1 00:00:00,620 --> 00:00:05,320 Hi, I'm John Green, and this is the final episode of Crash Course World History. 2 00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:11,019 Not because we've reached the end of history, but because we've reached the particular middle where I happen to be living. 3 00:00:11,019 --> 00:00:13,820 Today we'll be considering whether globalization is a good thing. 4 00:00:13,820 --> 00:00:19,219 And along the way, we'll try to do something that you may not be used to doing in history classes, imagining the future. 5 00:00:19,219 --> 00:00:22,719 Mr. Green! Mr. Green! In the future, I'm going to get to second base with Molly Brown. 6 00:00:22,719 --> 00:00:23,920 No you won't, me from the past. 7 00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:30,699 But the fact that when asked to imagine the future, you imagine your future, says a lot about the contemporary world. 8 00:00:30,820 --> 00:00:31,800 And listen to me from the past. 9 00:00:31,859 --> 00:00:37,140 While there's no question that your solipsistic individualism is bad both for you and for our species, 10 00:00:37,340 --> 00:00:41,679 the broader implications of individualism in general are a lot more complex. 11 00:00:50,710 --> 00:00:52,289 Man, I'm going to miss you, intro. 12 00:00:52,409 --> 00:00:57,130 So last week, ta-da, we discussed how global economic interdependence has led, on average, 13 00:00:57,250 --> 00:01:00,229 to longer, healthier, more prosperous lives for humans. 14 00:01:00,229 --> 00:01:04,069 Not to mention an astonishing change in the overall human population. 15 00:01:04,069 --> 00:01:07,510 In the West, globalization has also led to the rise of a service economy. 16 00:01:07,510 --> 00:01:14,310 In the US and Europe, most people now work not in agriculture or manufacturing, but in some kind of service sector. 17 00:01:14,310 --> 00:01:20,950 Healthcare, retail, education, entertainment, information technology, internet videos about world history, etc. 18 00:01:20,950 --> 00:01:26,950 And that switch has really changed our psychology, especially the psychology of upper classes living in the industrialized world. 19 00:01:26,950 --> 00:01:31,269 I mean, to quote Fredric Jameson, we are so far removed from the realities of production 20 00:01:31,269 --> 00:01:36,790 and work that we inhabit a dream world of artificial stimuli and televised experience. 21 00:01:36,790 --> 00:01:41,109 Think of it this way, if you had to kill a chicken every time you visited KFC, you would 22 00:01:41,109 --> 00:01:43,030 probably eat fewer chickens. 23 00:01:43,030 --> 00:01:46,890 Another change of psychology, many historians of the now note that globalization has also 24 00:01:46,890 --> 00:01:52,069 led to a celebration of individualism, particularly in the wake of the failures of the Marxist 25 00:01:52,069 --> 00:01:53,469 collectivist utopias. 26 00:01:53,469 --> 00:01:57,870 The generation that lived through the Depression and World War II saw large-scale, collectivist 27 00:01:57,870 --> 00:01:59,829 responses to both those crises. 28 00:01:59,829 --> 00:02:03,849 And they were responses that limited freedom, like the military draft, for instance, which 29 00:02:03,849 --> 00:02:06,150 limited your freedom, you know, not to be a soldier. 30 00:02:06,150 --> 00:02:10,129 Or the collectivization of health insurance seen in most of the post-war West, which limited 31 00:02:10,129 --> 00:02:13,569 your freedom to go bankrupt from health care costs. 32 00:02:13,569 --> 00:02:17,849 Or also government programs like Social Security, which limit your freedom not to pay for old 33 00:02:17,849 --> 00:02:18,849 people's retirement. 34 00:02:18,849 --> 00:02:23,990 But since the 1960s, the ascendant idea of personal freedom minimally limited by government 35 00:02:23,990 --> 00:02:26,729 intervention has become very powerful. 36 00:02:26,729 --> 00:02:30,389 Even the Catholic Church was part of this new search for individual freedom as the Second 37 00:02:30,389 --> 00:02:35,129 Vatican Council relaxed church rules in ways that weakened central authority, made concessions 38 00:02:35,129 --> 00:02:39,229 to individual styles of worship, even said that people of different religions could go 39 00:02:39,229 --> 00:02:40,229 to heaven. 40 00:02:40,229 --> 00:02:42,270 What good is heaven if it's going to be full of Protestants? 41 00:02:42,270 --> 00:02:44,090 It's just going to be like Minnesota. 42 00:02:44,090 --> 00:02:46,949 So here in the last episode of Crash Course World History, in the last 30 seconds I have 43 00:02:46,949 --> 00:02:55,330 offended five-sixths of the world's population in the form of non-Catholics and all Republicans 44 00:02:55,330 --> 00:03:00,370 and probably some political moderates who are confused about what Obama's health care 45 00:03:00,370 --> 00:03:02,849 law will and will not do. 46 00:03:02,849 --> 00:03:09,449 Stan, maybe I should just make this episode just an extended rant where I reveal all of 47 00:03:09,449 --> 00:03:12,430 my political biases and also my personal biases. 48 00:03:12,430 --> 00:03:15,789 Look, you're never going to meet a historian who doesn't have biases, but good historians 49 00:03:15,789 --> 00:03:20,770 try to acknowledge their biases, and I am biased toward Canada and its awesome health 50 00:03:20,770 --> 00:03:24,150 care system. I can't lie, I'm very jealous of you guys. 51 00:03:24,150 --> 00:03:28,469 But perhaps the greatest effect of the victory of individualism was on sex and the family. 52 00:03:28,469 --> 00:03:31,789 We haven't talked much about sex because my brother's teaching biology, which is basically 53 00:03:31,789 --> 00:03:36,449 just sex. But sex is pretty important historically, because it's how we keep happening. 54 00:03:36,449 --> 00:03:40,210 But in the 20th century, greater variety and availability of contraception made it possible 55 00:03:40,210 --> 00:03:45,289 for people to experiment with multiple sexual partners and help to uncouple sex from childbearing, 56 00:03:45,289 --> 00:03:49,969 Which was awesome, but individualism also had a destabilizing effect on families. 57 00:03:49,969 --> 00:03:54,250 As the great Leo Tolstoy put it, all happy families are alike, but each unhappy family 58 00:03:54,250 --> 00:03:55,889 is unhappy in its own way. 59 00:03:55,889 --> 00:04:00,330 But when your individual fulfillment trumps all, you needn't live amid your uniquely 60 00:04:00,330 --> 00:04:02,789 unhappy family, you can just leave. 61 00:04:02,789 --> 00:04:06,490 So divorce rates have skyrocketed in the past few decades, and not just in the US. 62 00:04:06,490 --> 00:04:11,530 By the turn of the 21st century, divorce rates in China reached nearly 25%, with 70% of those 63 00:04:11,530 --> 00:04:13,229 divorces initiated by women. 64 00:04:13,229 --> 00:04:17,649 Technology has also driven families apart, as parents and children spend increasing time 65 00:04:17,649 --> 00:04:22,110 alone in front of their individual screens, sharing fewer experiences. 66 00:04:22,110 --> 00:04:26,050 That's individualism too, but not of a kind that we usually celebrate. 67 00:04:26,050 --> 00:04:30,709 But probably the biggest consequence of globalization and the ensuing rise in human population has 68 00:04:30,709 --> 00:04:33,430 been humanity's effect on the environment. 69 00:04:33,430 --> 00:04:37,990 While populations have increased partly thanks to better yields from existing farmland, much 70 00:04:37,990 --> 00:04:41,850 more land has also been brought under cultivation in the past half century. 71 00:04:41,850 --> 00:04:44,610 Often, this meant cutting down trees and valuable rainforests. 72 00:04:44,610 --> 00:04:48,470 The best known example of this is what's going on in the Amazon, but it happens worldwide. 73 00:04:48,470 --> 00:04:51,889 And we're losing land not just for food, but also to grow the global economy. 74 00:04:51,889 --> 00:04:56,889 Oh, it's time for the open letter? 75 00:04:56,889 --> 00:04:58,290 An open letter to flowers. 76 00:04:58,290 --> 00:05:00,970 But first, let's see what's in the secret compartment today. 77 00:05:00,970 --> 00:05:03,490 Oh, it's fake flowers. 78 00:05:03,490 --> 00:05:05,610 Thank you, Stan. 79 00:05:05,610 --> 00:05:07,449 One for behind each ear. 80 00:05:07,449 --> 00:05:12,449 Dear flowers, you capture the best and the worst of the globalized economy. 81 00:05:12,449 --> 00:05:16,949 You're so pretty, even the fake ones are pretty, but the real ones are constantly dying. 82 00:05:16,949 --> 00:05:21,350 They've got to be harvested and shipped and cut very efficiently, and it's a global phenomenon. 83 00:05:21,350 --> 00:05:24,949 Like, there are flowers in my corner market from Africa. 84 00:05:24,949 --> 00:05:29,250 These are from China, but because they are plastic, they could just be shipped in a shipping container. 85 00:05:29,250 --> 00:05:36,350 More people can afford to apologize by giving their romantic partners professionally cut and arranged roses than in any time in human history. 86 00:05:36,350 --> 00:05:40,790 but in that we have lost something, which is that the whole idea of flowers is that 87 00:05:40,790 --> 00:05:45,350 you had to go out into the field and, like, cut them and arrange them yourself to apologize. 88 00:05:45,350 --> 00:05:49,089 It's not supposed to be, I'm sorry I forgot your birthday, here's $8 worth of work that 89 00:05:49,089 --> 00:05:52,930 was done in Kenya. It's supposed to be, I'm sorry I forgot your birthday, so I went into 90 00:05:52,930 --> 00:05:56,230 the fracking forest and got you some fracking flowers. 91 00:05:56,230 --> 00:05:59,589 Anyway, flowers, best wishes, John Green. 92 00:05:59,589 --> 00:06:04,189 Aww, you guys got me flowers for my last episode of World History. 93 00:06:04,189 --> 00:06:06,110 Okay, let's go to the Thought Bubble. 94 00:06:06,110 --> 00:06:11,410 As worldwide production and consumption increases, we use more resources, especially water and 95 00:06:11,410 --> 00:06:13,329 fossil fuels. 96 00:06:13,329 --> 00:06:18,810 Globalization has made the average human richer, and rich people tend to use more of everything, 97 00:06:18,810 --> 00:06:20,389 but especially energy. 98 00:06:20,389 --> 00:06:23,990 This has already resulted in climate change, which will likely accelerate. 99 00:06:23,990 --> 00:06:28,730 The global economy isn't a zero-sum game, like, I don't need to become more poor in 100 00:06:28,730 --> 00:06:31,389 order for someone else to become more rich. 101 00:06:31,389 --> 00:06:37,170 But growth, at least so far, has been dependent upon unsustainable use of the planet's resources. 102 00:06:37,170 --> 00:06:42,589 The planet can't sustain 7 billion automobiles, for instance, or 7 billion frequent flyers, 103 00:06:42,589 --> 00:06:47,230 although most of us who can afford to drive or fly feel entitled to do so. 104 00:06:47,230 --> 00:06:50,209 You'll remember that when we talked about the Industrial Revolution, we discussed the 105 00:06:50,209 --> 00:06:55,629 virtuous cycle of more efficiency making things cheaper, which in turn made them easier to 106 00:06:55,629 --> 00:06:58,870 buy, which increased demand, which increased efficiency. 107 00:06:58,870 --> 00:07:03,269 But from the perspective of the planet, each turn in that cycle takes something. 108 00:07:03,269 --> 00:07:08,470 More land under cultivation, more carbon emissions, more resource extraction. 109 00:07:08,470 --> 00:07:13,290 That can't go on forever, but worryingly, our current models of economic growth don't 110 00:07:13,290 --> 00:07:14,750 allow for any other way. 111 00:07:14,750 --> 00:07:15,750 Thanks, Thought Bubble. 112 00:07:15,750 --> 00:07:18,730 And then there is our astonishingly robust health. 113 00:07:18,730 --> 00:07:22,370 Although much of the world has been ravaged by HIV-AIDS for the past three decades, there's 114 00:07:22,370 --> 00:07:26,589 been a relative lack of global pandemics since the 1918 flu. 115 00:07:26,589 --> 00:07:30,670 And that's particularly surprising, given increased population density and more travel 116 00:07:30,670 --> 00:07:32,649 between population centers. 117 00:07:32,649 --> 00:07:38,029 China has seen 150 million people leave the countryside for cities in the last 20 years. 118 00:07:38,029 --> 00:07:43,310 This was Shanghai in 1990, and this is Shanghai in 2010. 119 00:07:43,310 --> 00:07:50,029 The population of Lagos was 41,000 in 1900, today it's almost 8 million. 120 00:07:50,029 --> 00:07:55,029 Of course, people have been moving from country to city for a long time, remember Gilgamesh? 121 00:07:55,029 --> 00:07:58,910 But the pace of that change has dramatically accelerated. 122 00:07:58,910 --> 00:08:03,810 Similarly, there's nothing new about international trade, but its pace has also increased dramatically. 123 00:08:03,810 --> 00:08:08,029 In 1960, trade accounted for 24% of the world's GDP. 124 00:08:08,029 --> 00:08:09,910 Today, it's more than doubled that. 125 00:08:09,910 --> 00:08:15,730 Almost no human being alive today lives with stuff only manufactured in their home country. 126 00:08:15,730 --> 00:08:20,410 But a thousand years ago, only the richest of the rich could benefit from the Silk Road. 127 00:08:20,410 --> 00:08:21,750 Still, trade isn't new. 128 00:08:21,750 --> 00:08:26,250 And while it's tempting to say that the types of goods being traded, pharmaceuticals, computers, 129 00:08:26,250 --> 00:08:31,550 software, financial services, represent something wholly new, you could just as easily see this 130 00:08:31,550 --> 00:08:33,970 as part of the evolution of trade itself. 131 00:08:33,970 --> 00:08:36,490 At some point, silk was seen as a new trade good. 132 00:08:36,490 --> 00:08:40,990 As tastes change and consumers become more affluent, the things they want to buy change. 133 00:08:40,990 --> 00:08:44,029 So is anything really different, or is it all just accelerated? 134 00:08:44,029 --> 00:08:48,990 Well, some historians argue that an economically interdependent world is much less likely to 135 00:08:48,990 --> 00:08:49,990 go to war. 136 00:08:49,990 --> 00:08:54,409 This may be true, but increasing global, cultural, and economic integration hasn't led to an 137 00:08:54,409 --> 00:08:55,409 end to violence. 138 00:08:55,409 --> 00:08:59,429 I mean, we've seen large-scale ethnic and nationalistic violence from Rwanda to the 139 00:08:59,429 --> 00:09:04,470 former Yugoslavia to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Afghanistan. 140 00:09:04,470 --> 00:09:06,809 Globalization has not rid the world of violence. 141 00:09:06,809 --> 00:09:11,009 But there is an ideological shift in the age of globalization that does seem pretty new, 142 00:09:11,009 --> 00:09:12,590 and that's the turn to democracy. 143 00:09:12,590 --> 00:09:16,789 Now, this isn't the limited democracy of the ancient Greeks or the quirky republican 144 00:09:16,789 --> 00:09:19,090 system originally developed in the US. 145 00:09:19,090 --> 00:09:24,350 There are almost as many kinds of democracies as there are nations experiencing democracy. 146 00:09:24,350 --> 00:09:29,129 The fact is, however, that democracy and political freedom, especially the freedom to participate 147 00:09:29,129 --> 00:09:34,470 in and influence the government, have been on the rise all over the world since the 1980s, 148 00:09:34,470 --> 00:09:36,429 and especially since 1990. 149 00:09:36,429 --> 00:09:39,710 For instance, if you looked at the governments of most Latin American countries during most 150 00:09:39,710 --> 00:09:43,889 of the 20th century, you would usually find them ruled by military strongmen. 151 00:09:43,889 --> 00:09:49,250 Now, with a couple of exceptions, Fidel, Hugo, Stan, are they behind me right now? 152 00:09:49,250 --> 00:09:53,330 Because if they're behind me, I am in favor of collectivizing oil revenue and distributing 153 00:09:53,330 --> 00:09:54,570 it to the poor. 154 00:09:54,570 --> 00:09:56,129 If they're not behind me, that's a terrible idea. 155 00:09:56,129 --> 00:09:59,690 Right, but anyway, democracy is now flourishing in most of Latin America. 156 00:09:59,690 --> 00:10:03,590 Probably the most famous democratic success story is South Africa, which jettisoned decades 157 00:10:03,590 --> 00:10:08,309 of apartheid in the 1990s and elected former dissident Nelson Mandela as its first black 158 00:10:08,309 --> 00:10:09,970 president in 1994. 159 00:10:09,970 --> 00:10:13,669 It also adopted one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, but it's worth 160 00:10:13,669 --> 00:10:19,070 remembering that democracy and economic success don't always go hand in hand as much as 161 00:10:19,070 --> 00:10:21,070 some Americans wish they would. 162 00:10:21,070 --> 00:10:23,429 Many new African democracies continue to struggle. 163 00:10:23,429 --> 00:10:25,789 The same is true in some Latin American countries. 164 00:10:25,789 --> 00:10:30,549 And China has shown that you don't need democracy in order to experience economic growth. 165 00:10:30,549 --> 00:10:35,350 But for a few countries, especially Brazil and India, the combination of democracy and 166 00:10:35,350 --> 00:10:40,710 economic liberalism has unleashed impressive growth that has lifted millions out of poverty. 167 00:10:40,710 --> 00:10:42,289 So can we say that it's good then? 168 00:10:42,289 --> 00:10:46,690 Can we celebrate globalization in spite of its destabilizing effects on families and 169 00:10:46,690 --> 00:10:47,690 the environment? 170 00:10:47,690 --> 00:10:49,590 Well, here's where we have to imagine the future. 171 00:10:49,590 --> 00:10:53,610 Because if some superbug shows up tomorrow and it travels through all these global trade 172 00:10:53,610 --> 00:10:58,190 routes and kills every living human, then globalization will have been very bad for 173 00:10:58,190 --> 00:11:00,710 human history, specifically by ending it. 174 00:11:00,710 --> 00:11:04,950 If climate change continues to accelerate and displaces billions of people and causes 175 00:11:04,950 --> 00:11:10,649 widespread famines and flooding, then we will remember this period of human history as short-sighted, 176 00:11:10,649 --> 00:11:13,190 self-indulgent, and tremendously destructive. 177 00:11:13,190 --> 00:11:17,110 On the other hand, if we discover an asteroid hurtling toward Earth and mobilize global 178 00:11:17,110 --> 00:11:21,669 industry and technology in such a way that we lose Bruce Willis but save the world, then 179 00:11:21,669 --> 00:11:24,090 globalization will be celebrated for millennia. 180 00:11:24,090 --> 00:11:27,590 I mean, assuming we have millennia and can convince Bruce Willis to go. 181 00:11:27,590 --> 00:11:30,970 In short, to understand the present, we have to imagine the future. 182 00:11:30,970 --> 00:11:31,970 That's the thing about history. 183 00:11:31,970 --> 00:11:33,690 It depends on where you're standing. 184 00:11:33,690 --> 00:11:36,950 From where I'm standing, globalization has been a net positive. 185 00:11:36,950 --> 00:11:41,789 But then again, it's been a pretty good run for heterosexual males of European descent. 186 00:11:41,789 --> 00:11:46,289 Critics of globalization point out that billions haven't benefited much, if at all, from all 187 00:11:46,289 --> 00:11:52,149 this economic prosperity, and that the polarization of wealth is growing, both within and across 188 00:11:52,149 --> 00:11:53,149 nations. 189 00:11:53,149 --> 00:11:55,549 And those criticisms are valid, and they are troubling. 190 00:11:55,549 --> 00:11:56,549 But they aren't new. 191 00:11:56,549 --> 00:12:00,250 Disparities between those who have more and those who have less have existed pretty much 192 00:12:00,250 --> 00:12:04,009 from the moment agriculture enabled us to accumulate a surplus. 193 00:12:04,009 --> 00:12:08,309 Sometimes this inequality has been a big concern, as it was with Jesus and with Muhammad. 194 00:12:08,309 --> 00:12:10,009 At other times, not so much. 195 00:12:10,009 --> 00:12:14,809 Inequalities are as old as human history, and almost as old as the debate about them. 196 00:12:14,809 --> 00:12:19,409 One thing that is new, however, is our ability to learn about them, to discuss them, 197 00:12:19,409 --> 00:12:23,909 and hopefully to find solutions for them together as a global community 198 00:12:23,909 --> 00:12:28,210 that is better integrated and more connected than it has ever been before. 199 00:12:28,210 --> 00:12:30,210 Because here's the other thing about history. 200 00:12:30,210 --> 00:12:32,009 You are making it. 201 00:12:32,009 --> 00:12:36,490 That old idea that history is the deeds of great men, that was wrong. 202 00:12:36,490 --> 00:12:40,330 Celebrated individuals do shape history, but so do the rest of us. 203 00:12:40,330 --> 00:12:46,490 And while it's true that many historical forces, malaria, meteors from space, aren't human, 204 00:12:46,490 --> 00:12:50,370 it's also true that every human is a historical force. 205 00:12:50,370 --> 00:12:55,649 You are changing the world every day, and it is our hope that by looking at the history that was made before us, 206 00:12:55,649 --> 00:12:59,330 we can see our own crucial decisions in a broader context. 207 00:12:59,330 --> 00:13:03,929 And I believe that context can help us make better choices and better changes. 208 00:13:03,929 --> 00:13:05,049 Thanks for watching. 209 00:13:05,049 --> 00:13:06,710 But there's no need to despair, Crash Course fans. 210 00:13:06,710 --> 00:13:10,009 I'll see you next week for the beginning of our mini-series on literature. 211 00:13:10,009 --> 00:13:12,110 Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. 212 00:13:12,110 --> 00:13:13,950 Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. 213 00:13:13,950 --> 00:13:15,830 The associate producer is Danica Johnson. 214 00:13:15,830 --> 00:13:19,029 The show is written by my high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself. 215 00:13:19,029 --> 00:13:20,889 And our graphics team is Thought Bubble. 216 00:13:20,889 --> 00:13:22,710 Last week's Phrase of the Week was Cookie Monster. 217 00:13:22,710 --> 00:13:26,830 This week's Phrase of the Week was Bruce Willis, which I am telling you because we are retiring 218 00:13:26,830 --> 00:13:29,629 the idea of the phrase of the week. 219 00:13:29,629 --> 00:13:31,669 Thank you so much for watching Crash Course World History. 220 00:13:31,669 --> 00:13:36,669 It has been super fun to try to tell the history of the world in 42 12-minute videos. 221 00:13:36,669 --> 00:13:39,750 I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you'll hang around for literature. 222 00:13:39,750 --> 00:13:43,950 Thanks for watching, and as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome. 223 00:13:43,950 --> 00:13:45,789 Oh, Stan, that's a crash.