Category: History
Underrated economists, a continuing series
Adam Smith was not the only classical economist to understand economies of scale. Edward Gibbon Wakefield had a well-worked out theory of the benefits of geographic clustering, along with a recipe for reform: force people to cluster together.
South Australia was a theory before it became a place. The theory owed most to the choice of place to Captain Charles Sturt. The gestation of the settlement in the seven years before the first colonists landed involved a blend of idealism and philanthropy, commercial speculation, comprise and muddle. The initial impetus of ideas came from Wakefield, whose theory of ‘systematic colonisation’ offered a partial solution to the perplexing economic and social conditions of Britain at the time. Wakefield’s views were not new, but he expressed them persuasively and they were well propagated by Robert Gouger who visited Wakefield in London’s Newgate Gaol in 1829 and discussed his theory of colonisation. In essence, ‘systematic colonisation’ required that all land should be sold at or above a fixed price and the proceeds should be used to provide free passage for a carefully selected labour force consisting of the young adult poor. The pace of emigration should depend on the volume of land sales, and a large degree of self government should be granted to the colonists in matters of land sales, emigration and revenue. As no convicts were to be admitted, no garrison troops would be needed; above all, such a colony should ‘be respectable’ and self-supporting.
The notion of concentration of settlement was added to the stock of theoretical ideals by an eighty year old radical political philosopher, Jeremy Bentham. He argued that the settlement should be founded on an entirely new principle entitled the vicinity-maximising-or-dispersion-preventing principle.
Read more here, and yes I am in Melbourne now. To this day most Australians live on the southeast coast. Here is material on Wakefield and New Zealand. Bentham is also much underrated, but that is for another day…
Why Horses are Better than Llamas
Brad DeLong has had several excellent posts recently on Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, Steel (see here and here). Here is my thousand words from Lima’s National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History.
What I believe this shows is how an Incan/Andean would ride a Llama, the peculiar postion being necessary because Llamas are not very strong and this is the best way to spread one’s weight across the Llama’s back. The caption did read "Llama usado como transporte" but I could not find any other information.
DÃa de los Muertos
I bolted upright in my bed and screamed. I’d had a nightmare. I suspect this had something to do with the fact that earlier in the day I´d seen 25,000 dead people.
I was visiting Lima´s Church of San Francisco. 
Underneath the church is a graveyard of catacombs. As you can see, it looks like the killing fields of Cambodia. Deep "wells" contains thousands of skulls and femurs (most of the other bones and flesh have dissolved in the lime that was added to prevent disease.) I snuck away from the tour group and found another well in which the skulls had been hung on the wall in a spiral of death. Apparently archaeologists in the 1950s arranged the bones, the bodies were originally tossed in more or less randomly.
During parts of the tour you could reach out and touch the bones (I did not). I am not religious but opening the graveyard in this way seems to me to be at the very least disrespectful and perhaps sacrilegious. I can hear my friend Bryan Caplan laughing at me, "but they are dead!" But even if I were to accept this argument I am shocked that the Franciscans allow this sort of thing.
By the way, ex-President Alberto Fujimori is rumored to have escaped through these catacombs which originally extended beneath all the main buildings surrounding the central plaza of Lima (not all have been uncovered and some have been blocked off for reasons of security).
We shall see how many funerals…
Let us take out of the Hospitals, out of the Camps, or from elsewhere, 200, or 500 poor People, that have Fevers, Pleurisies, etc. Let us divide them in Halfes, let us cast lots, that one half of them may fall to my share and the other to yours; I will cure them without bloodletting and sensible evacuation; but do you do as ye know (for neither do I tye you up to the boasting, or of Phlebotomy, or the abstinence from a solutive Medicine) we shall see how many Funerals both of us shall have: But let the reward of the contention or wager, be 300 Florens, deposited on both sides: Here your business is decided.
That was Jean Baptiste van Helmont in the 17th century. It took three hundred years for randomized trials to become widespread in the medical profession. Now the MIT Poverty Action Lab, among others, is advocating their use in evaluating the effectiveness of development projects (and other policy interventions). Since many projects are rolled out gradually, rolling them out with some randomization generates very good data without much extra effort required.
Syncretism and Subterfuge
Cusco’s Cathedral is built upon an Incan palace and filled with gold and silver, much of it melted down from Incan treasures. It was built, moreover, using the artistry of the native population – amazing carvings, silver work, masonry and paintings.
If you look carefully, however, the artists managed to inject some of their own culture. Most peculiar is a painting of the crucifixion. At first glance it’s a very good but standard painting but look closer and don’t Jesus’s hips seem rather wide? And can it be, no surely not, but at a certain angle doesn’t it look like he has, well, breasts? Heh, in the right light he’s kind of se…no, no, stop. That’s too much even for me. Once you see it, however, it’s not hard to believe the local theory that the artist used a female model in order to put some Pactta Mama (the Incan mother earth goddess) into his work.
The Spaniards also changed many of the local festivals. Where before the locals had paraded their mummified ancestors around the square now they were required to parade figures of Jesus and the Saints. Once, however, the figure of Saint James was dropped. A peculiar ash was found inside and later shown to be cremated human flesh. Apparently, the locals had found a way to continue following their customs while at the same time satisfying the Spaniards.
In Defense of Mercenaries
The Gurkhas have been active in the British military since 1817 but they are not British citizens they are Nepalese hired by the British. In recent years the Gurkha brigades have served in the Falklands, Kosovo, Afghanistan and now Iraq. The Indian army and Singaporean police force also hire many Gurkhas.
The Gurkhas are unusual but not unique. The United Arab Emirates, where Tyler is now, relies almost exclusively on mercenaries. The French Foreign Legion continues to attract a small number of mercenaries from around the world. During the Vietnam war the United States paid the South Korean, Philippine and Thai governments for the use of troops – these were mercenaries paid by proxy.
Should we hire more mercenaries today? Our military already has hired more than thirty thousand non-citizens. Why not bypass residency entirely and go straight to Mexico, India and elsewhere to hire soldiers? If outsourcing is good for US firms then surely it is good for the US government.
Outsourcing the military has a number of advantages. The supply of labor is nearly limitless and the price is low. Some people will object that quality is low too but if Indians can be trained to do US tax returns they can be trained to fight US wars.
One reason the Gurkhas are among the most highly regarded troops in the world is that the entrance exam is extremely difficult – only 1 in 30 applicants makes the cut. The British can pick and choose because wages are high relative to the next best alternative (the Indian army picks up many of the British rejects). Meanwhile, we are so desperate for troops in the United States that we are forcing old men and women, people who haven’t seen active duty in forty years, back into service. At US wage rates we could easily hire many thousands of Mexicans. Many Mexican noncitizens are already
serving honorably in the US military so there is no reason for quality to decline.
Mercenarism may seem unusual today but in the 18th century a typical European army contained 20-30 percent
foreign troops – mercenarism was the norm. It’s hard to see how the United States has a comparative advantage in military labor so the future may resemble the past more than it does the present.
Comments are open.
My favorite things Dubai
No, I can’t afford to stay here, but surely this is my favorite Dubai hotel. I am told they pick you up at the airport in a white Rolls Royce and then the bridge to the hotel spouts a burst of flame to welcome you. Supposedly from the water it looks like a cross, which makes it a controversial structure with the local Muslims. I am going there shortly to eat lunch, if I can believe my guidebook this adventure will involve the use of a submarine.
So far, the Pakistani food here is excellent…and, um…they have a few green median strips along the road, albeit not at social marginal benefit = social marginal cost. As to my favorite Dubai novel or film, I’ll have to get back to you.
I can tell you one thing, my favorite Dubai blog is Emirates Economist.
Addendum: Chris Masse points me to this link of Duba’s mega-projects, take a look. Here is an overview photo. Here is the story. By the way, the UAE just had its first race with the robot camel jockeys.
Lessons from Medieval Trade
Download the new Avner Greif manuscript here, and thanks to Henry Farrell at CrookedTimber.org for the pointer.
Markets in Everything
Today is a twofer. Buy the icepick used to kill Trotsky and have his house cleaned.
Is there “vanity sizing” in clothing markets?
Imagine the temptation to sell nominally-marked small sizes (but the clothes are still large) to those who do not "deserve" them. Does this appeal to self-deception — also known as vanity sizing — occur on a wide scale? Do we observe ongoing private sector inflation when it comes to clothes sizes? Kathleen Fasanella, a successful apparel pattern maker, says no, it only looks that way sometimes:
Sizes are not created equally; not all mediums from company to company are identical and nor should they be! Manufacturers necessarily target a given consumer profile -even push manufacturers have target demography- and it is more common for consumers of a given profile to share anthropometric characteristics than it is that they not. A medium simply indicates the middle size of a given manufacturer’s size run; that’s it.
…let’s say that everybody had to use the same sizes, can you imagine the number of sizes the western wear company would be forced to carry as compared to the tutu maker? …consumer expectation that they should be able to walk into any store, anywhere and pick out a medium and expect it to fit them but that’s just not reasonable.
Read Kathleen’s whole post, and here are some rough data. Here is a typical charge, which also names some (supposed) culprits, such as The Gap, Ralph Lauren, and Banana Republic. I do not have the expertise to evaluate this debate, but I am more generally intrigued by claims that non-uniform, heterogeneous standards are more efficient than pure uniformity. Note that the fashion industry has never tried "hard enough" to create uniform standards. I’ve opened up the comments for those who are more sartorially minded than I am. A related but not identical question is whether movie critics suffer from "praise inflation" over time.
My favorite things Nevadan
I had to use Google for this one:
Author: Walter van Tilburg Clark – The Ox-Bow Incident – one good argument against frontier justice.
Paiute Indian Prophet: Jack Gordon, here is a fascinating link.
Movie, set in: Casino is an underrated Scorsese work, nods also to Leaving Las Vegas and Viva Las Vegas.
Architecture: The competition is stiff. We are staying in the Luxor, but my favorite would be the little bits on the desolate outskirts of town, with pumping oil derricks and tumbleweed.
Inexcusable Aberration: I still think Showgirls is a good film.
We are here, by the way, for my mother’s seventieth birthday.
Rationality and war
"Until this message," Kissinger would write, "I had not taken Sadat seriously." …Kissinger would come to understand that Sadat’s objective was to shock Israel into greater flexibility and restore Egypt’s self-respect so that he, Sadat, could be more flexible as well in order to achieve an agreement. "Our definition of rationality did not take seriously the notion of starting an unwinnable war to restore self-respect," Kissinger would write.
That is from Abraham Rabinovich’s gripping The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter that Transformed the Middle East.
Problems no one worries about anymore
The concern over the rising cost of living, which reached an acute stage about 1909, was the basis for much of the criticism directed against cold storage. In the search for a reason for the greater cost of food, a vocal segment of the public came to believe that the refrigerated warehouse was largely responsible…
It went so far that commissions were appointed to look into the problem. Which of today’s issues will someday seem equally ridiculous?
And how did this all happen?
This very human tendency to blame the new and strange may have been stimulated by politicians with ulterior motives…beginning in 1910 the Republicans had blamed cold storage for the high cost of living in an effort to save the high tariff…
Both passages are from Oscar Edward Anderson’s excellent Refrigeration in America: A History of a New Technology and its Impact.
Gustav Mahler on America
"Here the dollar does not reign supreme – it’s merely easy to earn." – Mahler to Alfred Roller, January 1908
That is from www.TheRestisNoise.com, which is probably my favorite classical music blog.
Vermont Fact of the Day
I’m in Vermont singing Eagles songs and toasting marshmallows while gathered around a campfire. I know, know, but I have only one vote! One the positive side, it is has been a long time since I’ve really seen the stars.
Here’s an interesting tidbit from our guidebook:
The 1870s saw the maximum of cleared land in the state – at that time as little as 20% of the state was in forest – the figure today approaches 85%.
I can’t vouch for the specific fact but the general idea is certainly correct. Forestland is up not down. We think of the city as the enemy of the environment but in fact the main constraint on forest is farmland and better technology has meant that we are producing more food from less land than ever before. See here for more.
Thanks to Monique van Hoek for the pointer.