Imagine two parallel worlds, one without mobile phones and the Internet (the first world), and one without a toilet and sewer system (second world), which world would you want to live more?
I believe many people will choose the first world.After all, a world without mobile phones and the Internet has only increased communication costs and inconvenience, which has little impact on basic physiological needs and quality of life; things that are missing in the second world greatly reduce the quality of daily life.Compared with mobile phones and the Internet, the toilet and sewer system can better represent the progress of urbanization and also represent the progress of human civilization.
Do these two parallel worlds only exist in fantasy, or really exist in real life?
In fact, the first world is not uncommon. On the vast earth, there are still many areas that cannot cover the signal tower, and not all the barbaric places that civilizations have never touched.However, the second world actually exists in reality.
According to the World Bank data, the penetration rate of Kenya's basic sanitary facilities in 2020 was about 33%.Kenya's official data shows that the country's mobile phone penetration rate in the same year is close to 68%; after the data is further subdivided, the penetration rate of the mobile Internet exceeds half, reaching 53.4%.Obviously, finding a mobile phone on Kenya is easier to find a toilet.
Robertj. Gordon, a professor of economics at Northwestern University in the United States, had proposed the above -mentioned pseudo -choice questions about the above mobile phones and toilets as early as 10 years ago.At that time, the stage laughed, but Gordon took out a more thoughtful question: Can the current economic growth rate of the United States still be compared with the early 20th century?
Gordon pointed out in a papers published in 2012 that after entering the 21st century, the US economic growth rate faced the population, education popularization, gap between the rich and the poor, globalization, energy and environmental crisis, and government debt of public and government debt.Cumulative challenges in six aspects.At the same time, he also believes that the society generally overestimates the role of innovation in promoting economic growth, such as internal combustion engines, electricity, and the Internet, which can have more and less inventions that can have the impact of cross -era.Gordon predicted at the time that these factors would slow down the growth of developed economies such as the United States and make the global economic prospects covered with shadows.
Gordon's argument caused a fierce discussion in academics and politics at the time.The party supporting him believes that the decline in productivity growth in developed economies, stagnation of average wages, and increasing gaps between the rich and the poor can prove that Gordon's innovation of innovation on the decrease in economic growth benefits.However, the voice of opposition states that the theory is not comprehensive enough, ignoring the contribution of artificial intelligence applications and mechanical automation to promoting economic development, and at the same time, it has not considered the development of economically economies for global economic growth.The International Monetary Fund has predicted recently that China's GDP this year will increase by 5.2%. The strong rebound of the economy will boost the global economy, accounting for about one -third of the global growth.
The world is good at all;Capital is always the maximization of benefits. From China to India to the African continent. The lower the cost of the means of production, the company will transfer it towards it.When the labor force loses its price advantage, a economy can only find new development points from technical progress and promote consumption.This is the essence of the neoclassical economic growth model -the path of economic growth is stable, and the later growth rate will slow. Only technological progress can promote long -term growth.It is exactly Gordon's mentor and the 1987 Nobel Prize winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics Robertsology.
The two parallel world mentioned in the opening article, to a certain extent, the urbanization construction represented by the mobile Internet and the sewer system is two parallel roads in the process of human development.One reduces communication costs (mobile Internet), and one solves realistic problems (basic sanitary facilities).The two lines have different requirements for infrastructure and early capital investment, and the popularization speed is also different. Therefore, it is not surprising that the phenomenon of mobile phones such as Kenya than toilets.
(The author is MBA student in London Business School)
