A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World
A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World
Gregory Clark
2007, Princeton University Press
The book tries to answer a few very interesting questions: why industrial revolution happened in England? why is the "great divergence" after the industrial revolution?
According to the author, before industrial revolution, the whole world was in the Malthusian trap, where the quality of life stays in subsistence level. When the incomes increases, there would be more people. When there are more people, the income decreases. When income decreases, the number of people drops. The is particularly true for static agrarian societies, where the limited supply of land put a great constraint on improving people's living standards.
Gregory used a lot of data to prove that the living standards were stay roughly the same from the neolithic revolution till the industrial revolution. He also proved that the living standards weren't that much different across the world, contrary to my former belief that Chinese had better lives before the imperialist came.
The income increases in England was associated with the increase of Capital, increase of population, technology improvement, etc. When land became a lesser important factor for production, the society broke the Malthusian trap.
Gregory mentioned a lot of factors to answer the "why England" question: relatively higher (comparing to East Asia) living standard, stable political system and property right. Gregory thought that the lower productivity per worker is the source of "great divergence". Less developed countries tends to hire more people to compensate the lack of capital. There things are all relevant. However, in my opinion, the questions are still not being convincingly answered, which let me a bit disappointed about the book.
The book is full of interesting data/charts. A good resource for further study.
Gregory Clark
2007, Princeton University Press
The book tries to answer a few very interesting questions: why industrial revolution happened in England? why is the "great divergence" after the industrial revolution?
According to the author, before industrial revolution, the whole world was in the Malthusian trap, where the quality of life stays in subsistence level. When the incomes increases, there would be more people. When there are more people, the income decreases. When income decreases, the number of people drops. The is particularly true for static agrarian societies, where the limited supply of land put a great constraint on improving people's living standards.
Gregory used a lot of data to prove that the living standards were stay roughly the same from the neolithic revolution till the industrial revolution. He also proved that the living standards weren't that much different across the world, contrary to my former belief that Chinese had better lives before the imperialist came.
The income increases in England was associated with the increase of Capital, increase of population, technology improvement, etc. When land became a lesser important factor for production, the society broke the Malthusian trap.
Gregory mentioned a lot of factors to answer the "why England" question: relatively higher (comparing to East Asia) living standard, stable political system and property right. Gregory thought that the lower productivity per worker is the source of "great divergence". Less developed countries tends to hire more people to compensate the lack of capital. There things are all relevant. However, in my opinion, the questions are still not being convincingly answered, which let me a bit disappointed about the book.
The book is full of interesting data/charts. A good resource for further study.
posted by North Cascade at 11:13 PM
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