WEBVTT

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Prof: Now in the last
lecture we talked about how

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China has had this very dense
population of very poor

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peasants,
for a very long time,

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and we started discussing some
of the possibilities for why

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that would be.

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We talked about the possibility
that China just had a higher

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fertility rate and roughly that
was not true.

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We found that that the
Europeans and the Chinese both

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had methods of controlling their
population.

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It doesn't mean the methods
were exactly equal,

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but they were rather opposite.

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The European method,
as you know was late marriage,

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incomplete marriage that half
or so,

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40% or 50% of people never got
married,

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or were unmarried at any given
time,

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a great deal of lack of
marriage and late marriage

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meaning--
but once they got married they

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did not seem to have any
limitation on their fertility

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and so half the people going at
full tilt is sort of one

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aliquot.

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The Chinese situation,
10% to 25% of the girls were

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done away with basically at
birth,

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the rest all got married,
but within marriage they had a

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very low rate of reproduction.

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At the end, I don't think we'll
have time,

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but if we do I'll show you some
of the evidence that this low

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rate of reproduction was not a
conscious effort to control

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fertility but was a result of
the culture.

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I discussed--I gave you that
conclusion last time but I

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didn't give you any data,
there's plenty of data for

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that.

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We're back to what the
difference is between China and

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Europe, why are they so
different?

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Student:  I just have a
question;

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I'm wondering what extent do
you believe that cultural

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programming was designed at some
early stage?

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Prof: When you say
designed do you mean designed

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consciously?

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No, that I think the people had
no idea.

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People obey various cultural
rules, cultural rules happen

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randomly.

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You can watch-- anthropologists
watch cultures and culture is a

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very flexible thing and it
changes fairly frequently.

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If that change works people
retain it and the whole culture

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works.

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If that doesn't work,
either people change it again

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or the culture disappears.

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Most cultures over time have
disappeared.

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Cultural evolution seems to
follow pretty much the same

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rules as biological evolution.

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Almost random change--in
biology you have random changes

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in the genome,
the cosmic ray hits you or you

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smoke a cigarette,
or something like that,

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and base pair changes or a
piece of chromosome jumps out

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and goes back in,
inserts itself,

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a lot of different things.

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These are mostly bad changes
but very rarely there's a good

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change.

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If it's a good change
presumably that individual will

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have more children and so
there's more copies of that

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genome in the next generation
and so on.

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You know the basic story of
evolution.

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Culture evolution ca be the
same;

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people change culture on the
basis of fads and who knows

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what.

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We've had a lot of evidence
that even the great reduction in

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fertility that we've seen all
over the world,

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has a lot of aspects of a fad.

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That once a small group adopts
it everybody looks around and

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likes the idea and fertility
drops like a stone,

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way before and rather
independently of economic

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changes,
and educational changes,

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and urbanization changes and a
lot of the lectures have shown

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that.

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That something is adopted,
for maybe unclear reasons,

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by a small group,
people like it,

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it's like the kind of clothes
that you wear or something,

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there's no rationality to it,
but if it works it gets

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embedded in the culture.

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No, I don't think there's any
evidence that any of these

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practices were put into place
for the purpose that we now

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impute to them,
but they're practices that

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worked for that culture within
the rest of their ecological and

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cultural context,
and so it persisted.

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That's a very important--it's a
good question,

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it's a very important way of
thinking about culture.

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That it evolves very much in
the same way that biological

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things evolve,
and it's a decent introduction

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to what I want to say today.

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One of the strong aspects of
culture is family.

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In Chinese cultures,
as in many others,

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it's really the very center of
Chinese culture;

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the family and their
responsibilities to each other.

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We talked, and I'll go back
over it a little bit,

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about how loosely bound the
families in Europe were.

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I'll refer to this later.

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In China, families are much
more tightly bound.

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It's a much more functional
unit.

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This binding was ordered by
Confucian doctrine for a long

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time in China.

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That is, women had to give
absolute deference to men;

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children had to give absolute
deference to parents and elders,

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for instance.

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The relationship between
parents and children are

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extremely important and in China
children did not leave the home.

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In Europe, remember I described
to you that at age seven,

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Charles Dickens goes out and
works and people are sent out to

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do service in different places
or would be apprentices.

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Of course everything happened
in China, but the most usual

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thing was that the children were
kept at home and worked on the

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family land.

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The parents chose a spouse for
the child,

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again in Europe,
people went out and had what

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they called morganatic
marriages,

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marriages presumably for love,
but the parents were not

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involved in the marriage.

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In China, after marriage,
the son remained living in his

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parent's compound and the
daughter-in-law moved in with

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them;
very, very standard kind of

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situation.

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There was no separate economic
unit for the married children.

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As long as the father lived he
controlled the assets of all the

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family,
the children did not have

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independent stuff and money that
they owned,

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it was all under the control of
the father,

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and in old age it was the
children and not the community

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who were responsible for support
of the parents.

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That was part of the
tit-for-tat;

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again in the culture this is
very closely arranged.

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The parents have
responsibilities toward the

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children;
the children have

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responsibilities toward the
parents.

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The parents support the
children when they're young,

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provide land for them,
when they inherit the land,

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but in return the children must
support the parents in old age.

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Living in the family of your
parents is a very conservative

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effect because the older
generation gets to dictate the

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customs and mores and the
behavior of the younger

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generation,
and older generations are by

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definition conservative because
they were brought up in an older

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version of things,
and there may be modern things

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going on but they don't
generally accept them.

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With respect to fertility,
with respect to son preference,

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a boy who may be 17 marries a
girl who may be 13,

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14,15--and the boy is under the
thumb of his mother and the girl

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moves into the house and she's
only 13 and she's under the

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thumb of everybody,
and the mother insists that she

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get pregnant right away and have
a boy.

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She describes it as:
'for my son's benefit.'

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The cultural thing is,
she's doing it so that my son

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will pass on the family name.

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It's good for my son.

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But, the son probably doesn't
want it as times modernize.

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He wants to enjoy his life and
enjoy his wife and so forth,

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but they have little power,
the son and the daughter-in-law

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have little power.

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It's the grandparents that have
the cultural power in the family

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so it's a very conservative
factor in cultures and

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especially in matters of
reproduction.

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In return, as I mentioned,
for children giving up autonomy

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which they give up,
the children are very much

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under control of their parents,
and for living in this absolute

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deference.

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Fathers, in a lot of China,
at different times in history

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had the right to kill a child if
the child was disobedient.

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That was not against the law.

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In return for this,
they had to support the

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children of all ages,
find spouses,

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and ensure resources for the
next generation and the essence,

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in a sense, is really the only
resource that peasants generally

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have is some land,
that meant giving the children

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land for the next generation.

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In England especially,
and in a lot of the rest of

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Europe,
they practiced primogeniture,

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that only the oldest son got
the land,

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and so the holdings,
whatever amount of land the

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parents had was kept together.

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The Chinese did not practice
primogeniture.

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We're talking about a lot of
places over a long time so I'm

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sure there were some places
where it happened,

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but in general,
they did not practice

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primogeniture.

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On the death of the father,
the family land would be

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divided up among however many
sons that there were.

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This had the good benefit that
no one was forced,

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and one of the cultural reasons
for it,

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that with land you could start
a family,

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you could have children,
you could have sons,

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so no one would be forced into
the situation which was

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unbearable in traditional
Chinese culture of not having a

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son.

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You had to have son,
in order to have a son you had

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to have a wife.

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In order to have a wife you had
to have means of supporting her

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a little bit,
so the family had to give you

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land.

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This factor,
the lack of--the division of

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family land in China had
tremendous impact on the whole

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economic situation of China;
of course, as population grew,

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that guaranteed that the plots
of land would get smaller and

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smaller, and smaller right down
to the subsistence level.

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And the Chinese were very well
aware of this.

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A common Chinese saying,
which summarized this

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phenomenon says,
"fortunes seldom continue

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considerable in the same family
beyond the third

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generation."

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If you're Chinese and say that,
we have similar sayings in the

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western world,
but they're very different

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meanings.

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In China what it means,
if you have a fortune,

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if you're rich,
you'll be able to keep more of

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your children alive including
the sons.

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If you have more sons you have
to divide your land into more

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small pieces and you go right
back to the poverty level.

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When we say things like that in
the West, it means the first

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generation works very hard,
is honorable in a sense,

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makes money.

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The second generation have seen
their parents work,

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retains some of that work
ethic, but the children,

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the grandchildren grow up rich
and they're rotters and they

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don't work very hard.

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The same cultural impression
works in both cultures that

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riches don't last very long in
generations,

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but one is due to the scarcity
of the division of land and one

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is due to the personality of the
individual.

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Malthus knew about this saying,
the saying is so popular in

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China,
Malthus knew about this saying

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and wrote about it 200 years ago
and it's still common--

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that I read it as a Chinese
saying in The New York Times

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a few years ago.

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Again, this is in contrast to
the European situation where

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children left home early to work
in a succession of other

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households.

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They chose their own spouses,
very interestingly,

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as evidence of this kind of
dissolution that in most of the

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world we have these tight
families when someone gets

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married there's some record of
it,

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there's some registry,
a personal family record kept

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as a family treasure or some
governmental or village,

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or religious record,
and in all these countries with

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tight marriages there's a long
list of relatives that have

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witnessed the weddings and say
yes this is true.

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Not in England,
the list--it's--the two people

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go to church,
or a priest,

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or a minister marries them and
that's it.

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The family can be involved but
need to have nothing to do with

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it and legally doesn't have
anything to do with it.

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After marriage,
unless they are the

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primogeniture son that is
inheriting the father's

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household,
they go and set up their own

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household somewhere else and
live separately.

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As soon as they get married
they're economically independent

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of their parents.

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In one data set,
in 75% of cases in northwest

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Europe,
children didn't even live in

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the same village where their
parents lived,

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so it wasn't like they were
really close but they moved

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away.

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Now again, in cultures all
these--a lot of things have to

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fit together so the system of
independence,

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the European system,
could only occur if some

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provision is made for support of
the elderly.

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In China the young--the
children have the responsibility

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to take care of the elderly and
this has to happen,

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all elderly need to be taken
care of,

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and the culture would never
evolve successfully if there

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wasn't some way of European
oldsters getting some sort of

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support.

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Interestingly,
in Europe it was not the

13:42.155 --> 13:45.965
children who were responsible
for support of the elderly,

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but the community had that
responsibility.

13:49.100 --> 13:54.930
From 1598, Parliament--and
that's a long time ago 1598,

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Parliament required overseers
of the poor to be appointed

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every year in every parish in
the country;

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every parish was responsible
for its own poor,

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which was mostly elderly.

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They not only had the duty to
support anybody that came and

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asked for it who was indeed
poor, they had to go out and

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identify the poor.

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They had to--the poor that were
too helpless,

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or too ignorant,
or didn't know,

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they had the responsibility to
go out and identify the poor.

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We have a lot of argumentation
in America,

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especially about our current
welfare state,

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how much effort should the
welfare agencies do to pull in

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clients for their services,
to advertise their services.

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Well, 1598 England faced of
course the same issue and the

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Parliament then decided that no,
the responsibility of the

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community was to go out and
identify and find people who

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needed help.

14:53.940 --> 15:00.100
These overseers were empowered
to levy taxes sufficient to pay

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for this.

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The law was very clear that the
primary responsibility for

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providing relief lay with the
parish;

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that was what happened.

15:09.440 --> 15:13.140
There was no direct obligation
recognized between the child and

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the parent.

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A parent could not go and sue
his children for support.

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There was a back door,
a little loophole that once the

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parish discharged its
responsibility in supporting the

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poor,
than the parish could go and

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sue the child to reimburse the
parish for its expenses,

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so it wasn't totally that the
children got off the hook.

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That was when the children
lived in a different village and

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this was all very localized,
it was a very hard thing to

15:42.503 --> 15:44.573
enforce,
and basically it was the

15:44.572 --> 15:46.882
community that had this
responsibility.

15:46.879 --> 15:49.639
Colonial America picked up that
same pattern,

15:49.639 --> 15:53.089
and there are really quite
horrible stories of pregnant

15:53.085 --> 15:55.045
women,
who either got pregnant out of

15:55.049 --> 15:56.719
wedlock or whose husband had
died,

15:56.720 --> 15:58.540
or had gone off to a war or
something,

15:58.538 --> 16:01.818
sort of being chased from
village to village while they

16:01.816 --> 16:05.516
were pregnant and ready to give
birth because the village knew

16:05.517 --> 16:09.037
that if that child was born in
that village they would ever

16:09.035 --> 16:12.915
after have to do poor relief for
the mother and the child.

16:12.918 --> 16:19.178
There's some really unpleasant
stories from Colonial America.

16:19.178 --> 16:20.798
Well so you have two different
patterns,

16:20.798 --> 16:24.988
a Chinese, and of course it's
not limited to China,

16:24.990 --> 16:27.860
where the children are under
the thumb of the grandparents,

16:27.860 --> 16:31.700
especially the grandmother in
reproductive matters and so

16:31.700 --> 16:34.170
behavior is not terribly
flexible.

16:34.168 --> 16:36.608
It's whatever the older
generation believed.

16:36.610 --> 16:40.570
Whereas in Europe,
children go out and form their

16:40.567 --> 16:45.267
own households and they can
respond more easily to changes

16:45.265 --> 16:47.075
in cultural norms.

16:47.080 --> 16:51.050


16:51.048 --> 16:52.968
The younger boys,
it's quite interesting,

16:52.970 --> 16:57.500
while one of the results of
primogeniture is that you keep

16:57.496 --> 17:00.876
the plots together so that,
in the peasantry,

17:00.878 --> 17:04.578
you don't have this enormous
class of terribly poor peasants,

17:04.578 --> 17:09.298
the peasants retain a
reasonable amount of land.

17:09.298 --> 17:14.218
But all the rest of the sons go
off to the cities and they get

17:14.223 --> 17:16.003
forced off the land.

17:16.000 --> 17:20.320
Demographically they usually
don't require the resources to

17:20.321 --> 17:24.051
get married because in the
cities it's very hard to

17:24.048 --> 17:26.208
accumulate the resources.

17:26.210 --> 17:29.260
They never get married,
they never have children,

17:29.259 --> 17:33.229
as I mentioned before the death
rates in the cities were so

17:33.229 --> 17:37.539
incredibly high that about every
generation about a third of the

17:37.539 --> 17:41.709
city people died and had to be
replaced by new immigrants from

17:41.713 --> 17:43.223
the countryside.

17:43.220 --> 17:47.180
Still, there was quite a large
population of unemployed or

17:47.180 --> 17:49.890
barely employed people in the
cities.

17:49.890 --> 17:51.620
What did they do?

17:51.618 --> 17:53.798
They joined armies,
that's one of the big

17:53.798 --> 17:57.118
employers--especially of men,
big armies--require manpower.

17:57.118 --> 18:01.668
Some historians believe that
the aggressiveness of Europe,

18:01.670 --> 18:04.250
all the constant wars that
Europe was in during this period

18:04.247 --> 18:07.157
and the colonial expansion,
were due to all these young men

18:07.163 --> 18:09.823
in the army and they had to do
something with them.

18:09.819 --> 18:13.539
Or reverse, they were available;
all these young men were

18:13.536 --> 18:17.216
available for the army and so
they were employed to do

18:17.215 --> 18:20.475
whatever the rulers believed
they should do.

18:20.480 --> 18:25.190
They also tried to make a
living in the city and did a lot

18:25.185 --> 18:29.165
of apprenticeship,
and they would start a small

18:29.174 --> 18:31.194
trade,
or some hand manufacturing

18:31.194 --> 18:33.484
operation,
and again some historians

18:33.476 --> 18:37.356
believe that this excess of
males in the city trying to cope

18:37.359 --> 18:42.209
on their own--
formed one of the basis for the

18:42.211 --> 18:44.981
industrial revolution.

18:44.980 --> 18:47.790
The two systems were
really--the European and Chinese

18:47.785 --> 18:50.855
were sort of diametrically
opposite and the Chinese system

18:50.859 --> 18:53.719
was in a sense much kinder
because no one would--

18:53.720 --> 18:56.180
in Europe children were sort of
basically sacrificed,

18:56.180 --> 18:59.500
goodbye, have a good time in
life, we'll see you.

18:59.500 --> 19:01.870
Whereas, in China,
they were kept at home in the

19:01.871 --> 19:03.841
security of the family and its
land,

19:03.838 --> 19:07.278
which is both emotionally more
secure and economically more

19:07.277 --> 19:09.227
secure,
but very poor.

19:09.230 --> 19:16.370


19:16.368 --> 19:20.218
It looks like this very
practice, which is the center of

19:20.220 --> 19:23.030
Chinese culture,
the tightness of the family,

19:23.031 --> 19:27.121
with respect for elders,
lack of adolescent rebellion,

19:27.115 --> 19:29.115
etc.,
all the good characteristic

19:29.124 --> 19:33.394
things that go along with that,
may also be one of the reasons

19:33.390 --> 19:38.000
why China suffered the
Malthusian misery situation for

19:38.001 --> 19:38.961
so long.

19:38.960 --> 19:42.470
The land parcels on which
people tried to survive were

19:42.474 --> 19:46.394
just so tiny that they were up
against an absolute limit.

19:46.390 --> 19:50.500


19:50.500 --> 19:56.270
All right, we can see in the
statistics, the result of this

19:56.266 --> 19:59.146
keeping people on the land.

19:59.150 --> 20:04.240
China, basically as observed by
Chinese and by everyone else,

20:04.241 --> 20:08.831
became what was called a vast
sea of impoverished rural

20:08.826 --> 20:09.926
peasants.

20:09.930 --> 20:14.090
As late as 1900,94% of Chinese
lived in villages,

20:14.088 --> 20:16.948
meaning they were agricultural.

20:16.950 --> 20:20.720
In contrast,
in England 100 years earlier in

20:20.723 --> 20:25.293
1800, the agricultural
population was down to 37%.

20:25.288 --> 20:30.538
So, China was way more than 100
years behind England,

20:30.540 --> 20:36.400
at least in urbanizing and
industrializing and so forth.

20:36.400 --> 20:38.640
Without enough land,
nonetheless,

20:38.642 --> 20:42.502
when the plots got so small
that people really could not

20:42.498 --> 20:45.338
survive on them,
of course even in China they

20:45.343 --> 20:48.333
had to leave the land,
and you got a class of landless

20:48.327 --> 20:50.957
laborers,
as there really was everywhere.

20:50.960 --> 20:55.520
But the conditions which they
left in Europe--

20:55.519 --> 20:58.879
The poverty on the farms was so
much worse than,

20:58.880 --> 21:03.100
say in Europe,
that when they moved to the

21:03.095 --> 21:07.305
cities it was even a step
further down.

21:07.309 --> 21:10.079
This is really disastrous.

21:10.078 --> 21:14.818
In the 1930s both Americans and
Mao,

21:14.818 --> 21:18.248
Mao did some of his earliest
scholarly work investigating

21:18.249 --> 21:20.759
conditions of the rural poor in
China,

21:20.759 --> 21:27.239
and so there's a fair amount of
data that in the 1930s wages

21:27.242 --> 21:33.132
that to be paid for a laborer,
what you paid a man to work for

21:33.126 --> 21:35.686
a day,
was the same as it cost you to

21:35.686 --> 21:37.596
provide fodder for a donkey.

21:37.598 --> 21:41.148
The cost per day of a donkey
and a human were the same,

21:41.154 --> 21:43.134
it was such absolute misery.

21:43.130 --> 21:46.760
Which did people prefer to hire?

21:46.759 --> 21:49.079
Buy a donkey or hire a human?

21:49.079 --> 21:51.989
Same cost per day--what?

21:51.990 --> 21:54.570
Student:  Depends on
what you have to do.

21:54.568 --> 21:56.758
Prof: Okay,
all the things that donkeys or

21:56.756 --> 21:58.436
humans can do,
but donkeys especially,

21:58.441 --> 21:59.581
what can a donkey do?

21:59.579 --> 22:00.509
It carries things.

22:00.509 --> 22:03.119
It turns out that they
preferred to hire the human.

22:03.119 --> 22:04.239
Why?

22:04.240 --> 22:07.290
Because if you have a donkey,
you have to feed him every day,

22:07.288 --> 22:09.218
even when the donkey is not
working.

22:09.220 --> 22:11.520
If you have a human,
you pay him for that day,

22:11.519 --> 22:14.799
essentially subsistence wages,
just enough food to keep going

22:14.799 --> 22:17.369
which is more or less the same
as the donkey.

22:17.368 --> 22:21.708
And when you don't need them,
when the harvest is gone,

22:21.711 --> 22:25.171
or you don't have anything to
carry, bye.

22:25.170 --> 22:28.350
That's what you see in the
Chinese cities of all this time

22:28.346 --> 22:30.966
that there was very little
mechanized transport,

22:30.965 --> 22:33.135
everything was carried by
rickshaw;

22:33.140 --> 22:36.570
rickshaw is a seat but human
laborers were carrying all the

22:36.568 --> 22:39.228
goods around the cities and
between cities.

22:39.230 --> 22:43.660
On the farms also,
labor was so cheap and there

22:43.663 --> 22:50.103
were so many humans per land,
that there was no economic

22:50.097 --> 22:56.407
incentive to get animals to do
your heavy labor.

22:56.410 --> 22:59.260
So, there was an absence of
draft animals in China,

22:59.257 --> 23:02.667
an amazing difference between
Europe and China is the absence

23:02.673 --> 23:03.873
of draft animals.

23:03.868 --> 23:06.958
It's very interesting,
draft animals not only provide

23:06.961 --> 23:09.821
you pulling labor,
but they provide manure,

23:09.815 --> 23:12.955
and Europe had plenty of manure
from all the--

23:12.960 --> 23:13.940
they had a lot of animals.

23:13.940 --> 23:16.430
The Chinese then had to go to
human manure.

23:16.430 --> 23:21.280
The whole industry of spreading
the human manure,

23:21.278 --> 23:27.038
night soil as they call it,
on the fields is due to a lack

23:27.038 --> 23:29.158
of draft animals.

23:29.160 --> 23:36.760
This continued as late as the
1970s, some parts of China were

23:36.763 --> 23:41.583
still too poor to have farm
animals.

23:41.578 --> 23:44.428
You didn't get mechanized
farming, you didn't get any of

23:44.426 --> 23:47.216
the--
labor was so cheap they didn't

23:47.218 --> 23:52.078
get any of the mechanization of
either motorized transport in

23:52.076 --> 23:56.526
cities or agricultural machinery
in the countryside.

23:56.529 --> 24:01.459


24:01.460 --> 24:06.580
This kind of--people coming
down to a very,

24:06.578 --> 24:09.128
very--because the land got so
crowded,

24:09.130 --> 24:13.700
people coming down to a very,
very poor state of existence

24:13.701 --> 24:16.831
was really a great weakness of
China.

24:16.828 --> 24:20.048
While, at the top,
the Emperor and the court were

24:20.048 --> 24:23.338
fabulously wealthy,
that was based on the backs of

24:23.335 --> 24:26.215
a mass of really,
really poor peasants.

24:26.220 --> 24:32.570
When Europe developed good
shipping and modern arms--

24:32.568 --> 24:36.358
was starting to develop modern
armaments they were able to

24:36.357 --> 24:40.347
thrust their power all the way
from Europe around most of the

24:40.345 --> 24:41.005
world.

24:41.009 --> 24:44.219
It's not very easy to get by
sailing ship from Europe to

24:44.223 --> 24:47.603
China,
but by the early 1800s Europe

24:47.599 --> 24:53.399
could project enough military
power into China to defeat the

24:53.400 --> 24:55.170
Chinese armies.

24:55.170 --> 24:57.650
As I mentioned last time,
the British were,

24:57.652 --> 25:00.252
by that time,
having a terrible trade deficit

25:00.252 --> 25:01.142
with China.

25:01.140 --> 25:04.090
The British were addicted to
tea, and they were losing all

25:04.086 --> 25:06.926
their money and the tea
addiction would have choked--

25:06.930 --> 25:10.850
the ledgers are very clear
how--England was just basically

25:10.853 --> 25:15.053
losing all its money and if they
didn't restore the balance of

25:15.051 --> 25:17.391
trade,
Europe would be bankrupt and

25:17.386 --> 25:20.256
that would have cut off the
industrial revolution.

25:20.259 --> 25:23.549
The money that could have
fueled the industrial revolution

25:23.546 --> 25:26.886
was in fact going to China to
feed a caffeine addiction.

25:26.890 --> 25:29.580
It was really a massive,
massive effect and so the

25:29.577 --> 25:32.097
British started importing opium
into China,

25:32.098 --> 25:35.348
from India, in an attempt to
reverse the balance of trade,

25:35.345 --> 25:36.195
which it did.

25:36.200 --> 25:38.820
I mentioned this,
the Chinese put down their foot

25:38.824 --> 25:42.274
and said 'no you can't addict my
people,' the British cried free

25:42.268 --> 25:44.968
trade,
invaded China in the first and

25:44.970 --> 25:46.510
the second opium war.

25:46.509 --> 25:51.359
By about 1840 it was clear that
China was a paper tiger

25:51.361 --> 25:52.531
militarily.

25:52.529 --> 25:56.519
Though they really had a vast
number of people in a very

25:56.518 --> 26:00.068
strong autocratic state,
they could not respond to

26:00.070 --> 26:02.030
Western military power.

26:02.028 --> 26:04.548
Once kicked out--for a short
interim there,

26:04.548 --> 26:07.548
before the opium war,
the Chinese were able to kick

26:07.548 --> 26:09.228
the opium smugglers out.

26:09.230 --> 26:10.010
Where did they go?

26:10.009 --> 26:12.759
To a little rocky island off
the coast of South China,

26:12.762 --> 26:14.532
and now that's called Hong
Kong.

26:14.528 --> 26:19.698
It started as a smuggler's den,
and basically the big Jardine

26:19.695 --> 26:23.475
Matheson,
all the big British fortunes

26:23.480 --> 26:29.080
that stemmed from the China
trade were really opium trade,

26:29.084 --> 26:30.464
drug trade.

26:30.460 --> 26:33.230
The British started controlling
parts of China,

26:33.230 --> 26:35.670
then the Germans moved in,
the French moved in,

26:35.670 --> 26:38.880
and the Americans when--in the
periods when China's government

26:38.884 --> 26:41.894
had some power were very happy
to intermediate in the drug

26:41.890 --> 26:44.580
trade,
and help avoid certain

26:44.580 --> 26:48.420
restrictions on the Brits and so
forth.

26:48.420 --> 26:51.950
Then the Japanese got
modernized in the early 1900s

26:51.945 --> 26:56.525
and they invaded China,
and the end result of this,

26:56.529 --> 27:02.129
is that from the first opium
war for 115 years China was

27:02.132 --> 27:08.352
basically at the mercy of the
European imperial powers and the

27:08.345 --> 27:11.905
Japanese newly imperial state.

27:11.910 --> 27:14.660
The final chapter on that,
of course,

27:14.660 --> 27:17.480
is World War II where the
Japanese invaded and were

27:17.479 --> 27:19.509
incredibly brutal to the
Chinese,

27:19.509 --> 27:23.349
and I read you sometime back,
a story about the Rape of

27:23.347 --> 27:25.797
Nanking,
and then after that there was

27:25.798 --> 27:29.078
the battle between the
communists and the nationalists,

27:29.079 --> 27:32.949
won by the communists;
a very, very vicious civil war.

27:32.950 --> 27:40.190
Basically China was devastated
by this 115 years of dissolution

27:40.192 --> 27:46.732
of the government and being
taken advantage of by foreign

27:46.733 --> 27:48.023
powers.

27:48.019 --> 27:51.549
The scarcity of land,
just as a sort of footnote to

27:51.548 --> 27:54.578
that history,
the scarcity of land remains a

27:54.583 --> 27:56.563
major problem for China.

27:56.558 --> 27:59.548
Especially the dry and hilly
land, you may remember last time

27:59.545 --> 28:02.125
I told you that as American
foods came in and farming

28:02.133 --> 28:05.093
increased,
that people learned that they

28:05.094 --> 28:08.534
could grow food on hilly land
and dry land,

28:08.528 --> 28:12.498
and so the population expanded
into this marginal land.

28:12.500 --> 28:16.240
February, the end of February
this year,

28:16.240 --> 28:19.440
just a month ago,
there was a story in The

28:19.436 --> 28:23.506
Times. China's now going
through the worst drought in

28:23.506 --> 28:26.316
half a century,
which also means that they go

28:26.321 --> 28:29.301
through this every half century,
so it's not really an

28:29.299 --> 28:31.009
incredibly unusual thing.

28:31.009 --> 28:34.669
In the wheat band,
a farmer's land is 1/3 of an

28:34.672 --> 28:36.852
acre,
and remember I told you the

28:36.854 --> 28:39.834
average plot farm size was only
1/10th of an acre,

28:39.829 --> 28:40.849
so this guy is rich.

28:40.848 --> 28:43.128
He's got 1/3 of an acre,
three times as much.

28:43.130 --> 28:44.920
Why does he have so much?

28:44.920 --> 28:48.990
Because it's carved out of a
rocky hillside in a dry region.

28:48.990 --> 28:52.110
You can't survive on a 1/10th
of an acre there,

28:52.113 --> 28:54.153
you need 3/10ths of an acre.

28:54.150 --> 28:56.200
The aquifers have been so
depleted that,

28:56.199 --> 28:58.929
in some farming regions,
wells have to go down a half

28:58.931 --> 29:01.871
mile before striking water;
all the water that's less

29:01.872 --> 29:03.922
further down has already been
used up.

29:03.920 --> 29:05.950
They're going through this
drought.

29:05.950 --> 29:07.360
These people,
in good times,

29:07.355 --> 29:08.755
live on a 1/3 of an acre.

29:08.759 --> 29:10.329
On a hilly, rocky,
dry hillside,

29:10.334 --> 29:12.014
you're not going to make a lot.

29:12.009 --> 29:15.189
And now, with the economic
collapse in the world,

29:15.190 --> 29:19.910
there's millions of migrant
workers coming back onto the

29:19.906 --> 29:21.986
farms--
the countryside and they're

29:21.991 --> 29:25.111
going to have to now,
somehow, be supported on this

29:25.106 --> 29:27.146
very,
very poor agriculture.

29:27.150 --> 29:31.180


29:31.180 --> 29:34.340
Finally, after the Korean War,
I may have forgotten to mention

29:34.337 --> 29:36.707
the Korean War,
where the--some elements of the

29:36.711 --> 29:39.131
United States said they were
going to invade China.

29:39.130 --> 29:42.590
This was the time when they
were threatening to bomb China

29:42.585 --> 29:44.035
back to the Stone Age.

29:44.039 --> 29:46.339
Do you know that expression?

29:46.338 --> 29:49.318
It was Senator William Knoland
from California who was the main

29:49.323 --> 29:51.733
advocate of bombing China back
to the Stone Age.

29:51.730 --> 29:55.860


29:55.858 --> 29:56.508
The U.S.

29:56.505 --> 30:01.265
did not invade China and China
fought them in North Korea;

30:01.269 --> 30:03.449
very, very nasty,
bloody situation.

30:03.450 --> 30:06.810


30:06.809 --> 30:09.189
They finally got this peace.

30:09.190 --> 30:12.580
The data seems to show that in
1952,

30:12.578 --> 30:16.098
which is at the end of the
Korean War,

30:16.098 --> 30:19.588
Chinese had a significantly
lower per capita income than

30:19.592 --> 30:23.152
they had at the end of the Sung
Dynasty in the thirteenth

30:23.147 --> 30:23.907
century.

30:23.910 --> 30:28.880
That there had been 700 years
with--600 or 700 years with no

30:28.883 --> 30:32.343
progress--real progress for the
people.

30:32.338 --> 30:34.408
It was a real Malthusian
situation where the population

30:34.407 --> 30:36.717
had grown up tremendously,
production had increased

30:36.720 --> 30:40.330
tremendously,
but the two equaled out and no

30:40.333 --> 30:41.673
net progress.

30:41.670 --> 30:44.610
There's the new communist
government which was very

30:44.609 --> 30:48.199
powerful and not hesitant about
using its power and being very

30:48.196 --> 30:49.076
autocratic.

30:49.078 --> 30:52.348
Right away they did a number of
very good things,

30:52.348 --> 30:54.818
they invested very heavily in
public health,

30:54.818 --> 30:58.718
and introduced the very basic
measures of hygiene,

30:58.720 --> 31:01.240
disease control and pest
control.

31:01.240 --> 31:02.320
It's a big thing.

31:02.318 --> 31:05.788
Loudspeakers--this period
loudspeakers everywhere in China

31:05.791 --> 31:08.661
were blaring to the people,
you didn't have any time to

31:08.663 --> 31:10.873
think because there were
loudspeakers everywhere at you.

31:10.868 --> 31:15.428
"Honorable elders please
do not spit on the ground."

31:15.430 --> 31:18.090
Any of--you Chinese have heard
this or stories of this?

31:18.089 --> 31:19.349
You have.

31:19.348 --> 31:22.398
There was a big campaign to
swat flies;

31:22.400 --> 31:26.380
the flies were spreading
disease from the feces which was

31:26.380 --> 31:28.020
not in--not flushed away in
toilets.

31:28.019 --> 31:30.769
So flies would step into the
feces and then step onto you.

31:30.769 --> 31:34.369
So the same thing,
swat a fly and they killed

31:34.365 --> 31:35.995
zillions of flies.

31:36.000 --> 31:39.830
The flies eventually did get
controlled in China and whether

31:39.832 --> 31:42.762
it was due to the swat--a-fly
campaign or not,

31:42.755 --> 31:43.855
I don't know.

31:43.858 --> 31:47.608
Due to these things,
by 1957, which,

31:47.608 --> 31:50.168
remember, we have a devastated
country where the government

31:50.173 --> 31:53.203
takes control in 1949,
in eight years the death rate

31:53.198 --> 31:55.248
went to half what it had been.

31:55.250 --> 31:58.820
That's an amazing,
amazing achievement.

31:58.818 --> 32:02.778
When you cut the death rate in
half, what happens?

32:02.779 --> 32:06.619
Population explosion;
so China had its most extreme

32:06.621 --> 32:10.321
population explosion after the
communists came to power.

32:10.318 --> 32:16.958
Now these are not ignorant
people.

32:16.960 --> 32:19.090
Were they worried about the
population explosion?

32:19.089 --> 32:21.519
The answer is: absolutely not.

32:21.519 --> 32:24.419
Marxist theory is very
pronatalist.

32:24.420 --> 32:27.540
Marx hated Malthus,
there's a long literature of

32:27.544 --> 32:30.604
communist, socialist invective
against Malthus,

32:30.603 --> 32:33.133
and they're really opposite
poles.

32:33.130 --> 32:37.540
Now it's sort of the right wing
and the extreme left thing that

32:37.535 --> 32:41.015
it opposes Malthus,
and liberals and moderates are

32:41.016 --> 32:43.286
more predisposed toward him.

32:43.288 --> 32:44.968
At any rate,
the Marxist theory

32:44.965 --> 32:46.415
is--basically says this.

32:46.420 --> 32:50.450
Look, in the capitalist
economy, the capitalist take

32:50.450 --> 32:52.540
workers,
they employ them in factories,

32:52.540 --> 32:56.010
and they make a surplus,
so the capitalist lives very

32:56.010 --> 32:57.820
well on the surplus.

32:57.818 --> 32:59.958
The socialist economy can do
just as well.

32:59.960 --> 33:03.640
It can employ the workers,
and they can make a surplus

33:03.644 --> 33:06.524
over them,
but instead of having big fat

33:06.517 --> 33:10.087
mansions and cigars,
the socialist government will

33:10.087 --> 33:13.527
reinvest the money for the good
of the people,

33:13.529 --> 33:16.309
so the more people the merrier.

33:16.308 --> 33:19.158
Marx--original Marxist doctrine
was very,

33:19.160 --> 33:22.690
very clear that since the
capitalist can exploit labor,

33:22.690 --> 33:28.210
so can the state and that will
move down to the benefit of the

33:28.205 --> 33:29.015
people.

33:29.019 --> 33:33.709
The way this was translated
from Marx into China,

33:33.710 --> 33:39.720
they call Malthusian's theory
something like 'ren kou lun,

33:39.720 --> 33:43.300
which means 'man mouth theory,'
which means that every man is

33:43.297 --> 33:47.297
born with a mouth,
i.e., he's a consumer and that

33:47.298 --> 33:49.038
splits up the pie.

33:49.038 --> 33:55.678
The Marxist translate their
theory as 'man hand theory,'

33:55.681 --> 34:03.411
that a man is born not only with
a mouth to consume but a hand to

34:03.410 --> 34:06.290
do work,
and the question is if

34:06.286 --> 34:09.846
the--that the socialist state
can employ the hands to produce

34:09.849 --> 34:13.649
more than the mouth require,
so they didn't buy,

34:13.650 --> 34:18.050
they were very in favor of high
population.

34:18.050 --> 34:20.790
In 1949, Mao,
becoming in charge of a very

34:20.786 --> 34:24.026
devastated country says,
"Revolution plus

34:24.030 --> 34:28.150
production will enable China to
feed and employ the large and

34:28.148 --> 34:30.068
growing population."

34:30.070 --> 34:34.980
No worry; until they got some
facts.

34:34.980 --> 34:38.370
In 1953 the country was stable
enough that they took their

34:38.371 --> 34:39.801
first national census.

34:39.800 --> 34:42.200
At that time,
they thought they had something

34:42.202 --> 34:45.642
like 426 million people and that
the number had not been growing

34:45.643 --> 34:49.033
in the century because of all
the civil and foreign wars,

34:49.030 --> 34:51.070
and natural calamities in China.

34:51.070 --> 34:52.710
It was a disaster,
so they thought,

34:52.706 --> 34:55.256
well, population can't grow
under those situations.

34:55.260 --> 35:00.000
Then they took a census and
they counted 600 million people,

35:00.001 --> 35:03.781
which was 50% more,
a third larger than they had

35:03.778 --> 35:06.108
expected that were there.

35:06.110 --> 35:10.620
The error, what they expected
to find and what they did find,

35:10.615 --> 35:12.635
was equal to the whole U.S.

35:12.643 --> 35:16.403
population at that time,
so it was a big shock.

35:16.400 --> 35:19.990
They finally responded
rationally, and immediately

35:19.990 --> 35:24.390
China passed the contraceptives
and induced abortion act,

35:24.389 --> 35:28.029
legalizing the importation and
sale of contraceptives and

35:28.034 --> 35:30.644
legalizing sterilization and
abortion.

35:30.639 --> 35:32.779
There was one small problem,
they didn't have any

35:32.784 --> 35:34.514
contraceptives,
they didn't have the

35:34.509 --> 35:37.209
manufacturing facilities,
so they legalized the

35:37.208 --> 35:39.638
importation of them and
imported--

35:39.639 --> 35:42.049
But, the Chinese had no foreign
currency at that time,

35:42.050 --> 35:44.820
it was way, way before any kind
of economic progress,

35:44.820 --> 35:50.050
and so they just didn't have it.

35:50.050 --> 35:53.200
The cities got--there was
always some money in the cities,

35:53.199 --> 35:57.749
so the cities got some of the
foreign contraceptives and--

35:57.750 --> 36:00.200
but in the countryside where
the vast,

36:00.199 --> 36:02.609
vast majority of the people
lived at the time and basically

36:02.612 --> 36:04.582
had no access,
and if they did have access

36:04.581 --> 36:06.731
they wouldn't have been able to
afford them,

36:06.730 --> 36:10.300
so the government policy was
basically meaningless.

36:10.300 --> 36:12.570
What was the government to do?

36:12.570 --> 36:16.320
In 1956 they realized that just
proclaiming something doesn't

36:16.322 --> 36:19.142
help, so they said,
well let's use traditional

36:19.135 --> 36:19.945
medicine.

36:19.949 --> 36:23.949


36:23.949 --> 36:29.389
They asked all the traditional
Chinese doctors what to do.

36:29.389 --> 36:32.479
You must have traditional ways
of contraception,

36:32.480 --> 36:35.110
of keeping women from having
children.

36:35.110 --> 36:41.460
One of these became very well
popularized--popularized in the

36:41.461 --> 36:42.311
press.

36:42.309 --> 36:45.699
On the third day following her
period,

36:45.699 --> 36:49.109
a woman should ingest 14 live
tadpoles,

36:49.110 --> 36:54.050
than ten the next day,
and then the woman would be

36:54.045 --> 36:57.565
assured sterility for five
years.

36:57.570 --> 37:01.610
If the woman did this twice,
then traditional medicine said

37:01.612 --> 37:04.822
that the woman would be
permanently sterile.

37:04.820 --> 37:07.130
It's not totally clear whether
this was the policy that the

37:07.126 --> 37:08.356
government was really behind.

37:08.360 --> 37:10.250
This was the procedure that the
government was doing,

37:10.250 --> 37:13.520
but the press picked up and it
was a very big press thing in

37:13.521 --> 37:17.381
China,
and it was very much followed

37:17.380 --> 37:19.120
by the people.

37:19.119 --> 37:22.719
The very small ecological
movement in China really got

37:22.715 --> 37:26.575
worried that in China--that
frogs would go extinct because

37:26.583 --> 37:29.233
people are eating all the
tadpoles.

37:29.230 --> 37:32.310
Finally the Chinese Academy of
Science took it up,

37:32.309 --> 37:34.549
got the statistics,
did some experiments,

37:34.550 --> 37:36.620
I don't know exactly what they
did but they said,

37:36.619 --> 37:38.679
no this doesn't work.

37:38.679 --> 37:42.829
Go back to drawing board,
what are we going to do.

37:42.829 --> 37:45.949
So, the next round 1957/1958
was to use acupuncture as a

37:45.951 --> 37:46.861
contraceptive.

37:46.860 --> 37:49.600
Remember acupuncture in China
has never been used for the

37:49.603 --> 37:51.763
kinds of things that it is used
for here,

37:51.760 --> 37:54.420
and there's no evidence of any
effect from this for anything

37:54.420 --> 37:56.990
except the spread of hepatitis
because the needles weren't

37:56.992 --> 37:57.672
sterilized.

37:57.670 --> 37:59.990
You can see that throughout
Asia.

37:59.989 --> 38:03.189
I may have mentioned this in a
previous lecture,

38:03.188 --> 38:06.318
so they said OK let's try it
for contraception,

38:06.320 --> 38:10.200
and of course that didn't work
any better whatsoever.

38:10.199 --> 38:14.519


38:14.518 --> 38:16.498
Politically,
the government,

38:16.501 --> 38:20.691
again it was a very new thing
and the traditional Marxists

38:20.686 --> 38:24.646
were still opposed to family
planning that other,

38:24.650 --> 38:26.060
more modern aspects of the
government were in favor of,

38:26.059 --> 38:28.859
so the government was uncertain
and divided on this.

38:28.860 --> 38:32.510
But, in 1956 the Premier,
Zhou En-lai,

38:32.510 --> 38:36.040
at the time a very powerful
guy, urged limitations on

38:36.036 --> 38:40.106
childbirth and he was supported
by influential economists who

38:40.106 --> 38:43.766
were very much influenced by
Western ideas from Malthus

38:43.769 --> 38:46.969
onward,
Western ideas on population.

38:46.969 --> 38:51.169
The very next year--so in 1956
was when they started all this,

38:51.170 --> 38:53.380
really trying to push birth
control,

38:53.380 --> 38:56.540
the very next year there was
one of the Chinese purges.

38:56.539 --> 39:00.069
In 1957 they had the
campaign--what they called the

39:00.072 --> 39:03.372
anti-rightist campaign --
and people who were too

39:03.367 --> 39:06.287
influenced by Western ideas,
and Western economic ideas,

39:06.286 --> 39:08.986
remember Malthus was considered
the father of Western economics,

39:08.989 --> 39:16.989
were purged and with them went
the family planning campaign.

39:16.989 --> 39:21.509
In the end, the early back and
forthing on family planning came

39:21.507 --> 39:23.867
to no effect;
there were no methods,

39:23.867 --> 39:27.157
no trained family planning
personnel, and no facilities in

39:27.155 --> 39:29.745
rural areas, and no tradition of
anything.

39:29.750 --> 39:33.590
In 1958, the Party started
organizing communes,

39:33.588 --> 39:37.678
and you probably know a fair
amount about them.

39:37.679 --> 39:41.579
These were giant agricultural
enterprises with something like

39:41.576 --> 39:43.976
5,000 families in a single
commune.

39:43.980 --> 39:47.590
Commune meaning all the
production from all the farmland

39:47.594 --> 39:51.014
owned by 5,000 families was
pooled, and they produced

39:51.010 --> 39:53.640
together and they consumed
together.

39:53.639 --> 39:56.159
That particular summer,
for climatic reasons,

39:56.159 --> 39:58.469
the harvest turned out to be
excellent,

39:58.469 --> 40:02.019
and, as the data came in,
the leaders of communist China

40:02.016 --> 40:05.626
at the time decided that the
communes were the answer.

40:05.630 --> 40:07.860
"Look at how well we've
done under this commune

40:07.855 --> 40:08.505
system."

40:08.510 --> 40:11.150
And the cadres,
the lower down cadres who were

40:11.152 --> 40:15.032
going to be rewarded or punished
depending on their production,

40:15.030 --> 40:20.470
they of course inflated figures
wildly and they claimed that

40:20.469 --> 40:25.319
rural production had doubled,
had increased tenfold,

40:25.320 --> 40:27.480
or even scores of times.

40:27.480 --> 40:30.780
It was really--there was indeed
a good harvest,

40:30.778 --> 40:34.868
but then that got inflated
enormously due to the--shall we

40:34.867 --> 40:37.447
say, the weak political process.

40:37.449 --> 40:44.909
In 1958 after a couple of years
of trying this--

40:44.909 --> 40:48.909
officially pushing family
planning but without any real

40:48.909 --> 40:51.889
policy that worked,
and with getting rid of the

40:51.885 --> 40:53.675
rightists who were in favor of
it,

40:53.679 --> 40:55.729
in 1958 they reversed again.

40:55.730 --> 40:59.080
They went away from family
planning and they said the

40:59.081 --> 41:01.481
central--
the communist party's central

41:01.476 --> 41:05.136
committee said in 1958 that the
communes were so successful that

41:05.141 --> 41:08.341
'China no longer had to worry
about overpopulation'.

41:08.340 --> 41:11.410
To the contrary,
the forthcoming problem would

41:11.405 --> 41:14.805
be "not so much
overpopulation as the shortage

41:14.811 --> 41:16.311
of manpower."

41:16.309 --> 41:18.639
Basically what they got carried
away with,

41:18.639 --> 41:20.979
Jonathan Spence,
in his history of China,

41:20.980 --> 41:23.750
talks about this,
and says, "the vision of

41:23.750 --> 41:26.340
utopia was altogether
intoxicating".

41:26.340 --> 41:30.150
Whenever your view of the world
gets out of kilter with the

41:30.146 --> 41:33.016
reality,
disaster is right behind and

41:33.023 --> 41:37.563
the disaster is indeed not far
behind and that was the Great

41:37.559 --> 41:38.789
Leap Forward.

41:38.789 --> 41:41.749
The context of the Great Leap
Forward is that the U.S.,

41:41.753 --> 41:44.113
in particular,
had threatened China and been

41:44.114 --> 41:47.254
threatening China with nuclear,
basically annihilation,

41:47.248 --> 41:50.268
and Mao had answered with this:
'I have so many people if you

41:50.271 --> 41:52.641
kill a couple of hundred million
who cares';

41:52.639 --> 41:58.709
very brutal response and
counter response.

41:58.710 --> 42:01.180
The answer, Mao and everybody
in China knew,

42:01.181 --> 42:04.801
was to industrialize as fast as
they possibly can to catch up to

42:04.804 --> 42:06.534
America in military might.

42:06.530 --> 42:10.520
He decided that China was not
industrializing fast enough and

42:10.516 --> 42:13.836
had to catch up to the Western
level right away.

42:13.840 --> 42:17.630
He told--he ordered--the orders
went out from the central

42:17.630 --> 42:22.030
bureaucracy to put all of their
efforts into industrialization.

42:22.030 --> 42:24.300
Forget about farming,
we have plenty of food,

42:24.304 --> 42:26.434
the communes are producing
plenty of food,

42:26.425 --> 42:28.385
we don't have to worry about
that.

42:28.389 --> 42:33.419
In fact, in your backyard,
put iron smelters in,

42:33.416 --> 42:39.936
build little furnaces and smelt
your iron in your backyard.

42:39.940 --> 42:43.050
People didn't have any iron
ore, so what they did,

42:43.050 --> 42:45.580
they took their pots and pans,
put them into a smelter,

42:45.579 --> 42:47.799
then they took their farm
implements and put them into the

42:47.800 --> 42:48.190
smelter.

42:48.190 --> 42:50.590
If you're from China,
do you remember your parents or

42:50.588 --> 42:52.248
somebody talking about these
days?

42:52.250 --> 42:55.640
Again you do;
we don't have too many

42:55.639 --> 42:58.419
native-borns here,
but it was very,

42:58.420 --> 43:03.410
very big, the backyard iron and
it resulted in two things.

43:03.409 --> 43:06.579
One, when you destroy
agricultural implements your

43:06.577 --> 43:10.387
agriculture really does go to
hell and the iron that you can

43:10.391 --> 43:13.561
smelt in the backyard is not
very good iron,

43:13.559 --> 43:15.869
so it's not very--actually very
useful.

43:15.869 --> 43:19.649
The side result is that
agriculture production crashed,

43:19.650 --> 43:21.120
absolutely crashed.

43:21.119 --> 43:23.839
At the same time,
as part of the communes,

43:23.844 --> 43:27.704
the communal kitchens were
established where everyone could

43:27.699 --> 43:28.829
eat together.

43:28.829 --> 43:32.009
The purpose of--the original
purpose was twofold.

43:32.010 --> 43:35.310
One they wanted--Chinese work
very hard to modernize the

43:35.309 --> 43:37.139
country,
to build up the country,

43:37.141 --> 43:39.881
and each family going home for
lunch and dinner is a huge

43:39.876 --> 43:42.216
amount of labor involved in
preparing meals,

43:42.219 --> 43:45.189
especially with a fairly
primitive food cooking and

43:45.188 --> 43:47.468
gathering,
preparing technology.

43:47.469 --> 43:50.919
If you have a staff dedicated
for food and you make food for

43:50.922 --> 43:53.992
thousands of people,
it can be done very efficiently

43:53.987 --> 43:56.557
in terms of time,
it's economically a very

43:56.557 --> 43:58.137
efficient sort of thing.

43:58.139 --> 44:01.569
It also was a pro-feminist
measure that who had to do the

44:01.572 --> 44:03.352
work at home was the women.

44:03.349 --> 44:06.429
The women were working in the
fields, then the men could come

44:06.432 --> 44:08.752
home and relax,
but the women had to then take

44:08.746 --> 44:10.696
care of the children and the
food.

44:10.699 --> 44:14.069
It was both an economic
rationalization measure and it

44:14.072 --> 44:15.922
was a pro-feminist measure.

44:15.920 --> 44:19.780
The result was that consumption
soared.

44:19.780 --> 44:22.580
Traditionally,
like all poor people around the

44:22.577 --> 44:26.247
world, the Chinese were very
abstemious, every grain of rice

44:26.246 --> 44:26.926
counts.

44:26.929 --> 44:30.219
In a poor family,
if there's food available,

44:30.219 --> 44:33.379
you eat just exactly what you
need to stay alive,

44:33.380 --> 44:36.230
and you store away the rest for
the future,

44:36.230 --> 44:38.550
because the future is always
very uncertain.

44:38.550 --> 44:41.650
When you have a communal
kitchen, it doesn't do any good

44:41.646 --> 44:44.796
to not eat your fill because,
if you don't eat your fill,

44:44.800 --> 44:46.040
someone else will.

44:46.039 --> 44:48.779
There's no individual
accounting, no individual

44:48.777 --> 44:51.737
responsibility,
so everyone ate a lot and

44:51.737 --> 44:56.197
consumption soared at just the
time that production is going

44:56.195 --> 44:56.795
down.

44:56.800 --> 45:02.780
The concatenation of those two
things was the disaster.

45:02.780 --> 45:06.780
As the disaster unfolded,
China was sufficiently

45:06.777 --> 45:11.877
authoritarian at the time that
the cadres had to pass up good

45:11.882 --> 45:16.472
news to the higher levels,
so news of the disaster that

45:16.469 --> 45:20.719
was unfolding before the local
people's eyes was not passed up

45:20.717 --> 45:22.107
to higher levels.

45:22.110 --> 45:25.870
Apparently the higher levels
really believed that the--that

45:25.871 --> 45:29.441
agriculture was keeping up with
all this consumption.

45:29.440 --> 45:31.860
The higher levels only
received, and especially Mao,

45:31.862 --> 45:34.522
received only glowing reports
of production--agricultural

45:34.523 --> 45:36.143
production in the countryside.

45:36.139 --> 45:40.289
What happened was the great
famine of the great leap

45:40.286 --> 45:41.096
forward.

45:41.099 --> 45:45.789
Several hundred million people
became undernourished during

45:45.793 --> 45:48.953
this period, and then people
starved;

45:48.949 --> 45:52.289
source of undernourishment and
then people starved.

45:52.289 --> 45:55.689
Massive famines from 1959 to
1961;

45:55.690 --> 45:59.450
we don't know how many people
died in these famines.

45:59.449 --> 46:03.769
The estimates are 20,30,
40,50 million people dying of

46:03.771 --> 46:07.361
starvation, but what it was we
don't know.

46:07.360 --> 46:11.420
This is--let me show you the
other one first.

46:11.420 --> 46:14.740
This is an old--this is world
population and you can go back

46:14.744 --> 46:17.844
further, except for the
black--there's no other--you see

46:17.842 --> 46:18.972
that blip there?

46:18.969 --> 46:23.429
That's the Great Leap Forward
in China as part of world

46:23.427 --> 46:24.497
population.

46:24.500 --> 46:27.700
There is--if you carry world
population back further you

46:27.699 --> 46:30.839
don't see any blip like that
except the Black Death.

46:30.840 --> 46:34.440
All the other disasters are not
comparable to this.

46:34.440 --> 46:38.790
This shows sort of a Western
estimate going from something

46:38.786 --> 46:41.756
like loss of 30 or 40 million
people.

46:41.760 --> 46:46.340
The official Chinese statistics
show the death rate going from

46:46.338 --> 46:49.488
10 million to 25 million,
and you have to look at the

46:49.494 --> 46:52.624
area because there's one,
two, three years of it so

46:52.617 --> 46:57.167
they're estimating more like
maybe 25 million deaths,

46:57.170 --> 46:59.050
that's the official Chinese
statistics.

46:59.050 --> 47:04.200
Of course in that extreme
poverty, the birthrate just

47:04.199 --> 47:10.339
crashes and then recovers when
food becomes available again.

47:10.340 --> 47:14.760
So the moral of the story is
that the Chinese seem to

47:14.762 --> 47:18.762
have--in the early stages of the
commune system,

47:18.760 --> 47:22.760
the Chinese seem to have
eradicated famine.

47:22.760 --> 47:25.440
They had had 115 years of
miserable history,

47:25.436 --> 47:28.796
the Communists come in,
things get better very quickly,

47:28.797 --> 47:29.667
very fast.

47:29.670 --> 47:34.130
They decide they have the
answer, they decide they don't

47:34.128 --> 47:39.148
have to pay attention to basic
realities like population and so

47:39.154 --> 47:42.644
they get a very unreal view of
reality.

47:42.639 --> 47:45.689
Meanwhile, the country is
actually still walking on the

47:45.690 --> 47:48.330
edge of disaster,
before they were under the edge

47:48.331 --> 47:50.871
and falling off to disaster
before the revolution,

47:50.869 --> 47:52.759
after the revolution they were
still on the edge,

47:52.760 --> 47:54.010
but that wasn't realized.

47:54.010 --> 47:58.160
So it was stupidity,
a political mistake pushes them

47:58.157 --> 48:02.627
over the edge and you have this
huge amount of death.

48:02.630 --> 48:07.390
You should be aware that when
people talk about environmental

48:07.391 --> 48:11.601
limits what happens with
population and the world,

48:11.599 --> 48:14.549
that there are all kinds of
physical limits to the number of

48:14.550 --> 48:15.000
people.

48:15.000 --> 48:18.960
The most delicate thing that
humans make are their social and

48:18.960 --> 48:20.610
political arrangements.

48:20.610 --> 48:24.740
When things get very tight it's
almost always not an underlying

48:24.735 --> 48:27.725
fundamental resource problem or
something,

48:27.730 --> 48:30.690
it's peoples political response
to it,

48:30.690 --> 48:34.650
their interpersonal response to
it that goes out of whack and

48:34.646 --> 48:38.336
they start making massive
mistakes like this and then the

48:38.338 --> 48:39.788
world falls apart.

48:39.789 --> 48:43.719
It's the political and social
arrangements that people make

48:43.724 --> 48:47.534
with each other that are the
most delicate and population

48:47.525 --> 48:51.525
stress will usually have its
disaster effects through--

48:51.530 --> 48:55.360
acting through the political
and social arrangements.

48:55.360 --> 49:00.060


49:00.059 --> 49:02.859
Then the Chinese did not have
any rest after this.

49:02.860 --> 49:06.800
From the Great Leap Forward to
the 1960s -- in the early 1960s

49:06.800 --> 49:10.030
got transformed into the
Cultural Revolution of the

49:10.030 --> 49:12.420
mid-60s and there was more
chaos.

49:12.420 --> 49:16.070
After the great famine the
government learned its lesson

49:16.070 --> 49:19.790
and again tried to institute
birth control flip flop,

49:19.789 --> 49:24.019
flip flop, and again the method
was largely propaganda.

49:24.018 --> 49:28.018
The kind of propaganda this
time was aimed a lot at men and

49:28.019 --> 49:32.019
the kind of things that the
Chinese press were touting were

49:32.019 --> 49:35.199
men before the age of 25--
remember again it's a

49:35.204 --> 49:37.334
restriction on the young men
from sex--

49:37.329 --> 49:41.159
were described as if you have
sex "excessive dissipation

49:41.161 --> 49:44.771
of bodily fluids,
sexual neurasthenia,

49:44.768 --> 49:47.678
low spirits,
headaches,

49:47.679 --> 49:51.699
discomfort all over the body,
emaciation,

49:51.699 --> 49:54.089
dizziness, tension,
memory loss,

49:54.090 --> 49:58.220
premature old age,
mental and physical pain,

49:58.215 --> 50:00.315
and impotence."

50:00.320 --> 50:03.230
Now I've heard this from
students as their problems but

50:03.226 --> 50:05.646
they usually now attribute to
lack of sex,

50:05.650 --> 50:09.120
but the Chinese at that time
were attributing it to sex,

50:09.119 --> 50:12.809
so you take your chances.

50:12.809 --> 50:17.439
Nevertheless,
the situation in the cities was

50:17.436 --> 50:21.946
such that the conditions,
the housing scarcity,

50:21.952 --> 50:24.652
the poverty were such that
people,

50:24.650 --> 50:28.990
indeed in the cities,
did reduce their fertility and

50:28.992 --> 50:31.812
by 19--
somewhere in 1964 or 1966

50:31.807 --> 50:36.637
window, the urban fertility
dropped to a low of three births

50:36.643 --> 50:37.713
per woman.

50:37.710 --> 50:41.430


50:41.429 --> 50:46.099
By 1974, urban non-agricultural
women,

50:46.099 --> 50:51.029
their fertility was reduced to
replacement level,

50:51.030 --> 50:53.870
so, rather rapidly,
urban fertility came down and

50:53.867 --> 50:58.767
it's continued to come down,
and in 1980 it was 1.1;

50:58.769 --> 51:03.049
very low urban fertility.

51:03.050 --> 51:06.320
During the Cultural Revolution
it had remained very high

51:06.315 --> 51:09.695
because it was chaos and nobody
was watching the store.

51:09.699 --> 51:14.359
In 1970 it was 6.4 among rural
women,

51:14.360 --> 51:18.400
6.4 children which is basically
the traditional number from way,

51:18.400 --> 51:22.500
way back and so there was
basically no conscious fertility

51:22.498 --> 51:24.798
control among the rural women.

51:24.800 --> 51:31.180
By 1969 the population passed
800 million and in 1970,

51:31.179 --> 51:34.019
21% of births,
one out of five were first

51:34.018 --> 51:37.018
births,
17% almost the same were second

51:37.016 --> 51:40.666
births,
but 62% were third or higher

51:40.666 --> 51:44.926
order births in 1970,
so almost everyone was having

51:44.931 --> 51:46.431
three or more children.

51:46.429 --> 51:50.869
When political stability was
finally restored after the

51:50.869 --> 51:55.139
disruption of the Great Leap
Forward and the Cultural

51:55.143 --> 51:57.593
Revolution,
the government really

51:57.585 --> 52:00.115
introduced a serious,
vigorous family planning

52:00.121 --> 52:00.611
program.

52:00.610 --> 52:04.890
Starting in 1971 they
introduced the Wan,

52:04.891 --> 52:08.181
Xhi Shao;
later, longer, fewer.

52:08.179 --> 52:12.269
What they proposed was later
marriage, longer birth

52:12.266 --> 52:16.106
intervals, leading to fewer
children overall.

52:16.110 --> 52:19.890


52:19.889 --> 52:23.749
This was propagandized very
heavily but this is debatable,

52:23.751 --> 52:27.281
but there was generally
considered to be not an awful

52:27.275 --> 52:29.235
lot of coercion involved.

52:29.239 --> 52:33.319
It was more or less a voluntary
campaign.

52:33.320 --> 52:39.490
I want to show you one graph if
I can--okay here's a graph of

52:39.489 --> 52:45.349
the total fertility rate in
China and I have taken out the

52:45.351 --> 52:46.381
years.

52:46.380 --> 52:48.540
I'll show you the years in a
minute.

52:48.539 --> 52:50.789
When do you think--so you had
the Wan,

52:50.789 --> 52:54.299
Xi, Shao, the voluntary policy,
and then that lasted for about

52:54.304 --> 52:57.824
ten years and then you had the
one-child policy which was,

52:57.820 --> 53:00.440
at least in the beginning,
not very voluntary and you've

53:00.436 --> 53:01.336
heard about that?

53:01.340 --> 53:05.540
Where do you think the
one-child policy starts?

53:05.539 --> 53:07.499
Where in this graph?

53:07.500 --> 53:13.140
To show you the effectiveness
of political programs.

53:13.139 --> 53:14.589
No idea.

53:14.590 --> 53:16.910
Well it was--do you think the
one child policy was effective?

53:16.909 --> 53:18.579
Student:  Yes.

53:18.579 --> 53:21.669
Prof: Yes,
therefore you put it--

53:21.670 --> 53:23.670
Student:  I don't know
where I'd put it.

53:23.670 --> 53:24.730
Prof: Make a guess.

53:24.730 --> 53:30.080
I know you don't have--right
about there maybe.

53:30.079 --> 53:34.529
That's the Great Leap Forward
decline.

53:34.530 --> 53:37.980
The one-child policy starts
here, levels off,

53:37.980 --> 53:42.450
this decline,
taking about ten years was

53:42.451 --> 53:48.411
during the Wan Xi Shao period
during the more or less

53:48.411 --> 53:50.821
voluntary period.

53:50.820 --> 53:54.560
That the big drop in Chinese
fertility happens here and then

53:54.559 --> 53:58.049
they introduce the one-child
policy actually right about

53:58.045 --> 54:00.205
here,
well I'll just show you the

54:00.213 --> 54:01.013
actual dates.

54:01.010 --> 54:03.860
Here's 1980,
the one child policy is

54:03.860 --> 54:07.210
introduced here,
and immediately the fertility

54:07.206 --> 54:10.856
rises and then stabilizes and
I'll show you later eventually

54:10.860 --> 54:13.710
it does slow down for all kinds
of reasons.

54:13.710 --> 54:17.890
Let me go back,
the important thing to know is

54:17.887 --> 54:22.637
that it was the 19--
that the drop is 1970 to 1980,

54:22.641 --> 54:25.971
in this ten years,
the ten years before the

54:25.967 --> 54:30.297
one-child policy,
is when Chinese fertility

54:30.304 --> 54:34.324
really took this enormous drop.

54:34.320 --> 54:39.620
What happened was until the
1970s, as I've described,

54:39.619 --> 54:42.859
there were really no family
planning services in the vast

54:42.856 --> 54:46.316
rural areas and only limited
facilities in a few of the large

54:46.324 --> 54:46.964
cities.

54:46.960 --> 54:49.240
Starting in the 1970s,
as part of this policy,

54:49.237 --> 54:51.107
contraceptives were made
available;

54:51.110 --> 54:56.100
a huge amount of propaganda was
made to counteract any taboos.

54:56.099 --> 54:59.299
Peasant people have a lot of
taboos, and established late

54:59.297 --> 55:02.377
marriage and the small family as
the desirable norm.

55:02.380 --> 55:06.370


55:06.369 --> 55:10.789
This drop--we've seen drops
something like this fast since

55:10.789 --> 55:13.579
then, but this drop was,
at the time,

55:13.579 --> 55:16.759
just incredible to foreign
observers.

55:16.760 --> 55:20.520
That, in one decade,
to go down from six to half

55:20.518 --> 55:22.688
your--
more than half your fertility

55:22.692 --> 55:25.972
this is about 2.5 in one decade,
in a place so vast and so

55:25.974 --> 55:28.354
traditional as China was at that
time,

55:28.349 --> 55:29.959
just unbelievable.

55:29.960 --> 55:33.660
I mean it turned out to be true;
the Chinese statistics were

55:33.659 --> 55:35.609
indeed quite good on this.

55:35.610 --> 55:41.490
It shows what a family planning
program, in this case,

55:41.485 --> 55:46.915
introduced with the full effort
of the government,

55:46.916 --> 55:49.796
can really accomplish.

55:49.800 --> 55:53.570
Scholars said it's the most
extraordinary reduction in

55:53.568 --> 55:58.188
fertility in a large population
ever recorded in human history.

55:58.190 --> 56:02.310
In 1979 the results of the
second national census were

56:02.309 --> 56:06.969
released and it was clear that
the population was approaching

56:06.972 --> 56:08.762
one billion people.

56:08.760 --> 56:11.530
Now to us nowadays,
we're used to hearing China as

56:11.528 --> 56:13.618
having more than a billion
people,

56:13.619 --> 56:15.949
but back then,
the idea of a single country

56:15.947 --> 56:19.047
having a billion people was
absolutely mind boggling,

56:19.050 --> 56:23.390
and remember 1979 was way
before the Chinese economic

56:23.391 --> 56:26.741
miracle,
so these were a billion very

56:26.735 --> 56:30.545
poor people that were going to
be on earth.

56:30.550 --> 56:33.360
As the Chinese saw it,
very explicitly saw it,

56:33.360 --> 56:36.420
the population they had--they
had had very good economic

56:36.418 --> 56:38.198
gains,
nothing like the boom that

56:38.201 --> 56:41.131
happened later,
but they really had made good

56:41.134 --> 56:45.614
progress but they perceived that
population growth had eaten up

56:45.610 --> 56:47.200
all of their gains.

56:47.199 --> 56:51.109
For instance,
grain production increased an

56:51.114 --> 56:55.314
annual rate of 2.3% between 1957
and 1978,

56:55.309 --> 56:58.539
the year before the census,
but per capita consumption

56:58.539 --> 57:02.319
which had started extremely low
increased only 0.2% during this

57:02.320 --> 57:05.180
time,
so it's a very small--huge

57:05.175 --> 57:09.925
increase in production 2.3% per
year over a ten year--

57:09.929 --> 57:12.429
20 year period,
21 year period is very,

57:12.429 --> 57:15.769
very good but when your
population grows at nearly the

57:15.768 --> 57:19.738
same rate you end up with a very
tiny improvement in standard of

57:19.737 --> 57:20.427
living.

57:20.429 --> 57:24.479
Housing space increased by half
a billion square meters,

57:24.483 --> 57:27.433
on the home building,
a poor, small home,

57:27.432 --> 57:31.122
but something,
a half a billion square meters;

57:31.119 --> 57:32.529
a meter is like a square yard.

57:32.530 --> 57:37.320
Because--but the per capita
because the population grew,

57:37.315 --> 57:42.525
the per capita housing was down
from 4.5 square meters to 3.6

57:42.534 --> 57:44.454
meters per capita.

57:44.449 --> 57:49.249
Three meters is like 9 x 9 and
that was what the per capita

57:49.251 --> 57:53.841
housing;
down in this period of an

57:53.835 --> 57:56.685
improving economy.

57:56.690 --> 58:00.920
The arable land fell from a
quarter of an acre in 1949--from

58:00.922 --> 58:04.872
half an acre in 1949 to a
quarter of an acre in 1983 and

58:04.867 --> 58:07.017
it's gone down since then.

58:07.018 --> 58:09.828
Also, the government,
from the census,

58:09.829 --> 58:13.469
realized how young the
population was and a young

58:13.472 --> 58:16.892
population means,
what's going to happen?

58:16.889 --> 58:17.859
Student:  Speed.

58:17.860 --> 58:18.850
Prof: Momentum.

58:18.849 --> 58:22.199
There's so many more young
people coming into reproductive

58:22.195 --> 58:26.335
age than ones leaving it,
that you're going to have a lot

58:26.340 --> 58:29.810
more child bearers and they
realized this.

58:29.809 --> 58:34.769
From the 1982 census,
another census they took,

58:34.768 --> 58:38.308
the population period was 45
million women in their 40s

58:38.306 --> 58:43.296
leaving reproductive age,
60 million, 1/3 bigger in their

58:43.297 --> 58:46.167
30s,
80 million in their 20s,

58:46.166 --> 58:49.736
and 125 million women in their
teens.

58:49.739 --> 58:52.619
If the teens are coming--just
starting to come into

58:52.621 --> 58:55.791
reproductive ages that means
basically a tripling of the

58:55.791 --> 58:58.501
number of child bearing women
coming into--

58:58.500 --> 59:01.440
three times as many child
bearing women were coming into

59:01.440 --> 59:04.220
reproductive age as were leaving
reproductive age.

59:04.219 --> 59:09.689


59:09.690 --> 59:15.260
Even though they had achieved
this rather incredible fertility

59:15.255 --> 59:17.075
decline,
they realized that,

59:17.083 --> 59:20.523
because of the momentum,
their population would keep

59:20.518 --> 59:25.908
growing for decades yet and they
were really worried about it.

59:25.909 --> 59:29.949
At that time the TFR was
something 2.5 when they were

59:29.954 --> 59:32.294
deciding what to do with it.

59:32.289 --> 59:38.409
If you have--at this age
distribution at this time 2.5

59:38.407 --> 59:45.677
children per women and if three
times as many women are going to

59:45.677 --> 59:53.197
enter reproductive age,
what do you have to do to keep

59:53.204 --> 59:54.784
this down?

59:54.780 --> 59:56.540
You have to go--it's
mathematical--

59:56.539 --> 59:59.539
you have to have 1/3.-- When
you have three times as many

59:59.536 --> 1:00:02.526
women you have to have 1/3 the
number of births they were

1:00:02.532 --> 1:00:03.392
having here.

1:00:03.389 --> 1:00:06.469
Three times as many women to
keep the number of children the

1:00:06.465 --> 1:00:08.905
same, and you don't reduce the
number of babies,

1:00:08.914 --> 1:00:11.004
you have to reduce fertility by
1/3.

1:00:11.000 --> 1:00:14.390
So 2.5 divided by 3 is 0.8.

1:00:14.389 --> 1:00:17.919
So, the demographics of their
current fertility,

1:00:17.920 --> 1:00:21.410
a low fertility,
rate--2.5, their current low

1:00:21.409 --> 1:00:25.449
fertility rate but the tripling
of women coming into

1:00:25.454 --> 1:00:28.494
reproductive ages,
the mathematics tells you,

1:00:28.485 --> 1:00:31.065
you have to set--
you have to somehow get your

1:00:31.070 --> 1:00:32.820
fertility rate down to 0.8.

1:00:32.820 --> 1:00:36.600
They decided that was going to
be very difficult and they

1:00:36.603 --> 1:00:39.783
instituted the one-child policy
at that time.

1:00:39.780 --> 1:00:42.500
At the lowest their birth rate
had ever been in,

1:00:42.498 --> 1:00:45.218
probably forever,
in Chinese history was exactly

1:00:45.217 --> 1:00:48.397
the time that they introduced
the one-child policy.

1:00:48.400 --> 1:00:52.590
Years after implementation
there were--

1:00:52.590 --> 1:00:55.120
in 1986 which was six years,
seven years after

1:00:55.117 --> 1:00:57.837
implementation,
there's still a million more

1:00:57.842 --> 1:01:00.412
births than there were the year
earlier,

1:01:00.409 --> 1:01:03.249
the number of births kept
rising.

1:01:03.250 --> 1:01:07.910
The policy was not a success in
the extreme sense that the

1:01:07.907 --> 1:01:10.927
Chinese government wanted it to
be.

1:01:10.929 --> 1:01:15.249
They wanted to keep the
year--in the year 2000 they

1:01:15.253 --> 1:01:19.753
wanted to keep their population
under 1.2 billion.

1:01:19.750 --> 1:01:21.360
When they started this they
were approaching--

1:01:21.360 --> 1:01:24.860
they were like 800 billion and
they were desperately hoping to

1:01:24.862 --> 1:01:27.792
keep it under 1.2 billion and
they didn't do it,

1:01:27.789 --> 1:01:32.969
it was 1.3 billion.

1:01:32.969 --> 1:01:39.379
On paper the policy was quite
Draconian.

1:01:39.380 --> 1:01:42.820
In the 1982/1983 regulations
included each village would get

1:01:42.822 --> 1:01:46.152
a quota for the number of births
that year and the village

1:01:46.148 --> 1:01:49.298
leaders would have to ration
this out on the basis of a

1:01:49.300 --> 1:01:50.410
waiting list.

1:01:50.409 --> 1:01:54.179
Of course only couples with no
prior children could get on the

1:01:54.177 --> 1:01:54.607
list.

1:01:54.610 --> 1:01:58.460
They had a mandatory IUD
insertion for women who already

1:01:58.463 --> 1:02:02.673
had one child and if a woman had
an unauthorized pregnancy an

1:02:02.666 --> 1:02:05.676
abortion was supposed to be
mandatory,

1:02:05.679 --> 1:02:08.219
and you heard the story about
that.

1:02:08.219 --> 1:02:09.769
Although, you should note,
that again,

1:02:09.768 --> 1:02:13.308
it wasn't the government--the
abortion that Qing told you

1:02:13.311 --> 1:02:16.041
about had nothing to do--
in one sense had nothing

1:02:16.039 --> 1:02:17.699
immediately to do with the
government.

1:02:17.699 --> 1:02:20.799
She did the abortion way before
anybody knew about it,

1:02:20.800 --> 1:02:22.580
her co-workers didn't know
about it,

1:02:22.579 --> 1:02:23.799
her workplace didn't know about
it,

1:02:23.800 --> 1:02:25.190
government officials didn't
know about it,

1:02:25.190 --> 1:02:27.880
it was the suasion,
it was the effect from other

1:02:27.878 --> 1:02:29.658
people,
it was these village--these

1:02:29.663 --> 1:02:32.143
committees that would keep
visiting you and keep bugging

1:02:32.135 --> 1:02:35.265
you that caused her to say,
'okay I'm going to avoid all

1:02:35.273 --> 1:02:38.763
this pain and just have the
abortion right away,' so in a

1:02:38.762 --> 1:02:42.502
sense the government didn't have
to do anything about it.

1:02:42.500 --> 1:02:44.840
With respect to abortion,
the statistics are very

1:02:44.838 --> 1:02:45.958
interesting in China.

1:02:45.960 --> 1:02:51.520
Sometime, a little after this,
unmarried sexuality started

1:02:51.518 --> 1:02:54.018
happening;
in traditional China that--at

1:02:54.023 --> 1:02:56.143
least officially -- just plain
didn't happen.

1:02:56.139 --> 1:03:00.739
But, as the country modernizes,
one of the things you get into

1:03:00.735 --> 1:03:02.615
is unmarried sexuality.

1:03:02.619 --> 1:03:05.709
Girls were getting pregnant in
an unmarried state and this was

1:03:05.708 --> 1:03:07.278
an unthinkable sort of thing.

1:03:07.280 --> 1:03:10.370
What happened to those girls
that were pregnant and

1:03:10.367 --> 1:03:11.107
unmarried?

1:03:11.110 --> 1:03:15.640
Their parents forced them to
have an abortion.

1:03:15.639 --> 1:03:19.019
Some statistics show that the
number of abortions,

1:03:19.018 --> 1:03:22.268
which parents required of their
daughters,

1:03:22.268 --> 1:03:24.158
their unmarried pregnant
daughters to have,

1:03:24.159 --> 1:03:26.689
exceeded the number of
abortions forced under the

1:03:26.693 --> 1:03:28.843
one-child policy,
because the one-child policy

1:03:28.844 --> 1:03:32.074
also pushed contraceptives,
so actually--and contraceptives

1:03:32.067 --> 1:03:35.007
were decent,
so the number of abortions

1:03:35.010 --> 1:03:40.900
while high,
was not off the map.

1:03:40.900 --> 1:03:44.480
The one-child policy proceeded
and there were--there's

1:03:44.476 --> 1:03:48.656
absolutely no doubt about it,
major human rights violations.

1:03:48.659 --> 1:03:51.539
You heard about one story,
forced sterilizations,

1:03:51.539 --> 1:03:54.539
forced abortions,
these absolutely happened and

1:03:54.536 --> 1:03:56.766
this was,
as you heard especially true of

1:03:56.769 --> 1:03:59.529
people who had government jobs
or worked in government owned

1:03:59.530 --> 1:04:02.150
factories and that was a big
fraction of the economy.

1:04:02.150 --> 1:04:06.270
Remember this was a socialist
state, and abortion was supposed

1:04:06.271 --> 1:04:08.911
to be mandatory,
and sterilization even,

1:04:08.907 --> 1:04:12.217
for any couple that had two or
more children.

1:04:12.219 --> 1:04:14.769
Student:  Did they have
orphanages at the time?

1:04:14.769 --> 1:04:15.599
Prof: Did they have?

1:04:15.599 --> 1:04:19.269
Student:  Orphanages or
was everything increasing the

1:04:19.266 --> 1:04:22.866
number of children dropped off
at these orphanages or--

1:04:22.869 --> 1:04:25.369
Prof: To adopted out
children.

1:04:25.369 --> 1:04:26.339
Student:  Right.

1:04:26.340 --> 1:04:28.470
I mean just because--I mean a
lot of people weren't supposed

1:04:28.469 --> 1:04:31.089
to have more than one child,
so did people who didn't go

1:04:31.090 --> 1:04:34.590
through with an abortion,
and they were able to manage to

1:04:34.586 --> 1:04:38.706
have another child did they drop
their kid off at an orphanage?

1:04:38.710 --> 1:04:40.860
Prof: Yes I haven't--
yes I haven't seen good

1:04:40.858 --> 1:04:43.188
statistics about that and I
don't know if the Chinese

1:04:43.186 --> 1:04:45.286
government lets out good
statistics on that.

1:04:45.289 --> 1:04:49.549
A huge number of girls,
almost all girls,

1:04:49.550 --> 1:04:56.220
were sent to orphanages and
because of the poverty of the

1:04:56.222 --> 1:04:59.332
orphanages,
I mean it was lot of rural

1:04:59.331 --> 1:05:02.381
orphanages that didn't have much
money to begin with,

1:05:02.380 --> 1:05:04.070
they basically couldn't take
care of the babies,

1:05:04.070 --> 1:05:06.430
huge death rate,
huge maltreatment rate.

1:05:06.429 --> 1:05:09.929
This is when Americans started
adopting Chinese babies kind of

1:05:09.934 --> 1:05:13.554
en mass and many Americans went
over to pick up the baby and the

1:05:13.552 --> 1:05:16.712
stories that came back about
children just tied into the

1:05:16.713 --> 1:05:19.363
cribs,
emaciated, sores over the body

1:05:19.364 --> 1:05:22.004
and really in very,
very bad situations.

1:05:22.000 --> 1:05:25.010
Yes, indeed,
as far as we can tell but I

1:05:25.005 --> 1:05:29.235
don't have good statistics,
yes a big surge in daughters

1:05:29.244 --> 1:05:32.794
given--girl babies given up to
orphanages.

1:05:32.789 --> 1:05:37.979


1:05:37.980 --> 1:05:42.770
Okay so in this--I guess it's
time to finish.

1:05:42.768 --> 1:05:45.338
We'll just have to continue
this next time,

1:05:45.335 --> 1:05:47.285
cutting into our next lecture.

1:05:47.289 --> 1:05:52.999