Posts

Posted on

A Slice of Americana, Forgotten

Correspondence school certificate

Last week I wrote about the Transportation-Communication Revolution that has fostered economic growth around the world.[1] Yes, it may have sped up the international spread of the coronavirus but, if so, that is a short-run effect. Prosperity has been the long-run result.

In the late nineteenth century another transportation-communication revolution took place, as railroads enabled products to be sold over vast geographical distances.[2] In the United States this led  to the emergence of mass marketers like Montgomery Ward and Sears, which sent catalogs, products and even kits for building houses all around the country.

And it produced a new kind of education: correspondence schools. Continue reading “A Slice of Americana, Forgotten”

Posted on

Forget the Industrial Revolution

I have criticized economists for oversimplifying issues,[1] but I must say that sometimes they cut through the Gordian knot of difficult historical questions. That has just happened with an article by Joseph Connors, James D. Gwartney, and Hugo M. Montesinos.[2]

For decades, almost since Arnold Toynbee coined the term, there has been a debate over whether the Industrial Revolution increased or reduced the standard of living, especially for workers. Was the nineteenth century a period of “massive and continuous” progress, or were the Marxists right in saying that “capitalism both in its evolution and present form must be evil”?[3]

Connors et al. will have none of that debate because they have come up with a revolution that, by important measurements, has had even more impact than the Industrial Revolution. It is happening now around the world, affecting nearly everybody, not just those in England or Western Europe. Continue reading “Forget the Industrial Revolution”

Posted on

They Didn’t See It Coming: Prosperity

As I have stated before, historians are often influenced by what’s going on around them when they write about the past. In the 1950s and 1960s, the newly-independent countries looked as though they might experience  their own industrial revolutions. That led to an interest among historians in the early Industrial Revolution. [1]

Economists caught the enthusiasm, too. They viewed the great potential of these countries and expected an Industrial Revolution—what W. W. Rostow called these countires’ “take-off.” [2] But that period  of enthusiasm was followed by disillusionment. It turned out that many countries failed to achieve the take-off that seemed right at their doorstep.

I suggest that the economists were looking at the wrong things.

More than 20 years ago in an article for  the Journal of Private Enterprise [3] I wrote about  economists’ views of development as reflected in Paul Samuelson’s famous textbook.  (That’s the one you probably  read in your first economics class if you are of a certain age.)

I looked at Samuelson’s treatment of international development in four editions of the textbook, 1951, 1961, 1964, 1985. In them he reveals both his own views and those of other leading development economists.

In the 1961 edition, optimism for growth still reigned. Continue reading “They Didn’t See It Coming: Prosperity”

Posted on

February News about History and Historians

Historians debate the return of the Elgin Marbles and other artifacts. In History Today.

What the British learned, and didn’t learn, from the U.S. Civil War. On Military History.

Seventy-five years later, the original movie recording of planting the flag on Iwo Jima is missing. In the Washington Post‘s Retropolis.

Historians have paid little attention to Poland’s resistance to Hitler, says Roger Moorhouse in First to Fight: the Poland War 1939 (reviewed in History Today).

What Is the American History for Freedom project and should Congress pass it?

Who was right about Americans—Dickens or Tocqueville?  On Law & Liberty.

A Marxist discusses Marx’s and Engel’s views of slavery (in connection with the New York Times‘ 1619 Project).

Why did some innovations take so long to occur?

American Historical Association tries to bring teaching to the center of the profession, with slow progress. In Inside Higher Ed.

Continue reading “February News about History and Historians”

Posted on

He Didn’t Stick to His Knitting*

You probably have heard of Robert Owen. He was a nineteenth-century British political activist (1771-1858) known for his “utopian socialism.“[1] He started communities that eschewed private property, including a colony in New Harmony, Indiana.

In those communities, he said, “the necessaries and comforts of life [will be] enjoyed by all in abundance,” and they “will ever be the abode of abundance, active intelligence, correct conduct, and happiness.”[2]

“Owenite” communities didn’t last for long.

Owen is rightly admired, however. He had a simple philosophy. He believed that all people are the products of both their inherited characteristics and their environment. If the environment is nurturing, they will develop into worthwhile beings, no matter what their economic surroundings. He held this view so strongly that, as a manager, he never punished anyone (except possibly for drunkenness) and was never visibly angry toward people. He knew their circumstances had made them as they were.

Had he stuck with being a businessman, he might have changed the world.

Continue reading “He Didn’t Stick to His Knitting*”