As a mathematician and technologist who wandered into economics and technological and economic history I had some interaction with Greg in the period before _Farewell to Alms_. A grand guy and extremely smart but I never have been convinced. I've found Koyama, Mark, and Jared Rubin, _How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth_ Medford: Polity Press, 2022 to be more illuminating. I recommend it.
Well, if the world really was Malthusian before IR, then measuring technology as a function of average income makes no sense, except for brief slices of time. In a Malthusian world average income os determined solely by demographicsc (specifically the components of birth rates and death rates exogenous to income). Thats it. Good technology, bad technology, lots of land, little land, capital accumulation or no capital accumulation... none of it matters for average income.
If that is the case then Brad's index makes no sense and if it is capturing something, that's only by accident. And of course, if you're interested in testing whether the pre IR world was Malthusian or not, you cannot rely on an index that was constructed under the assumption that it was not. Or was for that matter. You need an income independent measure of technology. Angus Maddisson committed the opposite sin. You also cannot measure income based on what you think the technological level of society was (DeLong + Maddison = complete circularity). Which is why Maddison's numbers are mostly garbage.
Whether Malthus was right about the West, a dubious but useful concept, is debateable but he was right about most of the rest of the world. China supposedly made progress in technology e.g, 3 instead of 2 harvests per year but it was swallowed up by population increase, no? Infia managed to keep a very low level of income by extending vikyivstion, an alternative to technological progress, but few think standards increased.
China's economic and technological histories both have been very episodic. The period of the Song Dynasty (960 CE to 1279) was the apex of both and but for the Mongol conquest China might have continued to lead the world in wealth and technology, with results we can only guess at. But while the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644) aspired to recreate the glories of the Song, its leaders never understood them well enough, and China remained largely stagnant both economically and technologically down to our own time.
As a mathematician and technologist who wandered into economics and technological and economic history I had some interaction with Greg in the period before _Farewell to Alms_. A grand guy and extremely smart but I never have been convinced. I've found Koyama, Mark, and Jared Rubin, _How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth_ Medford: Polity Press, 2022 to be more illuminating. I recommend it.
Brad Delong has a related current post …
https://open.substack.com/pub/braddelong/p/the-false-calm-before-steam-the-index?r=bhnq&utm_medium=ios
How coincidental! Thanks. Wonder what he thinks of Clark’s recent defence of the no growth pre 1800 idea…
Ask him!
Well, if the world really was Malthusian before IR, then measuring technology as a function of average income makes no sense, except for brief slices of time. In a Malthusian world average income os determined solely by demographicsc (specifically the components of birth rates and death rates exogenous to income). Thats it. Good technology, bad technology, lots of land, little land, capital accumulation or no capital accumulation... none of it matters for average income.
If that is the case then Brad's index makes no sense and if it is capturing something, that's only by accident. And of course, if you're interested in testing whether the pre IR world was Malthusian or not, you cannot rely on an index that was constructed under the assumption that it was not. Or was for that matter. You need an income independent measure of technology. Angus Maddisson committed the opposite sin. You also cannot measure income based on what you think the technological level of society was (DeLong + Maddison = complete circularity). Which is why Maddison's numbers are mostly garbage.
Whether Malthus was right about the West, a dubious but useful concept, is debateable but he was right about most of the rest of the world. China supposedly made progress in technology e.g, 3 instead of 2 harvests per year but it was swallowed up by population increase, no? Infia managed to keep a very low level of income by extending vikyivstion, an alternative to technological progress, but few think standards increased.
China's economic and technological histories both have been very episodic. The period of the Song Dynasty (960 CE to 1279) was the apex of both and but for the Mongol conquest China might have continued to lead the world in wealth and technology, with results we can only guess at. But while the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644) aspired to recreate the glories of the Song, its leaders never understood them well enough, and China remained largely stagnant both economically and technologically down to our own time.