A fundamental issue in all of the disciplines that study human society, including economics, is the relative role of material conditions versus human agency as causal forces. Many writers focus on material conditions. … Those of us on the other side of that debate, including Mokyr, assign more credit to intangible factors, notably ideas and culture.
In Allen’s view, the only route to modern economic growth required an array of elements never seen together before in Britain. Among them were high, imperialism-driven wages; cheap coal next to an ample canal network; and an open trading network allowing for a vast expansion of textile exports.
In Charles Mann’s 1493, which I’m currently reading, he throws in another factor: a big increase in agricultural productivity after the introduction of maize and potatoes from South America. Wheat and barley kernels are limited to relatively small sizes because the thin stems can’t support much weight before the whole plant topples over and rots on the ground. Corn and potatoes do not have such limitations, and thus are much more productive per acre. Europe’s periodic famines were much abated after their widespread adoption.
Not super relevant, but I am enjoying the book so I felt compelled to throw it out there.
In general, I don’t get division of culture and economics as the division of goods, services and labor is a big aspect of culture. And looking at history, the most successful nations tend to have a balance of work and material goods. At times I think the conservative definition of a good ‘culture’ is poor people doing tons of work without getting paid much for it.
Anyway, in terms of modern times, I find it weird that a lot of innovation is coming from California in which in no way is considered a good culture by conservatives. What California needs is ways to make more boring and basic businesses better for customers. (Considering the reaction to HRC popular vote lead, California is not ‘Real America’) And outside of Oklahoma, Texas and Utah, I don’t see a lot of innovation from Red States who supposed to have strong culture. (And I don’t quite get by China will not be innovated. I suspect that will change as the do now have much more robust economy.)
Don’t sleep on the Research Triangle in NC.
The causal density is high, but I think we see the current capital flux to be factories moving to red states and Hollywood productions outside of California.
“The controversy over the relative role of material factors and intangible factors is not going to be settled easily. ”
I wonder if it ever could be finally resolved. What sort of evidence, if found, could possibly settle the argument conclusively?
For me its that nearly all the high IQ societies are one the road to prosperity, while all the low IQ societies are still poor and going nowhere you would want to be. This is true of minorities within particular societies as well.
If it was just a matter of good ideas then the global south has had plenty enough time to adopt those ideas (and they have tried), but like those people that built cargo cult airports you need the genetics to use ideas.
http://blog.bhargreaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/cargo-cult.jpg
If it was just ideas and those ideas were so obviously superior then we would have seen a faster evening out of just about everything. Instead we get the great divergence.
You are assuming a certain rate of ideation.
My question isn’t what would convince you (or any one person), but rather what evidence or arguments could ever be convincing to all concerned. What would it take for DeLong to give up his belief that ‘coal, canals, high wages, and trade networks’ were the key ingredients? Or convince Mokyr (and Kling) to give up the belief that cultural factors were what mattered most?
It seems to me that we will always have an N of only one, and unprecedented new facts about 18th century economies are unlikely to be unearthed at this point, so I just don’t see how general agreement could ever be reached.
Nothing so long as their political identity is biased by the answer.
I agree with you in general. It’s hard to convince people of things you really can prove scientifically. The source of the industrial revolution can’t be traced to anywhere near that level of certainty, so there is no hope.
I can only tell you that I used to believe that ideas were what mattered (like Kling) and that discovery of new evidence let me to a different view (something more like Gregory Clark).
This doesn’t mean I think ideas don’t matter, only that they are not enough in and of themselves. Or that they are more likely to be an effect then a cause.
However, we aren’t really debating what happened in England during such and such a time. We are using that as a foil in debates about how to shape our current world. If it’s all just about ideas then actions X, Y, Z are best, so if we can prove the industrial revolution was because of ideas it makes X, Y, Z easier to push in today’s world.
The terrorist problem seems to be violent ideas combined with material capabilities. I wonder if The West and Far East learned the futility of war whereas the Middle East hasn’t yet. Maybe this is when they learn it.
Well the West and the Far East did experience WW2 (and Europe WW1 as well) where the Middle East saw a lot less action and many groups stayed out. Judging today, I wonder if they need a stupid Mid East WW1 to convince them of how disastrous war really is. Who knows a stray missile from Yemen into Riyadh could have enormous consequences.
The Middle East had the Iran-Iraq War:
The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq lasting from 22 September 1980, when Iraq invaded Iran, to August 1988. The war followed a long history of border disputes, and was motivated by fears that the Iranian Revolution in 1979 would inspire insurgency among Iraq’s long-suppressed Shi’i majority, as well as Iraq’s desire to replace Iran as the dominant Persian Gulf state. …
The war cost both sides in lives and economic damage: half a million Iraqi and Iranian soldiers, with an equivalent number of civilians, are believed to have died, with many more injured; however, the war brought neither reparations nor changes in borders. The conflict has been compared to World War…
from widipedia
That last sentence should be
The conflict has been compared to World War I in terms of the tactics used, including large-scale trench warfare with barbed wire stretched across trenches, manned machine gun posts, bayonet charges, human wave attacks across a no man’s land, and extensive use of chemical weapons such as sulfur mustard by the Iraqi government against Iranian troops, civilians, and Kurds.