This was an interesting discussion. The phenomenon (escape from Malthusianism) he describes is also discussed in Jonah Goldberg's Suicide of the West, but Jonah has an explanation that focuses more on things like the Scottish enlightenment.
Galor's own explanatory theory is interesting, but not entirely persuasive. It leads me to wonder if there are other causes out there that are the *real* cause of the escape, e.g. changes in religious doctrine. (I am not suggesting that, just giving it as an example of an unexamined possible cause.)
Regional forces such as changes in religious doctrine, can be the catalyst that permitted the transition to occur earlier in some regions of the world and not in others.
But the challenge that “The Journey of Humanity” attempts to tackle is to identify: (i) the universal forces – the wheels of change -- that have operated in each region of the world and brought about the transition from stagnation to growth, and (ii) the “local forces” institutions, culture, religion, geography, and human diversity that have governed the differential pace of this transition across the world regions.
The local forces that you have in mind are fully explored in “The Journey of Humanity” but they are specific to each region. They are not the universal forces. For instance, changes in the religion doctrine, institutions, or cultural orientation in Europe is clearly not the cause of the take off in Latin America. Yet the impact of technological acceleration on the demand for human capital and the onset of the fertility decline is a universal force that has been associated with the transition in each region of the world.
This was an interesting discussion. The phenomenon (escape from Malthusianism) he describes is also discussed in Jonah Goldberg's Suicide of the West, but Jonah has an explanation that focuses more on things like the Scottish enlightenment.
Galor's own explanatory theory is interesting, but not entirely persuasive. It leads me to wonder if there are other causes out there that are the *real* cause of the escape, e.g. changes in religious doctrine. (I am not suggesting that, just giving it as an example of an unexamined possible cause.)
Regional forces such as changes in religious doctrine, can be the catalyst that permitted the transition to occur earlier in some regions of the world and not in others.
But the challenge that “The Journey of Humanity” attempts to tackle is to identify: (i) the universal forces – the wheels of change -- that have operated in each region of the world and brought about the transition from stagnation to growth, and (ii) the “local forces” institutions, culture, religion, geography, and human diversity that have governed the differential pace of this transition across the world regions.
The local forces that you have in mind are fully explored in “The Journey of Humanity” but they are specific to each region. They are not the universal forces. For instance, changes in the religion doctrine, institutions, or cultural orientation in Europe is clearly not the cause of the take off in Latin America. Yet the impact of technological acceleration on the demand for human capital and the onset of the fertility decline is a universal force that has been associated with the transition in each region of the world.