Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Did you know that the average person's life in the Stone Age was no worse then that of the average 17th century Briton? That given their more varied nutrition and lesser workload, the lives of hunter gatherers were superior to both? That the Black Death caused a major improvement in European standards of livings during the 14th to 16th centuries? That the institutional conditions for economic growth, as normally understood, were better in the Middle Ages then they are today? These are only few of the mind blowing and well documented claims put forward in Gregory Clark's breathtaking - there is no other word - "A Farewell to Alms". Clark confronts the greatest mystery of human history - why did the West leap forward, breaking away from millennia of stasis, to create the modern, industrial world? Clark not only refutes most of the common wisdom about the rise of the West, but also brings forth an astonishing array of data in support of a radically new interpretation. No doubt some specialists would disagree with Clark's conclusions; I have my doubts, too - but Clark's methodology, his thoroughness, and the rigorous manner in which he addresses a huge quantity of data makes "A Farewell to Alms" an instant classic and a model for all economic history. Clark describes world economic history as essentially a two-phase story. The first phase, from the dawn of time to the Industrial Revolution, featured a barely changing world governed by the cold and remorseless laws of Malthus and Darwin. But those same laws brought on a slow revolution, and a new phenomenon was emerging - first in Europe, and slower in India, China and Japan - Economic Man. Reverend and Economist Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was the first to thus describe the world economy: in his model, people's wages were equal to the subsistence level; whenever wages increased, population increased, and pushed wages back to subsistence. Therefore, Clark argues, throughout history population was at equilibrium - whenever new technology increased productivity, the result was not higher living conditions, but higher population. Thus the difference in living conditions between times and places were caused by such effects as the different in hygiene level (improvements in hygiene ironically pushed down living standards by allowing people to survive on meager wages) and death by war and pestilence (which, equally ironically, pushed up wages). And then, in the 18th century, in a relatively small island nation, everything changed. The Industrial Revolution transformed the world, or at least England, Europe, the US, Australia, Japan and nowadays China and South East Asia. Mankind broke free of the Malthusian trap. Productivity growth rose in two orders of magnitude; Productivity gains no longer led only to population increases, but also to increase in the standards of living. The West today is rich beyond the wildest dreams of its 17th century ancestors. What happened? Most explanations suggest that Western Institutions were somehow improving: Markets were becoming freer, property rights more secure, the legal system more efficient, etc. Perhaps technology led returns on investment in human capital to increase Not so, says Clark. Markets were much less regulated in pre modern times then they are today. Property rights, in England at least, more secure. And the return on human capital - as measured, for example, in the difference between the wages of master artisans and simple workers - decreased or stayed unchanged. Furthermore, during the Industrial Revolution, hard work didn't pay; Inventors and Innovators repeatedly failed to reap the fruits of their inventions. Despite the gigantic leap in textile productivity, hardly anyone became really rich from textiles. Competition and knowledge leaks drove prices down, and the benefits were the consumer's, not the manufacturers'. What changed, Clark argues, is not the environment in which the economic actors operated. The actors themselves were no longer the same. In a Malthusian world, population was at equilibrium: barring efficiency growth, it did not increase. But while failing to increase, it was nonetheless very dynamic: a Darwinian struggle for survival, in which the Rich had many offspring, and the poor few. Thus, Clark suggests, through a combination to cultural transfers and Darwinian selection, the population changed. Upper class qualities spread to lower classes; Society was becoming Middle Class; Economic Man was born. Or shall we say, selected? As evidence, Clark sites several changes that did happen between 1000-1750: The Rise of Literacy, the Fall of Interpersonal Violence, the lengthening of working hours and the decrease in the time preference of money, which meant that people learned to postpone satisfaction. "Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work [became] values for communities that... [had been] spendthrift, impulsive, violent and leisure loving." (p.166) The reason this process happened first in Europe and not in China or India, Clark argues, is because Europe was the most Darwinian. In other societies, the difference in birth rate between rich and poor was not as dramatic. Clark's book is both exciting and troubling. Because it argues that the difference between the rich and poor nations is not in the way they organize their economies but in Cultural and likely genetic differences, it challenges both the right wing belief in the superiority of free markets, and the left wing faith in the equality of mankind. As a believer in both, I am troubled. I don't think Clark's book is complete: If the differences between Modern and Pre Modern people are genetic, they should be discoverable in our DNA. If they are cultural, the mechanism of cultural transmission should be explored. And Clark doesn't say anything about democracy - is it a coincidence that democracy flourished side by side with the economy? "A Farewell to Alms" is hands down the best book I read all year, and one of the best books on history, economics, or sociology I know. It is everything I look for in non-fiction - smart and elegantly written, challenging and illuminating, and grounded in both theory and empirical data. This one's for the ages.