史上最强盛的五个经济帝国

    近来人们都听到了很多有关美国衰落的言论。

    也难怪美国人会对他们在世界上所处的地位感到忧虑：先是遭遇了一场大规模的金融危机，随后是缓慢的经济复苏，工资二十年来停滞不前；与此同时，从正在崛起的中国又不断传来各种消息——这个拥有13亿人口的国家看上去拥有无尽的潜力。

    而事实上，无论按照何种标准来衡量，美国的相对实力的确正处于衰落之中。

    但是，如果放在世界历史进程这一大背景下进行审视，美国的情况仍然值得我们赞叹：这个国家竟然能在世界经济中取得如此重要的地位。因为在人类历史上的大部分时间里，顶尖的经济强国，或者说那些在全球经济产出总量中占据最大份额的国家，大多是拥有最多人口并且控制着最多土地的国家。原因之一在于，工业化直到近几个世纪才开始出现。直到大约300年以前，世界各地的经济都多以农业为主，大部分的价值都由土地创造。

    然而在这个过程中，某些文明却取得了竞争对手难以企及的优势地位。经济史学家伊恩•莫里斯指出，在人类历史的大部分时间里，一个文明社会的经济实力在很大程度上取决于当地农业革命发生的时间。在此之后，一个国家还需要花费数千年的时间，才能变成一个真正的经济强国。也就是说，要等到产业的演进颠覆了一切之后才有可能实现。下面将按照时间先后顺序，列出史上最强盛的五大经济帝国：

    1. 罗马帝国，公元100年前后：占全球经济产出总量的25%-30%

    罗马是全球首次农业革命（发生在如今的伊拉克境内）的间接产物。在短短数百年的时间里，罗马就从一个小小的共和国，迅速崛起成一个举足轻重的全球帝国。通过与古迦太基（Ancient Carthage）进行的一系列战争——史称“布匿战争”（Punic Wars），罗马巩固了自己的超级大国地位。这些冲突让罗马获得了地中海地区的绝对统治，这处水域让罗马城和埃及等充满经济活力的地区可以方便的进行对外贸易。

    当今的经济学家们都知道，贸易是经济增长的一大要素，而鼎盛时期的罗马人比任何人都擅长贸易。此外，有证据表明，罗马人还拥有一套完善的金融体系，广泛使用银行票据及其他形式的信贷商品，让商人不用再远距离运送贵金属。

    2. 中国宋朝，公元1200年前后：占全球经济产出总量的25%-30%

    中国开始发展农业的时间要晚于现在的中东地区。但是到了公元1200年前后，当中华文明充分发挥出农业社会的种种优势时，他们已然创造出了史上最为辉煌的文明之一。有些学者，比如在台湾淡江大学研究中国宋代史的经济史学家罗纳德•爱德华兹认为，世界上最早经历第一次工业革命的国家应该是中国，而不是英国。他的依据是中日两国学者进行的研究，这些研究表明，当时中国在人口增长的同时，也经历了人均经济产出的增长，而欧洲在几百年之后都没有做到这一点。

    You hear quite a lot these days about America’s decline.

    It’s perhaps inevitable that Americans are worried about their place in the world, after suffering through a massive financial crisis, a tepid recovery, two decades of no wage growth, and a constant stream of news coming from rising China, a nation of 1.3 billion people with seemingly limitless potential.

    And it’s true that, by any measure, America’s relative power is in decline.

    But looking at the American situation in the context of the broad sweep of world history, it’s amazing how dominant America has become, economically speaking. For most of human history, the most powerful economic powers, or those that produced the largest share of global economic output, were simply the countries that housed the most people and controlled the most land. One of the reasons for this is that industrialization is a very recent phenomenon. Up until about 300 years ago, economies across the world were mainly agricultural, with most of the value produced from the land.

    Nevertheless, certain civilizations developed huge advantages against their rivals. Economic historian Ian Morris says that for most of human history, a civilization’s economic strength depended largely on when it experienced an agricultural revolution. From there, it would take a nation thousands of years to turn itself into a true economic powerhouse. That is, until the industrial evolution upended everything. Here, in chronological order, are the five most powerful economic empires of all time:

    1. The Roman Empire, circa 100 AD: 25 to 30% of global output

    Rome was the distant descendant of the very first agricultural revolution, which took place in modern-day Iraq. Rome rose quickly from a small republic to a dominant global empire in a matter of centuries. It cemented its status as a superpower in a series of wars, known as the Punic Wars, with Ancient Carthage. These conflicts gave Rome complete dominance of the Mediterranean Sea, a body of water that enabled trade to flow easily from the economically vibrant areas of the empire, like the city of Rome and Egypt.

    As economists today know, trade is a vital ingredient for economic growth, and the Romans were better at it during their height than anybody else. There is also evidence that the Romans had a sophisticated financial system that made extensive use of bank notes and other forms of credit, which enabled traders to forgo hauling precious metals across long distances.

    2. The Song Dynasty in China, circa 1200 AD: 25% to 30% of global output

    Agriculture came later to China than it did in the modern-day Middle East. But by the time Chinese civilization made good use of the benefits of agricultural society, around 1200 AD, they had created one of the most magnificent civilizations the world had ever seen. Some scholars, like Ronald A. Edwards, an economic historian of China’s Song Dynasty at Tamkang University, argues that it was China, not England, that experienced the world’s first industrial revolution. He draws on research conducted by Japanese and Chinese scholars that shows that China experienced per capita economic growth at the same time that its population grew, something Europe wouldn’t achieve for hundreds of years.