[How About This Book] The 20th Century When Humanity First Enjoyed Abundance Was Not a Utopia

End of Material Poverty and Technological Advancement in the 20th Century
Fails to Maintain Economic Growth Rate, Ends in Tragedy

Bradford DeLong, an economics professor at the University of California who wrote "The Economic History of the 20th Century," defines the 20th century as spanning from 1870 to 2010. This period is set at 140 years, longer than the conventional century division of 100 years, and is thus called the "Long 20th Century."

Before 1870, the pace of technological advancement was slower than population growth. It was a time when the curse of Thomas Robert Malthus (1766?1834), who warned that exponential population growth would lead to food shortages, was still valid. At that time, to live comfortably, one had to take from others rather than produce more.

Starting from 1870, rapid technological progress occurred, ending material poverty. It was a remarkable period of rapid increase in wealth and abundance. The world’s average growth rate before 1870 was 0.45%, which rose to 2.1% afterward. By 2010, 140 years later, the global economy had grown 21.5 times larger. Considering population growth, the average per capita income in 2010 was 8.8 times higher than in 1870.

[How About This Book] The 20th Century When Humanity First Enjoyed Abundance Was Not a Utopia

However, Professor DeLong points out that this remarkable period did not create a utopia but ended terribly. The Long 21st Century ended in 2010 without recovery from the Great Recession that began in the United States in 2008. DeLong’s Long 20th Century is summarized as a period that showed hope for a utopia due to rapid material wealth and prosperity but ultimately ended without maintaining the pace of economic growth. The memory of once high growth rates caused ongoing public anger and systemic instability.

DeLong’s Long 20th Century contrasts with the "Short 20th Century" defined by British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm (1917?2012). Hobsbawm defined the Short 20th Century as the period from the First World War in 1914 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Hobsbawm’s Short 20th Century is seen as a political perspective on the era. In fact, Hobsbawm’s judgment overlaps with the period when Japanese-American political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued that liberal democracy had triumphed over communism and that the world would maintain peace without major conflicts. Fukuyama made this claim in his 1989 paper "The End of History" and published his first book, "The End of History and the Last Man," in 1992 based on this paper. Fukuyama has since acknowledged that his judgment was mistaken.

DeLong disagrees with Hobsbawm’s view. Quoting Hobsbawm, DeLong diagnoses the Short 20th Century as a three-way contest among liberal democratic capitalism, fascism, and real socialism. He explains that while it was fortunate that real socialism saved the world from fascism, it was a tragedy for Hobsbawm that liberal democratic capitalism ultimately became the final winner. This is because Hobsbawm saw real socialism as humanity’s last hope. As previously mentioned, since the 20th century was the first century in which the economy became the most important topic, DeLong believes it was right that capitalism became the ultimate victor.

The year 1870, the starting point of the Long 20th Century, was a year of major changes in Europe’s geopolitical landscape. The Franco-Prussian War broke out. From July 1870 to January the following year, the war lasted about six months, ending in France’s defeat. In France, Emperor Napoleon III was deposed, and the French Third Republic began. With Prussia’s victory, the fragmented German states unified. Italy also saw the birth of the Kingdom of Italy, unifying the Italian Peninsula for the first time since ancient Rome. The British Empire was enjoying its heyday under Queen Victoria’s reign.

Professor DeLong analyzes that there were two economic Eldorado periods during the Long 20th Century: 1870?1914 and 1945?1973. The economic boom from the late 19th century until the outbreak of World War I in 1914 was called the Gilded Age in the United States and the "La Belle Epoque" (meaning "The Beautiful Era") in Europe. Especially in the U.S., inventors like Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla were active, rapidly advancing technology. The Belle Epoque and the Gilded Age came to an end with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. This was followed by long periods of turmoil, including the Great Depression (1929?1933) and World War II (1929?1945).

After World War II, there was another long boom lasting about 30 years until the mid-1970s. This period was also when humanity, having suffered through the Great Depression, experimented with social democracy. However, the long boom ended with successive oil shocks in the 1970s, and the experiment with social democracy also ended. The economic slowdown was a fatal blow to social democracy, which aimed for more equality. Dissatisfaction exploded among those benefiting from the social welfare system, which had not been apparent when growth rates were high and good jobs were easy to find. DeLong points out that after the decline of social democracy, neoliberalism emerged, but neoliberalism only kept many promises made to elites in advanced countries and made no progress toward utopia. DeLong diagnoses that humanity is still crouching on the path toward utopia, and the possibility of realizing utopia still remains. However, he evaluates that Donald Trump’s election in the 2016 U.S. presidential election did not help the journey toward utopia at all.