hello everyone this is development
economics by Tyler Cowen and Alex
Tabarrok I'm Alex Tabarrok today we're
gonna be talking about guns Guns Germs
and Steel which is Jared Diamond's
really big think book key book everyone
should read about the really big
questions about development the diamond
is asking you know why are some regions
and countries rich while others are poor
and in particular he's asking why is it
that Eurasia developed first rather than
South America Africa or Australia very
exciting opening of Guns Germs and Steel
has Pizarro you know with the hundred
soldiers sixty horses and some steel and
guns of course taken over the entire
Incan Empire with 80,000 soldiers how is
this possible why did this happen
well very briefly Dimon argues that
there are surprisingly few domesticable
animals and crops and regions of the
world which had these animals and crops
which were capable of being domesticated
this led to agriculture which led to
cities and civilization that led to guns
and to steel and agriculture and
domesticated animals also led to an even
more potent weapon than guns the most
destructive weapon ever used on earth
germs so let's take a look in a little
bit more detail about document first of
all why our domestic well animal is
important well they're so important
because all their many uses
so a domesticated animal like a cow can
be used for milk for meat for clothing
for leather and so forth can also be
used to plow as a source of power source
of power allowing humans to do what the
otherwise could not could even be used
as a military vehicle to help take over
and protect and defend
now these domestic could domesticate
able animals were not evenly distributed
across the globe factors surprisingly
few of them in the world today there's
really only five major cases sheep goats
cows pigs and horses
there's a few lesser cases of the
Arabian camel the bactrian camel donkeys
and reindeers llamas and alpacas Mithun
which I've never even heard of before
I'd read Dimond and maybe a few others
the Yak well the wild ancestors of these
animals were not spread evenly across
the globe
none of the ancestors was indigenous to
sub-saharan Africa only the llama and
the alpaca had a wild ancestor which was
indigenous to South or North America 13
of the 14 windage inist to Eurasia
so Eurasia began with a major element in
its favour it had these animals these
wild ancestors of animals which could
and which did later become domesticated
without having these domesticated with
domestic animal animals it's much harder
to develop mass agriculture think about
growing rice without plow and from there
it's much harder to get cities of course
and civilizations the way this is a
picture I took in a Peruvian Museum
I believe it shows how you're supposed
to ride a llama you can see where llamas
are not as good as alpacas allotted not
as good as horses there may be as some
other interpretations of what's going on
here but that at least was my
interpretation now this raises a
question of course diamond shows that
the wild ancestors of the animals which
are currently domesticated they're
almost all native to Eurasia now his
argument is that these animals were
basically the only ones which were
capable of being domesticated how does
he get there how does he show that these
are the only ones which were capable of
being domesticated well he's got a bunch
of varied arguments for this
none of them are sort of drop-dead
definitive but I do think in total
they're quite they're quite convincing
more than one might expect first of all
the domesticated animals have been
domesticated on several different
occasions independently so it seems like
there is a demand for domestication and
if the supply is there it's going to
happen it's happened several times
several times independently so it seems
that there's four
is pushing towards domestication if it's
possible also we know that when these
animals are induced introduced to
non-indigenous areas the natives figure
out hey this is great we need to use
these this is a good idea so think about
the Native Americans and that you know
wild that horse culture you know the
Apaches and the horse culture of course
horses didn't even come to North America
South America until the 1500s before
that they were unknown but once the
native saw horses they knew this is a
good thing
suggesting once again that if it had
been possible for them to domesticate
some of their own indigenous species
that they would have done so there's
also many animals are excluded from
domestication by a variety of their
characteristics so some of them are just
too fierce grizzly bears African Buffalo
is really hard to domesticate how come
you've never seen a zebra rodeo
well zebras are just mean beasts they're
just very difficult to ride don't try
and ride a zebra that's why we don't see
them
then there's the diet issue some the
diet is too limited like the koalas just
eating the eucalyptus others their diet
to growth ratio is not fast enough to
make domestication worthwhile so you
don't want to really domesticate a
carnivore you've got to grow an animal
to eat other animals it's it's really
not gonna work you want to have an
animal which eats grasses and grains and
so forth and grows really big on that
then there's animals which are difficult
to herd the you've heard not difficult
it is to herd cats well there you go so
cats have sort of been domesticated some
people think that cats have domesticated
people rather than the other way around
but certainly you don't get a group of
them together my antelopes and so forth
are hard to herd finally there's some
animals which actually don't like to
have sex when people are watching
pandas are like this they're a little
bit embarrassed this is why the
Washington zoo has spent millions of
dollars trying to get their pandas
sex even showing them panda porn but not
much seems to so what about crops so the
case for crops is similar to that of
animals Dimon argues that the domestic a
table crops again were central to
Eurasia were not found elsewhere a
little bit harder to make here because
there are more animals which were more
crops which were capable of being
domesticated then there are animals
there's probably several thousand plants
which are capable of being domesticated
nevertheless the basic facts are really
rather striking even today two cereals
wheat and rice account for 41% of all
total calories consumed in the world
suggesting that if you didn't have wheat
and you didn't have rice these crops
which were so important human
civilization probably you're not going
to get civilization either or alert
certainly you're going to get it more
difficulty slower wheat is native to
just the Fertile Crescent around modern
Turkey and Iraq rice of course from from
China
the other major cereals in addition to
wheat and rice we have a corn barley and
sorghum four or five of these are from
Eurasia sorghum is from North Africa
which is clearly more really part of
Eurasia rather than Africa it's probably
easier to get there because of the
Sahara the indigenous versions of wheat
rice and barley and sorghum are very
similar to the domesticated versions
corn from Mesoamerica and it's wild
version is very different those baby
corns which you can buy in the store and
a can that's actually closer to what
wild corn you know once looked like so
it took a lot longer to domesticate corn
than it did to domesticate wheat rice
barley or sorghum this also turns out
that a lot of plants are surprisingly
difficult to domesticate you know for
example just to give you an example we
think we know how to grow apples because
of Johnny Appleseed and you know
throwing the seeds but we're wrong
that's not how you grow apples Apple
grown from seeds actually don't taste
very good that plants don't grow that
well the way to get delicious apples is
grafting not seeding not at all obvious
not at all obvious so a lot of plants
are more difficult to domesticate than
you might imagine
put all this together we have an uneven
distribution of these domesticable
plants and animals led some parts of the
world Eurasia in particular to develop
develop agriculture agriculture and
other ideas in Eurasia also spread
faster because the major axis of the
continent is east-west rather than
north-south this meant that since
climate is similar along lines of
latitude along these east-west lines of
latitude that a good idea developed in
one part of the world could transmit
horizontally as it were to a large area
so this meant that scale was actually
bigger while in Africa the north-south
you know you can go several hundred
miles north or several hundred miles
south and your crops and animals will
simply not do as well in that different
climate so Eurasia in a sense had a
larger market we're going to talk a lot
more about scale elsewhere in the class
but even at the very beginnings of
modern of civilization we have the
importance of scale having a lot of
people working on the same problem being
able to transmit their ideas all over
the world to a large area so this just
this even the placement of the axes of
the continents Diamond argues has
implications all right well even with
all of these advantages of guns steel
and horses the conquest of North and
South America
might have been a close call had it not
been for germs the major infectious
diseases in humans all evolved from
diseases of animals smallpox flu
tuberculosis malaria plague and so forth
they all come from animals and Europeans
you know they live next door
often in the same barn as the animals
this meant on the negative side they
were repeatedly decimated by these plays
but for that very same reason Europeans
developed some immunity so this is
Darwinism in action
the humans which survived these repeated
attacks by these germs they grew
stronger and they developed some
immunity on the other hand in 15-20 it
took just one sick person to bring
smallpox to South America where it may
have killed 90% 90% of the population
it's possible this is a young girl with
in Bangladesh she was infected with
smallpox in 1973 you can see what
absolutely devastating debilitating
horrible disease it is 1977 we
eliminated smallpox from the world the
first time this has ever been done well
in 15-20 without this developed immunity
okay
millions of South Americans of the
indigenous population were wiped out so
this explains how Pizarro who came 1530
1535 to the Incan Empire so the Incan
Empire was in disarray okay millions of
these people had died from the smallpox
from these plagues which had come over
and then you have arriving on your
shores these guys on horses never before
seen looking like gods would there steal
their guns bringing down death from far
away and their steel armor and their
steel swords so this explains why with
this culture and disarray dying from
these diseases these incredibly advanced
people with their technology have never
seen before
how 100 soldiers 60 horses were able to
take over the entire Incan Empire you
see actually the same story a little bit
later in North America are very similar
so when the pilgrims come to North
America they actually find empty
villages prepared for them
as if by Providence in fact the pilgrims
were quickly drawn these conclusions so
John Winthrop who was governor of
Massachusetts he thought the plague was
great was miraculous he said but for the
natives in these parts God hath so
pursued them as for 300 miles space the
greatest part of them are swept away
more the smallpox which still continues
among them so God half fare by cleared
our title to this place those who remain
in these parts being in all not 50 have
put themselves under our protection
so God has cleared the title God has
done his is basically a genocide
according to John Winthrop and has done
this on behalf of the pilgrims King
James had the same thing he said
Almighty God in His great goodness and
bounty towards us was to be thanked for
sending this wonderful plague among the
savages so let's summarize the Dimond
argument this is from a picture in his
book so the ultimate factors at the top
of the diagram the east-west axis of
Eurasia this led to the ease of species
spreading many suitable wild species you
put these two things together he got a
lot of domesticated plants and animal
species these domesticated plant and
animal species meant you had food
surpluses and storage so you were able
to create scale you were able to create
a lot of people in dense sedentary
societies this led to specialization and
this led to technology creating things
like guns and steel and swords creating
ocean-going ships having some wealth
they're having some scientists class if
you like some research and developer
class some people who were there to
think not just to produce food this led
to political organization the ability to
gather a lot of resources together put
all these things together you can see
why the Norton where the Europeans
you know sent out the ships rather than
the other way and
with them they brought these epidemic
diseases which also had come from the
domesticated plants and particularly the
domesticated animals and one of them
being the horses so you put all this
together and you understand why Pizarro
was able to take over the indican
civilization and early slightly earlier
Cortes had done the same thing with the
Aztecs and how in North America again
were able to wipe out the native
populations okay
so diamond gives us a really big really
important story i
it really takes us up to sort of 1500
1600 you might say but what then you
know France and China they're both in
Eurasia but today the former is rich and
the latter is poor despite the fact that
they share most of these factors that
diamond focuses on so 1500 France and
China about equal maybe even China a
little bit richer perhaps but since then
everything has changed and geography
hasn't changed so geography can explain
only so much in fact we can say a little
bit more there's been a reversal of
fortune the rich places in 1500 actually
tend not to be the rich places today
so China and India fabulously wealthy in
some sense in 1500 or you go and you
look a little bit later in Peru
obviously wealthy there while there's
nothing but a few shacks and teepees in
North America South America is where all
the money is okay richest country in
South America perhaps Haiti
from Central America today the one of
the poorest countries in this area so
why is this clearly geography can't
explain why some countries are rich
today while others are poor cannot
explain it on the Eurasian continent at
least so I think we do know something
about the answer to that question you
know rich countries have good
institutions things like protection of
private property and the rule of law
limited government some form of
capitalism just to say that capitalism
may be necessary or some form of it is
necessary certainly not sufficient okay
but of course we're gonna be talking
about all of these things a lot more if
the class goes on so Dimon great
argument takes us to about 1516
hundred we're gonna be dealing with a
lot of these other things later on in
the course thank you