Category: History
Is Russia a normal country?
Conventional wisdom in the West says that post-Cold War Russia has been a disastrous failure. The facts say otherwise. Aspects of Russia’s performance over the last decade may have been disappointing, but the notion that the country has gone through an economic cataclysm and political relapse is wrong–more a comment on overblown expectations than on Russia’s actual experience. Compared to other countries at a similar level of economic and political development, Russia looks more the norm than the exception.
That’s the take of Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman. Here is the full article. Here is a longer unpublished version.
Here is their view on economic performance:
The best estimate is that Russia’s genuine output decline between 1990 and 2001 was small and that it was completely reversed by 2003, following two additional years of rapid growth. Considering the distorted demand, inflated accounting, and uselessness of much of the pre-reform output, it is likely that Russians today are on average better off than they were in 1990.
My take: Mostly I agree. Remember how The New York Times speculated about mass famine, civil war in the streets, or attempted reconquests of the Soviet empire? None of those dire events have come to pass. Parts of the Shleifer piece might be interpreted as Putin apologetics, but put that question aside. For the most part the former Soviet Union has made unexpected progress. If you don’t believe me, read my post from yesterday.
Soviet observations
1. Here is the second sentence of Robert Conquest’s The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine: “We may perhaps put this in perspective in the present case by saying that in the actions here recorded about twenty human lives were lost for, not every word, but every letter, in this book.” That sentence represents 3,040 lives. The book is 411 pages long.
2. Joke: Why are the USSR and America the same? A: Because in the USSR you can joke about America and in America you can joke about America.
3. Stalin famously said: “Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.”
4. In the first weeks of the war the Soviet Union lost 30 percent of its ammunition and 50 percent of its reserves of food and fuel. In the first three months the air force lost 96.4 percent of its planes…By the end of 1942, 3.9 million Russian soldiers had been taken prisoner – 65 percent of the Red Army…It would be pat, but also accurate, to say that from 1933 to 1941 the only human being on earth that Stalin trusted was Adolf Hitler.
5. But progress has already been made. The argument, now, is about whether Bolshevik Russia was “better” than Nazi Germany. In the days when the New Left dawned, the argument was about whether Bolshevik Russia was better than America.
From Martin Amis’s excellent Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million. The material is quoted directly from Amis, I have added the numbering.
Income inequality over time
How great a share has the top ten percent of the American income distribution earned over time?
Ben Muse tells us (based on, Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998, by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez):
In 1917, the top 10% of “tax units” had about 40% of national income. The percent of the income earned by this group rose until about 1929, ranged from about 44% to about 46% until 1940, then plummeted to the area of 32% during the war, and sat there until about 1972. From 1972 to 1998, the share of income received by this group rose almost continuously, ending the period in the area of 42%.
Here is the graph (click to expand):
Breaking the top 10% into even finer gradations we see that:
Percentiles 90-99 appear to rise gradually from 1917 to 1940, do the 1940 WWII drop, then, following the war, begin a long sustained increase through 1998.
But the top percentile is all over the place. The authors had enough data to start this series up in 1913, before the start of WWI. It plummets on U.S. entry into the war and during a post-war depression, rises through the boom of the 1920s, peaking in 1929, plummets with the onset of the Great Depression, and again with the onset of WWII, then continues to fall following the war, bottoming out about 1972, and then rising over the period 1972-1998. A large part of this last rise takes place in 1987 and 1988, following the Tax Reform Act of 1986….
What else do we learn? War and other disruptions appear to damage capital income more than labor income. If that is the case, a healthy and peaceful society might have increasing income inequality. In other words, if we are lucky, income inequality will increase even more.
Born to Sue?
Frank Sulloway’s Born to Rebel (BTR) was a smash hit when it was published in 1996. Sulloway’s thesis, that laterborns are born to rebel while first-borns are conformist defenders of the status quo, was initially greeted with some skepticism among experts who knew of an earlier review of the large literature on birth order that had found little evidence for an effect on personality. The thesis struck a cord with the public, however, and Sulloway seemed to have gathered so much data from so many different sources (including scientific revolutions, political revolutions, religious revolutions etc.) that with a few exceptions (such as the great Judith Harris) the book won over skeptics and carried the day. Michael Shermer, Mr. Skepticism himself, said, for example, that Born to Rebel was “the most rigorously scientific work of history every written.”
Two devastating studies of BTR, however, have just now been published in the September 2000 issue of Politics and the Life Sciences (alas this issue is not online, perhaps for reasons discussed below). After exhaustive efforts, the studies failed to replicate key results in BTR – that is the authors tried to replicate what Sulloway said he did, on the data that he said he used and they could not reproduce anything close to his results. Now, you may be asking, how it is that the September 2000 issue of PLS has only now been published? And therein lies a story.
When Politics and the Life Sciences decided to publish the initial critique of BTR by Frederic Townsend, after peer review by four referees, it invited Sulloway to respond along with a number of others in a roundtable format that they had used in previous debates. Sulloway was guaranteed ample room to respond to Townsend and was invited to submit his own names for roundtable participants. He initially agreed but shortly thereafter he wrote to Gary Johnson, the editor of the journal, threatening that if the critique were published he would sue both the journal and the editor personally for what he considered to be defamation. Even if the Townsend article were thoroughly revised he insisted to the editor that it would be “appropriate – indeed legally mandatory – for you to preface his article with an editorial forewarning that reads more or less as follows”:
It is not normally the policy of this journal to publish data that are known, in advance, to be actually or potentially in error, especially when such data are being used in an attack on another scholar. However, as editor of this journal, I have decided…to publish these erroneous data in their present form. Readers are warned, however, that none of Townsend’s empirical claims, or the conclusions based upon them, can be trusted with any degree of certainty. Townsend has also made other blatant errors of fact and interpretation that are now known to the editor and that seriously affect the credibility of this paper….
Of course, the editor refused this absurd request. Sulloway later wrote to the president of the editor’s university (with copies to the chair of the Board of Trustees and the university’s legal counsel), saying:
…I intend to file charges of misconduct against one of your faculty members, Gary R. Johnson….these allegations include, but are not necessarily limited to: defamation/libel, false light invasion of privacy, fraud, promissory estoppel, and breach of fiduciary duty…I will also be blowing the whistle by filing formal charges of scientific misconduct against Gary Johnson with the American Political Science Association, the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, members of Congress who have shown a concern about science fraud, and all other professional organizations with which Professor Johnson or his journal….are affiliated.
Bear in mind that Johnson is only the editor of the journal and not even the primary critic! Naturally, Sulloway’s threats delayed publication of the journal, as more referees were involved and revisions took place, but the worst was yet to come. The journal’s publisher refused to publish the debate unless the parties involved committed not to sue him, his printer, his distributor, the journal, or the association. Of course, Sulloway refused. The heroic Johnson and the association then decided to publish the journal on their own. As a result, the final publication, including Sulloway’s response, is nearly five years late.
All of this, and there is much more that I have not reported, is from Johnson’s shocking editorial explaining the long delay. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the whole ordeal is that our legal system, sometimes described as Russian Roulette, has gotten sufficiently capricious and arbitrary that Sulloway’s abusive legal threats were nearly successful. Johnson writes:
The virtual terror that Sulloway’s legal threats have prompted in some of those associated – directly or indirectly – with the events described in this editorial suggests to me that contemporary science must adapt to a changed socio-legal environment if the capacity for open dialogue and critical exchange that is the lifeblood of science and scholarship is to be protected. Scholars, scientists, and publishers cannot focus properly on what should be their principal concerns if the threat of catastrophic legal costs hangs over them and their organizations and journals.
Cultural imperialism watch
Did the idea of the enclosed shopping mall come to the United States from Vienna? And was the ideology of communal European planning the original inspiration?
Austrian architect Victor Gruen brought the mall concept to this country and designed the first enclosed American mall, drawing on ideas from socialist theory. He saw malls as the new source of American community, though later in his life he became more skeptical.
By the way, what do we do when socialists bring us ideas that transform our country? In this case we named a shopping theory after the guy:
“The Gruen Effect” is what happens when a clever layout causes task-oriented shoppers to forget the purpose of their quick trip to the store and begin shopping aimlessly. It’s also the very threshold that the designers of the Mall of America want visitors to cross. “We want people to get lost in the mall,” explains Tim Magill of Jerde Partnerships, the group that designed the Bloomington complex. “We want to tweak your perceptions so you’ll be exposed to areas you would regularly pass by.”
Road to Serfdom, 60th anniversay
BBC informs us that this is the 60th anniversary of the publication of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom. In memoriam, here is a fact sheet about the book.
I have always seen huge pluses and minuses in the work. On the down side, mixed economies did not lead to fascism, communism, or totalitarianism, as Hayek had feared. On the plus side, Hayek offers his strongest and clearest case for liberty. Only rarely is political decision-making about trying to do the right thing. His analysis of the dynamics of political power remains a “public choice” classic to this day.
Thanks to Ray Squitieri for the pointer.
Adam Smith’s grave
Take a look and think reverently on a great mind and scholar. Thanks to the Adam Smith Institute blog for pointing to the link.
Addendum: You needn’t feel sorry for the guy, yes he is dead, but Smith himself wrote the following:
We sympathize even with the dead, and overlooking what is of real importance in their situation, that awful futurity which awaits them, we are chiefly affected by those circumstances which strike our senses, but can have no influence upon their happiness. It is miserable, we think, to be deprived of the light of the sun; to be shut out from life and conversation; to be laid in the cold grave, a prey to corruption and the reptiles of the earth; to be no more thought of in this world, but to be obliterated, in a little time, from the affections, and almost from the memory, of their dearest friends and relations. Surely, we imagine, we can never feel too much for those who have suffered so dreadful a calamity. The tribute of our fellow-feeling seems doubly due to them now, when they are in danger of being forgot by every body; and, by the vain honours which we pay to their memory, we endeavour, for our own misery, artificially to keep alive our melancholy remembrance of their misfortune. That our sympathy can afford them no consolation seems to be an addition to their calamity; and to think that all we can do is unavailing, and that, what alleviates all other distress, the regret, the love, and the lamentations of their friends, can yield no comfort to them, serves only to exasperate our sense of their misery. The happiness of the dead, however, most assuredly, is affected by none of these circumstances; nor is it the thought of these things which can ever disturb the profound security of their repose. The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to their condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change which has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that change, from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from our lodging, if I may be allowed to say so, our own living souls in their inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be our emotions in this case. It is from this very illusion of the imagination, that the foresight of our own dissolution is so terrible to us, and that the idea of those circumstances, which undoubtedly can give us no pain when we are dead, makes us miserable while we are alive. And from thence arises one of the most important principles in human nature, the dread of death, the great poison to the happiness, but the great restraint upon the injustice of mankind, which, while it afflicts and mortifies the individual, guards and protects the society.
The price of eternal vigilance
I am just back from Philadelphia where for the first time I visited Independence Hall, birthplace of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I was shocked by how small and modest is the main room in which it all occurred – there is barely space enough for thirteen simple desks set side-by-side. The constitutional convention could have fit in my living room!
Independence Hall is remarkable but I could not enjoy it fully because I was disconcerted by the circumstances of my arrival. I flew into Philadelphia and of course was scanned, wanded, and de-shoed before boarding the plane – this I was prepared for – but it was depressing to walk from the Liberty Bell to Independence Hall and be subjected again and again to gates, armed guards, scanning, searching and surveillance. What is next? Will we be asked to show ID before entering the birthplace of liberty? The experience was upsetting.
It seems to me that the price of eternal vigilance is liberty.
My President
Under the Federalists, the US government imprisoned journalists, exiled political opponents, increased taxes, centralized power and pushed for war (see here). The American experiment in liberty was failing. Hope rested only with the great philosopher-politician, Thomas Jefferson. By the narrowest of margins, Jefferson was elected President and the Revolution of 1800 saved the American revolution.
The economics of Shakespeare
Commercial wealth, urbanization, and early globalization helped make the works of Shakespeare possible. Shakespeare himself was an effective and commercially minded businessman. Here is the full story, courtesy of Friedrich at www.2blowhards.com. Read the whole thing.
North Korea on the Web
Check out the website of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. From the opening image of electrification to the leader worship and slogans (“The Great Leader Kim Il Sung Will Be Always With Us!”) the website looks and feels like an ironic museum piece. The fact that it is not, is an eerie if useful reminder of things too often taken for granted.
Thanks to Curtis Melvin for the link.
Bankruptcy for the Etymologist
In fifteenth century Venice, Jewish money lenders set out bancos or benches of business. “When a money lender was found to be cheating he was publicly disgraced and put out of business by having his bench broken, banco ruptus.”
From Swetz’s Capitalism and Arithmetic.
Fact of the day
In 1960 Taiwan was poorer than the Congo, here is the source.
Why Ed Sullivan is important
This coming Sunday marks the fortieth anniversary of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. We look back on Sullivan as an antiquated, somewhat quaint relic of a bygone era. In reality he was a daring market entrepreneur who promoted important music and broke down racial barriers.
Sullivan was especially important for his advocacy of African-American music and entertainment. He helped Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Ethel Waters, Nat “King” Cole, Leontine Price, Louis Armstrong, George Kirby, Duke Ellington, Richie Havens, Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Diana Ross and the Supremes, and Marvin Gaye, among others. At the time the major networks typically shied away from carrying such performers, primarily for racial reasons. Sullivan consistently fought with his conservative sponsors and insisted on booking these individuals.
Sullivan was a musical visionary more generally. In addition to the Beatles, he promoted The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, and Barbra Streisand. In comedy he showcased Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, and Jerry Lewis, among many others. In each case the performers had not yet established their later significance.
Sullivan’s show, of course, was an institution. At its peak it regularly commanded an audience of over 50 million Americans and it ran for 23 years. Here’s a hat tip to Sullivan, who exemplified the best of entrepreneurship and cosmopolitan vision.
Reaganomics
The National Center for Public Policy Research has begun a series of briefs on “What Conservatives Think” in order to “help bridge the gap between rhetoric and reality.” Yes, but in which way are they crossing the bridge? Consider their brief on Reaganomics. It begins, “here are facts about the 1980s” and almost immediately heads off the rails, “from 1982 through 1989, the years President Reagan’s economic policies were in effect…” Hmmm, I thought we were going to get the facts about the 1980s? What happened to 1981-1982? Ah, Reagan’s policies weren’t in effect then – presumably these were the ghostly remains of the Carter years – but then logically Reagan’s policies must have been in effect until at least 1991, right? Apparently not.
The truncation of the Reagan years lets the NCPPR compute statistics from the bottom of a recession to the top of a peak thereby confusing cyclical with permanent gains. Numbers should not be treated as tools for partisan games but it’s especially galling here because the truth is in many ways more creditable to Reagan.
The 1982 recession was a result of Reagan’s policy – the policy to support Paul Volcker in wringing inflation and inflationary expectations from the economy. The 82 recession was terrible but the alternative, another goosing of the money supply, higher inflation, and a delay but not an avoidance of the day of reckoning, would probably have been worse. During the recession Reagan’s approval rating hit an all time low of just 35% but to his credit he stood firm. As a result, the economy fundamentally shifted from a high inflation/high unemployment economy to a low inflation/low unemployment economy. It was the recession of 1982 which laid the foundation for the next two decades of higher productivity and better economic policy.