Category: History

The word “nerd” appears to have been coined in 1950 by none other than Dr. Seuss. From the webpage of Eric Raymond:

nerd: n.

1. [mainstream slang] Pejorative applied to anyone with an above-average IQ and few gifts at small talk and ordinary social rituals.

2. [jargon] Term of praise applied (in conscious ironic reference to sense 1) to someone who knows what’s really important and interesting and doesn’t care to be distracted by trivial chatter and silly status games. Compare geek.

The word itself appears to derive from the lines “And then, just to show them, I’ll sail to Ka-Troo / And Bring Back an It-Kutch, a Preep and a Proo, / A Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too!” in the Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo (1950)… How it developed its mainstream meaning is unclear, but sense 1 seems to have entered mass culture in the early 1970s (there are reports that in the mid-1960s it meant roughly “annoying misfit” without the connotation of intelligence.

When I was a kid, no one wanted to be a nerd. Nowadays, though, nerds are “out of the closet.” People (well, guys) are proud to be nerds. Is this just part of the nerd life cycle – unpopular at 10, proudly nerdy at 33? I very much doubt it. Nerds of my dad’s generation (like, say, my dad!) wanted to fit in with regular folks, not embrace their nerdity.

Why the change? Alex Tabarrok attributes it to the rising education premium. The ratio of nerd to non-nerd earnings has gone up, and the group’s status has risen along with it. This is probably part of the reason, but I primarily credit the Internet. Communication, not economic success, is the foundation of group identity. Lots of non-nerdy sub-cultures have profited from the free-fall in the cost of social interaction. But in contrast to most other sub-cultures, nerds are virtually 100% computer literate. The Internet has been the One Ring of nerddom.

In case you haven’t guessed, yes, I consider myself a nerd. I’m such a nerd that I worry that my sons will fail to embrace their nerd heritage. The best game show in history, Beat the Geeks, began by asking each contestant “What’s the geekiest thing about you?” I still wish I could have been a contestant just to give my response:

“I am the Dungeon Master for an all-economists’ Dungeons and Dragons game.”

Beat that, geeks!

The great free-market economists and libertarian philosophers of China were not Taoists, but Confucians, according to Auburn University philosopher Roderick Long. I often say that I never doubted the value of history of thought until someone tried to convince me of it, but Long’s “Rituals of Freedom: Austro-Libertarian Themes in Early Confucianism” Journal of Libertarian Studies 17(3) is an amazingly interesting and learned paper. It is true, Long admits, that the Taoists have a few grand libertarian passages. The favorite from Lao-tzu has to be:

The greater the number of laws and restrictions,
the poorer the people who inhabit the land.
The sharper the weapons of battle and war,
the greater the troubles besetting the land.
The greater the cunning with which people are ruled,
the stranger the things which occur in the land.
The harder the rules and regulations,
the greater the number of those who will steal.
The sage therefore does not contrive,
in order to bring about reform,
but teaches the people peace of mind,
in order that they might enjoy their lives.

Tao Te Ching Section 57

Unfortunately, Long points out, a much stronger theme in Taoist is primitivist hostility to modern civilization. Listen to Lao-tzu describe the Taoist utopia:

Lessen the population. Make sure that even though there are labor saving
tools, they are never used. Make sure that the people look upon death as a
weighty matter and never move to distant places. Even though they have
ships and carts, they will have no use for them. … Make sure that the
people return to the use of the knotted cord [in lieu of writing]. … Then
even though neighboring states are within sight of each other, [and] can
hear the sounds of each other’s dogs and chickens … people will grow old
and die without ever having visited one another.

In contrast, Long finds much of value in the Confucians:

The early Confucians, by contrast, may not be as radical in
their anti-statism as the Taoists, but in my estimation they make up for this flaw by firmly
yoking their anti-statism to the cause of civilization, commerce, and the Great Society;
their overall program thus looks a lot more like contemporary libertarianism than the
Taoist program does. One Confucian text, while noting approvingly Laozi’s hostility to
despotism, sharply criticizes Laozi for wanting to “drag the present age back to the
conditions of primitive times and to stop up the eyes and ears of the people”; the best
ruler instead “accepts the nature of the people,” which is to long for “beautiful sounds
and forms,” “ease and comfort.”

The highlight of Long’s article is his discussion of the Sima Qian (c. 145-85 B.C.). Almost two thousand years before Adam Smith, Qian opined that “Wealth and currency should be allowed to flow as freely as water!” and had arguments to defend his position. And who said that Chinese intellectuals had no appreciation for the merchant class? Few Western thinkers match Sima’s appreciation of entrepreneurship:

These, then, are examples of outstanding and unusually wealthy men.
None of them enjoyed any titles or fiefs, gifts, or salaries from the
government, nor did they play tricks with the law or commit any crimes to
acquire their fortunes. They simply guessed what course conditions were
going to take and acted accordingly, kept a sharp eye out for the
opportunities of the times, and so were able to capture a fat profit. …
There was a special aptness in the way they adapted to the times …. All of
these men got where they did because of their devotion and singleness of
purpose. … [T]here is no fixed road to wealth, and money has no
permanent master. It finds its way to the man of ability like the spokes of
a wheel converging upon the hub, and from the hands of the worthless it
falls like shattered tiles. … Rich men such as these deserve to be called the
“untitled nobility” …

Murray Rothbard praised Sima in his history of economic thought, but Long notes that he neglected to mention that he was a Confucian!

It is hard to read this piece and not stand in awe of Long’s command of the Chinese literature. This is a body of thought comparable to Western philosophy in its intricacy and depth. Even if you couldn’t care less about Chinese proto-libertarians, this article exemplifies the true meaning of scholarship. And so the Sage says: check it out!

Favorite Scottish painting: I have to go with Henry Raeburn, check out the sense of motion in this picture.

Favorite Scottish novel: I’ve never found Stevenson or Scott very readable, so I’ll opt for Alasdair Gray’s quirky Lanark, a playful fantasy that recalls Tristram Shandy and science fiction.

Favorite Scottish music: Some of you might say Jesus and Mary Chain, but on this one I am stuck by the lack of a true favorite. This list did not much sway me. Must I go with Donovan, Garbage, Annie Lennox, or Lonnie Donegan? The bagpipes don’t do it for me, nor do Belle and Sebastian.

Favorite Scottish economist: For me this is not a no-brainer. No doubt, Adam Smith’s lifetime achievement is number one. But if you actually sat down and talked econ for a few hours, I suspect one would come away with a higher opinion of David Hume. He was, after all, the smartest person ever.

Favorite Scottish smartest person ever: David Hume

Favorite Scottish Commissioner of Customs: Adam Smith

Favorite Scottish biographer: Duh.

Favorite Scottish movie: Gregory’s Girl. This movie gives new meaning to the phrase “oozes charm.”

In twenty-five years, the Mongol army subjugated more lands and people than the Romans had conquered in four hundred years. Genghis Khan, together with his sons and grandsons, conquered the most densely populated civilization of the thirteenth century…Genghis Khan conquered more than twice as much as any other man in history…At its zenith, the empire covered between 11 and 12 million contiguous square miles, an area about the size of the African continent and considerably larger than North America…The majority of people today live in countries conquered by the Mongols; on the modern map Genghis Khan’s conquests include thirty countries with well over 3 billion people.

That’s from Jack Weatherford’s overstated but fascinating Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.

By the way, the entire Mongol tribe was no more than one million people, with perhaps one hundred thousand warriors.

Today a Mongolian restaurant in London is offering free DNA testing. If you are verifiably a descendant of Genghis [what are you being tested against?], they will feed you a meal for free. The analysis takes two months, but supposedly you have a good chance of winning:

It is estimated that 17 million people worldwide, including the British Royal Family, Iranian Royalty, and the family of Dracula, are direct descendents of Genghis Khan.

Addendum: Read more here on the nature of the test.

In the early nineteenth century Polish soldiers went to Haiti to fight for Haitian independence against the French. Many of these soldiers stayed in the country, settling in the town of Cazale. The town has since become known for its “banana arts,” based around carving the fruit into paper-like forms.

A small Smithsonian exhibit on this history has recently been sponsored by The Republic of Taiwan

When, pray tell, does nation building succeed? Bockstette, Chanda, and Putterman suggest an answer:

A longer history of statehood might prove favorable to economic development…for several reasons. There may be learning by doing in the way of public administration…The operation of a state may support the development of attitudes consistent with bureaucratic discipline and hierarchical control…

The authors provide a measure of the antiquity of a state; under their measure China comes in first place and Zambia comes in last. It turns out that state antiquity matters in cross-sectional growth equations:

…suppose that Mauritania, the country which recorded the second lowest value for [state antiquity] instead had the [state antiquity value] for China…Based on the estimated coefficient…this would mean that Mauritania would have recorded an annual increase of 1.9 percent in its growth rate. Given that Mauritania’s average growth rate during the 35-year period was nearly zero and China’s was 3.8 percent, differences in [state antiquity] can, by these calculations, explain half the difference in growth rates between the two countries.

I do have some caveats. Who ever knows what causes what in these macro equations? Furthermore state antiquity explains growth rates but not income levels. This would suggest that state antiquity matters more today than ever before, a possible but puzzling relationship. That being said, state antiquity does partially explain a “social infrastructure” variable, which in turn helps explain income levels.

If it were up to me: I would rather see economists address the important questions with imperfect tools, rather than focus on problems where their methods are immune to internal criticism.

By the way, I can’t find Iraq on their (hard to read) scatterplots, but I understand the modern version of the nation as starting only under British imperialism.

Daniel Shaviro offers the following suggestions:

1. Reduce Medicare’s low-end coverage of routine expenditures, and use replace deductibles with lesser copayments that extend over a broader range.

2. Provide prescription drug and catastrophic care coverage without increasing the overall value (net of premiums and copayments) of Medicare [Ha!, interjects TC, this must have been written before the Bush bill passed]

3. Impose a tax on Medigap coverage of Medicare copayments, or else bar such coverage altogether.

4. Make copayments income-related…[“means-tested”]

5. To the extent that income tax increases are needed, use base-broadening in lieu of rate increases to the extent possible.

6. Enact a consumption-style VAT without transition relief for old wealth.

7. Use accounting rules to discourage Congress from dissipating the net revenue from tax increases that are meant to help meet future Medicare liabilities.

8. Attempt to realize cost savings by modifying Medicare’s current fee for service structure. While managed care has had disappointing results as applied to workers under age sixty-five, this may reflect the political and legal obstacles to imposing rationing.

My take: This is a serious effort to solve a real problem. I’ll endorse 1-4 and 7. When it comes to higher taxes, let’s just hope that productivity growth remains high. If I have to, I’ll get out and push. #8 sounds too much like putting old people out on ice floes, but it would solve at least twenty percent of the problem with only minimal impact on life expectancy. And for the proposal to be effective, how voluntary would managed care be? For those reasons, I can’t press the “do it” button on #8; I’ll give it a pass and plead political infeasibility. And while I am fully aware that Medicare is the fiscal train wreck, compared to which most other economic problems pale, shouldn’t the words “cut spending” somehow play a role?

Here is my previous post on Shaviro’s illuminating book. Today was Shaviro on “what should happen.” Stay tuned for Shaviro on “what will happen.”

My favorite Polish novel: Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem. Don’t worry if you hate science fiction, this is possibly the best novel ever penned about erotic guilt and the nature of personal identity.

My favorite Polish music: My traditional favorites have been the Chopin Etudes and the Polonaise Op.40. But arguably the Mazurkas hold up best over time. Here is a recent Chopin CD that will blow you away.

My favorite Polish movie: Kanal, directed by Andrzej Wajda. A European movie of great depth with a plot as gripping as Hollywood.

My favorite Polish TV show: The Decalogue, episode four. This audiovisual classic is now available in its entirety on DVD. In the fourth episode, a daughter receives an envelope from her father, with the written instructions: “Don’t Open This Until I Die.” I leave the rest up to your imagination.

I’m enjoying my time here very much, soon I will be in Kracow.

Addendum: Let’s not forget the goose in cranberry sauce, the pork knuckle pate, the wild boar with dumplings, the sour soup with sausage, the duck with cherry sauce, or the wonderful Brazilian restaurant they have here. Polish food in Brazil is fantastic, so now they are returning the favor, all to the benefit of me.

Was nineteenth century Britain really a free trade wonder? Just how entrenched is protectionism in French national history?

John Nye offers some provocative answers:

Britain preached the gospel of free trade and France was cast in the role of the sinner, but there was little truth in this stereotype. France did have more protected products than England did but the average level of French tariffs (measured as total value of duties divided by total value of imports, cf. Figure 1) was actually lower than in Britain for three-quarters of the nineteenth century.2 In other words, tariffs had a smaller impact on French trade than British duties had on Britain’s trade. The French, while eschewing free trade, and openly rejecting the Anglo doctrine of open markets, actually succeeded in making their trade more liberal and more open than that of the more vocal British. The master of this was Napoleon III–Bonaparte’s nephew–who throughout the 1850s promoted the most radical liberalizing reforms of the French economy, all the while insisting that France was only interested in moderate reform.

The revisionism continues:

Indeed, it was not British unilateral tariff reduction that moved the world to freer trade. Despite the belief that is still common today that British exhortation opened the doors to European free trade in the late 19th century, it was the 1860 Treaty of Commerce, promoted by the Napoleon III and concluded between Britain and France, that really ushered in the age of nineteenth century “globalization”. British demands for unilateral tariff reduction usually fell on deaf ears.

Might this advantage of bilateralism be true more generally? If so, it would mean that a serious U.S. free trade agreement with Japan would be the best outcome imaginable for promoting free trade.

Read the whole thing, and don’t miss the illustrative chart.

Have you ever wondered how America became a world leader in mass media and telecom? Paul Starr’s excellent The Creation of the Media addresses this question. Here is one good bit from the book:

French policy was…unfavorable to the telephone. Unwilling to spend public funds on the medium, the French government, beginning in 1879, granted local concessions for telephone service lasting only five years. The idea was to let the private sector assume the risk of a new business, giving the state time to see if it was worth taking over. Private capital could lose money on the telephone, but if the medium proved profitable the government would step in: a policy nicely designed to depress investment. In 1885, the government itself began building long-distance lines but limited construction so as not to cause too rapid a depreciation of its investment in the telegraph. Four years later, it nationalized the local telephone carriers as well, not so much because of a positive commitment to improve telephone service as because of a defensive concern about the erosion of the state’s telegraph monopoly…

By 1895, while the United States had one telephone for every 208 people…France [had] one for every 1,216…In 1927, while Bell was reporting an average delay of 1.5 minutes in placing long-distance calls, it took, on average, more than an hour to put through a call from Paris to Berlin.

The bottom line: Keep this story in mind the next time you hear politicians talking about the regulation of VOIP.

Average life expectancy was 47.

Only 14 percent of homes had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were 8,000 cars and just 144 miles of paved roads.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

More than 95% of all births took place at home.

90% of all physicians had no college education.

Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

The five leading causes of death were: 1. Pneumonia & influenza 2. Tuberculosis 3. Diarrhea 4. Heart disease 5. Stroke

And worst of all,

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.

Here is the link, thanks to www.geekpress.com for the pointer. And read Michael at 2blowhards.com for some further commentary, excellent as always.