WEBVTT NOTE Exploration: The Finding, Founding, and Discovery of the New World 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.640 Okay, as I said in the first class, we're starting 2 00:00:04.640 --> 00:00:07.680 the section of lectures on colonialism. 3 00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:13.160 The beginnings, the origins of the United States, and 4 00:00:13.160 --> 00:00:16.620 while it may seem distant in time, 5 00:00:16.620 --> 00:00:20.400 what we're going to find out is that that initial imprint 6 00:00:20.400 --> 00:00:23.980 that the old world made onto the new world 7 00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:27.720 is really vital. It still has lingering effects 8 00:00:27.720 --> 00:00:30.000 to this very day. 9 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:32.960 And so the first full lecture here 10 00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:34.420 in this class, 11 00:00:34.420 --> 00:00:36.760 we're going to start right at the beginning 12 00:00:36.760 --> 00:00:38.960 with exploration. 13 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:40.080 The finding, 14 00:00:40.080 --> 00:00:41.260 the founding, 15 00:00:41.260 --> 00:00:42.480 the discovery 16 00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:44.840 of the new world. 17 00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:49.120 And we want to answer the first question, why did people move 18 00:00:49.120 --> 00:00:51.480 from the old world to the new world? 19 00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:54.920 Obviously the first step of that is exploration 20 00:00:54.920 --> 00:00:56.440 and discovery. 21 00:00:56.440 --> 00:01:01.520 now the economist has a simple answer 22 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:06.240 why did people move from the old world to the new world 23 00:01:06.240 --> 00:01:08.760 and that is that the benefits 24 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:13.040 outweighed the cost 25 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:15.700 okay so that's just a very 26 00:01:15.700 --> 00:01:18.220 very sketchy 27 00:01:18.220 --> 00:01:20.840 beginning point 28 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:23.160 and we could well imagine that 29 00:01:23.160 --> 00:01:25.600 places that are discovered 30 00:01:25.600 --> 00:01:30.580 are not subsequently colonized. So discovery can actually be 31 00:01:30.580 --> 00:01:33.740 haphazard or random or just for the fun of it 32 00:01:33.740 --> 00:01:40.740 and not actually result in colonization. 33 00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:45.080 But why are we here? 34 00:01:45.080 --> 00:01:49.680 Well, if we look at this 35 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:52.800 notion 36 00:01:52.800 --> 00:01:59.800 of Benefits Being Greater Than Costs 37 00:01:59.800 --> 00:02:01.800 we really have to 38 00:02:01.800 --> 00:02:04.160 we can step back just a minute 39 00:02:04.160 --> 00:02:05.740 and look at where 40 00:02:05.740 --> 00:02:07.880 we came from the old world 41 00:02:07.880 --> 00:02:10.560 you really have to wonder why they would bother 42 00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:11.960 to even come here 43 00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:16.460 in the first place other than just for the heck of it 44 00:02:16.460 --> 00:02:19.520 first of all there's the transactions cost 45 00:02:19.520 --> 00:02:21.420 the cost involved 46 00:02:21.420 --> 00:02:24.120 in getting from the old world to the new world 47 00:02:24.120 --> 00:02:25.520 a very 48 00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:27.680 very expensive 49 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:30.600 process not many people owned a boat 50 00:02:30.600 --> 00:02:34.840 that could get from point A to point B 51 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:36.360 and of course 52 00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:38.480 the passage even after 53 00:02:38.480 --> 00:02:40.660 the new world was discovered 54 00:02:40.660 --> 00:02:41.800 and settled 55 00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:44.680 the passage of a european for example coming 56 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:47.320 to the united states might be equal to 57 00:02:47.320 --> 00:02:50.560 several years of their labor. 58 00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:51.440 So it's 59 00:02:51.440 --> 00:02:55.640 a very expensive transaction to get from point A to point B. 60 00:02:55.640 --> 00:02:57.520 And then there are all the risks 61 00:02:57.520 --> 00:02:59.080 and uncertainties 62 00:02:59.080 --> 00:03:03.420 involved in getting from the old world to the new world, 63 00:03:03.420 --> 00:03:07.120 like being shipwrecked, 64 00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:14.120 or being wiped out by disease or the native population. 65 00:03:14.120 --> 00:03:29.120 And you know if you look at Europe at the time things were not really all that bad. It wasn't like they were running away from the worst spot on the globe. 66 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:42.120 It's not like people in Cuba wanting to get out of Cuba because of a declining standard of living and boy we're only 90 miles away from Miami. 67 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:47.120 It would be a sure need to get there, and I'd be willing to do everything to get there. 68 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:51.120 No, Europe was the place to be at the time. 69 00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:57.120 A rising standard of living, growing prosperity in Europe. 70 00:03:57.120 --> 00:04:01.120 The cultural signs sort of back that up. 71 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:10.120 A period of time, say the 16th century, where we have the likes of Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Da Vinci 72 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:26.920 And Europe was not particularly overcrowded. 73 00:04:26.920 --> 00:04:34.680 If you look at Europe in the Middle Ages, Auburn, Opelika would qualify as one of the 74 00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:37.520 world's largest cities. 75 00:04:37.520 --> 00:04:45.480 So it wasn't like it was hugely overcrowded and there was no place left to put people. 76 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:48.200 That really wasn't the case on a massive scale. 77 00:04:48.200 --> 00:04:56.960 So there was not a mad rush to the new world, quite the contrary. 78 00:04:56.960 --> 00:05:08.960 However, there is this overriding resource explanation that we're going to be looking at. 79 00:05:08.960 --> 00:05:17.960 And that is that in the old world, if we compare that to the new world, 80 00:05:17.960 --> 00:05:36.320 What we find is that the old world was relatively labor rich. 81 00:05:36.320 --> 00:05:55.800 There were a lot of people, a lot of laborers, a lot of artisans. 82 00:05:55.800 --> 00:06:06.300 In the New World, there was a lot of land available. 83 00:06:06.300 --> 00:06:15.940 So if we compare the Old World to the New World, the Old World had lots of labor relative 84 00:06:15.940 --> 00:06:21.400 to land, and in the New World they had lots of land relative to labor. 85 00:06:21.400 --> 00:06:35.400 So there's this, going to be this draw here, where labor can benefit itself and also capital. 86 00:06:35.400 --> 00:06:46.000 The New World was capital poor, they didn't have a lot of tools, buildings, machinery, 87 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:53.000 Roads, things of that nature where the old world did. And so what we were going to see 88 00:06:53.640 --> 00:07:00.640 over the first 300 years of American history, and this really continues today, is that labor 89 00:07:00.840 --> 00:07:06.360 and capital flow from the old world to the new world in order to take advantage of the 90 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:13.360 relative scarcity differences. 91 00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:34.360 Exploration. Exploration is going to be the main topic today and it's kind of interesting because we see all of a sudden a burst of energy in terms of exploring around the globe by the European powers. 92 00:07:34.360 --> 00:07:46.360 The Portuguese were actually the first to go on a world scavenger hunt for new colonies, new land and new resources. 93 00:07:46.360 --> 00:07:57.360 And the Portuguese started in the 15th century, they started moving down the western coast of Africa, setting up colonies and bases. 94 00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:06.000 They are actually the ones that first moved around the Cape and into the Indian Ocean, 95 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:14.240 founding colonies in places like India and even China, Southeast Asia, and so they were 96 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:25.400 the first explorers and colonizers, followed by the Spanish and Christopher Columbus, who 97 00:08:25.400 --> 00:08:36.960 who was Italian but flying under the Spanish flag, Cortez discovers America and 1517 conquers 98 00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:48.840 Mexico within a very short period of time, Magellan discovers the Philippines under the 99 00:08:48.840 --> 00:09:07.120 The Spanish Banner, De Soto discovered Florida, discovered the Mississippi River, and I think 100 00:09:07.120 --> 00:09:17.820 actually was in the state of Alabama for a short period of time as well. Coronado discovered 101 00:09:17.820 --> 00:09:26.060 of the Grand Canyon in 1540, and so the Spanish are actually here in the New World ahead of 102 00:09:26.060 --> 00:09:31.740 many of the other European powers. 103 00:09:31.740 --> 00:09:37.180 And of course the Spanish and the Portuguese basically, Spain in particular, are going to 104 00:09:37.180 --> 00:09:49.420 have colonial territories from California to Kansas and down into Florida and then all 105 00:09:49.420 --> 00:09:58.300 through Mexico and most of South America. South America also has colonies. The Portuguese 106 00:09:58.300 --> 00:10:11.940 These have Brazil, the Dutch have some small colonies, things of that nature. 107 00:10:11.940 --> 00:10:17.540 The British and the French and the Dutch are more late comers and they end up with colonies 108 00:10:17.540 --> 00:10:22.500 in the United States and Canada. 109 00:10:22.500 --> 00:10:26.740 Now what is driving these explorers? 110 00:10:26.740 --> 00:10:35.420 What drove this spurt of exploration and discovery? 111 00:10:35.420 --> 00:10:42.380 Well we could probably look at a lot of different types of explanations involving knowledge 112 00:10:42.380 --> 00:10:48.180 accumulation, involving technology of shipping and that sort of thing. 113 00:10:48.180 --> 00:11:05.180 But the overriding reason from an economic perspective is the economic philosophy of mercantilism. 114 00:11:05.180 --> 00:11:14.700 Not really going to go through sort of a European history prelude to all this, but within Europe 115 00:11:14.700 --> 00:11:40.700 In Europe at this time, the philosophy of mercantilism had become dominant and basically what you have here with mercantilism is kind of a symbiotic relationship or union between government and business 116 00:11:40.700 --> 00:11:53.700 This is an idea of basically building the nation state. 117 00:11:53.700 --> 00:12:03.700 So the goal here was not that economic policy or philosophy should be for the general well-being of society or for the average man. 118 00:12:03.700 --> 00:12:22.420 The purpose of economic policy was to strengthen the state, to strengthen the nation militarily, 119 00:12:22.420 --> 00:12:30.180 to be able to defend and enlarge your nation versus your competitors. 120 00:12:30.180 --> 00:12:36.360 And the engine through which you did this was through a set of what's often considered 121 00:12:36.360 --> 00:12:56.060 pro-business policies. 122 00:12:56.060 --> 00:13:07.620 High up on this list was the idea that money is wealth. Especially gold. Got to get the 123 00:13:07.620 --> 00:13:17.340 gold. That's the key to everything under the mercantilist banner. Now you've all taken 124 00:13:17.340 --> 00:13:21.360 Principles of Economics 125 00:13:21.360 --> 00:13:23.340 and one of the things that you've 126 00:13:23.340 --> 00:13:26.140 forgotten 127 00:13:26.140 --> 00:13:28.100 but I'm going to remind you 128 00:13:28.100 --> 00:13:31.680 is that money is not wealth 129 00:13:31.680 --> 00:13:33.740 we all feel like it is 130 00:13:33.740 --> 00:13:36.020 the more money you have 131 00:13:36.020 --> 00:13:40.260 the wealthier you feel 132 00:13:40.260 --> 00:13:45.100 okay so if we can all imagine that someone made a mistake 133 00:13:45.100 --> 00:13:52.740 and they added four zeros to your checking account balance 134 00:13:52.740 --> 00:13:54.900 so that all of a sudden 135 00:13:54.900 --> 00:14:01.420 for every dollar that you had you now really think you have thousands of dollars 136 00:14:01.420 --> 00:14:02.260 and so 137 00:14:02.260 --> 00:14:07.100 in that individual case money is wealth 138 00:14:07.100 --> 00:14:10.540 but that's of course a fallacy 139 00:14:10.540 --> 00:14:13.260 an economic fallacy in the sense that 140 00:14:13.260 --> 00:14:16.500 Money for the individual may be viewed as wealth, 141 00:14:16.500 --> 00:14:19.780 but money is really just the medium of exchange. 142 00:14:19.780 --> 00:14:21.620 Wealth, 143 00:14:21.620 --> 00:14:23.620 I mean it's basically just the 144 00:14:23.620 --> 00:14:29.180 grease that makes the economic wheels turn in society. 145 00:14:29.180 --> 00:14:34.140 Wealth is represented by things like homes, cars, 146 00:14:34.140 --> 00:14:36.860 roads, buildings, warehouses, 147 00:14:36.860 --> 00:14:39.180 factories, machinery, 148 00:14:39.180 --> 00:14:43.060 farmland. 149 00:14:43.060 --> 00:14:47.420 that's what is wealth in the sense that that is what can produce 150 00:14:47.420 --> 00:14:51.940 consumer goods and make us better off. Money is just 151 00:14:51.940 --> 00:14:55.920 the medium of exchange but this is one of the fallacies 152 00:14:55.920 --> 00:14:59.060 under which they operated and on which they based 153 00:14:59.060 --> 00:15:03.380 their economic policies. 154 00:15:03.380 --> 00:15:07.900 Another fallacy 155 00:15:07.900 --> 00:15:11.500 exports, good 156 00:15:11.500 --> 00:15:18.500 Imports Bad 157 00:15:24.700 --> 00:15:27.880 They thought that 158 00:15:27.880 --> 00:15:29.480 it's much better 159 00:15:29.480 --> 00:15:32.380 to work real hard, and that's one of the things that they wanted. They wanted 160 00:15:32.380 --> 00:15:33.840 everybody working. 161 00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:37.780 All farmland under production, nobody just laying around, sitting around doing 162 00:15:37.780 --> 00:15:39.280 nothing. 163 00:15:39.280 --> 00:15:41.840 you better be working 164 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:45.320 and what we want to do is work real real hard produce all these 165 00:15:45.320 --> 00:15:48.360 sophisticated goods 166 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:51.440 and we want to send them to somebody else and not use them ourselves 167 00:15:51.440 --> 00:15:54.020 and we don't want to import anything 168 00:15:54.020 --> 00:16:01.020 from those other countries 169 00:16:01.020 --> 00:16:31.020 And why would you want to do that? To make money, that's right. She's getting all the bonus points here in this class. To make money. So you've got more gold locally. Now, of course, you can't do much with gold outside of jewelry, but this is another 170 00:16:31.020 --> 00:16:54.020 There are other aspects of mercantilism, including colonialism, that we'll be exploring, but I think that this is enough to get the flavor for what the European powers were up to at this particular point in time. 171 00:16:54.020 --> 00:17:04.020 and enough of a motivating factor for their ventures of exploration, discovery and colonialism. 172 00:17:04.020 --> 00:17:14.020 They basically wanted money. 173 00:17:14.020 --> 00:17:23.020 Now the organization of these exploration ventures and discoveries and ultimately of colonialism 174 00:17:23.020 --> 00:17:34.820 is based on the mercantilist model, where you have a public-private partnership, of course 175 00:17:34.820 --> 00:17:40.260 they didn't call it, that's what we call it today, a public-private partnership, where 176 00:17:40.260 --> 00:17:53.460 Where you have government in bed with big business, and this, it turns out, is a very 177 00:17:53.460 --> 00:17:55.860 powerful tool. 178 00:17:55.860 --> 00:18:09.060 It's a very powerful tool, many would argue it's too powerful, because these explorers 179 00:18:09.060 --> 00:18:12.300 that you've all heard about 180 00:18:12.300 --> 00:18:14.460 Columbus and Magellan 181 00:18:14.460 --> 00:18:19.460 DeSoto and so on and so forth 182 00:18:19.460 --> 00:18:21.900 these guys 183 00:18:21.900 --> 00:18:24.060 of course they faced a lot of risks 184 00:18:24.060 --> 00:18:25.700 but they had 185 00:18:25.700 --> 00:18:28.440 the fact that they were privately motivated 186 00:18:28.440 --> 00:18:29.780 they were motivated 187 00:18:29.780 --> 00:18:35.780 by a for-profit venture 188 00:18:35.780 --> 00:18:38.280 they were in it 189 00:18:38.280 --> 00:18:46.680 for the Money. 190 00:18:46.680 --> 00:18:54.080 Second of all, they had the government behind them. 191 00:18:54.080 --> 00:18:58.760 They had government subsidies, in many cases, 192 00:18:58.760 --> 00:19:03.760 and they were also given the rights 193 00:19:03.760 --> 00:19:13.080 to, for example, declare that new discoveries were now the property of whoever sent them. 194 00:19:13.080 --> 00:19:17.920 So whatever king or whatever nation sent them out on these voyages, they had the power to 195 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:25.440 put the flag down and declare all the land between this river and that river, as long 196 00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:32.940 As long as it didn't belong to another European power, or as long as it didn't belong to 197 00:19:32.940 --> 00:19:42.380 a Christian nation, they could declare it the property of whatever king sent them. 198 00:19:42.380 --> 00:19:48.300 And of course, in addition to the subsidies, in addition to the backing of the government, 199 00:19:48.300 --> 00:19:54.940 sometimes with government ships, government money, government soldiers, sailors, things 200 00:19:54.940 --> 00:19:59.140 and other things of that nature. 201 00:19:59.140 --> 00:20:03.980 Whatever you discovered, of course, the king would allow you to keep a portion of whatever 202 00:20:03.980 --> 00:20:08.460 you discovered for yourself. 203 00:20:08.460 --> 00:20:15.540 So it's a very powerful tool where you have this for-profit motivation, where you're going 204 00:20:15.540 --> 00:20:22.020 to make a lot of money off of this stuff if you discover something, and you have the power 205 00:20:22.020 --> 00:20:31.780 of the King Behind You. 206 00:20:31.780 --> 00:20:42.820 So this is the mercantilist approach to exploration, it was very powerful, very successful in obtaining 207 00:20:42.820 --> 00:20:43.820 new territories. 208 00:20:43.820 --> 00:20:50.460 All of those we're going to see, it wasn't necessarily successful in terms of colonization 209 00:20:50.460 --> 00:20:59.980 itself. Now the other two systems that I mentioned in the first class, Capitalism, 210 00:20:59.980 --> 00:21:04.620 Socialism and Mercantilism, this is Mercantilism where you have both the 211 00:21:04.620 --> 00:21:09.860 private sector and the public sector sort of working together with a very 212 00:21:09.860 --> 00:21:19.980 powerful force. Now I'm going to look at the other two where you have private 213 00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:48.500 Explorers, and Public Explorers. 214 00:21:48.500 --> 00:22:17.700 In 1818, in 1909, there were a whole host of expeditions up into the Arctic to discover 215 00:22:17.700 --> 00:22:25.500 to discover, to lay out the lands of the Arctic area, to discover a northwest passage around 216 00:22:25.500 --> 00:22:33.500 the upper part of Canada to Asia, scientific expeditions to discover the North Pole, the 217 00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:40.860 magnetic North Pole, things of that nature. So there were many reasons for exploring an 218 00:22:40.860 --> 00:22:44.860 This was an area that wasn't intended for colonization really. 219 00:22:44.860 --> 00:23:00.860 This was explored for commercial purposes, for fishing grounds, hunting grounds, transportation routes, and for scientific purposes. 220 00:23:00.860 --> 00:23:07.860 So you have a variety of reasons why people were exploring that particular area. 221 00:23:07.860 --> 00:23:13.900 That's for a nice sort of laboratory experiment. It's not very often in economics where we 222 00:23:13.900 --> 00:23:24.620 can isolate enough factors to really explore something empirically in an isolated area. 223 00:23:24.620 --> 00:23:32.660 But this is about as isolated as you can get. Now, the public sector undertook some of these 224 00:23:32.660 --> 00:23:37.660 These explorations and the private sector undertook some of these explorations. 225 00:23:37.660 --> 00:23:43.180 Some of them were profit motivated for commercial purposes, others were for scientific purposes, 226 00:23:43.180 --> 00:23:49.060 but there was very often prizes associated with these scientific discoveries, much like 227 00:23:49.060 --> 00:23:55.260 the X Prize for space travel. 228 00:23:55.260 --> 00:24:00.880 And on top of that, of course, if you were to discover something, you would become famous, 229 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:07.800 You could go on the lecture circuit, you could write a book, you would become a celebrity. 230 00:24:07.800 --> 00:24:13.220 So there were a lot of reasons, both economic and non-economic, why people were doing this. 231 00:24:13.220 --> 00:24:28.440 There were 57 private expeditions and the other, the public did 35, the public sector 232 00:24:28.440 --> 00:24:36.840 did 35 expeditions. 233 00:24:36.840 --> 00:24:41.080 So there's enough on both sides to 234 00:24:41.080 --> 00:24:45.680 be able to tell that both the public sector and the private sector were 235 00:24:45.680 --> 00:24:52.320 actively involved in exploring the Arctic area. 236 00:24:52.320 --> 00:24:55.720 Now one of the big issues about exploring an 237 00:24:55.720 --> 00:25:04.720 in an area like this is tragedy. I mean, it wasn't just that you didn't get the prize or you didn't find the island or the North Pole. 238 00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:15.720 In many cases, people died on these expeditions. 239 00:25:15.720 --> 00:25:28.720 On the public ventures, the average was 5.9 deaths per trip. 240 00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:35.720 In the private sector, there was less than one death per trip. 241 00:25:35.720 --> 00:25:39.840 so in the private sector 242 00:25:39.840 --> 00:25:41.360 there was a much 243 00:25:41.360 --> 00:25:42.920 lower amount of 244 00:25:42.920 --> 00:25:44.560 crew deaths 245 00:25:44.560 --> 00:25:51.560 than in the public sector 246 00:25:53.040 --> 00:25:55.180 ships lost 247 00:25:55.180 --> 00:25:56.780 a lot of the ships were 248 00:25:56.780 --> 00:25:59.040 destroyed sunk 249 00:25:59.040 --> 00:26:01.220 uh... 250 00:26:01.220 --> 00:26:05.100 one of the problems they would find is they'd get up there in the Arctic 251 00:26:05.100 --> 00:26:10.040 and uh... the ice pack would form around them and the ice would strengthen 252 00:26:10.040 --> 00:26:12.860 and basically crush their ship 253 00:26:12.860 --> 00:26:16.800 and they'd be of course forced to flee onto the ice pack 254 00:26:16.800 --> 00:26:19.880 uh... which is not uh... 255 00:26:19.880 --> 00:26:22.180 all that uh... 256 00:26:22.180 --> 00:26:25.200 your chances of survival after that are not too too good 257 00:26:25.200 --> 00:26:27.100 there was about one quarter 258 00:26:27.100 --> 00:26:29.520 of a ship lost per 259 00:26:29.520 --> 00:26:30.540 uh... 260 00:26:30.540 --> 00:26:33.440 expedition in the private sector 261 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:47.440 There was more than a half of a ship on average lost in the public sector. 262 00:26:47.440 --> 00:26:58.440 In terms of the size of the losses, the public sector actually lost three times the amount of ship tonnage. 263 00:26:58.440 --> 00:27:12.440 If you look at the size, consider the size of the ship, the public sector actually lost twice the number of ships, but three times the tonnage. 264 00:27:12.440 --> 00:27:25.440 And scurvy. Scurvy is a disease. I'm sure you're all familiar with this. 265 00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:43.440 If you don't have access to vitamin C on a regular basis, over a long period of time, if you don't have vitamin C, your vision becomes blurry, your bones become brittle, your gums begin to bleed and your teeth fall out and then you die. 266 00:27:43.440 --> 00:27:53.440 It's a slow painful sickening process. Very often you don't die from it. 267 00:27:53.440 --> 00:28:17.440 13% of private ships experience scurvy on their adventures, whereas in the public sector 47% of the ventures were known to have experienced scurvy. 268 00:28:17.440 --> 00:28:26.840 The actual results are much worse than that because some of these 92 adventures or expeditions we don't know anything about. 269 00:28:26.840 --> 00:28:29.840 They didn't say whether they had it or not. 270 00:28:29.840 --> 00:28:46.380 Of those ventures where we know whether they said it or not, five of 22 of the private sector experience scurvy. 271 00:28:46.380 --> 00:29:08.380 20 to 25 percent, whereas 14 out of 17 of the public sector ventures experienced scurvy on their expedition, so a very very high percentage of public sector expeditions experienced that disease. 272 00:29:08.380 --> 00:29:15.380 The crew size is very interesting on these ventures in terms of the characteristics of these voyages. 273 00:29:15.380 --> 00:29:29.740 The crews in the private sector trips average only 16 members, sometimes as few as 3, whereas 274 00:29:29.740 --> 00:29:37.100 in the public sector the average crew size was 70, so a much larger crew for the public 275 00:29:37.100 --> 00:29:52.940 Sector, much larger ships as well. The number of ships in the private sector averaged 1.15 276 00:29:52.940 --> 00:29:59.180 ships per expedition. So most of the, you know, couldn't get below one. You got to have 277 00:29:59.180 --> 00:30:29.180 So most of the private ventures were a single ship. The public sector averaged 1.63 ships. So they tended to be more than one ship. And the ship sizes were also very different. The private sector averaged 260 tons. The public sector averaged 1.63 tons. The private sector averaged 1.63 tons. The private sector averaged 1.63 tons. The private sector averaged 1.63 tons. 278 00:30:29.180 --> 00:30:55.180 Average 366 tons. So they've got more ships, bigger ships and a larger crew. Now that information is given because one of the pieces of information we don't really have much information about is what their budgets were. 279 00:30:55.180 --> 00:31:08.180 We can only presume from the fact that they had more ships, bigger ships and larger crews, that they also had much larger budgets in the public sector. 280 00:31:08.180 --> 00:31:21.180 So basically it wasn't the case, I mean it is the case that the public sector adventures were spending more money in order to achieve their prizes. 281 00:31:21.180 --> 00:31:50.180 Now, in terms of prizes, the private sector was successful in 5 out of 57 attempts. 282 00:31:50.180 --> 00:31:55.180 So this is a fairly risky business. 283 00:31:55.180 --> 00:32:11.180 And the private sector actually got all of the major prizes that were available to win or to discover up in the Arctic. 284 00:32:11.180 --> 00:32:25.180 They discovered the Northwest Passage, they discovered the North Pole, they discovered the Franklin Expedition, which was a public sector expedition that failed. 285 00:32:25.180 --> 00:32:30.180 A little bit more on that. 286 00:32:30.180 --> 00:32:38.180 The public sector only got one prize out of 35 attempts. 287 00:32:42.180 --> 00:32:48.180 So you have a success rate here of, what, about 9% and 3%. 288 00:32:48.180 --> 00:33:13.180 Most of the great tragedies were amongst the public sector expeditions. The Franklin Expedition, which I just mentioned, was from the UK in 1845. 289 00:33:13.180 --> 00:33:28.260 life, all ships were lost, all the crew died, there's evidence of widespread cannibalism. 290 00:33:28.260 --> 00:33:36.580 The Greeley Expedition, which was a U.S. expedition of 1881 through 1884, 19 of 25 of the crew 291 00:33:36.580 --> 00:34:03.580 The crew died during the expedition, and the DeLong Expedition of 1879 was a privately funded but government-run expedition, it's kind of unusual, the ships were lost and 20 out of 33 of the crew died. 292 00:34:03.580 --> 00:34:18.580 It was something that the private sector actually provided the funding for, but the ships and the crew, particularly the crew leadership, were military based. 293 00:34:18.580 --> 00:34:29.580 Now, as far as the general characteristics of these expeditions are concerned, what caused this difference here? 294 00:34:29.580 --> 00:34:46.580 What caused the private sector to be safer, less expensive, less dangerous to the crew on a smaller budget, and yet they end up with almost all of the prizes? 295 00:34:46.580 --> 00:34:50.580 And what causes that? 296 00:34:50.580 --> 00:35:08.580 Well, the first thing you can look at is nationality. There were expeditions from Great Britain, there were expeditions from the United States, there were expeditions from many of the European powers, particularly seafaring nations like Sweden. 297 00:35:08.580 --> 00:35:19.580 But there doesn't seem to be any statistical significance of where these expeditions originated from. 298 00:35:19.580 --> 00:35:26.580 That doesn't seem to help explain that British were better sailors or Americans were better sailors. 299 00:35:26.580 --> 00:35:31.580 Nothing like that comes out in the evidence. 300 00:35:31.580 --> 00:35:41.100 you could look at the experience of the captain how many previous trips to the 301 00:35:41.100 --> 00:35:46.460 Arctic had the captain made but that doesn't help explain it either because 302 00:35:46.460 --> 00:35:54.460 public sector ship captains or leaders actually averaged more experience in the 303 00:35:54.460 --> 00:36:19.460 So that doesn't really explain it either. Money, the amount invested in the expedition, doesn't seem to explain it because the public sector actually had a larger investment in their expeditions than did the private sector. 304 00:36:19.460 --> 00:36:34.460 So what are the reasons? Some of these you would probably be able to guess. 305 00:36:34.460 --> 00:36:48.460 The public sector expeditions were less motivated and they had less prepared leaders. 306 00:36:48.460 --> 00:37:11.460 So the leaders of the expedition were less prepared and less motivated than the private sector expeditions were. 307 00:37:11.460 --> 00:37:16.460 The public ventures also had poor leadership structures. 308 00:37:23.460 --> 00:37:28.460 And the public sectors were slow to adapt to new information. 309 00:37:32.460 --> 00:37:36.460 Okay, what does that actually mean in real terms? 310 00:37:36.460 --> 00:37:54.460 Well, public sector leaders were often appointed to their position, whereas with private sector ventures, the leader was actually three times more likely to be the same guy who came up with the idea in the first place. 311 00:37:54.460 --> 00:38:05.460 So it's like, you know, someone should discover the North Pole. I'll go do it. This is my idea. I'm going to lead the ship. 312 00:38:05.460 --> 00:38:14.460 Whereas in the public sector, it would be like, you know, someone ought to go up to the Arctic and discover the North Pole. You go do it. 313 00:38:14.460 --> 00:38:23.460 That's the difference. Three times more likely to be led by the person who initiated the project. 314 00:38:23.460 --> 00:38:34.460 Another example of the difference here in a more intimate level is that the public sector used clothing that was tight wool clothing. 315 00:38:34.460 --> 00:38:47.140 Okay, now you're walking across the ice pack in heavy wool, tight clothing, you're sweating. 316 00:38:47.140 --> 00:38:55.100 And your wool clothing is getting wet, and it's below zero out. 317 00:38:55.100 --> 00:39:00.360 So your clothes are actually turning to ice at some point. 318 00:39:00.360 --> 00:39:10.540 The private sector adopted the native customs of using double-walled animal skin furs so 319 00:39:10.540 --> 00:39:19.060 that you had two layers of leather, I guess, with fur in between. 320 00:39:19.060 --> 00:39:26.880 So it was like you're walking around in a giant leather pillow, which is kind of what 321 00:39:26.880 --> 00:39:36.280 That's what the Eskimos used, except prettier. 322 00:39:36.280 --> 00:39:40.120 The public sector tended to use tents. 323 00:39:40.120 --> 00:39:46.560 The private sector used snow houses. 324 00:39:46.560 --> 00:39:51.160 Anybody in here grow up in the north where it snows? 325 00:39:51.160 --> 00:40:08.160 Well, you probably don't understand this, but if the snow gets high enough, you can actually dig down in there and dig out a little area and lay down there or sleep in there and it's pretty warm. 326 00:40:08.160 --> 00:40:15.880 You've got no wind, you've got no heat loss, and basically the temperature difference between 327 00:40:15.880 --> 00:40:23.280 being on top of the snow in the Arctic and in a snow house underneath the snow could 328 00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:28.640 probably be 50 or 60 degrees different. 329 00:40:28.640 --> 00:40:34.520 That's what the Eskimos did and that's what the private sector adopted. 330 00:40:34.520 --> 00:40:41.960 The private sector used dog sleds. So the movies and stories you will see about Arctic 331 00:40:41.960 --> 00:40:50.200 exploration are usually following the private sector model. They used dog sleds, snowshoes 332 00:40:50.200 --> 00:40:56.840 and Skis, 333 00:40:56.840 --> 00:40:59.880 dog sleds, snow shoes, 334 00:40:59.880 --> 00:41:03.800 you've seen snow shoes, big wide 335 00:41:03.800 --> 00:41:07.280 things that you put onto your shoes so you don't go through the snow 336 00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:11.840 and skis. 337 00:41:11.840 --> 00:41:15.900 The public sector used boots 338 00:41:15.900 --> 00:41:18.160 and men 339 00:41:18.160 --> 00:41:20.400 actually pulled 340 00:41:20.400 --> 00:41:24.960 the cargo sleds. 341 00:41:24.960 --> 00:41:26.980 You can see that there's quite a 342 00:41:26.980 --> 00:41:29.600 more or less obvious 343 00:41:29.600 --> 00:41:32.640 disadvantage here to being on a public sector 344 00:41:32.640 --> 00:41:34.520 venture. The private sector 345 00:41:34.520 --> 00:41:36.200 used fresh meat. 346 00:41:36.200 --> 00:41:39.880 They killed animals along the way and ate fresh meat. 347 00:41:39.880 --> 00:41:43.520 Where the public sector 348 00:41:43.520 --> 00:41:46.880 used salt meat. 349 00:41:46.880 --> 00:41:54.480 Where the meat would be purchased, dried with salt, put in containers and carried along with the trip now. 350 00:41:54.480 --> 00:42:08.280 What is, does anybody know what the advantage is of fresh meat over salt meat besides the taste? 351 00:42:08.280 --> 00:42:13.280 No hunters, no biologists in here? 352 00:42:13.280 --> 00:42:20.780 Yeah, that's true. There's more moisture in the meat, but that wasn't much of a problem. 353 00:42:20.780 --> 00:42:22.280 Salt dehydrates you. 354 00:42:22.280 --> 00:42:25.280 Salt does dehydrate you. 355 00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:27.280 Do you use iron? 356 00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:31.280 No, I don't know if there's much of a difference with iron. 357 00:42:31.280 --> 00:42:39.280 Well, fresh meat has vitamin C in it, because the animal has to have vitamin C in it. 358 00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:44.280 People don't make vitamin C, animals do. 359 00:42:44.280 --> 00:42:50.280 That's the one genetic defect that, important genetic defect that we all have as humans, 360 00:42:50.280 --> 00:42:55.280 is we don't make vitamin C like everything else on the planet basically. 361 00:42:55.280 --> 00:43:02.280 So they were getting fresh vitamin C all along, whereas the public sector didn't. 362 00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:09.840 And also, the more obvious thing is you don't have to carry every ounce of meat with you 363 00:43:09.840 --> 00:43:11.640 through the whole trip. 364 00:43:11.640 --> 00:43:18.640 You just get it along the way. 365 00:43:18.640 --> 00:43:22.780 This information was well known and available and the public sector never adopted. 366 00:43:22.780 --> 00:43:31.440 The public sector, in fact, continued to use a flawed open polar sea theory of the Arctic. 367 00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:37.000 the open polar sea theory said that that there's a little crust of ice 368 00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:38.840 around 369 00:43:38.840 --> 00:43:41.520 the top of the earth but once you break through that 370 00:43:41.520 --> 00:43:47.000 you're into the open polar sea 371 00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:48.660 uh... that just wasn't true 372 00:43:48.660 --> 00:43:52.260 the ice got thicker and thicker and heavier and heavier as you went to the 373 00:43:52.260 --> 00:43:53.520 north pole 374 00:43:53.520 --> 00:43:58.400 or towards the pole 375 00:43:58.400 --> 00:43:59.680 and despite 376 00:43:59.680 --> 00:44:02.560 knowing this they continue to operate 377 00:44:02.560 --> 00:44:06.280 on the basis of this flawed theory 378 00:44:06.280 --> 00:44:10.160 a few other things in terms of organizational structures 379 00:44:10.160 --> 00:44:13.560 in the private ventures 380 00:44:13.560 --> 00:44:18.640 responsibility was delegated 381 00:44:18.640 --> 00:44:21.440 still got a couple minutes here 382 00:44:21.440 --> 00:44:24.680 responsibility was delegated amongst the crew 383 00:44:24.680 --> 00:44:31.680 where the public sector used a military hierarchy 384 00:44:34.080 --> 00:44:36.960 so that if you lost your leader 385 00:44:36.960 --> 00:44:41.800 it wasn't like getting your head cut off 386 00:44:41.800 --> 00:44:44.280 so you can see that 387 00:44:44.280 --> 00:44:49.600 the role of incentives played a very important, very dramatic 388 00:44:49.600 --> 00:44:52.200 and in some cases very deadly 389 00:44:52.200 --> 00:44:53.800 consequences 390 00:44:53.800 --> 00:45:00.360 and the difference between a public and private approach to exploration. 391 00:45:00.360 --> 00:45:04.960 In the next class on Friday, we're going to look at actual colonization, actual movement 392 00:45:04.960 --> 00:45:14.080 of people, and look at the question, why did the people come and why did they not come 393 00:45:14.080 --> 00:45:14.760 to the New World.