I am living in Asia right now. This has been a timely video. Iwill be walking the market today with open eyes.

These may explain the rise of certain societies but they do not explain their decline or even relative decline. The only thing the “West” lost is arguably work ethic. That cannot be the only explanation for the relative decline we are seeing.

In 2011, seeing a Harvard economist give a talk like this is crushing. Ferguson does three things which should be totally unnacceptable to anyone who deals with the issues he does.

First, he begins with an assumption that GDP equates to the success of nations, period, and he does so without problematising this assumption at all.

Second, and this is related to the first point, the long term trajectory of the development models of the west contain huge problems any world historian must surley recognise. He fails to discuss any of the consequences of the western development model being taken up by the rest of the world, i.e. resource depletion, ecological crisis, energy crises, food crises, etc. again it is simply assumed increasing GDP is good. It can be argued that the only reason the world is still in a livable condtion is precisely BECAUSE the rest of the world has not used these ‘killer apps’ yet.

And third, he does not mention capitalism, but rather a few of its prerequisite institutions.
Harvard economist. Hmm very pop-economist work, flashy, but mostly frighteningly blind. Missing essential pieces.