為什麼寒冷地帶的國家比温暖地帶的國家更發達？_風聞

【來源龍騰網】

評論原創翻譯：

Balaji Viswanathan

Other than the 19-20th century CE, cold weather regions were not really ahead of the economies of warmer regions. Historically, the civilization was centered around warm, tropics & subtropics. The first 5 civilizations - Sumer, Nile valley, Indus Valley, Yellow river valley, Norte Chico - were all in subtropics. The ones that followed - in Greece, Persia, Rome were in the same zone too. [Subtropics often were better than tropics because the latter was often next to dense rainforests with wildlife & epidemic dangers.] Still the warmer regions performed better throughout history.

Colonialism changed this dynamic for the first time. I will explain this how. The cold weather regions have very low population density as not many people preferred cold winters. This allowed the farmers to have much larger lands and more potential mines & mineral resources. Until the modern era, these were hard to tap though.

When industrial revolution came, the technology drastically helped those in cold climates. Mechanised farming - tractors and other machines - allowed industrial scale farming over those lands. This allowed the farmers to get rich because they had now huge lands that could be fully tapped. Factories also could now get minerals resources and infrastructure as large parts of their countries were sparsely occupied. In contrast, industrial revolution could not do much to densely populated tropics that already had high farming productivity - but shared by a large number of farmers. Tropics were too densely populated - meaning lesser resources & lesser room or infrastructure.

Other aspect colonialism did was to open up huge markets. England had a small domestic market - population was small. But, through its colonies it got a huge market for its textile mills and industries. In earlier times there was not much international trade and thus those in sparsely populated regions could not benefit from their innovations.

In 21st century CE, we are entering a post-industrial era and the pendulum might be shifting again. Mines and lands are not as important as they were in say 20th century. It is about the number of minds networked. In this, the subtropics/tropics such as California, Singapore, Shanghai or Bangalore are getting back in the game. The size of the domestic market matters big once again - as Californian startups could attest and density helps in various other ways too for an information economy.

除了公元19-20世紀之外，寒冷天氣地區的經濟並沒有真正領先於温暖地區的經濟。從歷史上看，文明是以温暖、熱帶和亞熱帶為中心的。前5個文明--蘇美爾、尼羅河流域、印度河流域、黃河流域、卡勞爾文明--都是在亞熱帶地區。隨後的文明--希臘、波斯、羅馬也都在同一區域。[亞熱帶往往比熱帶好，因為後者往往是在有野生動物和流行病危險的茂密雨林旁邊］ 在整個歷史上，較温暖的地區的表現更好。

殖民主義第一次改變了這種動態。我將解釋這一點。寒冷天氣地區的人口密度很低，因為沒有多少人喜歡寒冷的冬天。這使得農民可以擁有更大塊的土地和更多的潛在礦山和礦產資源。這些資源直到現代都很難被開發。

當工業革命到來時，技術進步極大地幫助了寒冷氣候下的人們。機械化耕作--拖拉機和其他機器--允許在這些土地上進行工業規模的耕作。這讓當地農民發了財，因為他們現在有了可以充分開發的大片土地。工廠現在也可以獲得礦物資源和基礎設施，因為他們國家的大部分地區都人煙稀少。相比之下，工業革命對人口稠密的熱帶地區沒有什麼作用，這些地區已經有很高的農業生產力，但被大量的農民所分享。熱帶地區人口過於稠密，意味着資源和空間或基礎設施較少。

殖民主義的另一個作用是開闢了巨大的市場。英國的國內市場很小--人口很少。但是，通過其殖民地，它的紡織廠和工業獲得了巨大的市場。在早期，沒有太多的國際貿易，因此那些人口稀少地區的人無法從他們的創新中受益。

在公元21世紀，我們正在進入一個後工業化時代，鐘擺可能會再次轉移。礦山和土地並不像20世紀時那麼重要了。現在重要的是網絡思維的數量。在這一點上，加利福尼亞、新加坡、上海或班加羅爾等亞熱帶/熱帶地區正在重新參與遊戲。國內市場的規模再次變得非常重要--加利福尼亞的初創企業可以證明這一點，人口密度在其他方面也有助於信息經濟的發展。

Alexis Eggermont

This isn’t correct. “The cold weather regions have very low population density“. You write this implying it was the main factor in early development. But actually the countries that developed first were the most densely populated ones: the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands, not Russia, Spain or Sweden. Belgium and the Netherlands have population densities that are still on the level of India (Netherlands higher than India, Belgium slightly lower), despite India’s huge population boom in the 20th century.

Besides, it’s really not progress in agriculture that was the hallmark of the industrial revolution, but the mechanization of industrial production.

不對。“寒冷地區的人口密度非常低”。你這樣寫，暗示這是早期發展的主要因素。但實際上最先發展的國家是人口密度最高的國家：英國、比利時和荷蘭，而不是俄羅斯、西班牙或瑞典。比利時和荷蘭的人口密度仍處於印度的水平（荷蘭高於印度，比利時略低），儘管印度在20世紀有着巨大的人口增長。

此外，工業革命的標誌真的不是農業的進步，而是工業生產的機械化。

Alexis Rodriguez

Britain wasn’t landlocked like Russia, its climate was better, and its harder to invade Britain than Russia (imagine all the damage done to Russia in World War 1, World War 2, Napoleon, and the sanctions later on.

英國不像俄羅斯那樣是內陸國，它的氣候更好，而且它比俄羅斯更難入侵。想象一下在第一次世界大戰、第二次世界大戰、拿破崙以及後來的制裁中對俄羅斯造成的所有傷害。

Karthik Deshpande

Balaji - I would like to disagree on the last paragraph. Getting back in game? game of what ? You seem to conveniently forget the fact that technology is going to increase the gap between have’s and have not’s. Technology in the future is going to be more of a net job destroyer than job creator and that is going to be huge problem with countries of huge population.Countries like India and China will have gigantic task of providing jobs of millions of graduates. So whatever boom we are seeing in these countries happening because of cheap labour will not continue till perpetuity. And land is not important? how are we going to feed the population of these countries? where can we get water and all resources needed for an economy to produce products?It is only matter of time where countries with land and technology and less population (like US, Canada)are going to be way more strong economically when the 4th industrial revolution (Robotic revolution) reaches its peak.

我不同意最後一段的説法。鐘擺再次轉移？你似乎很容易忘記這樣一個事實，即技術將擴大有的和無的差距。未來的技術將更多地成為淨就業的破壞者，而不是就業的創造者，這將是人口眾多的國家要面臨的巨大問題。因此，我們在這些國家看到的因廉價勞動力而出現的任何繁榮都不會持續到永久。當第四次工業革命（機器人革命）達到頂峯時，擁有土地、技術和較少人口的國家（如美國、加拿大）將在經濟上更為強大，這只是時間問題。

Sam Rao

Yes, who was the big-shot IIT guy just a few days ago (was it Nilekani or Raghuram Rajan,? doesn’t matter though) who said ….don’t expect much from the “Make in India” manufacturing push…focus on the service industry instead…

Service industry? You mean shopping malls full of imported products (Nike, Adidas, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, Gucci etc.) Are there, will there be so many ‘High-end” consumers to afford to continually keep on buying these products…and if so…what happens to the millions of mom&pop corner stores that exist in almost every street corner of small-town (& big city) India???

Just yesterday I arrived back from “Cutting-edge” Mumbai & the first page of the Times of india property Section said it all….”Save the Mall” “High Prices and an economic slowdown are impacting the fate of the much-beloved, family-friendlymalls”…..!!!

是的，就在幾天前，一個經濟界的大人物（是尼勒卡尼還是拉格魯姆拉詹？不重要了），他説….不要對"印度製造"的推動抱有太大期望……而是要專注於服務業。

服務業？你的意思是滿是進口產品（耐克、阿迪達斯、卡爾文-克萊恩、喬治-阿瑪尼、古馳等）的購物中心，是否會有那麼多"高端"消費者負擔得起持續購買這些產品……如果是這樣……那麼存在於印度小鎮（和大城市）幾乎每個街角的數百萬家小便利店如何解釋？

就在昨天，我從"尖端"的孟買回來，《印度時報》財經板塊的第一頁説了一切…. “拯救購物中心”、“高價格和經濟放緩正在影響備受喜愛的、適合家庭的購物中心的命運”…..!!

Karthik Deshpande

I am not sure how your comment relate to my comment. I am not debating whether manufacturing or service route is best for India. All I meant was having right amount of resources will be significant factor going ahead.

我不確定你的評論與我的評論有什麼關係。我不是在爭論製造業還是服務業路線對印度來説是最好的。我的意思是，擁有適當數量的資源將是未來的重要因素。

Texasoilfields

You say “when the industrial revolution came” like it was a natural phenomena or something, and not a product of the minds, culture and innovation of one of those cold countries, Great Britain. Why did a cold country gift humanity the industrial revolution? Your answer fails to tackle this important question . . .

你説"當工業革命到來時"，好像它是一種自然現象或什麼，而不是那些寒冷國家之一英國的思想、文化和創新的產物。為什麼一個寒冷的國家會給人類帶來工業革命？你的回答沒有解決這個重要的問題……

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Balaji Viswanathan

They got the gift by colonising the largest economy by GDP of that time. The colonisation could cripple India’s textile industry — the world’s largest of that time — allowing English industrial revolution to happen.

這是他們通過對當時國內生產總值最大的經濟體（印度）進行殖民得到的禮物。殖民化可以削弱印度的紡織業--當時世界上最大的紡織業--使英國工業革命得以發生。

Charlie Max

Thats not true the invention of the steam engine was due to the intelligence of one or two people who had a eureka moment. Things do not magically invent themselves because of external forces.

並非如此。蒸汽機的發明是由於一兩個人的聰明才智，他們有一個靈光乍現的時刻。事物不會因為外力而神奇地發明自己。

Revati Deshpande

So the country with low population and abundant resources wins!

No matter how hard we try to convince ourselves, the word ’largest’ in ’the world’s largest democracy’ isn’t something to be really proud of.

所以説人口少、資源豐富的國家獲勝!

無論我們如何努力説服自己，“世界上最大的民主國家"中的"最大"一詞並不是真正值得驕傲的事情。