Peder
Well-Known Member
The Next Convergence - The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World by Michael Spence
Every so often I see a book which gives me the itch to read about where this World of ours is heading. The Next Convergence is the most recent of such books that I have seen (lying out on a table in Barnes and Noble), and the first few paragraphs have impressed me enough to want to share the news as quickly as possible.
This is not a review, just an announcement of the very favorable impressions that the first few paragraphs of the author's Introduction have had on me. For those interested in the state of the World, this might be a book worth looking at. When I finish it (if I finish it) a review may follow.
To begin, the author, Mr. Michael Spence was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001-- credentials enough for me to at least read what he has to say. Now, in 2011, he has published The Next Convergence, a discussion of what he sees as a period of convergence following the first 200 years of divergence induced by the Industrial Revolution beginning in 1750.
What "divergence"? What "convergence"?
In the author's words:
"This book is about the third century of the Industrial Revolution, the one we are now living in. As best we can tell from limited data and painstaking scholarly work, for several hundred years up until about 1750, economic growth was negligible everywhere. By our standards, people were poor for the most part (there were elites that were rich), and in some places there was a small commerically oriented middle class. ... This picture was pretty much true for the entire world.
"Then, around 1750, England started on a new course, of Industrial Revolution. Per capita income started to rise. Growth accelerated and was sustained for the first time in recent history. .. and it continued for two hundred years, up through World War II.
"By 1950, the average incomes of people living in these [industrialized] countries had risen twenty times, from about $500 per year to over $10,000 per year, and in the case of many industrialized countries much more than that. ...
"This dramatic shift of the pattern of growth was confined to what we call the advanced or industrialized (or, sometimes, "mature) countries. It affected the lives of roughly 15% of the world's population. Outside of that group, the pattern of the preceding several hundred years simply continued; there was little growth. People remained poor. ...The global pattern was therefore one of rapid divergence between the (then developing) advanced countries and the rest. ...
"Starting after World War II, the pattern shifted again, though it was difficult at the start to see it as a mega-trend. The countries in the developing world started to grow. At first it was relatively slow and in isolated cases. Then it began to spread and accelerate. ...
"That was the start of a century-long journey in the global economy. The end point is likely to be a world in which 75% or more of the world's people live in advanced countries with all that entails: increasing income levels with likewise increasing patterns of consumption and energy use. ...
"This book is about the hundred-plus years that began in 1945 and will run into the middle of the twenty-first century. .. After two centuries of high-speed divergence, a pattern of convergence has taken over."
-- from The Next Convergence by Michael Spence
It sounds like this is a book worth reading, for all of us who want to read about our future.
Every so often I see a book which gives me the itch to read about where this World of ours is heading. The Next Convergence is the most recent of such books that I have seen (lying out on a table in Barnes and Noble), and the first few paragraphs have impressed me enough to want to share the news as quickly as possible.
This is not a review, just an announcement of the very favorable impressions that the first few paragraphs of the author's Introduction have had on me. For those interested in the state of the World, this might be a book worth looking at. When I finish it (if I finish it) a review may follow.
To begin, the author, Mr. Michael Spence was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001-- credentials enough for me to at least read what he has to say. Now, in 2011, he has published The Next Convergence, a discussion of what he sees as a period of convergence following the first 200 years of divergence induced by the Industrial Revolution beginning in 1750.
What "divergence"? What "convergence"?
In the author's words:
"This book is about the third century of the Industrial Revolution, the one we are now living in. As best we can tell from limited data and painstaking scholarly work, for several hundred years up until about 1750, economic growth was negligible everywhere. By our standards, people were poor for the most part (there were elites that were rich), and in some places there was a small commerically oriented middle class. ... This picture was pretty much true for the entire world.
"Then, around 1750, England started on a new course, of Industrial Revolution. Per capita income started to rise. Growth accelerated and was sustained for the first time in recent history. .. and it continued for two hundred years, up through World War II.
"By 1950, the average incomes of people living in these [industrialized] countries had risen twenty times, from about $500 per year to over $10,000 per year, and in the case of many industrialized countries much more than that. ...
"This dramatic shift of the pattern of growth was confined to what we call the advanced or industrialized (or, sometimes, "mature) countries. It affected the lives of roughly 15% of the world's population. Outside of that group, the pattern of the preceding several hundred years simply continued; there was little growth. People remained poor. ...The global pattern was therefore one of rapid divergence between the (then developing) advanced countries and the rest. ...
"Starting after World War II, the pattern shifted again, though it was difficult at the start to see it as a mega-trend. The countries in the developing world started to grow. At first it was relatively slow and in isolated cases. Then it began to spread and accelerate. ...
"That was the start of a century-long journey in the global economy. The end point is likely to be a world in which 75% or more of the world's people live in advanced countries with all that entails: increasing income levels with likewise increasing patterns of consumption and energy use. ...
"This book is about the hundred-plus years that began in 1945 and will run into the middle of the twenty-first century. .. After two centuries of high-speed divergence, a pattern of convergence has taken over."
-- from The Next Convergence by Michael Spence
It sounds like this is a book worth reading, for all of us who want to read about our future.