Who the hell is an immigrant?

[Caliga]

So let this be a lesson to you all.  Don't say anything on this board you don't want to be reminded of.  Raz remembers everything.   Everything...

This is most definitely not something you should be boasting about.

[grumbler]

You deserve to have it slapped in your face for showing the remarkable stupidity of jawing about it here...

This.  People who discuss personal stuff on the internet deserve what happens as a result.

[Slargos]

You deserve to have it slapped in your face for showing the remarkable stupidity of jawing about it here...

This.  People who discuss personal stuff on the internet deserve what happens as a result.

Well. I wouldn't go that far, but technically you're of course 100% correct.

However, there's a difference between telling people about your failing grades and addiction to hentai porn, and the fact that you once raped a POW. 

[Eddie Teach]

Presuming she didn't have tentacles or animal parts, that's a step up on the hentai fetishists.

[Razgovory]

BTW Joan I wonder if you're familar with the works of economic historian Gregory Clark? He seems to be the currently most fervent champion of Malthusianism (in a sense of the word more in line with grumblers) and while I remain unconvinced of his more extraordinary conclusions (especially his proposed cause for the industrial revolution) I find some of his arguments to be very firm and some of them go directly counter to what you're saying.

The video is an hour an half long.   He has an entry on Wikipedia which is a bit more concise.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Clark_%28economist%29  If the theory there is what you are alluding to, it's very, very strange.

[Pat]

That Wiki article isn't very good. You only have to see the start of the video for his view of general Malthusian theory (but the rest of it is interesting as well).

[Pat]

Anyway I have to go and I'll be away over the weekend. Hopefully someone will have had time to watch the start of the video when I get back to tell me why he's wrong. This is me ragequitting for now and don't worry, I wont let the door hit me in the ass on my way out (though I appreciate your concern ).

[Slargos]

Anyway I have to go and I'll be away over the weekend. Hopefully someone will have had time to watch the start of the video when I get back to tell me why he's wrong. This is me ragequitting for now and don't worry, I wont let the door hit me in the ass on my way out (though I appreciate your concern ).

If you get offered any POW poontang, please just say "No" this time.

[Pat]

Don't worry, I'll be out in the skärgård for some Valborg celebration, no wars there.

[Slargos]

Don't worry, I'll be out in the skärgård for some Valborg celebration, no wars there.

... yet...

[The Minsky Moment]

BTW Joan I wonder if you're familar with the works of economic historian Gregory Clark?

yes - he is the "Farewell to Alms" guy.  His book is at least semi-polemical and does not reflect a majority view.  In particular, he somehow has to argue around the very strong data that suggest that significant and sustained increases in affluence in Western European societies began to arise centuries before the Industrial Revolution.  The way he does does is to question the principal source for economic data for these periods (Maddison).  But the trend in research among economics historians and econometricians has been pushing in other direction - i.e. lowering estimates of economic growth per capita in the early industrial period (1800-1850) while moving the occurence of that growth back in time.  Similarly, Clark cites de Vries' "Industrious Revolution" in a way to suggest that the trends of consumerism and industriousness were a "new phenomenon" associated with the industrial revolution; in fact, de Vries' thesis is that these developments well predated the industrial revolution and that there is no clear or hard and fast temporal dividing line or periodization.

Basically, what Clark does is pound some rather awkward data with a hammer until it fits theory, rather than try to fit his theory to the data.  that is why I say semi-polemical.

On a purely theoretical level, my own view is that most kinds of neo-malthusian theories are going to be untenable because they fail to take into account the full dynamics of the relationship between population and production and in particular, the potential connection between population growth and economic incentives to pursue productively enhancing innovation.

*Note - have not yet viewed the linked video.

[grumbler]

yes - he is the "Farewell to Alms" guy.  His book is at least semi-polemical and does not reflect a majority view.  In particular, he somehow has to argue around the very strong data that suggest that significant and sustained increases in affluence in Western European societies began to arise centuries before the Industrial Revolution.  The way he does does is to question the principal source for economic data for these periods (Maddison).  But the trend in research among economics historians and econometricians has been pushing in other direction - i.e. lowering estimates of economic growth per capita in the early industrial period (1800-1850) while moving the occurence of that growth back in time.  Similarly, Clark cites de Vries' "Industrious Revolution" in a way to suggest that the trends of consumerism and industriousness were a "new phenomenon" associated with the industrial revolution; in fact, de Vries' thesis is that these developments well predated the industrial revolution and that there is no clear or hard and fast temporal dividing line or periodization.

Basically, what Clark does is pound some rather awkward data with a hammer until it fits theory, rather than try to fit his theory to the data.  that is why I say semi-polemical.

On a purely theoretical level, my own view is that most kinds of neo-malthusian theories are going to be untenable because they fail to take into account the full dynamics of the relationship between population and production and in particular, the potential connection between population growth and economic incentives to pursue productively enhancing innovation.

*Note - have not yet viewed the linked video.

I don't think Clark is presenting a theory so much as a hypothesis.  He isn't predicting what data we would find if we looked further in certain areas, he is just explaining some results he discovered.  He concedes that his hypothesis rests on assumptions about the family sizes and mortality rates of lower-class couples which don't come from extrapolations of significant existing data (simply because his source of information is wills; looking up a statistically significant number of parish records of births and deaths was beyond his capabilities).

Personally, I find his assumption that working class people lacked the drive to excel a bit hard to take, especially if he really is coupling it with the insinuation that the upper class was genetically superior.

[Pat]

BTW Joan I wonder if you're familar with the works of economic historian Gregory Clark?

yes - he is the "Farewell to Alms" guy.  His book is at least semi-polemical and does not reflect a majority view.  In particular, he somehow has to argue around the very strong data that suggest that significant and sustained increases in affluence in Western European societies began to arise centuries before the Industrial Revolution.  The way he does does is to question the principal source for economic data for these periods (Maddison).  But the trend in research among economics historians and econometricians has been pushing in other direction - i.e. lowering estimates of economic growth per capita in the early industrial period (1800-1850) while moving the occurence of that growth back in time.  Similarly, Clark cites de Vries' "Industrious Revolution" in a way to suggest that the trends of consumerism and industriousness were a "new phenomenon" associated with the industrial revolution; in fact, de Vries' thesis is that these developments well predated the industrial revolution and that there is no clear or hard and fast temporal dividing line or periodization.

Basically, what Clark does is pound some rather awkward data with a hammer until it fits theory, rather than try to fit his theory to the data.  that is why I say semi-polemical.

On a purely theoretical level, my own view is that most kinds of neo-malthusian theories are going to be untenable because they fail to take into account the full dynamics of the relationship between population and production and in particular, the potential connection between population growth and economic incentives to pursue productively enhancing innovation.

*Note - have not yet viewed the linked video.

Well, you don't seem to be very familiar with what he's saying, and I don't know where you're getting your view of him from. I particularly don't know why you think "he somehow has to argue around the very strong data that suggest that significant and sustained increases in affluence in Western European societies began to arise centuries before the Industrial Revolution". I refer you to p. 239 ff. I quote:

"The discussion above suggests that the transition between the static Mathusian (sic!) economy, which lasted at least a hundred thousand years, and the modern economy can be dated to 1760-1800. But that appearance of a definitive break between the two regimes, in the blink of an eye in terms of human history, is mistaken. Instead a whole series of contingencies conspired to make the break seem much more definitive and sudden than it was.

The first sign that the transition date is more ambiguous than the traditional histories suggest comes from an examination of the efficiency of the English economy all the way back to 1246."

[Pat]

I'm not really interested in defending everything he says though, firstly because I remain unconvinced of a lot of what he's saying and secondly because I'm not an economist myself and would do a poor job of it. What I really would like your opinion on is the thesis that the west progressed from a malthusian economy to a modern non-malthusian economy and whether you believe this to be a fair assessment of world economic history (please note that when this happened isn't quite as important as whether it happened).

[Pat]

Sorry, my bad. I answered too fast and may have misunderstood some of the implications of what you're saying (but would still appreciate an answer to my above question).