My Brown University economics colleague Oded Galor does not lack for ambition. His new book, The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality seeks to explain how our species has progressed from a handful of hunter-gatherers eking out an existence in Africa to a flourishing, technologically and economically advanced civilization. That’s 300,000 years of economic history, all in one book. It sounds improbable, but Oded has been gathering the empirical and theoretical insights that underpin this work for decades. One of the true marvels of
Fascinating. I've been reading Alex Epstein's book Fossil Future and I think Oded's book helps explain the "hockey stick" graphs that Alex uses as a basis for his ideas on fossil fuel use leading to the explosion of human prosperity, longevity, etc.
Academics - Why summarize your theory in 5 minutes when you can spend an hour rambling on about it. BTW - This was HARD to listen to.
Snapshot: Innovation within a society is driven by that society's ability to attain the proper level of diversity and social cohesion for that time period. Currently, America has the optimal level of diversity and social cohesion and that is why it leads the world in innovation. Societies with a high level of diversity but that are not highly innovative need to develop tolerance for their diversity and stress social cohesion so they can realize the benefits of that diversity through increased innovation. Societies with strong social cohesion but that lack diversity, need to become more diverse in order to become more innovative. There was almost zero discussion supporting this conclusion.
Oded talked about the importance of geography, which he later seemed to question, the lack of earlier innovation's ability to increase average income per person within innovative societies, the impacts of agrarian societies on their peoples' cognitive function, a sketchy definition of diversity (when asked to define it), examples of diversity that seemed to equate it with ethnicity, blah, blah, blah.
He seemed to focus on the importance of economic systems (capitalism vs. centrally planned) and political systems and such but then seemed to ignore all of that when claiming diversity and social cohesion were the central tenants of innovation today. I would rather he start with his conclusion and then support it throughout the discussion but alas, that was not to be.
There's a lot I want to say, but since I'm responding on my phone I'm going to try to be brief. First, as I understood it, his claim is that the extractive nature of colonialism allowed the colonizers to focus more on developing human capital through education, which is then a key factor in advancing to a post-Malthusian era. If so, what is the difference between European extractive colonialism and Chinese or Roman extractive colonialism? Why did these empires not advance? The facts don't fit the theory very well, they support a more mainstream view that the industrial revolution was the primary driver of rapid increases in the standard of living. Second, on diversity vs homogeneity, a unified vision leads to strong action more easily than a fragmented set of viewpoints. I think he overstates the importance of diverse viewpoints on advancement; ideas won't change the material world unless translated into actions. The US built its wealth on A: the single minded push towards industrialization and B: the accident of geography that left us untouched by WW2. His focus on the ideas aspect of progress isn't surprising given that he's coming from academia, a sector focused on ideas, but for every ideas person, you need hundreds of people focused on implementation; it's more important to have enough implementors than to have enough ideas people.
In all, it was an interesting guest, but his ideas seem flimsy and I feel like he ignores contrary evidence.
Interesting guest. In Galor's vision of sustained economic growth, I wonder exactly how he pairs the negative population growth of technologically advanced nations with perpetual technological progress, particularly when he earlier imputes such progress to the exchange of ideas facilitated by population growth. The potential rate of human adaptation is almost certainly a limiting factor as well.
The whole episode made me think of the "punctuated equilibrium" model in biology, which can also be applied to language change, where for most of human history linguistic features appear to have diffused across small, heterogeneous populations toward a common prototype, interrupted only by large, sudden population expansions and splits. It is the latter scenario that fills the written record and informs the traditional study of historical linguistics and language families. Somewhere in there is a question for John...
Very interesting. I've been reading a lot on the "geographical journey of humanity" as discovered though genomes - modern and ancient. Prof. Galor's ideas have an obvious connection. I hope the book gets into the mixing of populations that have repeatedly occurred in our past. I had my Kindle version half through the interview.
Glen, you were bothered by Galor's remarks on human stagnation. Perhaps the way David Deutsch puts it in "The Beginning of Infinity" is more felicitous:
'Progress that is both rapid enough to be noticed and stable enough to continue over many generations has been achieved only once in the history of our species.'
No disrespect, Glenn, but you failed to probe deeper into some of his assumptions. For example, Galor keeps mentioning technology but speaks as if he is unaware that all technological innovations were only made possible with new sources of energy. For example, stone tools amplified the power of bare human hands, domestication of animals made possible using oxen to pull plows, taming horses increased human mobility a thousand-fold. Harnessing water power made many new processes possible. The industrial revolution could not have happened before steam engines, and so much of our lives today are unthinkable without electricity, etc.
Another example: like all living things, humans compete for resources. You, Glenn, succeeded because you not only outsmarted a whole lot of competitors, but you also outworked and outhustled them.
Brilliant guest and interlocution by Glenn. Learned a lot. Hope to read Oded’s work and respond by the end of the year with my own fine-tuned economic theory.
I listened to this episode last night and immediately ordered Professor Galor's book. This interview made me think of comparison's to Jonah Goldberg's book Suicide of the West. Jonah's book is about how what he called the "miracle" of liberal democracy is in danger from illiberal forms of populism. In some ways it seems like Professor Galor's book examines that miracle from another angle. But I will be better able to understand the similarities and differences once I finish Professor's Galor's book (and perhaps reread Jonah's).
In the meantime, I have a question for Glenn. Most of the discussion of economic inequality in the interview was focused on inequality between societies not within them. My degrees are in history and law, not economics. But from my understanding of economics, it seems to me that there is often a tension between policies that increase economic growth and policies designed to reduce income inequality. For instance, lower tax rates for investment income and capital gains promote economic growth, but also allow some very rich people to pay lower overall tax rates than working class people. I am thinking of the argument that Warren Buffet shouldn't be paying taxes at a lower rate than his secretary. Am I right that the tension exists? If so, so long as economic growth leads to improving standards of living for the poor and middle class alike, should it matter that Billionaires grow their wealth at a faster rate? Take this hypothetical. A teacher offers to either give every student in class $10, except for one student who would get $100 or every student but one $20 while that one student got $500. Which option do you think a class would vote for? Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to run this experiment when I was a high school social studies teacher. I suspect my students from the Bronx would have chosen more money, while many Ivy League students would choose fairness. I remember President Obama was asked once if he would support raising the capital gains tax rate if he knew for a fact it would lead to lower tax revenue. He said he would as matter of fairness. I would also be interested in John's opinion if you want to save your answer to the question show.
Dr. Loury, please have Dr. Galor on again.....this is great!
Around minute 42, Dr. Loury asks Dr. Galor why it was the West that colonized China and India.
But I believe from studies of ancient DNA and history that colonization is as old as slavery. And that prior to 1400 or 1500, it was China and India who for hundreds of years were actually more powerful than Europe.
Around minute 24, Dr. Galor describes how a larger population means greater number of tools (ie brains). And I am going to assume that it's especially brains that live way, way, way on the right-hand tail of a normal distribution. The John Von Neumanns of the world, let's say, who are extraordinarily rare.
So, if a society adopts at all levels a credo that eschews the rarity of high merit for the more demotic "equity", Isn't that society essentially dooming itself to be bashed by those societies able to cherish merit?
Fascinating. I've been reading Alex Epstein's book Fossil Future and I think Oded's book helps explain the "hockey stick" graphs that Alex uses as a basis for his ideas on fossil fuel use leading to the explosion of human prosperity, longevity, etc.
Academics - Why summarize your theory in 5 minutes when you can spend an hour rambling on about it. BTW - This was HARD to listen to.
Snapshot: Innovation within a society is driven by that society's ability to attain the proper level of diversity and social cohesion for that time period. Currently, America has the optimal level of diversity and social cohesion and that is why it leads the world in innovation. Societies with a high level of diversity but that are not highly innovative need to develop tolerance for their diversity and stress social cohesion so they can realize the benefits of that diversity through increased innovation. Societies with strong social cohesion but that lack diversity, need to become more diverse in order to become more innovative. There was almost zero discussion supporting this conclusion.
Oded talked about the importance of geography, which he later seemed to question, the lack of earlier innovation's ability to increase average income per person within innovative societies, the impacts of agrarian societies on their peoples' cognitive function, a sketchy definition of diversity (when asked to define it), examples of diversity that seemed to equate it with ethnicity, blah, blah, blah.
He seemed to focus on the importance of economic systems (capitalism vs. centrally planned) and political systems and such but then seemed to ignore all of that when claiming diversity and social cohesion were the central tenants of innovation today. I would rather he start with his conclusion and then support it throughout the discussion but alas, that was not to be.
There's a lot I want to say, but since I'm responding on my phone I'm going to try to be brief. First, as I understood it, his claim is that the extractive nature of colonialism allowed the colonizers to focus more on developing human capital through education, which is then a key factor in advancing to a post-Malthusian era. If so, what is the difference between European extractive colonialism and Chinese or Roman extractive colonialism? Why did these empires not advance? The facts don't fit the theory very well, they support a more mainstream view that the industrial revolution was the primary driver of rapid increases in the standard of living. Second, on diversity vs homogeneity, a unified vision leads to strong action more easily than a fragmented set of viewpoints. I think he overstates the importance of diverse viewpoints on advancement; ideas won't change the material world unless translated into actions. The US built its wealth on A: the single minded push towards industrialization and B: the accident of geography that left us untouched by WW2. His focus on the ideas aspect of progress isn't surprising given that he's coming from academia, a sector focused on ideas, but for every ideas person, you need hundreds of people focused on implementation; it's more important to have enough implementors than to have enough ideas people.
In all, it was an interesting guest, but his ideas seem flimsy and I feel like he ignores contrary evidence.
Interesting guest. In Galor's vision of sustained economic growth, I wonder exactly how he pairs the negative population growth of technologically advanced nations with perpetual technological progress, particularly when he earlier imputes such progress to the exchange of ideas facilitated by population growth. The potential rate of human adaptation is almost certainly a limiting factor as well.
The whole episode made me think of the "punctuated equilibrium" model in biology, which can also be applied to language change, where for most of human history linguistic features appear to have diffused across small, heterogeneous populations toward a common prototype, interrupted only by large, sudden population expansions and splits. It is the latter scenario that fills the written record and informs the traditional study of historical linguistics and language families. Somewhere in there is a question for John...
Very interesting. I've been reading a lot on the "geographical journey of humanity" as discovered though genomes - modern and ancient. Prof. Galor's ideas have an obvious connection. I hope the book gets into the mixing of populations that have repeatedly occurred in our past. I had my Kindle version half through the interview.
Glen, you were bothered by Galor's remarks on human stagnation. Perhaps the way David Deutsch puts it in "The Beginning of Infinity" is more felicitous:
'Progress that is both rapid enough to be noticed and stable enough to continue over many generations has been achieved only once in the history of our species.'
No disrespect, Glenn, but you failed to probe deeper into some of his assumptions. For example, Galor keeps mentioning technology but speaks as if he is unaware that all technological innovations were only made possible with new sources of energy. For example, stone tools amplified the power of bare human hands, domestication of animals made possible using oxen to pull plows, taming horses increased human mobility a thousand-fold. Harnessing water power made many new processes possible. The industrial revolution could not have happened before steam engines, and so much of our lives today are unthinkable without electricity, etc.
Another example: like all living things, humans compete for resources. You, Glenn, succeeded because you not only outsmarted a whole lot of competitors, but you also outworked and outhustled them.
Brilliant guest and interlocution by Glenn. Learned a lot. Hope to read Oded’s work and respond by the end of the year with my own fine-tuned economic theory.
I listened to this episode last night and immediately ordered Professor Galor's book. This interview made me think of comparison's to Jonah Goldberg's book Suicide of the West. Jonah's book is about how what he called the "miracle" of liberal democracy is in danger from illiberal forms of populism. In some ways it seems like Professor Galor's book examines that miracle from another angle. But I will be better able to understand the similarities and differences once I finish Professor's Galor's book (and perhaps reread Jonah's).
In the meantime, I have a question for Glenn. Most of the discussion of economic inequality in the interview was focused on inequality between societies not within them. My degrees are in history and law, not economics. But from my understanding of economics, it seems to me that there is often a tension between policies that increase economic growth and policies designed to reduce income inequality. For instance, lower tax rates for investment income and capital gains promote economic growth, but also allow some very rich people to pay lower overall tax rates than working class people. I am thinking of the argument that Warren Buffet shouldn't be paying taxes at a lower rate than his secretary. Am I right that the tension exists? If so, so long as economic growth leads to improving standards of living for the poor and middle class alike, should it matter that Billionaires grow their wealth at a faster rate? Take this hypothetical. A teacher offers to either give every student in class $10, except for one student who would get $100 or every student but one $20 while that one student got $500. Which option do you think a class would vote for? Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to run this experiment when I was a high school social studies teacher. I suspect my students from the Bronx would have chosen more money, while many Ivy League students would choose fairness. I remember President Obama was asked once if he would support raising the capital gains tax rate if he knew for a fact it would lead to lower tax revenue. He said he would as matter of fairness. I would also be interested in John's opinion if you want to save your answer to the question show.
Western culture is the triumph of hope over experience, nevertheless I have no intention to denigrate any human being.
Dr. Loury, please have Dr. Galor on again.....this is great!
Around minute 42, Dr. Loury asks Dr. Galor why it was the West that colonized China and India.
But I believe from studies of ancient DNA and history that colonization is as old as slavery. And that prior to 1400 or 1500, it was China and India who for hundreds of years were actually more powerful than Europe.
Around minute 24, Dr. Galor describes how a larger population means greater number of tools (ie brains). And I am going to assume that it's especially brains that live way, way, way on the right-hand tail of a normal distribution. The John Von Neumanns of the world, let's say, who are extraordinarily rare.
So, if a society adopts at all levels a credo that eschews the rarity of high merit for the more demotic "equity", Isn't that society essentially dooming itself to be bashed by those societies able to cherish merit?
Fantastic!!!!
Once again, you cause me to expand my Book List - and my mind. Thank you Glenn and Oded - I'm looking forward to the thought explosion!