Dr.
Bhaskar Dasgupta
works in the city of London
in various capacities in the
financial sector. He has worked
and travelled widely around
the world. He has a BSc in
Mathematics, an MBA in Finance
& IT, a PhD in Financial
Modelling and is working on
his second PhD in International
Relations and Terrorism.
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The
Rise and Fall of Great Knowledge
Powers (Part I)
Recently,
there has been a spate of American
reports warning about the lack of
knowledge produced in the United
States and that China/India will
take over the lead that the USA
has acquired. In addition, there
have been a series of programs on
British TV about the wonders of
the Victorian Age and we keep on
hearing about the golden age of
Islam. These led me to think about
how countries and nations become
knowledge powers and how they lose
their lead? Paul Kennedy explained
in his wonderful book, "The
Rise and Fall of Great Powers"
how great powers become great and
how they fall. Amongst other reasons
it is because of imperial overstretch,
the inability to sustain the military
strength by their economies. Knowledge
power is a much softer type of power,
if anything; it forms one of the
major foundation stones for a great
power. Let us explore this phenomenon.
I
only dabble in learning about history,
but to me, "history is a vast
early warning system". Patterns
swirl around in history and so many
times, we see the same pattern re-emerging,
over and over again. Such is the
case with ‘Knowledge Powers’. But
what is a knowledge power? There
are two aspects to defining this.
The first aspect is absolute and
the second is relative. The amount
of knowledge produced by a country
or nation is the absolute factor,
while comparing this amount to other
countries/nations is the relative
factor. What kind of knowledge are
we talking about? This is a very
broad based definition, spanning
both arts and sciences. All the
'ologies, physics, chemistry, engineering,
mathematics, medicine, painting,
sculpture, dance, architecture,
you name it.
So
if we want to have a qualitative
and quantitative measure of knowledge
produced, we look at the number
of patents issued to the number
of books published; from the number
and type of dramas/plays performed
to the architecture of the country;
the number of scientific research
institutes to the number of hospitals
and laboratories. I do not have
an econometric or statistical model
and I don’t even think I will be
able to produce one, but a person
who has read widely can understand
where I am coming from. Perhaps
the UN Human Development Index can
be a proxy, but it is also very
limited in its range and scope.
We
don’t want to go into the detailed
history of all these countries/nations,
it would suffice to hit the ages
and subject areas where we have
seen significant knowledge jumps.
Obviously, because of the slow communications
and lack of support infrastructure
which we take for granted these
days, the older nations were knowledge
powers over a longer period of time
than presently. I can only visualise
how much an ancient scientist such
as Aryabhatta would have loved to
have access to online libraries,
MathCAD, statistical packages and
word processing. Makes it so much
easier indeed.
• India 3000 BC to 500 AD – medicine,
religious and social texts, manufacturing,
mathematics, sciences, chemistry,
medicine, town planning, agriculture,
astronomy, astronomy, social sciences,
painting, dance, sculpture, music,
literature………
• China 3000 BC to 1000 AD – Paper
making, Gunpowder and weapons technology,
sciences, printing, compass, philosophy,
medicine, art, architecture, agriculture,
historiography, religious and social
texts, poetry, astronomy, astrology
…….
• Greeks 700 BC – 300 BC– historiography,
religious texts, political science,
mythology, alchemy, chemistry, philosophy,
literature…….
• Muslim 750 AD - 950 AD – Historiography,
religious texts, medicine, astronomy,
mathematics, sciences, literature,
geography and travel……..
• Italian 600 AD - 1600 AD– Arts,
sculpture, sciences, historiography,
architecture, religious texts…….
• British 1700 AD – 2000 AD - Arts,
sculpture, sciences, mathematics,
weapons development, liberalism,
painting, cultural studies, engineering,
metal working, astronomy, maritime
sciences……..
• American 1800 AD onwards – arts,
sciences, mathematics, military
science, metallurgy, food and agriculture
sciences, nuclear science, political
science, engineering, space, computer
science….
I
am sure I will be nitpicked to death
about the above list, with Germans,
Russians, French, Canadians, Surinamese,
Australians and Mongolians jumping
up and down about the non-inclusion
of their nations in the above list.
Well, calm down folks, this is not
supposed to be an exhaustive list
and the point is not the number
of knowledge powers, but how they
got to and stayed at that stage
and were pushed out of it. I have
missed out on the Aztec/Maya civilisation
which was an astronomical, literary
and religious marvel, the Ancient
Egyptian civilisation which was
an architectural, water sciences,
agricultural, metallurgical marvel,
so on and so forth but these really
didn’t contribute that much to modern
life.
So
very broadly speaking, these are
the factors which I see as being
the main reasons behind a nation/country
becoming a great knowledge power.
Firstly, there is a very strong
top down sponsorship of research
and development. In all the examples
of knowledge powers that we have
mentioned above, the kings, emperors,
governments, business bodies all
have backed research, development,
universities, schooling etc. to
the extent of being personally involved
in offering funds, tithes, sponsorship
to institutions and people who are
engaged in them. In the olden days,
it was a bit of a hit and miss and
now it’s more structured, but usually
– if you are bright – then you would
get sufficient funds to carry out
research or produce knowledge. In
addition, institutions of learning
were strongly and continuously sponsored
by the rulers and the state, not
like nowadays, where someone is
sponsored for 10 years and then
for the next 100 years, nothing.
On
the flip side, it would be noted
that countries which were not knowledge
powers did not really do anything
of this sort. The Mongols were great
powers, but they did sweet sod all
for knowledge; USSR was a great
military power but its knowledge
powers were strangely skewed; the
Ottoman and Mogul empires were great
military powers, but they didn’t
really produce anything of the scale
which we have seen above. The UK
lost its lead once the government
starved the institutions of learning
of funds. The great golden age of
Islam died when investigation and
research withered.
Secondly,
there was respect for scientists,
dramatists, poets, historians, religious
figures, mathematicians, and the
like. When I say respect, I really
truly mean respect. The fact that
you were a teacher or researcher
meant that you were frequently considered
to be top of the heap. They may
not have gotten much money, but
boy, were they respected. An old
Indian saying goes something like
this, “God and Guru/teacher are
both standing in front of me, who
I should salute? The answer is that
I should salute the Guru/teacher
as the he showed me the path to
God”. Mind you, Galileo was penalised
and there are many other examples,
but generally, in the history of
knowledge powers, an intellectual,
scientist or knowledge producer
was respected.
When
one looks at the other end of the
spectrum, teachers and scientists
are unfortunately not respected
at all. I see this in the UK and
USA where there is a strange feeling
of anti-intellectualism. I see this
in our schools where a brainy kid
is called by derogatory names such
as jerk, nerd, four eyes and so
on and so forth. No respect, no
knowledge powers. If one wants to
see how they are respected, just
carry out this small exercise, go
to a high school in China or India,
ask about their high achievers and
then ask their peers about them,
or see how their professors and
intellectuals are treated. You will
understand the difference.
Thirdly,
the concept of centers of excellence
was present in these knowledge centers.
There were the university or knowledge
towns of Nalanda, Xian, Cairo, Oxford,
Boston, Baghdad, Pataliputra, Rome,
Manchester, Delhi, Cordoba, Florence,
Alexandria, Athens, New York, London,
etc. People would congregate there
in large numbers, both professors
and students, and there would be
visiting scholars and scribes. People
would go there purely to study,
research, perform and read. These
cities would possess schools, laboratories,
universities, libraries and amphitheaters.
But the main thing about this phenomenon
was that there was a critical mass
of people who would carry on producing
knowledge. Just like one swallow
doesn’t make a summer, just one
researcher won’t go a long way to
make a knowledge power. It needed
lots of people congregating together.
Synergy would be produced and the
entire town would hum with intellectual
horsepower. There could be one,
there could be many such centers
but the key is that there would
be groups of people who would congregate
together according to their discipline
and produce knowledge. This is still
in evidence. London has become the
international centre for finance;
Boston is internationally known
for its science and arts universities
and their output; Paris is known
for its intellectual output in arts;
Bangalore is known for its IT skills,
etc.
This
leads us to the fourth factor, having
a proper infrastructure to facilitate
knowledge production. This factor
overlaps with the first and third
factors, but is important enough
to be discussed separately as it
has certain aspects which were not
catered for previously. Physical
infrastructure is vital for being
a good knowledge power. It encompasses
diverse elements ranging from good
roads, to physical security, ports
to telecommunications, electricity
to presence of paper making factories,
good sources of food and water,
health institutions, arts and crafts
institutions, museums, opera and
drama houses, churches, temples,
living quarters and sewerage systems.
The great knowledge powers that
I mentioned had good infrastructure,
they were at peace, trade happened,
industry and services were present
etc. Knowledge cannot be produced
in a vacuum, but needs developed
infrastructure to support it.
The
fifth factor was presence of capital
to convert ideas into action. The
kings and emperors of old devoted
monies and funds to their centers
of excellence, scientists, engineers,
chemists and metallurgists. During
the renaissance, Italian potentates
devoted significant chunks of change
to research and sciences. The British
were famous for their philanthropy
and providing capital to support
inventions and discoveries. The
Royal Geographical Society who had
rich and famous benefactors was
responsible for a quantum leap of
knowledge relating to geography,
language, culture, biology etc.
The whole saga of finding longitude
and an accurate chronometer can
be related to the availability of
capital by the military and tradesmen
of England.
In
the USA, large amounts of funds
are pumped into the National Science
Foundations, NASA and other research
bodies. Plus the American capital
markets and venture capital firms
are ready to back up inventions
with real money to deploy. Bell
Labs, IBM, Xerox Labs, Boeing, Oil
Companies, all private funded institutions
(ok, so the government helped out
as well) helped in driving inventions
and research. Look at the UK now,
where is the large and long term
money to drive scientific research?
The money is partially spent on
policing animal extremists who want
to kill medical research or on the
NHS. The lottery funds arts and
sports. Very nice, no wonder the
UK lost its knowledge power rating.
The final factor was that there
was freedom of speech, individual
liberty, concept of private and
intellectual property in these knowledge
powers. Even in ancient China and
India, there was freedom of speech.
A man could research and study what
they wanted. Ok, so let’s not assume
that the standards of freedom 3000
years back were identical to those
of now, but comparatively speaking,
a man could go into a royal court
and proclaim a new invention, or
come up with a new play or dance
without fear of retribution, imprisonment
or death. This is a critical aspect.
If man’s mind is fettered by fear,
then obviously it can’t go about
creating knowledge, but will keep
shut and mum.
Look
around in the many countries around
the world, who will claim to be
a medical investigators if he is
worried that paint stripper will
be poured on his car? Which student
will want to be a mathematician
if his peers will thump him? Which
historian will come up with new
theories or interpretations about
Christian history or Hindu’s eating
beef in ancient times when storms
of vituperation will break upon
him? Which artist will practice
in a country where graven imagery
is banned because of some strange
reading of a religious text and
the artist can be beheaded? While
there are limits to personal freedom
and freedom of speech, when these
limits are excessive – no knowledge
will be produced at all.
We
have explored some reasons behind
why knowledge powers rise and fall.
Of course, it is in the nature of
human systems that they grow and
decay, just like civilisations do.
Still, given our long and varied
human history, for countries who
want to become knowledge powers,
we can learn a lot from how previous
knowledge powers operated. In the
next column, we will explore how
or what India / China can do to
become knowledge powers, what can
the USA do to safeguard its lead,
what can the UK do to restore its
flagging powers or what can countries
like Indonesia, South Africa, Mexico
and Brazil do to become knowledge
powers. After all Francis Bacon
said “Knowledge IS Power”.
All
this to be taken with a grain of
salt!
Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta
Also available on
http://piquancy.blogspot.com/2005/05/rise-and-fall-of-great-knowledge.html
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5983_1360497,004300140003.htm
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