What was humanity like before we young people came to know it?
How does one escape poverty?
What was there before, 200 years ago?
Poverty is always something relative. So, I don’t know whether people in other times felt poor as such, but rather understood that this was existence itself. That was how it had always been.
The natural condition of existence was to live almost at the limit of subsistence. Anyone who reads an economic history, for example of Europe or the world, such as Carlo Cipolla’s The Economic History of World Population or others; Shepard Clough’s Economic History of Europe , for example, or others; or Rondo Cameron’s A Concise Economic History of the World , sees that the standard of living until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries remained fairly stagnant for hundreds of years.
That is, with minimal economic growth, with living conditions very close to survival. I seem to recall that Cipolla, in his Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000–1700, says that a normal worker in the Middle Ages spent 90% of his income on food, and food was not always guaranteed.
But not because there were no harvests or anything like that. Simply, perhaps, because of a lack of distribution. There might have been food in Germany, but not in Spain, and there was no physical way to bring it there.
We take it for granted, but it is not granted. Or much of it would rot along the way. The logistics we have today did not exist.
A good part of the problems related to food and other things have been overcome thanks, among many other things, to green revolutions, but also to revolutions in logistics and transport. And often too little importance is given to this kind of thing.
The railway, for example, did a lot. Refrigerated ships did a lot to transport food, etc. So, over time, food and clothing and other things became cheaper, and now we can spend on other things because we take for granted that all of that is already settled.
And that was the condition of existence. And life in general was short. Genetically, there were people who lived to 70, 80, 90 years old, but they were not —as they are today— the majority of the population. They were a small percentage.
A person from ancient times was genetically the same as today, or very similar to us genetically. So he was conditioned to last 80 or 90 years. And there were people who reached 80 or 90 years old, but it was a very small percentage.
Unlike today, when almost half the population reaches those ages.
So it was a poor situation, with many diseases, much insecurity, and often more bellicose than the present. In material terms, it was not at all something worthy of being, let’s say, repeated.
In fact, I very much doubt that we would survive in those times.
Us?
Yes. We are not used to enduring cold, rain, recurrent hunger, things like that. So, I don’t know whether we would adapt well to that kind of time.
How does humanity move from that almost animal state to what we are today?
That is what is called the Malthusian trap. The Malthusian trap —Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population: is that when there was a small increase in living standards because of some technical improvement, some harvest or something like that, the population quickly increased until it swallowed up that growth, until it balanced out again.
So, there was no substantial improvement.
That begins, and I do not hide from saying this, with capitalism. And why do I not hide from saying it? Because capitalism makes it possible to break the Malthusian trap. It allows the work of a man or a woman to be multiplied by 10, by 100, sometimes by 1,000.
Simply by using capital goods, using machinery, electricity… All that set of technical innovations means that one hour of our labor multiplies its strength and produces much more. Much more than the population increases.
That is where the Malthusian trap is broken. We begin to have more goods even as the population increases —and it did increase— because production grew more than the population in the countries that adopted this system.
Because this system does not appear worldwide, nor is it even natural. It is something that —and I agree with many who say this— capitalism is not natural; it is an invention, a human invention.
Like science, for example. In the sense that science consists of looking at the phenomena of nature with different eyes. With certain eyes, with a method, with a series of techniques, and from there we advance, and achievements advanced.
Well, this is about looking at economic phenomena with different eyes and, above all, with factors such as accounting, for example, which is an essential factor, because capitalism is a mental technology: calculation, saving, systematic investment in the best possible use at each moment.
And for that we need to keep clear accounts and have things clear. For example, Werner Sombart, when he speaks about the origins of capitalism in Modern Capitalism , focuses a great deal on accounting. That is why I say it is more of a mental thing than something tangible.
The tangible is the result of that mental experiment. Just like advances in science or in other forms of knowledge. Writing is also a mental technology; it is not natural.
Writing has to be learned, science has to be learned, it is a method. Well, capitalism is also something that has to be learned, and I think that is why it meets so much resistance, because it is not natural, it is not something people understand.
Deferring consumption, saving it for the sake of a future good, I think that is difficult to understand. It requires a mentality, but writing also requires discipline. Or reading.
And when do you think capitalism begins? In the Industrial Revolution? Or when does it really begin?
As a technology, I think it is the Middle Ages. As a technology.
People start talking about it with Luca Pacioli, with the city-states of the Renaissance, where the theoretical foundations begin to appear —Luca Pacioli, Summa de arithmetica. As a diffusion, it is from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. That is, when those ideas take root in a society.
Let’s say they begin to take shape first in small spaces, then in larger spaces; that is how the system expands. But in principle it is born in city-states, there is trade, but capitalism as such is in the Industrial Revolution. It is in England and Flanders.
And then there are many people who criticize capitalism, especially during the Industrial Revolution, because many children worked in factories and so on.
Do you think that was really necessary? I mean, the condition of human beings has really always been to live in poverty, right?
Yes, but it is as if we were saying that children in the countryside were playing golf or paddle tennis. No, they also worked in the countryside, and they also worked very hard and with higher mortality.
Of course those circumstances are undesirable, but often they have to be put in context. And I am not saying it was a good thing, or anything like that. What happened is that at that moment, because it was concentrated —poverty or work was concentrated— it could be seen.
And it was easier to see than before, when it was more dispersed and more hidden. It is not desirable. But it was a necessary process.
And the debate would be whether those children lived better than before or not. I know it is a hard debate, but that is what has to be debated.
In fact, this is the only system that has managed to make children stop working. The countries of advanced capitalism are where children do not work.
Not in the regimes…
Capitalism, first of all, people think you just do this and it comes out. No, it takes generations to adapt. Even Marxist historians such as [Edward Palmer] E. P. Thompson, whom I like… In The Making of the English Working Class and other books, he explains how that work takes shape.
[the working class itself is not simply pre-existing; it is historically produced by capitalism, through a long process of adaptation to factory discipline, clock time, fixed schedules, punctuality, and measured labor]
I think one of capitalism’s achievements is also labor itself, the worker, the modern worker. A worker who is highly productive, highly serious, highly capable, and often not given the value he deserves.
It always seems as if it is just some sort of thing, like that… Without labor, without a serious, hardworking, well-trained workforce, capitalism could not exist either.
Right, so it is not only a technology; there also have to be certain values, right?
There have to be values, of course. Values come first.
On the one hand, there has to be accounting, there has to be technique. But on the other hand, there also have to be values that lead us not to consume, but to deprive ourselves of part of our current consumption and defer it to the future.
That is, you need self-control. And self-control, whether of the mind or of the body. I will not go into that. But you need control over yourself, saying: “stop, do not spend everything you have, save it for tomorrow.”
“Plan ahead, sacrifice an immediate pleasure for some future provision.” That is what is difficult to understand.
Religion and capitalism
That is why it is often associated with religion, which is the thesis of [Max] Weber and other authors —Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
There is a lot of controversy about that, precisely about religion. Many people say that religion —specifically Christianity— has somehow held back the growth of nations.
Do you think that is really the case?
Well, we would have to look at places where there is no Christian religion and see whether they grew more. Right? I say this out of curiosity.
Look, capitalism is a technology that obviously does not derive exactly from Christianity, although Christianity is not opposed to it. Even if people say otherwise.
The proof is that capitalism was born in countries of Christian culture. If there had been serious opposition, it would not have been born.
There must be something, at least part of Christian doctrine, that is coherent with the capitalist system. And so, what the morality of the Christian religion teaches is to restrain lust, gluttony, and in general consumption, present consumption.
Lust in that strict sense. In the sense of luxury goods, of consuming too much, of saving for the future.
That is why people often say that capitalism is identified with consumerism. I think they are antithetical.
A consumerist people could not have led to capitalism. Because they would not have saved enough to generate the capital needed to buy machines, build dams, build railways, build all kinds of goods, because that requires prior investment, prior saving, in order to finance that kind of thing.
A population that is very spendthrift, very much like that, could not do it. I think this is something [Werner] Sombart, once again, says in The Bourgeois — https://www.amazon.es/burgu%C3%A9s-Contribuci%C3%B3n-espiritual-econ%C3%B3mico-Universitario/dp/8420679143 —, where he talks a lot about these things —well, historians of capitalism in general do.
Ancient merchants made money; they were very good merchants. Because I also distinguish between trade, free trade, and capitalism, which are different things. They are related, but they are not the same.
And they are often identified with each other.
Trading peoples, for example, were the Chinese. They were fantastic at trade. The Arabs were fantastic at trade. There were fantastic merchants in Greece and in Rome.
What happened? When they made a certain amount of money, what they did was retire. They bought a villa, retired there, tried to marry their children into noble families, or things like that.
But let’s say they did not systematically reinvest. The capitalist reinvests until almost before dying; he does not want to retire. He always has that logic. And it is a change of logic.
But that is what changed. Because trade is one thing and capitalism is another.
And then, regarding young people living now… since obviously society is much better now, many values may be lost… Do you think young people live worse than before?
Because you go on Twitter and it seems that young people today live terribly.
I don’t know, because being young was never easy. When I now put myself in your age… Now, of course, already… well, it was not easy either.
I don’t know how they feel now. I repeat, I see that now they have a series of advantages that we did not have. These things about traveling, knowing more languages than we did, moving around.
I see them going on Erasmus and moving around. The capacity they have to move. They have these gadgets… for example, these gadgets you have now, in my time I did not know them.
I mean, you can listen to all the music in the world. You don’t know what that is, because you were born with it.
Right.
All the music. Before it was not like that, that I wanted something, looked it up on Spotify —one of those things— and downloaded it. No, no, it just was not there. Or it cost a fortune, or sometimes it was not available at all.
And now, the other day they sent me something by a Mongolian group, right? It was a Mongolian rock group, they sent it to me… I say this out of curiosity, because before it was unthinkable that I would have access to a Mongolian rock group and be able to watch the video and see it live there and things like that.
It was unthinkable. Of course, they have those things. Or having an entire library of millions of books on their mobile phone.
That was unthinkable before.
When I was your age, getting certain books was very complicated.
Then also, I think the culture we have now, young people especially…
Now, whether they are… Sorry, I interrupted you. Whether they are better or worse off, I don’t know.
I think, for example, they have problems with housing, etc. And I think that… I don’t know, I don’t know. That is what I perceive, but I don’t know.
I repeat, since I am no longer young, I don’t know. I perceive a certain hopelessness that perhaps we did not have.
That may be.
As if the world has no future; I see them as more hopeless, but I don’t know.
I suppose there will be all kinds: some people very optimistic, others not, and so on. But from what I see, I see a lot of that. But well, it is normal in every generation.
Some things they have better, but other things I think they may have worse.
Values
I also want to emphasize values, because I think that in these new generations perhaps they are losing the values that people used to have.
But that is an old thesis, I repeat, which already comes from Daniel Bell and other sociologists. That is, that capitalism, through its triumph, destroys the values that gave birth to it —Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism
Because capitalism was born in times of hardship, among very tough people, pioneers, people who went to work in the mines… Or people who lived in conditions —as you just pointed out— that were very harsh.
So those people were self-sacrificing, they were savers, they looked to the future, they did not have much inclination to spend on vices and things like that, and they thought more long-term.
Furthermore, it was often associated with religious values. Religious values, in that respect, tend to help people think long-term.
That kind of combination generated a class that saved and built all this. The problem Bell points out is that modern youth has no memory of the past. Precisely, they have no memory of misery.
They never saw it, at least not in their close surroundings. Misery —not what is now called relative poverty— real misery: not having food, people going barefoot, many people living like that in absolute destitution, lacking food and things like that.
There is no memory of that. So we think —this is a little joke of mine— we think that Madrid used to be like today, but with 3G. People think that before, things were like now, but with slower Internet.
There was no Internet; there was none of this. But because you were born with this and it is normal —and it is normal, because what you have lived your whole life, your whole life has been this, you have always had these things— there is no memory of it.
And people think this fell from the sky and cannot end. That we can keep spending and keep spending, that nothing happens, that it was always like this, from the beginning of time until today, and that it can never run out, that we cannot end up poor.
Well, we certainly can.
We certainly can.
Because one thing I emphasize, and I always ask: what is easier, being poor or being rich?
I would say being poor.
Being poor is very easy. Isn’t it?
Yes.
That is, to have a poor people… if you all lie in bed and do not get up for two months, you are poor for sure. It is easy.
By engaging in certain behaviors, not working and so on. This does not mean that poor people deserve to be poor, nor that it is their fault that they are poor. What I am saying is that if you want to be poor, it is easier to be poor than to be rich.
Because being rich does require a more… except in some cases, it requires a more positive activity. You will have to produce things that other people like, you will have to earn money, you will have to get up, or in any case, you will have to decide where to invest your money.
It is an active action and one that requires care, because it is as difficult to create a fortune as it is to maintain it.
So, goods have to be amortized.
You have to amortize them, and you have to be continuously renewing their use, changing investments… You have to stay on top of them. Otherwise, everything wears away.
So that is what I see as important in that respect. That is, it is easy to be poor. And, furthermore, the fall into poverty tends to be faster than the rise to wealth.
It is easier to fall into poverty in a short time than to become rich. Becoming rich takes many more years on average. Maybe you win the lottery or receive an inheritance, something like that.
But through your work or your investments, it is harder to become rich. Being poor is relatively easy.
We can see it in Latin American countries. When I was young, they were richer than Spain. Believe it or not. In fact, people migrated from here to there.
Yes. The Galicians, the classic case, yes.
Galicians and people from all over Spain, and Asturians, migrated there.
And do you think wealth comes more from the values that exist in society? Or from how that society is governed politically?
If the government tolerates, let’s say, or rather, if it leaves people alone. I do not think the government should intervene there. I do not think anyone can be forced to be rich by decree if they do not want to.
Nor is it compulsory, let’s say, to have a certain level of development. Now, if one does not want that development, one will have to accept the consequences of not having it.
Because normally… Well, of course, to have a developed economy, that requires a certain sacrifice from the population. Indeed, people have to work every day, lead a sober life, lead…
Let’s say it has a series of drawbacks. In exchange, hunger is more or less eliminated, people are more or less medically cared for, they more or less have housing, they may even have a car, or have gadgets like the ones you use.
That is not free; it also requires a sacrifice on the part of the population, a sacrifice many see as unnecessary, etc. But often it has to be done.
You have to get up at 6:00 in the morning, you have to work, you have to do useful things for others, etc. That is the issue.
Javier Milei
And now that we are talking about the wealth of nations, especially in Latin America —which we have mentioned and so on— what do you think about Javier Milei?
Do you think that, with good policies, Argentina can really achieve success?
First, success… that also takes time.
Now, of course, if the policies that have been followed until now are not changed, Argentina will continue more or less along the same path it has followed until now. That is, with hyperinflation, with notable economic deterioration, with big cycles, and I think that at some point that process will have to be reversed.
I honestly think that the measures Milei is taking —some can be debated, some more than others— but I think they are going in the right direction.
So in that respect, I think yes. Another thing is whether they will let him carry out his program, whether he can get it approved in congress or the senate, whether he will face resistance.
But I think at least the ideas are there. And he is also opening a new debate. That is, there is another way of understanding public policy. A different one.
Well, at least it is there in the debate. A debate is opened; it may be right or wrong, but it can be discussed. At least that discussion, which did not exist until now, has been opened.
Javier Milei recently said that if his country did well, it would not only be a triumph for Argentina, but a worldwide triumph.
Yes, well, of course, because… Look, I said it earlier: capitalism is born in very small places. Capitalism is not born worldwide. Capitalism is born in very small places, and they begin to progress, and others imitate them.
Because the human being is an imitative being. That is, people imitate what works well. So, in other countries they copy that model and imitate it, and capitalism develops and spreads, sometimes by bloody means —which I do not defend— but other times by means of imitation in other countries of the world.
Well, this is the same. If Argentina did well and the results were good, I am sure many countries would imitate it, precisely because that is the easiest thing.
The human being is… Gabriel Tarde already has that book, The Laws of Imitation. In the sense that human beings like to imitate very much, and that is logical.
If something works well, they copy it; if something works badly, they do not copy it. It is that simple.
That is why I like there to be a plurality of governments and states in the world, because that way they can copy from one another. And if Argentina does well, I am sure that many countries in the world with similar problems will copy it.
Of course. We are going to wrap up the conversation now, because we have little time, and I wanted to ask you, since you know a lot about values and what values create wealth…
Advice for young people
What advice could you give us young people in order for a country to prosper? To do it individually, each person, but so that collectively a country can prosper.
Yes, well, it would have to be a…
Look, I do not want to give advice, I repeat, because my generation —although we criticize young people a lot— I think my generation is worse. It did more damage than yours.
Because in the sense that… we come from 1968, and many strange ideas were introduced by us. That is, by those of my generation.
Maybe we are not such… but I mean…
What values?
That is why I say I may not be the most suitable person to advise anyone on this kind of thing. I think young people know how to do it well.
But, well, in this case, imitate the values of grandparents. I know it is a cliché, right? Well, lead a humble, hardworking life, without expecting great changes.
Because people seem to want everything now and they want it now. Instead, wait patiently over time and think a little long-term.
That, yes: be a little self-sacrificing. Be a little self-sacrificing.
Perhaps because of the way I am, or something like that, since I am a Christian and so on, I understand that we come into the world to suffer. This is a vale of tears.
So, my perspective on the world is that this is a vale of tears and, every now and then, something good happens to you. You enjoy it twice as much.
Another view, by contrast, is that everything is wonderful. Then, when you become frustrated, that is when you suffer.
But I start from a point of view that is, if you like, less optimistic. I am here, the world is not an easy thing, the world… We do not come here to have a good time.
Because, normally, if you go in with that perspective, I think many times you do not have a good time. You have a good time at any moment. Suddenly something happens to you, some joy, some small thing… That is when you have a good time.
But if your whole life is this cult of happiness —and yes, there are now several books debating this, right?— I do not think it is a good perspective from which to face the world.
We come here, we suffer, we work, and from there good things come. It is the opposite of what people think.
Do not think that we are going to lead a happy and fulfilled life and things like that. Enjoy the moment. No.
That is, we come here to… You have to get up at 6:00, you have to work, but from there many good things will come in every respect.
But I would start from that point of view. I know it is counterintuitive, I know it is not what is defended today, that the opposite is defended, but well, that is how it is.
I know one has to have fun, but of course, I don’t know.
Well, I think that is wonderful advice. Thank you very much for coming here to the talk. Thank you very much for inviting us to your university. It has been a pleasure to have you here, Miguel.
The pleasure is mine, and thank you for coming all the way here.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Original source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQEYX6aab6k
