More on a theme

2007-08-06 · Original WordPress address

Clark has a chapter in his book called “the rise of modern man” suggesting modern (post-Malthusian) people are different than their ancestors in ways you suggest (e.g. they’re more patient, but also smarter, harder working and less violent). For example, interest rates declined steadily over the centuries. One by one, using the usual Ramsey results on interest rates, he eliminates the possible reasons for this. Growth premium? Nope, there was no growth pre-1800. Risk premium? Nope, the King didn’t really confiscate too much and the characteristics of death statistics didn’t change much in the Malthusian era. Without stating it, the only thing left to cause steadily declining interest rates is changes in time preferences. He then discusses rising levels of literacy, eliminating the possibility that people were responding to market pressures to increase their human capital… one by one, knock ‘em down… he shows work hours increased and violence decreased. It could only mean one thing… you know, the obvious thing… which was… well you know. So you could counter Clark by arguing against each of these points, e.g. “yeah, maybe the King didn’t expropriate that often, but when he did it was a big deal, usually accompanied by a disembowelment or two”. Or you can take issue with the Ramsey model itself. But my biggest issue is that Clark never develops a positive theory of the “rise of modern man”, he simply tries a proof by exhaustion showing all the things that couldn’t explain the facts on demographics and interest rates. To be fair, though, he hints, using testate records, that these deep parameters developed by selection. To me that’s just a huge can of worms. What is being selected? Genes? Is there a temperance gene? If its genes, are there evolutionary models that select for such sophisticated behavior in just a couple of centuries? Instead were memes being selected? If so, what the hell are those?