Last 2000 Years Of World Economics In A Single Chart

[SupaRice]

Thought this was interesting:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-economic-history-of-the-last-2-000-years-in-1-little-graph/258676/

[Guest President Fernatt]

I'm having trouble interpreting this....sorry lol I never was good at prob&stats class.

[Jonnin]

its not you. The chart is a mess --- it supposedly is saying that china has held most of the world's money or resources since the dawn of time. But if you look at it, say 1950, then you can see that 100% of the world's resources is like 300% of whatever scale this is.

1950:

Usa: 40%

china: 90%

india: 80%

and so on. Its a heck of a lot more than 100%.

I think maybe it is summed, so whoever has the fattest band is winning, but then why bother with %s at all, its nonsense. If that is how it is done, it is saying that in 2008 we have 1/3, china had 1/3, and all the other peons shared the other 1/3.

Edited June 20, 2012 by Jonnin

[Dolomite_supafly]

I think it is a total of 100% at any given point on the chart as read from top to bottom.

In 1950, as you said, US holds roughly 35% of the 100%. Next one up makes if 5%.China would hold roughly 10% (85%-95% on the chart). India only holds about 7% in 1950.

A better way to udnerstand it is in 1 ad. 18% was made up by all the bottom dwellers. Then India holds 40% (18%-58%). Then China holds 30% (58%-89%) and at the top is roughly 12% of the total. My numbers might be off a few % points but that is how the chart should read.

Dolomite

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Yep, 100 percent at every time slot.

I'm curious about the 1 AD slot. Maybe the chart deserves a "roman empire" hump that doesn't cover the entire time span (such as the USA section doesn't cover the entire span).

Perhaps if you add the Germany, Spain, UK, Italy, France stripes, along with the "Non Asian Ancient civilizations", it does add up to the Roman Empire GDP. But there was non-asian GDP going on by Inca's, Aztecs, and some pretty big but difficult to quantify North American Indian civilizations such as Iroquois and "Mid western mound civilizations". It is just difficult to figger out how big some of the American civilizations were at the time, because the later plagues managed to wipe history pretty well.

It would be clearer if there was a "Roman Empire" hump, summing most of Europe and the ring around the mediterranean. If you add all the Non-Indian, Non-Chinese stripes it is about equal with India and China, which may be about right. OTOH one would think the Roman Empire had some fairly significant GDP. And as said, the Americas did have some GDP that may have rivalled parts of Europe or the middle east. Difficult to say. If this chart purports to include ancient american civilizations in the "Non-Asian" stripe, then it makes the Roman Empire even smaller in relation to India and China in the 1 to 1000 AD period.

What about other Asian civilizations? Ancient large buildings in other Asian nations gives impression that there was some GDP going on (the remaining ruins of temples and castles evidence of the GDP). Or did China "own" Thailand, Korea, Viet Nam, etc, back then?

Not saying that the chart is wrong. Just thinking out loud.

[peejman]

As Lester points out... I'd surmise than anything earlier than about 1800 is very unreliable. It certainly seems to neglect a number of significant global civilizations.

My take on the chart is that the US economy has grown at a much higher rate than the others. I wonder if that's really GDP per capita instead of gross numbers. I'd expect to see a dip in the last decade or so, but not starting in 1950.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

The accompanying article says that estimates before the industrial revolution are based on population distribution.

So, one way to read the graph, very broadly speaking, is that everything to the left of 1800 is an approximation of population distribution around the world and everything to the right of 1800 is a demonstration of productivity divergences around the world -- the mastering of means of manufacturing, production and supply chains by steam, electricity, and ultimately software that concentrated, first in the West, and then spread to Japan, Russia, China, India, Brazil, and beyond.

There is also a part II link didn't notice yesterday, may have been added since yesterday, with more charts and explanation-- http://www.theatlant...-slides/258762/

I haven't read part II yet, but some ignerant comments below which may be discussed in part II--

It seems reasonable to link simple population distribution to gdp pre-industrial revolution, but I wonder about that. A population of 10,000 whose technology includes stone age implements, domesticated dog power and skid sleds for transport, and minimal knowledge of agriculture, wouldn't have near the gdp of a similar population of 10,000 with iron and crude steel, concrete technology, oxen and horses, sheep and cows and chickens, and wheeled vehicles, sophisticated sailing ships (for the time) and pretty good mastery of manual agricultural techniques.

And if you have one civilization where only the fat cats have iron and concrete and wheeled transport but the peons are still farming with sticks, would have a lower gdp than a similar pre-industrial technology where the peons are farming with domestic-animal powered wheeled transport and steel implements.

A civilization with a system of roads and relatively good law-enforcement to allow safe travel, would have a higher gdp than a similarly-equipped civilization not so safe and not so easy to travel. yadda yadda.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[Guest President Fernatt]

Thanks folks, I appreciate the help! Lots of data! So, instead of world % of monetary/resource control....I would like see the world % of weapons capability/war involvement of all the major civilizations throughout time. That would be pretty interesting.