
Brown economists: Ancestral history explains roots of income inequality - Anon84
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/12/16/brown.economists.ancestral.history.explains.roots.income.inequality
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ars
Interesting results, wrong conclusions. Plus they didn't separate cause and
effect.

"He demonstrated tht [sic] the number of years since a society made the
transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is highly correlated to
the level of income in the country today. That is, the earlier the agriculture
development, the higher the income."

Or exactly the other way around - the better the person is at producing, the
earlier they managed to switch to agriculture. Or in less politically correct
terms, the smarter the people, the more they make today, and the earlier they
managed to figure out agriculture.

"Second, the influence of population origins suggests that there is something
that human families and communities transmit from generation to generation —
perhaps a form of economic culture, a set of attitudes or beliefs, or
informally transmitted capabilities — that is of at least similar importance
to economic success as are more widely recognized factors like quantities of
physical capital and even human capital in the narrower sense of formal
schooling. If we understand which culturally transmitted factors are important
and what contributes to their emergence and propagation, we might be able to
design policy interventions that could help less successful groups and
countries to close their developmental gaps."

Uh hu. Or maybe they are just smarter, and intelligence is heritable.

But they can't say that since it basically means that there is nothing poor
counties can do, except encourage immigration and intermarriage. So they make
a fluff feel-good conclusion.

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rsheridan6
>Or exactly the other way around - the better the person is at producing, the
earlier they managed to switch to agriculture. Or in less politically correct
terms, the smarter the people, the more they make today, and the earlier they
managed to figure out agriculture.

It might have more to do with when they first had to switch to agriculture.
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers had a better lifestyle and better nutrition than
early farmers, so why start farming if you don't have to? Farming is tedious,
backbreaking labor which gives you grass seed to eat, while hunting is
something men do for fun even when they don't have to, and gives you meat.

I don't really see the connection between farming and intelligence. Which
would you rather trust a stupid person to do: plow a field or kill a lion with
a spear?

My first thought was that adapting to the tedious, persistent labor of farm
life would lead to useful traits in a modern economy, unlike hunting, which is
more like a leisure activity.

~~~
ars
"Paleolithic hunter-gatherers had a better lifestyle and better nutrition than
early farmers"

I don't think that is true. Early farmers also hunted plus they had the grown
food, so they did better.

"I don't really see the connection between farming and intelligence. Which
would you rather trust a stupid person to do: plow a field or kill a lion with
a spear?"

Kill a lion with a spear would be my answer - that requires strength and
agility - but not much in the way of intelligence (witness animals that hunt).

Farming does require intelligence, when to water, when to plant, _what_ to
plant, when to harvest. The calendar was invented specifically to help with
those.

After a while anyone could do it (which is why you think it's for stupid
people) - but at the start? That took quite a lot of thinking, and
experimenting.

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m_eiman
I dunno, maybe they should look into if maybe Europe invading the rest of the
world and killing off various percentages of the populations could be a
factor?

~~~
gaius
Uhh, dude, if you read your history then pretty much everywhere has invaded
everywhere else at some point, and populations that aren't being invaded are
just as often killing each other.

So while it happens, it's not a data point here.

~~~
m_eiman
Sure, but I'd guess that there's a difference if resources are transferred
back and forth within a small region, i.e. neighboring countries warring for a
few hundred years, compared to some other country far away taking the
resources with them after a successful invasion. And then continue to take
everything they can get their hands on for the next few hundred years... It
pools the resources in a single place, and as a result it also pools the
ability to refine those resources in the same place (because its pretty hard
to learn refining if you don't have anything to refine). Maybe it could be
compared to how a town supported by resource producing villages made it
possible to specialize in a trade that wasn't viable in a village setting.

And the killing off part was mostly a reference to diseases brought (without
intention) to the Americas that more or less killed the civilizations there.

But maybe I'm just brainwashed by the people on the left.

~~~
gaius
Consider Zimbabwe. Its wealth was well, _wealth_ , not money that's easy
transferred, but fertile farms and abundant mines. Stuff that's inherent to
the country itself. But Mugabe has brought it from the "breadbasket of Africa"
to the brink or ruin (in fact, perhaps given the latest news from there, over
the brink). Where did that wealth go? It wasn't transferred out by fleeing
Europeans. It didn't even go into his Swiss bank account. It was simply
destroyed.

~~~
m_eiman
I don't see a connection. You're saying that the only people capable of
constructing a functioning society are us Europeans? I really hope I'm reading
you wrong.

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gaius
No, it doesn't matter that they were European per se. Let's say they were
people from planet X who showed up on planet Y, built a load of stuff and then
left, and the people from planet Y have no idea how to operate any of it. You
know, like in _Stargate: SG1_. The point is that the people who built it are
often the only ones who can operate it.

~~~
cambellg
Singapore would disprove that theory. :)

~~~
gaius
:-)

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cambellg
Or, just postulating here, maybe the capital that is transmitted is just that.
Capital. That and tribalism/nepotism could explain these results as well.

~~~
gaius
Singapore would disprove that theory.

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cambellg
What aspect of Singapore's history gives lie to the theory that a tribe w/
portable resources will recirculate those resources within itself as it
expands globally?

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gaius
Singapore had no resources other than the brains of its people; they were the
underclass who were booted out of Malaysia with just the shirts on their
backs.

~~~
cambellg
Ok... then they were colonized by a wealthy tribe. Where's the dichotomy?

~~~
gaius
They _became_ the wealthy tribe once they were free of the mainstream
Malaysian class system.

~~~
DabAsteroid
_They became the wealthy tribe once they were free of the mainstream Malaysian
class system._

Malays have little to do with Singapore's economy.

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joe_the_user
So the idea is: 1\. Find a correlation around a bit of data relating to a very
broad tendency in history. 2\. Draw an unwarranted conclusion 3\. ??? 4\.
Profit

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kingkongrevenge
> that there is something that human families and communities transmit from
> generation to generation -- perhaps a form of economic culture, a set of
> attitudes or beliefs, or informally transmitted capabilities

Hmmm, what ELSE might be transmitted from generation to generation. I just
can't put my finger on it...

