A Conservative Reviews Gregory Clark's 'AFTA'
Steve Sailer reviews Gregory Clark’s ‘A Farewell to Alms’ on VDARE.com (here) 8 October:
‘A Farewell To Alms: Why Did The Industrial Revolution Happen Where It Did?’
‘In the process, Clark offers a stunning rebuke to economists:
"God clearly created the laws of the economic world in order to have a little fun at economists' expense. In other areas of inquiry, such as the physical sciences, there has been a steady accumulation of knowledge over the past four hundred years. … In economics, however, we see instead that our ability to describe and predict the economic world reached a peak around 1800. In the years since the Industrial Revolution there has been a progressive and continuing disengagement of economic models from any ability to predict differences of income and wealth across time and across countries and regions."
In other words, economists were closer to understanding the wealth of nations in 1776 when Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations than they are today.
The pioneering economic works of Smith and Thomas Malthus (1798) accurately described the world before the Industrial Revolution that was just getting underway then with the employment of the steam engine in cotton mills.’
Comment
Steve Sailer is a robust columnist for VDARE (after Virginia Dare, the first European child born in what became the USA). He contributed several posts to the AFTA debate on Econ Library Blog in August/September (see Lost Legacy archives and follow the main debates).
He promises a second article next week on AFTA and its implications for the developing world.
‘A Farewell To Alms: Why Did The Industrial Revolution Happen Where It Did?’
‘In the process, Clark offers a stunning rebuke to economists:
"God clearly created the laws of the economic world in order to have a little fun at economists' expense. In other areas of inquiry, such as the physical sciences, there has been a steady accumulation of knowledge over the past four hundred years. … In economics, however, we see instead that our ability to describe and predict the economic world reached a peak around 1800. In the years since the Industrial Revolution there has been a progressive and continuing disengagement of economic models from any ability to predict differences of income and wealth across time and across countries and regions."
In other words, economists were closer to understanding the wealth of nations in 1776 when Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations than they are today.
The pioneering economic works of Smith and Thomas Malthus (1798) accurately described the world before the Industrial Revolution that was just getting underway then with the employment of the steam engine in cotton mills.’
Comment
Steve Sailer is a robust columnist for VDARE (after Virginia Dare, the first European child born in what became the USA). He contributed several posts to the AFTA debate on Econ Library Blog in August/September (see Lost Legacy archives and follow the main debates).
He promises a second article next week on AFTA and its implications for the developing world.
1 Comments:
Yes, I noticed his obsession against immigration and his racist remarks about Mexicans. Strikes me as odd to be anti-immigrant in a country founded by immigrants!
I refer in the post only to his views on Gregory Clark and economics history and I do not have the slightest sympathy for his racist views. Whether he is the 'brainiest' racist is not really a markable standard to reach given the low level of awareness among those who gold similar views to him.
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