have lots of
answer for it.

50:56.309 --> 51:01.069
One--the reasons for the French
fertility decline lie in the

51:01.074 --> 51:05.034
moral and religious
reassessments that occurred in

51:05.032 --> 51:09.072
the tumultuous years of the
French Revolution.

51:09.070 --> 51:15.610
For sure, a moral realignment
was certainly taking place.

51:15.610 --> 51:19.730
How many of you know Madame
Bovary, the novel?

51:19.730 --> 51:25.650
What's the novel--what's the
centerpiece of the novel?

51:25.650 --> 51:28.610
It's an adulterous affair,
right?

51:28.610 --> 51:30.860
Here's a woman,
a young married woman,

51:30.856 --> 51:33.276
has a child,
and she has a perfectly nice

51:33.284 --> 51:36.384
husband who adores her and is
quite permissive.

51:36.380 --> 51:40.150
She really has nothing
objective to complain about,

51:40.148 --> 51:44.368
but she considers him boring
and so she takes an exciting

51:44.367 --> 51:46.777
lover or a series of lovers.

51:46.780 --> 51:50.840
I'm not going to give away the
plot but the book was taken as a

51:50.842 --> 51:53.992
justification for having
extramarital affairs.

51:53.989 --> 51:57.099
Now that's okay for men and has
been okay for men,

51:57.099 --> 52:00.829
but here's a woman,
here's Flaubert justifying a

52:00.833 --> 52:04.093
woman's having an extramarital
affair,

52:04.090 --> 52:06.150
not because the husband was
beating her or anything,

52:06.150 --> 52:08.350
he was a perfectly decent guy.

52:08.349 --> 52:12.799
That was considered terrible
and he was promptly arrested and

52:12.798 --> 52:17.098
prosecuted by the government for
"affronting religious

52:17.099 --> 52:18.509
morality."

52:18.510 --> 52:22.910
Of course that was very good
for sales of the book,

52:22.907 --> 52:28.007
so everybody read that book,
including a lot of us still at

52:28.007 --> 52:28.797
Yale.

52:28.800 --> 52:32.180
People were--the rest of Europe
were well aware of the French

52:32.175 --> 52:35.315
lead in this and in English
speaking countries France was

52:35.324 --> 52:39.834
blamed for the problem,
and especially French novels,

52:39.829 --> 52:43.669
and they were corrupting our
people,

52:43.670 --> 52:46.470
they were fomenting
extramarital liaisons,

52:46.469 --> 52:51.089
and by implication the use of
contraception.

52:51.090 --> 52:55.700
This spreads very rapidly so
who knows the plot of Anna

52:55.697 --> 52:56.907
Karenina?

52:56.909 --> 53:01.229
An adulterous affair,
and again, her husband wasn't

53:01.231 --> 53:03.481
quite as nice as Bovary.

53:03.480 --> 53:06.280
He was kind of a stiff guy but
he wasn't beating her;

53:06.280 --> 53:10.610
he wasn't really a bad guy,
she goes off and has a wild

53:10.606 --> 53:12.756
affair and that--
War and Peace and

53:12.762 --> 53:14.342
Anna Karenina,
and The Brothers

53:14.344 --> 53:17.274
Karmazov, one of the three
greatest Russian novels,

53:17.268 --> 53:23.348
are exactly on this same mode
of Flaubert and they're all

53:23.349 --> 53:29.429
really talking about this whole
change in attitude toward

53:29.427 --> 53:36.807
fertility and sexuality that was
overcoming Europe at this time.

53:36.809 --> 53:39.809
Much later, not that much
later, after the European

53:39.809 --> 53:43.349
fertility transition was over,
which only lasted until about

53:43.349 --> 53:43.889
1930.

53:43.889 --> 53:46.709
It starts in 1870,
you'll see these dates,

53:46.710 --> 53:50.870
the fertility drop out--except
for France starts in about 1870

53:50.867 --> 53:54.747
and is all over by 1930 and
social sciences start thinking

53:54.753 --> 53:59.323
about this fertility drop but
not in moralistic terms anymore,

53:59.320 --> 54:04.220
not how it was ruining our
morals, but in terms of sort of

54:04.222 --> 54:06.632
quantifiable explanations.

54:06.630 --> 54:10.260
The major--again asking this,
which is probably the most

54:10.257 --> 54:13.487
important question in all the
social sciences,

54:13.489 --> 54:17.339
the most important change in
how it is to be a human,

54:17.340 --> 54:21.610
and what is the cause of this?

54:21.610 --> 54:24.800
They did a very massive project
and we'll have a guest speaker

54:24.797 --> 54:26.887
who's one of the main people in
this,

54:26.889 --> 54:30.199
Michael Teitelbaum,
that they set up what they call

54:30.197 --> 54:33.437
an office of population research
and they did--

54:33.440 --> 54:36.210
every graduate student got a
different country in Europe,

54:36.210 --> 54:39.840
and he went into that country
and looked at all the provincial

54:39.835 --> 54:43.395
records and dug out everything
they could find and they got a

54:43.400 --> 54:46.910
mass of statistics on everything
they could figure out about

54:46.907 --> 54:51.027
every province in Europe,
and not only Western Europe but

54:51.032 --> 54:55.552
all the way across Europe into
Russia and so it was the most--

54:55.550 --> 55:00.400
probably the most massive
social science investigation

55:00.402 --> 55:02.512
that ever took place.

55:02.510 --> 55:09.340
What had come up by that time
already was kind of a schema of

55:09.335 --> 55:15.475
what's--what we now call the
demographic transition.

55:15.480 --> 55:18.440
I've shown you how the death
rate, there's no particular

55:18.436 --> 55:20.336
dates,
this is sort of very

55:20.344 --> 55:24.204
generalized kind of idea,
that the death rate--the first

55:24.197 --> 55:27.857
thing that happens in time is
that the death rate falls.

55:27.860 --> 55:32.930
Then at some time later the
birth rate falls--

55:32.929 --> 55:37.309
there's--early on I described
the drop in the death rate and

55:37.309 --> 55:41.839
now we see that sometime later
the birth rate fall happens.

55:41.840 --> 55:45.120
Well what happens in between is
this population growth.

55:45.119 --> 55:48.409
In old times the birth rate was
very high and the death rate was

55:48.409 --> 55:50.439
very high,
but they pretty nearly matched,

55:50.443 --> 55:52.063
there's a little bit of
difference,

55:52.059 --> 55:54.719
the population does grow but it
grows very slowly.

55:54.719 --> 55:57.249
When it's all over,
the birth rate is low and the

55:57.253 --> 55:59.583
death rate is low,
and again there's a little

55:59.577 --> 56:00.367
difference.

56:00.369 --> 56:03.409
Population grows slowly,
or nowadays in a lot of Europe

56:03.407 --> 56:06.447
the birth rate goes below the
death rate and population

56:06.445 --> 56:10.065
decreases somewhat slowly,
but there's no super rapid

56:10.074 --> 56:12.904
change here,
there's no big rapid change

56:12.898 --> 56:16.398
here, but in between the death--
the time when the death rate

56:16.400 --> 56:18.570
falls and the time when the
birth rate falls--

56:18.570 --> 56:23.430
all of this is population
growth because the birth rate is

56:23.429 --> 56:25.389
above the death rate.

56:25.389 --> 56:28.589
This is the period of the
population explosions and the

56:28.585 --> 56:31.775
first of these population
explosions was in Europe,

56:31.780 --> 56:34.860
not in the poor countries,
not in the developing world,

56:34.860 --> 56:38.940
but in the richest part of the
world at that time which was

56:38.936 --> 56:39.566
Europe.

56:39.570 --> 56:44.840
The same schema is supposed to
apply later on.

56:44.840 --> 56:50.560
This is, as an empirical
generalization …

56:50.561 --> 56:55.311
medium--that some countries fit
this.

56:55.309 --> 56:58.889
Nobody is terribly far from
this, the birth rate and the

56:58.887 --> 57:03.047
death rate always go down in
some relationship to each other,

57:03.050 --> 57:06.770
but the question which arises
is, is the correlation good

57:06.768 --> 57:09.358
enough that the death rate
actually--

57:09.360 --> 57:13.640
the drop in the death rate
actually causes the drop in the

57:13.639 --> 57:17.109
birth rate,
and the theory runs in a rather

57:17.114 --> 57:20.324
obvious way,
that parents know how many

57:20.322 --> 57:21.952
children they want.

57:21.949 --> 57:24.849
They know roughly how many
children they can keep alive,

57:24.849 --> 57:27.389
how much farmland they have to
give them to inherit,

57:27.389 --> 57:33.519
how many they need to take care
of them in their old age.

57:33.518 --> 57:38.118
When the death rate is very
high, and not only high but very

57:38.123 --> 57:40.473
variable--
I showed you last time in

57:40.465 --> 57:42.825
Sweden the death rate going up
and down,

57:42.829 --> 57:45.829
when the death rate is high and
variable you don't know--

57:45.829 --> 57:49.339
if you have a lot of children
you don't how many are going to

57:49.344 --> 57:49.934
survive.

57:49.929 --> 57:52.589
You need not only as many
children as you want,

57:52.585 --> 57:55.695
and taking into account the
death rate, but taking into

57:55.702 --> 57:58.362
account the variability of the
death rate.

57:58.360 --> 58:02.200
What if an epidemic comes
through when my kids are young?

58:02.199 --> 58:06.889
So you have to have a lot of
children in order to insure that

58:06.885 --> 58:11.175
in your old age you'll have some
to take care of you.

58:11.179 --> 58:14.659
As the death rate falls people
gradually really--

58:14.659 --> 58:17.909
the theory is that people
gradually realize this and they

58:17.911 --> 58:21.451
reduce their fertility because
they don't need to bear so many

58:21.454 --> 58:24.944
children in order to have so
many left at the end because the

58:24.940 --> 58:27.990
children--
they start getting confidence

58:27.992 --> 58:30.922
that the children are not going
to die.

58:30.920 --> 58:34.830
This is a lovely theory and how
many of you have heard that,

58:34.826 --> 58:36.346
some version of that?

58:36.349 --> 58:39.189
It's one of--you'll see there's
about ten standard

58:39.192 --> 58:41.742
versions--theories about why
fertility falls,

58:41.744 --> 58:43.084
this is number one.

58:43.079 --> 58:47.759
That it's the fall in the death
rate causes the fall in the

58:47.755 --> 58:52.505
birth rate, so now we're going
to--this is--look and see how

58:52.512 --> 58:54.612
accurate that this is.

58:54.610 --> 59:02.910
This is Norway actually,
and here is the death rate--

59:02.909 --> 59:08.799
this black line for Norway--and
it starts falling from about

59:08.802 --> 59:13.432
middle of the 1700s,
and pretty continuous fall

59:13.434 --> 59:15.414
during all this time.

59:15.409 --> 59:21.549
Here is the birth rate,
pretty constant across here and

59:21.552 --> 59:27.242
then it finally starts falling
in 1900 I think,

59:27.239 --> 59:31.329
so there's a long time period
between when the birth rate

59:31.331 --> 59:34.361
starts falling and--
sorry when the death rate

59:34.360 --> 59:37.490
starts falling and when the
birth rate starts falling.

59:37.489 --> 59:40.939
The difference between those
rates is this line here that all

59:40.940 --> 59:44.690
of this is population growth,
and in this period here where

59:44.688 --> 59:48.638
the death rate is quite a ways
down but the birth rate hasn't

59:48.637 --> 59:53.467
responded very much yet,
the Norwegian population grows

59:53.465 --> 59:55.055
by this amount.

59:55.059 --> 59:57.529
That's standard,
that's the way it's supposed to

59:57.530 --> 59:57.900
work.

59:57.900 --> 1:00:03.480
That's the way the schema shows
it working.

1:00:03.480 --> 1:00:08.090
Now you look at England,
England and Wales,

1:00:08.094 --> 1:00:11.724
and you don't get this picture.

1:00:11.719 --> 1:00:14.179
Here is fertility,
the gray thing,

1:00:14.175 --> 1:00:18.265
and fertility starts dropping
as I said around 1870,

1:00:18.268 --> 1:00:21.188
maybe 18--this shows it a
little bit after 1875 or so,

1:00:21.190 --> 1:00:25.350
and then it drops rather
continuously.

1:00:25.349 --> 1:00:26.739
This is fertility.

1:00:26.739 --> 1:00:29.169
Infant mortality,
which is a good measure of

1:00:29.166 --> 1:00:31.666
total mortality,
doesn't really start dropping,

1:00:31.666 --> 1:00:34.116
it's pretty constant,
ups and downs,

1:00:34.119 --> 1:00:39.649
until 1905 or something like
that and it only starts going

1:00:39.652 --> 1:00:40.432
down.

1:00:40.429 --> 1:00:45.359
Here it's the reverse situation
that now you have fertility

1:00:45.356 --> 1:00:49.176
falling first and mortality
falling later,

1:00:49.179 --> 1:00:51.669
and you can make a causal
explanation for this,

1:00:51.670 --> 1:00:55.440
that when people are having
lots and lots of kids they can't

1:00:55.440 --> 1:00:56.720
take care of them.

1:00:56.719 --> 1:00:58.929
They don't have enough food,
they don't have enough this,

1:00:58.927 --> 1:01:01.017
that and the other thing,
so there's a very high death

1:01:01.016 --> 1:01:02.116
rate among the children.

1:01:02.119 --> 1:01:06.739
If you drop your fertility you
have more resources for each

1:01:06.742 --> 1:01:07.382
child.

1:01:07.380 --> 1:01:13.910
And that's actually as
compelling an explanation--in

1:01:13.914 --> 1:01:20.324
the absence of data--as the
reverse explanation.

1:01:20.320 --> 1:01:23.830
If you look across many,
many countries which the

1:01:23.831 --> 1:01:29.721
Princeton project did,
this is the drop in the

1:01:29.724 --> 1:01:34.734
mortality rate,
this graph, and this is the

1:01:34.731 --> 1:01:36.811
drop in the fertility rate.

1:01:36.809 --> 1:01:40.859
This is the years,
same year starts in 1825,

1:01:40.860 --> 1:01:44.040
this is 1975,
so this is the period when the

1:01:44.039 --> 1:01:48.249
change was happening and for
fertility here this period is

1:01:48.253 --> 1:01:52.983
when birth rate has already come
down by about 10% and you'll see

1:01:52.983 --> 1:01:57.663
that's some kind of threshold,
and when it's down then

1:01:57.657 --> 1:02:02.717
something like 30% I think it
ends and mortality has also its

1:02:02.715 --> 1:02:03.555
limits.

1:02:03.559 --> 1:02:06.259
This is the period when
mortality is falling in Norway

1:02:06.264 --> 1:02:09.434
and Denmark, and Sweden and
England, and Wales and so forth.

1:02:09.429 --> 1:02:12.219
All you have to do is look at
the order of these things.

1:02:12.219 --> 1:02:15.529
As I've shown you for
fertility, France is the first

1:02:15.530 --> 1:02:20.060
one by a long shot it starts--
they put it in the early 1800s,

1:02:20.059 --> 1:02:24.719
it's down by 10% already and
it's all over by 1900 or so,

1:02:24.719 --> 1:02:26.989
France way ahead in time of
anybody else.

1:02:26.989 --> 1:02:29.619
Now you look at the mortality
and you say well where is

1:02:29.621 --> 1:02:30.061
France?

1:02:30.059 --> 1:02:32.679
It's not Norway,
it's not Denmark,

1:02:32.675 --> 1:02:35.445
it's not Sweden,
where is France?

1:02:35.449 --> 1:02:38.829
Do I even see France here?

1:02:38.829 --> 1:02:40.789
There it is.

1:02:40.789 --> 1:02:43.559
Its way in the middle of the
pack, that doesn't fit the

1:02:43.559 --> 1:02:45.509
theory and if you go the other
way,

1:02:45.510 --> 1:02:49.200
Norway is the first one to drop
its mortality rate and where is

1:02:49.195 --> 1:02:51.305
Norway,
more or less in the middle of

1:02:51.309 --> 1:02:53.249
the pack when you look at
fertility.

1:02:53.250 --> 1:02:56.670
These two things don't
correlate as nicely.

1:02:56.670 --> 1:02:58.630
Again, this is the Princeton
project;

1:02:58.630 --> 1:03:05.660
don't correlate as nicely as
the theory would have us do.

1:03:05.659 --> 1:03:08.459
The end result of all these
graduate students studying the

1:03:08.461 --> 1:03:10.971
relationship between mortality
and fertility was?

1:03:10.969 --> 1:03:15.629
We don't know what's going on
because we saw everything under

1:03:15.632 --> 1:03:16.412
the sun.

1:03:16.409 --> 1:03:21.019
There's no very strong
correlation.

1:03:21.018 --> 1:03:26.118
They were very smart and they
tried all kinds of things and

1:03:26.123 --> 1:03:31.053
another way you can look at it
is to see at what level of

1:03:31.050 --> 1:03:34.240
mortality,
maybe looking at years is not

1:03:34.244 --> 1:03:37.094
the right thing but the level of
mortality.

1:03:37.090 --> 1:03:42.140
They looked at infant mortality
levels at the time when the

1:03:42.137 --> 1:03:43.877
fertility dropped.

1:03:43.880 --> 1:03:47.270
What you have is,
in France, the infant mortality

1:03:47.273 --> 1:03:49.833
was still very high;
just infants it's not total

1:03:49.833 --> 1:03:53.773
mortality just infant mortality,
almost 300 here when France

1:03:53.773 --> 1:03:58.333
starts dropping its fertility
sometime this--

1:03:58.329 --> 1:04:01.669
puts it somewhere in the late
1700s.

1:04:01.670 --> 1:04:05.650
The fertility started dropping
and the infant mortality was

1:04:05.646 --> 1:04:06.876
still very high.

1:04:06.880 --> 1:04:09.670
Then you can go around the
world all different kinds of

1:04:09.672 --> 1:04:12.202
places,
Japan 160, Norway 100,

1:04:12.202 --> 1:04:17.692
that there doesn't seem to be
any kind of commonality here in

1:04:17.693 --> 1:04:22.453
what the infant mortality
actually was when fertility

1:04:22.452 --> 1:04:23.462
drops.

1:04:23.460 --> 1:04:28.030
Remember the 400 is sort of the
primitive level,

1:04:28.030 --> 1:04:33.370
and actually when you go into
Asia you can see that in places

1:04:33.373 --> 1:04:38.453
like Taiwan and Mexico--
Mexico doesn't--that moved from

1:04:38.445 --> 1:04:38.975
Asia.

1:04:38.980 --> 1:04:43.880
In Mexico and Taiwan the
mortality was 35 ,

1:04:43.880 --> 1:04:50.160
so very close to the primitive
level where you can just keep

1:04:50.157 --> 1:04:56.007
your society going and yet
fertility starts dropping.

1:04:56.010 --> 1:04:57.810
Basically you see the whole
range.

1:04:57.809 --> 1:05:01.289
The whole range is something
like 35 or 40 and you don't keep

1:05:01.286 --> 1:05:03.426
your society alive less than
that,

1:05:03.429 --> 1:05:07.289
and modern Japan would be at
this time be about 5 and you see

1:05:07.293 --> 1:05:09.353
that--
the range is what you actually

1:05:09.347 --> 1:05:13.157
see is this whole range,
anywhere in that range of what

1:05:13.159 --> 1:05:18.039
mortality levels people actually
achieve can be the range at

1:05:18.038 --> 1:05:20.848
which fertility starts to fall.

1:05:20.849 --> 1:05:25.709
There's no real conclusion
possible.

1:05:25.710 --> 1:05:30.620
What's explanation number two
that you all have heard?

1:05:30.619 --> 1:05:34.409
Economic development,
how many have heard that

1:05:34.409 --> 1:05:35.589
explanation?

1:05:35.590 --> 1:05:37.680
Not so many,
that's very standard,

1:05:37.681 --> 1:05:40.761
the whole Reagan--
the whole Reagan policy

1:05:40.764 --> 1:05:44.164
was--and for a lot of the world
was that--

1:05:44.159 --> 1:05:46.859
forget about family planning
and pushing that,

1:05:46.860 --> 1:05:52.180
that economic development is
what reduces fertility so that's

1:05:52.184 --> 1:05:57.604
a very good theory also and we
can look at it and wow the data

1:05:57.597 --> 1:05:59.547
looks pretty good.

1:05:59.550 --> 1:06:05.140
Down here is per capita income
and each of these is a separate

1:06:05.135 --> 1:06:09.165
country here,
for every country as per capita

1:06:09.166 --> 1:06:12.826
income goes up fertility comes
down.

1:06:12.829 --> 1:06:16.169
It can come down a fairly
straight line,

1:06:16.172 --> 1:06:21.152
or it can do some wiggles and
jiggles, but basically as per

1:06:21.146 --> 1:06:25.086
capita income goes up fertility
goes down.

1:06:25.090 --> 1:06:27.250
You like that theory?

1:06:27.250 --> 1:06:29.730
There's some problems with it.

1:06:29.730 --> 1:06:33.700
How much money does it take to
keep people out of bed

1:06:33.702 --> 1:06:34.622
basically?

1:06:34.619 --> 1:06:40.609
Well, the French start dropping
their fertility when their per

1:06:40.610 --> 1:06:44.440
capita income is something like
180--

1:06:44.440 --> 1:06:50.800
this is in--converted basically
to dollars $180 a year,

1:06:50.800 --> 1:06:53.680
50 cents a day,
back then that was more money

1:06:53.682 --> 1:06:57.442
than now,
it keeps the Frenchmen out of

1:06:57.438 --> 1:06:57.948
bed.

1:06:57.949 --> 1:07:01.339
Now anybody of Italian
extraction will be very proud to

1:07:01.335 --> 1:07:04.085
realize that it takes Italians
twice as much,

1:07:04.094 --> 1:07:06.984
$360 or something to keep them
out of bed.

1:07:06.980 --> 1:07:10.590
We have now scientifically and
quantitatively proven that

1:07:10.588 --> 1:07:13.938
Italians are definitely sexier
then French people.

1:07:13.940 --> 1:07:16.980
Then you go along,
here's the Germans a little bit

1:07:16.978 --> 1:07:19.718
stolid here,
and of course who--we are at

1:07:19.717 --> 1:07:23.527
exactly the opposite of what we
presume that the English are

1:07:23.527 --> 1:07:27.527
supposed to be so straight that
they don't do it at all and yet

1:07:27.530 --> 1:07:31.470
in order to keep the British out
of bed you have to really pay

1:07:31.469 --> 1:07:32.889
them awful lot.

1:07:32.889 --> 1:07:37.469
They have to be somewhere in
the--between $700 and $800

1:07:37.472 --> 1:07:39.172
dollars in income.

1:07:39.170 --> 1:07:44.570
There doesn't seem to be any
particular number of income that

1:07:44.574 --> 1:07:49.174
has a huge range that is
required before people drop

1:07:49.168 --> 1:07:50.968
their fertility.

1:07:50.969 --> 1:07:55.199
When you think about it a
little more this whole way of

1:07:55.204 --> 1:07:59.444
looking at it is not very
convincing because here's per

1:07:59.438 --> 1:08:02.458
capita income,
but we're talking about the

1:08:02.460 --> 1:08:06.030
time of industrialization and
after fertility starts dropping.

1:08:06.030 --> 1:08:08.990
So once fertility starts
dropping per capita income does

1:08:08.992 --> 1:08:09.802
start rising.

1:08:09.800 --> 1:08:12.520
That's sort of the most
important take home message for

1:08:12.516 --> 1:08:15.816
today,
so I'll say it before time runs

1:08:15.818 --> 1:08:18.408
out,
that the industrial revolution

1:08:18.409 --> 1:08:22.219
by itself didn't really improve
the standard of living of

1:08:22.219 --> 1:08:22.899
people.

1:08:22.899 --> 1:08:26.169
Up until about 1870 there was
tremendous increase in

1:08:26.167 --> 1:08:28.407
productivity,
tremendous increase in

1:08:28.408 --> 1:08:29.368
population.

1:08:29.368 --> 1:08:32.968
They cancelled each other out
and for the average working

1:08:32.966 --> 1:08:35.916
person the standard of living
does not rise.

1:08:35.920 --> 1:08:39.930
Starting roughly 1870,
people dropped their fertility

1:08:39.927 --> 1:08:44.477
rates and the standard of living
starts rising and we see it

1:08:44.475 --> 1:08:47.015
starts rising all along here.

1:08:47.020 --> 1:08:53.440
If you take any dates from 1870
until today or until a few

1:08:53.435 --> 1:08:57.825
months ago anyway,
per capita income is rising

1:08:57.826 --> 1:09:00.976
everywhere in Europe at
different rates,

1:09:00.979 --> 1:09:03.189
but everywhere in Europe.

1:09:03.189 --> 1:09:06.239
Anything is for guessing,
in everything that you can

1:09:06.242 --> 1:09:08.882
measure about Europe,
changes in what we call

1:09:08.875 --> 1:09:11.025
monotonic in a single direction.

1:09:11.029 --> 1:09:14.629
Education goes up,
urbanization goes up,

1:09:14.630 --> 1:09:17.820
the number of the year goes up,
everything,

1:09:17.819 --> 1:09:22.829
women's education goes up,
anything that you can think of

1:09:22.833 --> 1:09:26.063
goes up,
and fertility goes down.

1:09:26.060 --> 1:09:30.030
So when you make graphs like
that anything that you put on

1:09:30.028 --> 1:09:31.698
this axis is going up.

1:09:31.698 --> 1:09:32.818
This happened to be per capita
income,

1:09:32.819 --> 1:09:35.079
it could be education,
industrialization,

1:09:35.077 --> 1:09:37.557
urbanization,
and fertility is falling during

1:09:37.560 --> 1:09:40.410
this period--
so any two variables that you

1:09:40.409 --> 1:09:43.929
put together will give you
similar graph to this and it

1:09:43.930 --> 1:09:47.650
tells you absolutely nothing
except the only thing you can

1:09:47.645 --> 1:09:50.705
think of that--
well there is no particular

1:09:50.712 --> 1:09:53.652
level of income which causes
people to drop.

1:09:53.649 --> 1:09:58.259
When you get into the
developing worlds the levels are

1:09:58.255 --> 1:10:02.245
way, way below,
they're out here and they start

1:10:02.252 --> 1:10:05.382
dropping their fertility levels.

1:10:05.380 --> 1:10:10.760
They repeated this over and
over again for all kinds of

1:10:10.761 --> 1:10:16.541
hypotheses and they always got
the same kind of answer that

1:10:16.542 --> 1:10:20.532
nothing really correlated very
well.

1:10:20.529 --> 1:10:24.599
Literacy is another answer that
people started getting more

1:10:24.601 --> 1:10:29.081
worldly because they can read,
and fertility began to fall and

1:10:29.082 --> 1:10:32.852
literacy rates were very low in
France and Bulgaria,

1:10:32.850 --> 1:10:36.780
in Hungary but literacy was
already very high in England and

1:10:36.779 --> 1:10:38.909
Wales when its fertility fell.

1:10:38.908 --> 1:10:42.378
Urbanization,
the British fertility declined

1:10:42.377 --> 1:10:45.277
when it began in Britain in
1870,

1:10:45.279 --> 1:10:50.029
72% of the British were already
in what are called conurbations,

1:10:50.029 --> 1:10:53.829
in urban settings,
but in France when they started

1:10:53.831 --> 1:10:58.481
100 years earlier,
very, very low level.

1:10:58.479 --> 1:11:02.929
I won't continue this but that
Princeton project was a massive,

1:11:02.930 --> 1:11:06.400
massive study of all the--every
socio economic variable that you

1:11:06.398 --> 1:11:08.298
can think of,
all the theories,

1:11:08.296 --> 1:11:11.526
all the ten theories that you
hear around and from your

1:11:11.525 --> 1:11:15.785
friends and think yourself,
none of them really worked out

1:11:15.792 --> 1:11:20.622
as something you could really
nail to fertility drops because

1:11:20.617 --> 1:11:23.867
of infant mortality drops,
or income goes up,

1:11:23.868 --> 1:11:27.008
or education goes up,
or any of these sorts of things.

1:11:27.010 --> 1:11:30.930
Next time we will continue and
tell you at least what the

1:11:30.930 --> 1:11:34.150
Princeton people thought was the
real cause.

1:11:34.149 --> 1:11:39.999