The Rational Optimist (P.S.)

by Matt Ridley

It was Britain’s fate to escape the quasi-Malthusian trap into which Japan, Ireland and Denmark fell. The reasons are many and debatable, but here it is worth noting a surprising demographic factor. Britain, more than any other country, had unintentionally prepared itself for industrial life in an elemental, human way. For centuries – leaving out the aristocrats (who left fewer heirs because they died from falling off horses) – the relatively rich had more children than the relatively poor. On average a merchant in Britain who left £1,000 in his will had four surviving children, while a labourer who left £10 had only two – this was in around 1600, but the differential was similar at other dates. Such differential reproduction happened in China, too, but to a much lesser extent. Because there was little or no increase in the standard of living between 1200 and 1700, this overbreeding by the rich meant there was constant downward mobility. Gregory Clark has shown from legal records that rare surnames of the poor survived much less well than rare surnames of the rich.