{"id":"60181a5e6cee070007f4861e","slug":"open-en-johan-norberg","title":"Open","audio_url":"https://hls.blinkist.io/bibs/60181a5e6cee070007f4861e/60181a5f6cee070007f48620-T1612192522.m4a?Expires=1642718195&Signature=WE4icr4cgpXl-MBk18yZSKlZWEJrLCH4z4qfjB~oAeqRlFkTcXPs5ol6-c9QsIq5Ysv5eX2xEtDXQTWQAL1ORAC7-WDcInBZgC-emW-Kyb1XUscwv8qvUhE8WStEZgdGJ82-QHvijkH~2TfepKRuEDVukgeqIaw9kJQlW2h5GMww6PSfUlknkW-LJ8DOU5x8cuPL8Budsv7N~2onrvExU5El~h~5-ohAt5mhTU-3UujS-K2JtpNhksMGGDm7MGDrsCr-VCj8hQWuO6GgSSigBol35h5isg4bX8iFURXiywKsqbod2R4rWgXxiwHZc4D~4ohSvqvJRqt~t5obZERw7Q__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJXJM6BB7FFZXUB4A","chapters":[{"id":"60181a5f6cee070007f48620","title":"Cooperation is key to human progress.","text":"

There are three things that set human beings apart from other lifeforms on the planet: intelligence, language, and cooperation. This third trait was key to our evolution. Dating back about 3.2 million years ago, the Australopithecus afarensis species was a crucial evolutionary link between humans and our chimpanzee-like ancestors.

Due to dramatic environmental changes that turned rainforests into savannahs, our ancestors were forced to fend for themselves on dry ground. As a result, Australopithecus afarensis developed unique changes to its hand, wrist, shoulder, and upper arm. The reason? To enable it to throw stones.

Our early ancestors needed to cooperate in order to survive. And once they figured out that coordinated stone-throwing could take down animals far bigger and stronger than they were, there was no turning back. We were on our way to becoming human.

The key message here is: Cooperation is key to human progress.

Psychologist William von Hippel calls the advent of coordinated stone-throwing our “social leap.” Cooperation and the transfer of knowledge and skills among people would continue to be at the heart of human advancement.

Fast forward to around 45,000 years ago. In western Eurasia, the author believes that there was enough of a population build-up that ideas began to merge – and advanced tool-making began to take place. He adds that the knowledge of how to make these tools then spread to Africa and the Middle East, where they were further developed.

In fact, we can see how this spreading of ideas and social openness were deciding factors in human evolution. Around 50,000 years ago is also when the Neanderthals began to die off – or, to put it more accurately, the Neanderthals’ way of life died off, while the lineage of Neanderthals mixed with Homo sapiens.

One of the reasons for this was that Homo sapiens traveled and traded, while Neanderthals tended to stay close to home in their chilly Northern European climate. Through their travels and trading, Homo sapiens found value in the division of labor. This means that those who were great at hunting hunted, and those who were skilled at making clothes did just that. Societies began forming, and new levels of prosperity were achieved.

Neanderthals, on the other hand, never flourished like their more open-minded Homo sapiens relatives. Despite having larger brains, their preference for staying put meant they didn’t start dividing up their labor.

"},{"id":"60181a5f6cee070007f48621","title":"The first globalists revealed the enduring benefits of free trade and an open society.","text":"

Why did people build cities? One theory is that cities were built to provide security, but the reality is closer to the other way around. Through cooperation, division of labor, and the building of cities, people generated so much wealth that they had to start building walls in order to protect that wealth.

Recent studies show that the bigger the city, the more productive and innovative it is. And we can thank the early Mesopotamian cities for the first advances in a variety of fields such as chemistry, medicine, mathematics, zoology, and mapmaking. With division of labor and efficient farming, people were finally free to devote time to their speciality – and the rest of the city could reap the benefits.

Here’s the key message: The first globalists revealed the enduring benefits of free trade and an open society.

The Phoenicians were the first globalist society. These Semitic, Eastern Mediterranean people were adept at building and navigating wide merchant vessels that they used to conduct trade. Their network grew beyond the Mediterranean and North Africa and went on to include the Persian Gulf. Throughout these areas they established city states and developed a 22-letter phonetic alphabet that created the universal language of trade. The Greeks later added vowels, and this became the foundation for the modern Latin alphabet that we use in English today.

With Phoenician trade came new levels of prosperity and productivity. New ideas and new materials merged together. Glass blowing was developed. New forms of architecture were explored. Big sporting events emerged. Unfortunately for the Phoenicians, however, they didn’t pay much attention to military defenses – and, after close to 2,000 years of prosperity, were overpowered by the Babylonians and Romans. However, many of their innovations and ideas would live on within the subsequent Greek and Roman civilizations.

Indeed, the Roman Empire went through many changes over the years, but at its height, it was an open and tolerant society that used free trade. The empire was able to grow through the acceptance of other religions and beliefs. For a time, anyone from any background within the empire could rise through the ranks of Roman society. Only after the third century did the Empire make the shift from polytheism to monotheism. And with a dramatic turn toward intolerance and religious persecution, it was only a matter of time before the Empire crumbled.

"},{"id":"60181a5f6cee070007f48622","title":"Throughout history, enlightenment was happening outside a close-minded Europe.","text":"

Earlier in his life, the author believed that there was something unique about Europe – something that destined it to become the birthplace of modern civilization and the Age of Enlightenment. But the more he learned about the histories of other regions of the world, the more he realized that this was not the case. In fact, he discovered that there were a lot of places where modernity could’ve taken hold before seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe.

Many places the world over have followed a similar pattern. First, a time of openness and prosperity occurs, followed by something bad, like the appearance of an invading army. This gets blamed on the spirit of openness, and so society closes up and enters a dark period. This lasts until enough people call for a return to the freedom and well-being that came with open borders, trade, and tolerance.

This is the key message: Throughout history, enlightenment was happening outside a close-minded Europe.

One of the most important places where this cycle occurred was in the Islamic world of the eight to the twelfth centuries. Known as the Islamic Golden Age, it was centered in Baghdad but encompassed the Abbasid Caliphate, which stretched from Spain to India. Conversely, in Europe, previous scientific advancements were being shunned as religious fervor ushered in the Dark Ages. Fortunately, the Islamic world kept the torch of enlightenment alive by remaining open to and tolerant of other cultures.

So while Europeans destroyed the works of Aristotle in a period known as the Great Vanishing, Islamic scientific insights were being translated into Persian, Arabic, Indian, Turkish, and Armenian. New universities and hubs of higher learning were being founded, such as the Al-Karaouine in Morocco – the world’s oldest university, and still in operation today. In places such as these, Muslims, Jews, and Christians were free to mingle and exchange ideas. The Islamic world was now the most open and cosmopolitan of societies, and this is why it became a center of innovation and progress.

Great advancements in astronomy, medicine, physics, and mathematics, including the invention of modern algebra, all happened during this time. But when the Mongol army sacked Baghdad in 1258, that spirit of openness came to an end. Religious fundamentalism took root, and science and Greek philosophy became frowned upon.

A similar flourishing happened in China, during the Song dynasty of the tenth to thirteenth centuries. As historian Stephen Davies puts it, at this time, China’s economy, government, social structure, and scientific enlightenment were already as advanced as those of eighteenth-century Europe. And it was all due to China’s openness to trade and tolerance of learning from other cultures. But as with the Islamic world at the time, the doors began to close following repeated Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century.

"},{"id":"60181a5f6cee070007f48623","title":"In Europe, openness took hold as new trade possibilities emerged.","text":"

An important discovery was made in 1085, when parts of northern Spain were conquered by Christian Europeans. In the city of Toledo, a Muslim library was found that contained translated intellectual and scientific works, including what was left of Aristotle’s work.

This conquered area of Spain became a beacon for intellectual Europeans, who were starving after years of being cut off from knowledge. As the historian David Levering Lewis puts it, “Muslim learning, having seeped into the Christian West for decades from Andalusia, commenced a torrential outflow.” Over the next two centuries, a gradual opening up of Europe took place. By 1500, this opening up began to overflow beyond Europe’s borders.

The key message here is: In Europe, openness took hold as new trade possibilities emerged.

The New World came to Europe’s attention at the same time that they were establishing new trade routes to the Far East. These developments meant that new levels of wealth were being generated at a rapid pace. At first, it was the Spanish and the Portugese who were mastering the seas with fast, powerful new ships. But before long, a new European titan emerged: the Dutch.

Unlike Spain and Portugal, the Dutch were not only good at building and navigating ships – they were open, tolerant, and economically innovative. Like the Phoenicians and the Abbasid Caliphate, the Calvinist Dutch Republic was open to free trade and the exchange of ideas from all walks of life. The doors of the Dutch Republic were open to oppressed immigrants such as Sephardic Jews from Spain, Huguenots from France, Protestants from the Habsburg Empire, and English Quakers.

The influx of immigrants not only supplied the Dutch with as much as a half of their workforce in some areas, but it also provided them with a unique combination of diverse minds that led to innovative new industries and a massive economic upswing. From chocolate-making to tobacco-spinning, popular new businesses blossomed. But perhaps most important were the new innovations in shipbuilding that allowed the Dutch to turn out new vessels at an unprecedented pace.

By 1600, the Dutch Republic had surpassed the economies of Spain and Portugal, and set the template for a modern economy and tolerant society that England would embrace wholeheartedly in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. That occurred when the Dutch head of state, William of Orange, took the throne of England – and sowed the seeds of the European Industrial Revolution.

Diversity made the Dutch Republic the world’s wealthiest, and the example they set proved unstoppable as progress spread around the world.

"},{"id":"60181a5f6cee070007f48624","title":"The global economy is not a zero-sum game.","text":"

In 1707, with the union of England and Scotland, Great Britain came into being. And not long afterward, the United States of America was born when the new country split from Great Britain. Just as England gained a great deal of technology from Scotland, not the least of which was the steam engine, the US quickly became a hotbed of innovation. This was in part through its founding principle of being a nation open to immigrants, who were free to practice their religion of choice – and pursue their own ideas.

This, of course, was a founding principle that would be tested by the fact that the US also started out as a slave-owning nation, and one where certain immigrants wouldn’t always be so welcome. But these principles are nevertheless at the root of American success. The same can be said of the policy of free trade.

This is the key message: The global economy is not a zero-sum game.

One of the remarkable things about the success of the Dutch at the start of the Industrial Revolution is that they produced very little. Grain, wool, timber, oil, wine – none of these things were found within the Dutch Republic. But it didn’t matter. Through free trade, the Dutch prospered, as did all the nations with which it traded.

How did this happen? Well, being part of a system of free trade is not a zero-sum game where every party wins. Let’s consider one item traded between the Dutch Republic and India. If all you looked at were that one trade, It could seem like one side has to come up short. But the reality is much more complex. When something is traded, that doesn’t mean it can’t be traded again, with someone else, and it doesn’t mean that a product can’t create unforeseen value further down the road. This is because value from free trade is ongoing, and the benefit a nation gets from being part of the process can’t be determined simply from the face value of individual trade agreements.

Nothing about the global economy that was created hundreds of years ago is zero-sum. New levels of wealth have continued to be generated as innovation and new markets, spurred on by international exchange of ideas, continue to appear. Among nations with advanced economies, the average income has risen from $3 to $100 a day over the last 200 years – and that’s adjusted for inflation!

"},{"id":"60181a5f6cee070007f48625","title":"In many ways, human instincts are in conflict with openness.","text":"

So far, the cycle of opening and closing trade hasn’t hit Europe, the US, Japan, and the other countries that have benefited from free trade in the past two centuries. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

For the most part, the benefits have been undeniable and plentiful. Since the early 1800s, the average worldwide life expectancy has risen from under thirty years to over seventy. Over the same time period, poverty has dropped from afflicting 90 percent of the world’s population to only around nine percent. Openness has rid the world of many diseases, and has led to countless medical and scientific discoveries. But since we are human beings, we also have a fear of openness, otherness, and uncertainty. And since the events of 9/11 and the economic crisis of 2008, those fears have only grown.

Here’s the key message: In many ways, human instincts are in conflict with openness.

The human brain isn’t necessarily wired for openness and inclusivity. In fact, whenever we’re faced with thoughts about our own mortality, our fears of outsiders only intensify. And this isn’t just in regard to immigrants or foreigners. It applies to anyone who falls outside any of the groups with which you self-identify.

In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Christian students were asked to think of two people, a Christian and a Jewish person, who were similar aside from their religion. At first, the students rated these people as similarly appealing, but when reminded of their own mortality, the Christian was immediately ranked as more appealing than before, and the Jewish person less so.

Similar findings in other studies show that the human brain is simply wired to seek comfort in its own group – and to fear other groups when things like mortality and survival become an issue. This, in part, is why we’ve seen a rise in nationalism following events like 9/11 and the 2008 economic crisis. When people begin to lose jobs or sense a threat to their well-being, doors begin to close.

Yet, ironically enough, it’s through a continued commitment to openness that our problems are solved. Whether it’s China after the Song dynasty or the Islamic world following the Abbasid Caliphate, when doors are closed and people try to become self-sufficient and monocultural, it not only devastates the economy, it also stifles the innovation and new ideas that are needed to solve big problems.

"},{"id":"60181a5f6cee070007f48626","title":"Authoritarianism is also rooted in human impulse – but it doesn’t help.","text":"

It’s no coincidence that governments tend to grow in times of uncertainty and fear. This is another human instinct – to look to the strongman for protection when things get dire. For the most part, the author notes that since WWII, people everywhere have become more liberal than the previous generation. There have been more calls for equal rights and autonomy from the state. But that doesn’t mean we’re free from our authoritarian impulses.

As the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt puts it, when the right button gets pushed, people can become “focused on defending their in-group, [and] kicking out foreigners . . . . At those times, they are more attracted to strongmen and the use of force.” This isn’t an impulse we left behind after WWII; it’s one that we’ll have to contend with now and forever.

The key message here is: Authoritarianism is also rooted in human impulse – but it doesn’t help.

One need only look at the history of North Korea and Russia for examples of the limits authoritarianism puts on innovation and economic well-being. Authoritarian leadership doesn’t usually lend itself to the kind of trial-and-error entrepreneurship that innovation requires.

When the state has industry oversight, failure is rarely an option. When Kim Jong-il tried to use the threat of death as an incentive to kick-start a successful movie industry in North Korea, to his surprise, it didn’t work – so he resorted to kidnapping South Korean talent instead.

Likewise, the Soviet Union got nowhere in developing computer technology because entrepreneurs weren’t allowed to experiment. Even the US government at the time didn’t believe there was a home market for computers. It took a lot of brazen entrepreneurs and a good deal of expensive trial and error before home computers and the internet were born.

There is perhaps no better example of how the world economy is not a zero-sum game than our transition to the internet era. When home computing was on the rise, people were already fearing job loss. In 1995, the right-wing magazine Weekly Standard ran a front page feature called “Smash the Internet,” predicting a surge in unemployment.

And while some jobs have been lost due to the advent of the internet, an enormous number of jobs have also been created because of it – jobs that didn’t exist before. A recent McKinsey report found that a third of the jobs created in the US over the past 25 years were completely new. And a 2011 survey in France found that 2.4 new jobs had been created for every job lost to the internet since 1996.

"},{"id":"60181a606cee070007f48627","title":"The problems facing the world today can only be solved through openness.","text":"

There’s an old saying among communist workers: “We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.” But these days, China is something of an anomaly, existing somewhere on the border between authoritarian rule and free market entrepreneurship. And despite what the party narrative may be, that wasn’t planned by the government.

The fact is that farmers in the 1990s began operating as private businesses of their own accord, and the trend quickly caught on – to the point where the government had little choice but to sanction it. So China opened up, ever so slightly, with “economic free zones” being created and foreign advisors being quietly brought in. As a result, the economy blossomed. But can government-sanctioned capitalism last?

This is the key message: The problems facing the world today can only be solved through openness.

Since 2008, the author contends that China’s economy has actually been in a steady decline. The bottom line is that an authoritarian government doesn’t like surprises. This means there will be little innovation coming from China unless it stops trying to control everything and lets ambitious Chinese minds mix with outside influences and experiment freely.

Ultimately, every problem is a knowledge problem. Today’s climate crisis is a knowledge problem. We know what has to be done, we just have to find a way to reduce harmful emissions and stop rising global temperatures. Figuring out how to do that takes cooperation and the open sharing of ideas and knowledge. The author even has some ideas of his own.

To cut our emissions in half, which is what many scientists believe is required of us, we need incentives to bring together the best minds to solve the problem. One idea being floated is to impose a carbon tax. This would make people pay for the damage they're currently causing and put some pressure on getting the brightest minds to come together and figure out a solution. To make it a popular idea with citizens, money generated from the tax could even be passed on to consumers.

While many among us like to imagine that things were better or simpler in the past, this is just an illusion. People around the world are infinitely better off than they were in the 1950s or at the dawn of the twentieth century, when poverty ran rampant. By saying “no” to authoritarianism and looking to other cultures for ideas and inspiration, we can continue to use openness to solve our problems and make the world an even better place to live.

"},{"id":"60181a606cee070007f48628","title":"Final summary","text":"

The key message in these blinks:

Human progress has always been defined by openness. The most progressive and advanced societies throughout history have embraced immigration and tolerance, traded freely with other countries, and exchanged ideas and knowledge to their advantage. It began with the Phoenicians and continued with the Greeks and Romans. During the European Dark Ages, the spirit of openness was kept alive by the Islamic world and Song dynasty in China. It was again embraced by Europe when the Industrial Revolution helped spread free trade around the world. Since human beings have instinctive reactions to seek authoritarian protection in times of crisis, there is a risk of us returning to closed-off societies. We must therefore remain vigilant in knowing that our problems can only be solved through openness.

Got feedback?

We’d love to hear what you think about our content! Just drop an email to remember@blinkist.com with Open as the subject line, and share your thoughts!

What to read next: Humankind, by Rutger Bregman

If you felt inspired by human history’s accomplishments through cooperation, you’re likely to find even more to enjoy in our blinks to Humankind: A Hopeful History. You’ll find more examples of how everything good that’s happened in the world has been a result of people from different walks of life coming together to do the right thing.

There’s no shortage of uncertainty in the world today, but history tells us that human beings have a strong tendency to unite in the face of such challenges and overcome adversity. We recommend heading over to our blinks for Humankind, where you’ll find some comfort in our historical triumphs.

"}]}

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