J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 334

What Is the Best Way to Introduce Myself to Audiences These Days?

J. Bradford Delong is Professor of Economics and Chief Economist of the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also a weblogger for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. From 1993 to 1995 he was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the United States Department of the Treasury. Right now he is best known for:

according to the internet: "Are We Approaching Peak Human?" (an interview) https://tinyurl.com/dl20180723a, "Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy" (a book) https://tinyurl.com/dl20180723b, and "Cornucopia: The Pace of Economic Growth in the 20th Century" (an article) https://tinyurl.com/dl20180723c;

according to google scholar: "Fiscal Policy in a Depressed Economy" https://tinyurl.com/dl20180723d, "Did J. P. Morgan's Men Add Value?: An Economist's Perspective on Financial Capitalism" https://tinyurl.com/dl20180723e, and "The 'New Economy': Background, Historical Perspective, Questions, and Speculations" https://tinyurl.com/dl20180723f (all articles); and

according to himself ought to be best known for: "The Marshall Plan: History's Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program" https://tinyurl.com/dl20180723g, "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets" https://tinyurl.com/dl2018072h, and "America's Peacetime Inflation: The 1970s" https://tinyurl.com/dl20180723i (all articles).

Is this ������������������������ it? What would be better?

Jefferson���s Conversation with Washington, 10 July 1792, and What Came Before: Weekend Reading

Washington thought it was fine that Jefferson argued with Hamilton inside the continent, but that funding and stoking opposition to policies once Washington had decided was not kosher. Did Jefferson get that Washington was on to him?

Thomas Jefferson: To George Washington, 23 May 1792: "I have determined to make the subject of a letter, what... has been a subject of inquietude to my mind without having found a good occasion of disburthening itself to you in conversation, during the busy scenes which occupied you here. perhaps too you may be able, in your present situation, or on the road, to give it more time & reflection than you could do here at any moment...

...Of all the mischiefs objected to the system of [Hamilton's] measures... none is so afflicting, and fatal to every honest hope, as the corruption of the legislature. as it was the earliest of these measures it became the instrument for producing the rest, and will be the instrument for producing in future a king, lords & commons, or whatever else those who direct it may chuse.... The only hope of safety hangs now on the numerous representation which is to come forward the ensuing year. Some of the new members will probably be either in principle or interest, with the present majority. but it is expected that the great mass will form an accession to the republican party. They will not be able to undo all which the two preceding legislatures, and especially the first have done.... But some parts of the system may be rightfully reformed; a liberation from the rest unremittingly pursued as fast as right will permit, and the door shut in future against similar commitments of the nation....

But should the majority of the new members be still in the same principles with the present & shew that we have nothing to expect but a continuance of the same practices, it is not easy to conjecture what would be the result, nor what means would be resorted to for correction of the evil. true wisdom would direct that they should be temperate & peaceable. but the division of sentiment & interest happens unfortunately to be so geographical, that no mortal can say that what is most wise & temperate would prevail against what is more easy & obvious?

I can scarcely contemplate a more incalculable evil than the breaking of the union into two or more parts. Yet when we review the mass which opposed the original coalescence, when we consider that it lay chiefly in the Southern quarter:

that the legislature have availed themselves of no occasion of allaying it, but on the contrary whenever Northern and Southern prejudices have come into conflict, the latter have been sacrificed & the former soothed;
that the owers of the debt are in the Southern & the holders of it in the Northern division;
that the Antifederal champions are now strengthened in argument by the fulfilment of their predictions;
that this has been brought about by the Monarchical federalists themselves, who, having been for the new government merely as a stepping stone to monarchy, have themselves adopted the very constructions of the constitution, of which, when advocating it���s acceptance before the tribunal of the people, they declared it insusceptible;
that the republican federalists, who espoused the same government for it���s intrinsic merits, are disarmed of their weapons,
that which they denied as prophecy being now become true history

Who can be sure that these things may not proselyte the small number which was wanting to place the majority on the other side? And this is the event at which I tremble, and to prevent which I consider your continuance at the head of affairs as of the last importance. The confidence of the whole union is centered in you. Your being at the helm, will be more than an answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead the people in any quarter into violence or secession. North and South will hang together, if they have you to hang on: and, if the first corrective of a numerous representation should fail in it���s effect, your presence will give time for trying others not inconsistent with the union and peace of the states.

I am perfectly aware of the oppression under which your present office lays your mind, and of the ardor with which you pant for retirement to domestic life. But there is sometimes an eminence of character on which society have such peculiar claims as to controul the predilection of the individual for a particular walk of happiness, and restrain him to that alone arising from the present and future benedictions of mankind. This seems to be your condition, and the law imposed on you by providence in forming your character, and fashioning the events on which it was to operate: and it is to motives like these, and not to personal anxieties of mine or others who have no right to call on you for sacrifices, that I appeal from your former determination and urge a revisal of it, on the ground of change in the aspect of things.

Should an honest majority result from the new and enlarged representation; should those acquiesce whose principles or interests they may controul, your wishes for retirement would be gratified with less danger, as soon as that shall be manifest, without awaiting the completion of the second period of four years. One or two sessions will determine the crisis: and I cannot but hope that you can resolve to add one or two more to the many years you have already sacrificed to the good of mankind.

The fear of suspicion that any selfish motive of continuance in office may enter into this sollicitation on my part obliges me to declare that no such motive exists. It is a thing of mere indifference to the public whether I retain or relinquish my purpose of closing my tour with the first periodical renovation of the government. I know my own measure too well to suppose that my services contribute any thing to the public confidence, or the public utility. Multitudes can fill the office in which you have been pleased to place me, as much to their advantage and satisfaction.

I, therefore, have no motive to consult but my own inclination, which is bent irresistably on the tranquil enjoyment of my family, my farm, and my books. I should repose among them it is true, in far greater security, if I were to know that you remained at the watch, and I hope it will be so.

To the inducements urged from a view of our domestic affairs, I will add a bare mention, of what indeed need only be mentioned, that weighty motives for your continuance are to be found in our foreign affairs. I think it probable that both the Spanish and English negociations, if not completed before your purpose is known, will be suspended from the moment it is known; and that the latter nation will then use double diligence in fomenting the Indian war.

With my wishes for the future, I shall at the same time express my gratitude for the past, at least my portion in it; and beg permission to follow you whether in public or private life with those sentiments of sincere attachment and respect...

 

Thomas Jefferson: Notes on a Conversation with Washington, 10 July 1792: "He was sensible too of a decay of his hearing [and] perhaps his other faculties. [They] might fall off, and he [might] not be sensible of it...

That with respect to the existing causes of uneasiness, he thought there were suspicions against a particular party which had been carried a gre[at] deal too far. There might be desires, but he did not believe there were designs, to change the form of government into a monarchy.

That there might be a few who wished [for monarchy] in the higher walks of life, particularly in the great cities, but that the main body of the people in the Eastern states were steadily for republicanism, as in the Southern.

That the pieces lately published, and particularly in Freneau���s paper, seemed to have in view the exciting [of] opposition to the government.

That this had taken place in Pennsylvania as to the excise law, according to information he had recieved from General Hand, that they tended to produce a separation of the union, the most dreadful of all calamities.

That whatever tended to produce anarchy tended of course to produce a resort to monarchical government.

He considered those papers as attacking him directly, for he must be a fool inde[e]d to swallow the little sugar plumbs here and there thrown out to him.

That in condemning the administration of the government they condemned him, for if they thought there were measures pursued contrary to his sentiment, they must conceive him too careless to attend to them or too stupid to understand them.

That tho indeed he had signed many acts which he did not approve in all their parts, yet he had never put his name to one which he did not think on the whole was eligible.

That as to the bank which had been an act of so much complaint, until there were some infallible criterion of reason, a difference of opinion must be tolerated...

Plus: What I think to be the last substantive contact Washington ever had with Jefferson

George Washington: To Thomas Jefferson, 6 July 1796: "When I inform you, that your letter of the 19th Ulto went to Philadelphia and returned to this place, before it was received by me; it will be admitted, I am persuaded, as an apology for my not having acknowledged the receipt of it sooner...

...If I had entertained any suspicions before, that the queries which have been published in Bache���s Paper proceeded from you, the assurances you have given of the contrary, would have removed them; but the truth is, I harboured none. I am at no loss to conjecture from what source they flowed; through what channel they were conveyed; and for what purpose they, and similar publications, appear. They were known to be in the hands of Mr Parker, in the early part of the last Session of Congress; They were shown about by Mr Giles during the Cession���and they made their public exhibition about the close of it.

Percieving, and probably, hearing, that no abuse in the Gazettes would induce me to take notice of anonymous publications, against me; those who were disposed to do me such friendly Offices, have embraced without restraint every opportunity to weaken the confidence of the People���and by having the whole game in their hands, they have scrupled not to publish things that do not, as well as those which do exist; and to mutilate the latter, so as to make them subserve the purposes which they have in view.

As you have mentioned the Subject yourself, it would not be frank, candid, or friendly to conceal, that your conduct has been represented as derogating from that opinion I had conceived you entertained of me. That to your particular friends & connexions, you have described, and they have announced me, as a person under a dangerous influence; and that, if I would listen more to some other opinions all would be well. My answer invariably has been, that I had never discovered any thing in the conduct of Mr Jefferson to raise suspicions, in my mind, of his insincerity; that if he would retrace my public conduct while he was in the Administration, abundant proofs would occur to him, that truth and right decisions, were the sole objects of my pursuit; that there were as many instances within his own knowledge of my having decided against, as in favor of the opinions of the person evidently alluded to; and moreover, that I was no believer in the infallibility of the politics, or measures of any man living. In short, that I was no party man myself, and the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them.

To this I may add, and very truly, that, until within the last year or two, I had no conception that Parties Would, or even could go, the length I have been witness to; nor did I believe until lately, that it was within the bounds of probability���hardly within that of possibility, that while I was using my utmost exertions to establish a National character of our own, independent, as far as our obligations, and justice would permit, of every Nation of the earth; and wished, by steering a steady course, to preserve this Country from the horrors of a desolating war, that I should be accused of being the enemy of one Nation, and Subject to the influence of another; and to prove it, that every act of my Administration would be tortured, and the grossest, & most insiduous mis-representations of them be made (by giving one side only of a subject, and that too in such exagerated, & indecent term[s] as could scarcely be applied to a Nero; a notorious defaulter; or even to a common pickpocket). But enough of this; I have already gone farther in the expression of my feelings, than I intended.

The particulars of the case you mention (relative to the Little Sarah) is a good deal out of my Recollection at present; and I have no public papers here to resort to. When I get back to Philadelphia (which, unless I am called there by something new, will not be ���till towards the last of August) I will examine my files.

It must be pleasing to a Cultivator, to possess land which will yield Clover kindly; for it is certainly a great Desiderata in Husbandry. My Soil, without very good dressings, does not produce it well: owing, I believe, to its stiffness; hardness at bottom; and retention of Water. A farmer, in my opinion, need never despair of raising Wheat to advantage, upon a Clover lay; with a single ploughing, agreeably to the Norfolk and Suffolk practice.

By a misconception of my Manager last year, a field at one of my Farms which I intended shd have been fallowed for Wheat, went untouched. Unwilling to have my crop of Wheat at that place so much reduced, as would have been occasioned by this omission, I directed, as soon as I returned from Philadelphia (about the middle of September) another field, not in the usual rotation, which had lain out two years, and well covered with mixed grasses, principally white clover, to be turned over with a good Bar-share; and the Wheat to be sown, and harrowed in at the tail of the Plough. It was done so accordingly, and was, by odds, the best Wheat I made this year. It exhibits an unequivocal proof to my Mind, of the great advantage of a Clover lay, for Wheat. Our Crops of this article, hereabouts, are more or less injured by what some call the Rot���others the Scab; occasioned, I believe, by high wind & beating rain when the grain is in blossom, & before the Farina has performed its duties.

Desirous of trying the field Peas of England, and the Winter Vetch, I sent last fall to Mr Murray of Liverpool for eight bushels of each sort. Of the Peas he sent me two kinds (a white & dark, but not having his letter by me, I am unable to give the names). They did not arrive until the latter end of April, when they ought to have been in the ground the beginning of March. They were sown however, but will yield no Seed; of course the experiment I intended to make, is lost. The Vetch is yet on hand for Autumn Seeding. That the Albany Peas will grow well with us, I know from my own experience: but they are subject to the same bug which perforates, and injures the Garden Peas, and which will do the same, I fear, to the imported Peas, of any sort, from England, in this climate, from the heat of it.

I do not know what is meant by, or to what uses the Caroline drill is applied. How does your Chicorium prosper? Four years since, I exterminated all the Plants raised from Seed sent me by Mr Young, and to get into it again, the Seed I purchased in Philadelphia last Winter, and what has been sent me by Mr Murray this Spring, has cost me upwards of twelve pounds Sterling. This, it may be observed, is a left handed way to make money; but the first was occasioned by the manager I then had, who pretended to know it well in England, and pronounced it a noxious weed; the restoration of it, is indebted to Mr Strickland & others (besides Mr Young) who speak of it in exalted terms. I sowed mine broadcast, some with, and some without grain. It has come up well, but there seems to be a serious struggle between it and the grass & weeds; the issue of which (as I can afford no relief to the former) is doubtful at present, & may be useful to know.

If you can bring a moveable threshing Machine, constructed upon simple principles to perfection, it will be among the most valuable institutions in this Country; for nothing is more wanting, & to be wished for on our farms. Mrs Washington begs you to accept her best wishes���and with very great esteem & regard I am���Dear Sir Your Obedient Hble Servt...

And Washington ended his life convinced that Jefferson sought to overthrow the constitution and turn America into a French puppet:

George Washington: To John Nicholas, 8 March 1798: "Nothing short of the Evidence you have adduced, corroborative of intimations which I had received long before, through another channel, could have shaken my belief in the sincerity of a friendship, which I had conceived was possessed for me, by the person to whom you allude...

...But attempts to injure those who are supposed to stand well in the estimation of the People, and are stumbling blocks in their way (by misrepresenting their political tenets) thereby to destroy all confidence in them, is one of the means by which the Government is to be assailed, and the Constitution destroyed. The conduct of this Party is systematized, and every thing that is opposed to its execution, will be sacrificed, without hesitation, or remorse; if the end can be answered by it.

If the person whom you suspect, was really the Author of the letter under the signature of John Langhorne, it is not at all surprising, to me, that the correspondence should have ended where it did; for the penetration of that man would have perceived at the first glance of the answer, that nothing was to be drawn from that mode of attack; In what form, the next insidious attempt may appear, remains to be discovered. But as the attempts to explain away the Constitution, & weaken the Government are now become so open; and the desire of placing the Affairs of this Country under the influence & controul of a foreign Nation is so apparant, & strong, it is hardly to be expected that a resort to covert means to effect these objects, will be longer regarded...

Thomas Jefferson: To Philip Mazzei, 24 April 1796: "Our political state has changed tremendously since you left us...

...Instead of that noble love of liberty and republican government, which made us triumph through the dangers of war, an Anglican-monarchical-aristocratic party arose. His avowed object is to impose the substance upon us, as he has already given us the forms of the British government; however, the main body of our citizens remains faithful to republican principles. All landowners are for these principles, as well as a large mass of men with talents.

We have against us (republicans) the executive power, the judicial power (two of the three branches of the legislature) all the officers of the government, all those who aspire to be, all the timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the stormy sea of ������liberty, the Breton merchants, and the Americans who trade with Breton capitals, the speculators, the people interested in the bank and in the public funds. (Establishments invented in views of corruption, and to assimilate us to the British model in its rotten parts.)

I would give you fever if I named you apostates who embraced these heresies, men who were Salomons in the council, and Samsons in the fighting, but whose hair was cut off by England.

We would like to take away the freedom we have gained through so much work and danger. But we will keep it; our mass of weight and wealth is too great for us to fear that we are trying to use force against us. It is enough for us to wake up and break the Lilliputian bonds with which they have bound us during the first sleep that followed our labors.

It suffices that we stop the progress of this system of ingratitude and injustice towards France, from whom we would like to alienate ourselves in order to return to British influence, & c.

Commentary from the Paris Moniteur:

This interesting letter, from one of the most virtuous and enlightened citizens of the United States, explains the conduct of the Americans towards France. It is certain that of all the neutral and friendly powers, there is none of which France could expect more interest and help than the United States. She is their true mother, since she has guaranteed their freedom and independence.

As grateful sons, far from abandoning him, they had to arm themselves for his defense. But if imperious circumstances prevented them from declaring themselves openly for the French Republic, they had at least to make demonstrations, and to let England fear that from one moment to the next they might declare themselves. This fear alone would have sufficed to force the London cabinet to make peace. It is indeed clear that the war with the United States bore the blows most sensitive to the English trade, gave them anxiety for the conservation of their estates on the American continent, and deprived them of the means of conquering the French colonies. and Dutch.

As ungrateful as it was bad policy, the congress hastened to reassure the English, that they might quietly continue their war of extermination against France, and invade the colonies and commerce of England. He sent to London a minister, Mr. Jay, known for his attachment to England and his personal relations with Lord Grenville, and hastily concluded a treaty of commerce which united him to Great Britain, more than a treaty of alliance.

Such a treaty, in the circumstances in which it was done, and by the consequences it ought to have, is an act of hostility towards France. The French government has at last been able to testify the resentment of the French Nation, and it has done so by breaking all communication with an ungrateful and unfaithful ally, until it returns to a more just and more benevolent conduct. Justice and sound politics also support this approach of the French government. There is no doubt that it will give rise, in the United States, to discussions which may make the party of good republicans, friends of France, triumph.

Some writers, to disapprove of this wise and necessary measure of the Directory, maintain that in the United States, the French have as partisans only demagogues who would like to overthrow the current government. But their impudent lies of persuading no one, and only proving, which is only too obvious, that they use the liberty of the press to serve the enemies of France.

#weekendreading

Teasers for "Slouching Towards Utopia?: An Economic History of the Long 20th Century"

Current Versions of Chapters 1-3:

DRAFT: My Grand Narrative
DRAFT: Themes
DRAFT: Making a Global Economy and Society, 1870-1914

Outtakes and Deleted Scenes:

The Circa-1870 Disjunction Between Production and Distribution: A Possible Outtake from "Slouching Towards Utopia?: An Economic History of the Long 20th Century"
Why Was the 20th Century Not Another Chinese Century?
Imprisonment by Malthus and "Negative Liberty"

Notes Shoebox:

Russia vs. Egypt; Stalin vs. Mehmet Ali
Truth Sandwiches
"Neoliberalism"
Needed: A Better Karl Polanyi
American Economic History: Slides for Wrap-Up Lecture...
John Maynard Keynes: Trotsky on England
Understanding Karl Marx
Dan Davies: The Tribute that Vice Pays to Virtue
We Know Little About the Origins of High Patriarchy and the Extinction of Most Y-Chromosome Lineages ca. 5000 Years Ago, But...
More on the Kaiping Mines: Jonathan Spence's Asides, and Albert Feuerwerker's Review of Ellsworth Carlson
The Woosung-Shanghai Railway of 1876
Twenty-Eight Theses Toward Understanding the Economic Past and Future of Latin America: Daily Focus




#TCEH

Alexandra Petri: It is too bad I have been silenced: "It ...

Alexandra Petri: It is too bad I have been silenced: "It is with a heavy heart, and profound regret for the current state of media in America, that I have dragged my laptop to a Starbucks to pen this column. But I think it is important that we understand the degree of oppression we are up against...

...I regret to say: I have been silenced.

I expressed an opinion, and people criticized that opinion. And since that day, my voice has never been heard again. I am entombed where none can hear my jangling bells, for doing nothing more than walking down the street, saying that women who get abortions ought to be hanged.

The mob has borne me aloft (metaphorically, of course) with their torches and ��� in their infantile gulosity ��� devoured��everything I worked to build.��My voice is trapped in a seashell in the grip of a NARAL-affiliated sea-witch, and I swim haplessly through the world, bipedal but voiceless. No. Voiceless is not the word I want. Sponsorless. Except for my ability to type and publish this now, the world has excommunicated me and barred me from public spheres, where I cannot exist in safety. I am like a mime (I once saw a mime on the streets of Chicago; I think this image speaks for itself).

My life is (metaphorically!) over. These very words are invisible to you. Simply for having the temerity to breathe (this opinion in the pages of an august publication) I have had my liberty stripped from me and I am now confined, for life,��to the pages of the Wall Street Journal, at best. This is injustice...

#shouldread

Austin Frakt: Reagan, Deregulation and America's Exceptio...

Austin Frakt: Reagan, Deregulation and America's Exceptional Rise in Health Care Costs: "Why did American health care costs start skyrocketing compared with those of other advanced nations starting in the early 1980s?...

...At the same time this was happening, American longevity gains were failing to keep up with peer countries.... The United States didn���t impose the same types of government cost controls on health care that other nations did, and we invested less in social programs that also promote health.... The 1980s divergence in health costs, some readers and experts observed, coincided with a broad push toward deregulation.... ���Hospitals and other providers began to behave more like businesses,��� Mr. Gaumer said. ���And the culture of health care delivery began to change.���...

���We need to see the medical sector as part of the broader gestalt of American society at the time,��� said John McDonough, professor of Public Health Practice at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. President Carter was ���obsessed with broad public and private health care cost control, and Reagan abandoned that, with the exception of Medicare,��� he said.... ������Greed is good��� was more than a catchy movie line���it was the Me Decade���s dominant theory,��� Professor McDonough said. ���No other advanced democracy embraced deregulated health care markets in the way that the U.S. did. It swept through health care as it did every other part of the U.S. economy.��� Further explanations for why the nation fell behind in health care outcomes, starting in the 1980s, are harder to come by. Mr. McDonough pointed to the Federal Trade Commission���s 1978 decision to allow��direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. And the first signs of the obesity epidemic began to appear in this decade, but not enough to explain that decade���s remarkable cost explosion...

#shouldread

Doug Rushkoff: Survival of the Richest: "The hedge funder...

Doug Rushkoff: Survival of the Richest: "The hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over their security forces after 'the event'...

...I suggested that their best bet would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own family. And the more they can expand this ethos of inclusivity to the rest of their business practices, supply chain management, sustainability efforts, and wealth distribution, the less chance there will be of an ���event��� in the first place. All this technological wizardry could be applied toward less romantic but entirely more collective interests right now.

They were amused by my optimism, but they didn���t really buy it. They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they���re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don���t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves���������especially if they can���t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.

Luckily, those of us without the funding to consider disowning our own humanity have much better options available to us. We don���t have to use technology in such antisocial, atomizing ways. We can become the individual consumers and profiles that our devices and platforms want us to be, or we can remember that the truly evolved human doesn���t go it alone.

Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It���s a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.

#shouldread

Cory Doctorow: I was naive: "I've been thinking of all th...

Cory Doctorow: I was naive: "I've been thinking of all those 'progressive' Senators who said that... Jeff Sessions was a gentleman, honorable, decent���just someone whose ideas they disagreed with. They approved Sessions for AG on that basis, and he architected this kids-in-cages moment...

...What if they hadn't been misled and instead had gone with "Well, he's fun to chat with in the cafeteria and I'd trust him to return a lost wallet, but you know what, f--- that, because he's also a Dominionist authoritarian who thinks that The Handmaid's Tale is a manual for statecraft. That guy would return your wallet and then rip your kids out of your arms and send them to broil in a prison camp. I wouldn't confirm him for AG if he was the last guy on earth, nice guy and returned wallets be damned."

As it happens, I know a couple of people who know Steve Bannon, and they all tell me that he is full of raw charisma���an exciting and interesting person to hang out with. I'm sure they're right (provided that you're not adverse to him at that moment) and I'm sure that this charisma is what's gotten him so far. I laughed when someone first introduced the idea of "charisma privilege" but I think it's time that we started separating the charisma���or even artistic talent���of people from their acceptance in our lives. Individually, a charming ass---- in our lives doesn't matter, but their collective normalization and acceptance has created this moment.

Contra is Quinn Norton's idea that if you're not talking to the racists in your family and friend group, you preclude the possibility of redeeming them, and you also miss the signals that they're gaining ascendancy and get caught flatfooted: https://medium.com/@quinnnorton/the-problem-with-white-shunning-56b67cc2d726

#shouldread

Judy Stephenson: Looking for work? Or looking for workers...

Judy Stephenson: Looking for work? Or looking for workers? Days and hours of work in London construction in the eighteenth century: "New information and data on how work and pay actually operated for skilled and semi-skilled men on large London construction projects in the early 1700s...

...and for the first time, offers detailed firm level evidence on the number of days per year worked by men. Construction workers��� working days were bounded by structural factors of both supply and demand, men worked a far lower number of days than has been assumed until now. This has implications for our understanding of the ���industrious revolution���, and industrialisation.....

Until we have better research on search and matching costs within all industries 180 days per year is a more robust and empirical estimate of the number of days construction workers worked per annum. Eighteenth century urban building craftsmen and labourers��� working year was bounded by structural demand factors of seasonality and the building process, frictional costs of finding regular employment, and bounds on their own ability to work at high physical intensity. The evidence from a unique single firm source on a large and well-resourced site indicates that on average men could only work 5.2 days per week in the long run, and if they did not have a regular employment relationship they worked less than thirteen weeks in the year for an employer. Employees who had worked with an employer in two years previously would have still only had 35 weeks work with him on average, equivalent to 182 days��� work per year....

Building construction workers were never more than about 8 per cent of the population, and this data comes from the very early eighteenth century, so do these finding have any bearing on theories about industriousness and industrialization? In short, yes, because at present we use builders wages as a proxy for the average of all wages. If the amount they earned per day was lower, and the number of days they worked were fewer then annual incomes would have been about 40 % lower than the current predicted ��31.00 - ��37.00 for craftsmen, and ��20.00 - ��25.00 for labourers (table 11). What we have thought of as a labourers income was actually a craftsman���s. On this basis a ���respectability��� basket could only have been attained by craftsmen, not labourers.50 The implication for ���divergence��� debates could be profound, but is that household composition, substitution and prices may also have been different to what we currently think.

#shouldread

Benjamin Franklin (1751): Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind: Weekend Reading

Benjamin Franklin (1751): Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, 1751: "The 'immediate occasion' for writing this essay, according to Van Doren,6 was the British Iron Act of 1750, which prohibited the erection of additional slitting and rolling mills, plating forges, and steel furnaces in the American colonies. While English ironmasters rejoiced in the protection the law afforded them, a few farsighted Britons and most Americans appreciated that the act would curb colonial growth at just the moment when Britain and France were engaged in a climactic struggle for possession of North America.

Franklin wrote the essay in 1751. In the following spring he sent a copy to Peter Collinson and Richard Jackson, who were ���greatly entertained��� by it; and Jackson eventually sent Franklin a full criticism of it.1 Collinson hoped it would be published: ���I don���t find anyone has hit it off so well���; and Dr. John Perkins of Boston, who also received a copy, judged it such an ���informing Piece��� that it ���should be read and well considered by every Englishman who wishes well to his Country.��� Not until late in 1754, however, did Franklin consent to its publication: it appeared the next year as an appendix to William Clarke���s Observations. The pamphlet, including Franklin���s essay, was reprinted at once in London; and the essay alone, with some excisions, appeared in the Gentleman���s Magazine for November 1755 and the Scots Magazine for April 1756.

In 1760 and 1761 it was printed, also with excisions, as an appendix to London, Dublin, Boston, and Philadelphia editions of Franklin���s Interest of Great Britain Considered; and it was reprinted in part in the London Chronicle, May 20, 1760. Franklin included it in the fourth edition of his Experiments and Observations on Electricity, 1769. Thus Franklin���s ideas on the growth of population entered the current of English economic thought. They had a demonstrable influence on Thomas Malthus, who quoted Franklin approvingly and accepted his surprisingly accurate estimate of the rate of population increase in America, and on Francis Place, who studied these and others of Franklin���s ideas on population. Adam Smith is known to have had two copies of the essay in his library.

 

Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c.:

Tables of the Proportion of Marriages to Births, of Deaths to Births, of Marriages to the Numbers of Inhabitants, &c. form���d on Observaions made upon the Bills of Mortality, Christnings, &c. of populous Cities, will not suit Countries; nor will Tables form���d on Observations made on full settled old Countries, as Europe, suit new Countries, as America.

For People increase in Proportion to the Number of Marriages, and that is greater in Proportion to the Ease and Convenience of supporting a Family. When Families can be easily supported, more Persons marry, and earlier in Life.

In Cities, where all Trades, Occupations and Offices are full, many delay marrying, till they can see how to bear the Charges of a Family; which Charges are greater in Cities, as Luxury is more common: many live single during Life, and continue Servants to Families, Journeymen to Trades, &c. hence Cities do not by natural Generation supply themselves with Inhabitants; the Deaths are more than the Births.

In Countries full settled, the Case must be nearly the same; all Lands being occupied and improved to the Heighth: those who cannot get Land, must Labour for others that have it; when Labourers are plenty, their Wages will be low; by low Wages a Family is supported with Difficulty; this Difficulty deters many from Marriage, who therefore long continue Servants and single. Only as the Cities take Supplies of People from the Country, and thereby make a little more Room in the Country; Marriage is a little more incourag���d there, and the Births exceed the Deaths.

Europe is generally full settled with Husbandmen, Manufacturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in People: America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by Hunting. But as the Hunter, of all Men, requires the greatest Quantity of Land from whence to draw his Subsistence, (the Husbandman subsisting on much less, the Gardner on still less, and the Manufacturer requiring least of all), The Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could be by Hunters; yet these having large Tracks, were easily prevail���d on to part with Portions of Territory to the new Comers, who did not much interfere with the Natives in Hunting, and furnish���d them with many Things they wanted.

Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap as that a labouring Man, that understands Husbandry, can in a short Time save Money enough to purchase a Piece of new Land sufficient for a Plantation, whereon he may subsist a Family; such are not afraid to marry; for if they even look far enough forward to consider how their Children when grown up are to be provided for, they see that more Land is to be had at Rates equally easy, all Circumstances considered.

Hence Marriages in America are more general, and more generally early, than in Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that there is but one Marriage per Annum among 100 Persons, perhaps we may here reckon two; and if in Europe they have but 4 Births to a Marriage (many of their Marriages being late) we may here reckon 8, of which if one half grow up, and our Marriages are made, reckoning one with another at 20 Years of Age, our People must at least be doubled every 20 Years.

But notwithstanding this Increase, so vast is the Territory of North-America, that it will require many Ages to settle it fully; and till it is fully settled, Labour will never be cheap here, where no Man continues long a Labourer for others, but gets a Plantation of his own, no Man continues long a Journeyman to a Trade, but goes among those new Settlers, and sets up for himself, &c. Hence Labour is no cheaper now, in Pennsylvania, than it was 30 Years ago, tho��� so many Thousand labouring People have been imported.

The Danger therefore of these Colonies interfering with their Mother Country in Trades that depend on Labour, Manufactures, &c. is too remote to require the Attention of Great-Britain.

But in Proportion to the Increase of the Colonies, a vast Demand is growing for British Manufactures, a glorious Market wholly in the Power of Britain, in which Foreigners cannot interfere, which will increase in a short Time even beyond her Power of supplying, tho��� her whole Trade should be to her Colonies: Therefore Britain should not too much restrain Manufactures in her Colonies. A wise and good Mother will not do it. To distress, is to weaken, and weakening the Children, weakens the whole Family.

Besides if the Manufactures of Britain (by Reason of the American Demands) should rise too high in Price, Foreigners who can sell cheaper will drive her Merchants out of Foreign Markets; Foreign Manufactures will thereby be encouraged and increased, and consequently foreign Nations, perhaps her Rivals in Power, grow more populous and more powerful; while her own Colonies, kept too low, are unable to assist her, or add to her Strength.

���Tis an ill-grounded Opinion that by the Labour of Slaves, America may possibly vie in Cheapness of Manufactures with Britain. The Labour of Slaves can never be so cheap here as the Labour of working Men is in Britain. Any one may compute it. Interest of Money is in the Colonies from 6 to 10 per Cent. Slaves one with another cost ��30 Sterling per Head. Reckon then the Interest of the first Purchase of a Slave, the Insurance or Risque on his Life, his Cloathing and Diet, Expences in his Sickness and Loss of Time, Loss by his Neglect of Business (Neglect is natural to the Man who is not to be benefited by his own Care or Diligence), Expence of a Driver to keep him at Work, and his Pilfering from Time to Time, almost every Slave being by Nature9 a Thief, and compare the whole Amount with the Wages of a Manufacturer of Iron or Wool in England, you will see that Labour is much cheaper there than it ever can be by Negroes here. Why then will Americans purchase Slaves? Because Slaves may be kept as long as a Man pleases, or has Occasion for their Labour; while hired Men are continually leaving their Master (often in the midst of his Business,) and setting up for themselves.

As the Increase of People depends on the Encouragement of Marriages, the following Things must diminish a Nation, viz.:

The being conquered; for the Conquerors will engross as many Offices, and exact as much Tribute or Profit on the Labour of the conquered, as will maintain them in their new Establishment, and this diminishing the Subsistence of the Natives discourages their Marriages, and so gradually diminishes them, while the Foreigners increase.
Loss of Territory. Thus the Britons being driven into Wales, and crowded together in a barren Country insufficient to support such great Numbers, diminished ���till the People bore a Proportion to the Produce, while the Saxons increas���d on their abandoned Lands; ���till the Island became full of English. And were the English now driven into Wales by some foreign Nation, there would in a few Years be no more Englishmen in Britain, than there are now People in Wales.
Loss of Trade. Manufactures exported, draw Subsistence from Foreign Countries for Numbers; who are thereby enabled to marry and raise Families. If the Nation be deprived of any Branch of Trade, and no new Employment is found for the People occupy���d in that Branch, it will also be soon deprived of so many People.
Loss of Food. Suppose a Nation has a Fishery, which not only employs great Numbers, but makes the Food and Subsistence of the People cheaper; If another Nation becomes Master of the Seas, and prevents the Fishery, the People will diminish in Proportion as the Loss of Employ, and Dearness of Provision, makes it more difficult to subsist a Family.
Bad Government and insecure Property. People not only leave such a Country, and settling Abroad incorporate with other Nations, lose their native Language, and become Foreigners; but the Industry of those that remain being discourag���d, the Quantity of Subsistence in the Country is lessen���d, and the Support of a Family becomes more difficult. So heavy Taxes tend to diminish a People.
The Introduction of Slaves. The Negroes brought into the English Sugar Islands, have greatly diminish���d the Whites there; the Poor are by this Means depriv���d of Employment, while a few Families acquire vast Estates; which they spend on Foreign Luxuries, and educating their Children in the Habit of those Luxuries; the same Income is needed for the Support of one that might have maintain���d 100. The Whites who have Slaves, not labouring, are enfeebled, and therefore not so generally prolific; the Slaves being work���d too hard, and ill fed, their Constitutions are broken, and the Deaths among them are more than the Births; so that a continual Supply is needed from Africa. The Northern Colonies having few Slaves increase in Whites. Slaves also pejorate the Families that use them; the white Children become proud, disgusted with Labour, and being educated in Idleness, are rendered unfit to get a Living by Industry.

Hence the Prince that acquires new Territory, if he finds it vacant, or removes the Natives to give his own People Room; the Legislator that makes effectual Laws for promoting of Trade, increasing Employment, improving Land by more or better Tillage; providing more Food by Fisheries; securing Property, &c. and the Man that invents new Trades, Arts or Manufactures, or new Improvements in Husbandry, may be properly called Fathers of their Nation, as they are the Cause of the Generation of Multitudes, by the Encouragement they afford to Marriage.

As to Privileges granted to the married, (such as the Jus trium Liberorum among the Romans), they may hasten the filling of a Country that has been thinned by War or Pestilence, or that has otherwise vacant Territory; but cannot increase a People beyond the Means provided for their Subsistence.

Foreign Luxuries and needless Manufactures imported and used in a Nation, do, by the same Reasoning, increase the People of the Nation that furnishes them, and diminish the People of the Nation that uses them. Laws therefore that prevent such Importations, and on the contrary promote the Exportation of Manufactures to be consumed in Foreign Countries, may be called (with Respect to the People that make them) generative Laws, as by increasing Subsistence they encourage Marriage. Such Laws likewise strengthen a Country, doubly, by increasing its own People and diminishing its Neighbours.

Some European Nations prudently refuse to consume the Manufactures of East-India. They should likewise forbid them to their Colonies; for the Gain to the Merchant, is not to be compar���d with the Loss by this Means of People to the Nation.

Home Luxury in the Great, increases the Nation���s Manufacturers employ���d by it, who are many, and only tends to diminish the Families that indulge in it, who are few. The greater the common fashionable Expence of any Rank of People, the more cautious they are of Marriage. Therefore Luxury should never be suffer���d to become common.

The great Increase of Offspring in particular Families, is not always owing to greater Fecundity of Nature, but sometimes to Examples of Industry in the Heads, and industrious Education; by which the Children are enabled to provide better for themselves, and their marrying early, is encouraged from the Prospect of good Subsistence.

If there be a Sect therefore, in our Nation, that regard Frugality and Industry as religious Duties, and educate their Children therein, more than others commonly do; such Sect must consequently increase more by natural Generation, than any other Sect in Britain.

The Importation of Foreigners into a Country that has as many Inhabitants as the present Employments and Provisions for Subsistence will bear; will be in the End no Increase of People; unless the New Comers have more Industry and Frugality than the Natives, and then they will provide more Subsistence, and increase in the Country; but they will gradually eat the Natives out. Nor is it necessary to bring in Foreigners to fill up any occasional Vacancy in a Country; for such Vacancy (if the Laws are good, �� 14, 16) will soon be filled by natural Generation. Who can now find the Vacancy made in Sweden, France or other Warlike Nations, by the Plague of Heroism 40 Years ago; in France, by the Expulsion of the Protestants; in England, by the Settlement of her Colonies; or in Guinea, by 100 Years Exportation of Slaves, that has blacken���d half America? The thinness of Inhabitants in Spain is owing to National Pride and Idleness, and other Causes, rather than to the Expulsion of the Moors, or to the making of new Settlements.

There is in short, no Bound to the prolific Nature of Plants or Animals, but what is made by their crowding and interfering with each others Means of Subsistence. Was the Face of the Earth vacant of other Plants, it might be gradually sowed and overspread with one Kind only; as, for Instance, with Fennel; and were it empty of other Inhabitants, it might in a few Ages be replenish���d from one Nation only; as, for Instance, with Englishmen. Thus there are suppos���d to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North-America, (tho��� ���tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over Sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather many more, on Account of the Employment the Colonies afford to Manufacturers at Home. This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power to the British Empire by Sea as well as Land! What Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Numbers of Ships and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100 Years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than that of the whole British Navy in Queen Elizabeth���s Time. How important an Affair then to Britain, is the present Treaty for settling the Bounds between her Colonies and the French, and how careful should she be to secure Room enough, since on the Room depends so much the Increase of her People?

In fine, A Nation well regulated is like a Polypus; take away a Limb, its Place is soon supply���d; cut it in two, and each deficient Part shall speedily grow out of the Part remaining. Thus if you have Room and Subsistence enough, as you may by dividing, make ten Polypes out of one, you may of one make ten Nations, equally populous and powerful; or rather, increase a Nation ten fold in Numbers and Strength.

 

And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply���d and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.

Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.

#weekendreading

John Clegg, Suresh Naidu, Gavin Wright: Free and Unfree L...

John Clegg, Suresh Naidu, Gavin Wright: Free and Unfree Labor: The Political Economy of Capitalism, Share-Cropping, and Slavery: "In recent years historians and economists have revived the long-standing debate on the relationship between capitalism and slavery...

...as well as the character of labor markets in the post-bellum South. The emerging literature has tended to focus on theoretical and definitional disputes. But behind the scenes, historians and social scientists have been accumulating new evidence that is transforming our understanding of both free and unfree labor in the United States in the 19th century. This colloquium will be devoted to exploring that new research and to questioning many long-held assumptions concerning productiveness of free and unfree labor, the origins of Southern backwardness, and the causes of the American Civil War.

 

Speakers:

John Clegg is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at NYU. His paper is entitled ���The Real Wages of Whiteness.���

Suresh Naidu is Associate Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Professor Naidu will present on "Labor Markets in the Shadow of American Slavery.���

Gavin Wright is William Robertson Coe Professor of American Economic History, Stanford University and author of Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South (2018) and Slavery and American Economic Development (2006). Professor Wright will present on "Slavery and Anglo-American Capitalism.���..."

#shouldread