Happy Birthday to Milton Friedman
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Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
F. A. Hayek on the Decline of the Rule of Law
New To The Internet — F. A. Hayek on the “Decline of the Rule of Law” (part 1)
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Hayek makes a key point, one that resonates today:
"That the law should be an instrument to be used by the individuals for their ends and not an instrument used upon the people by the legislators is the ultimate meaning of the Rule of Law."
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Hayek makes a key point, one that resonates today:
"That the law should be an instrument to be used by the individuals for their ends and not an instrument used upon the people by the legislators is the ultimate meaning of the Rule of Law."
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The 'Big Food' Era: Critics Call the Mother Teresa of the South a Fatso | Richmond Times-Dispatch
The 'Big Food' Era: Critics Call the Mother Teresa of the South a Fatso | Richmond Times-Dispatch
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THE CHUBBY chastisers and fatso flagellators almost have to make that argument, because it's the easiest way to replicate the arc of tobacco regulation: first warning labels and other forms of information -- see, e.g., New York's new law requiring restaurants to post nutritional content data -- then restrictions on behavior in public, and ultimately restrictions on behavior in private.
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THE CHUBBY chastisers and fatso flagellators almost have to make that argument, because it's the easiest way to replicate the arc of tobacco regulation: first warning labels and other forms of information -- see, e.g., New York's new law requiring restaurants to post nutritional content data -- then restrictions on behavior in public, and ultimately restrictions on behavior in private.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Kaldor Facts
From Economist's View
The New Kaldor Facts: Ideas, Institutions, Population, and Human Capital, by Charles I. Jones and Paul M. Romer, NBER WP 15094, June 2009 [open link]: 1. Introduction ...[I]t is easy to lose faith in scientific progress. ... In any assessment of progress, as in any analysis of macroeconomic variables, a long-run perspective helps us look past the short-run fluctuations and see the underlying trend. In 1961, Nicolas Kaldor stated six now famous “stylized” facts. He used them to summarize what economists had learned from their analysis of 20th-century growth and also to frame the research agenda going forward (Kaldor, 1961):
1. Labor productivity has grown at a sustained rate.
2. Capital per worker has also grown at a sustained rate.
3. The real interest rate or return on capital has been stable.
4. The ratio of capital to output has also been stable.
5. Capital and labor have captured stable shares of national income.
6. Among the fast growing countries of the world, there is an appreciable variation in the rate of growth “of the order of 2–5 percent.”
Redoing this exercise nearly 50 years later shows just how much progress we have made. Kaldor’s first five facts have moved from research papers to textbooks. There is no longer any interesting debate about the features that a model must contain to explain them. These features are embodied in one of the great successes of growth theory in the 1950s and 1960s, the neoclassical growth model. Today, researchers are now grappling with Kaldor’s sixth fact and have moved on to several others that we list below.
One might have imagined that the first round of growth theory clarified the deep foundational issues and that subsequent rounds filled in the details. This is not what we observe. The striking feature of the new stylized facts driving the research agenda today is how much more ambitious they are. Economists now expect that economic theory should inform our thinking about issues that we once ruled out of bounds as important but too difficult to capture in a formal model.
Here is a summary of our new list of stylized facts, to be discussed in more detail below:
1. Increases in the extent of the market. Increased flows of goods, ideas, finance, and people — via globalization as well as urbanization — have increased the extent of the market for all workers and consumers.
2. Accelerating growth. For thousands of years, growth in both population and per capita GDP has accelerated, rising from virtually zero to the relatively rapid rates observed in the last century.
3. Variation in modern growth rates. The variation in the rate of growth of per capita GDP increases with the distance from the technology frontier.
4. Large income and TFP differences. Differences in measured inputs explain less than half of the enormous cross country differences in per capita GDP.
5. Increases in human capital per worker. Human capital per worker is rising dramatically throughout the world.
6. Long-run stability of relative wages. The rising quantity of human capital relative to unskilled labor has not been matched by a sustained decline in its relative price.
In assessing the change since Kaldor developed his list, it is important to recognize that Kaldor himself was raising expectations relative to the initial neoclassical model of growth as outlined by Solow (1956) and Swan (1956). When the neoclassical model was being developed, a narrow focus on physical capital alone was no doubt a wise choice
The New Kaldor Facts: Ideas, Institutions, Population, and Human Capital, by Charles I. Jones and Paul M. Romer, NBER WP 15094, June 2009 [open link]: 1. Introduction ...[I]t is easy to lose faith in scientific progress. ... In any assessment of progress, as in any analysis of macroeconomic variables, a long-run perspective helps us look past the short-run fluctuations and see the underlying trend. In 1961, Nicolas Kaldor stated six now famous “stylized” facts. He used them to summarize what economists had learned from their analysis of 20th-century growth and also to frame the research agenda going forward (Kaldor, 1961):
1. Labor productivity has grown at a sustained rate.
2. Capital per worker has also grown at a sustained rate.
3. The real interest rate or return on capital has been stable.
4. The ratio of capital to output has also been stable.
5. Capital and labor have captured stable shares of national income.
6. Among the fast growing countries of the world, there is an appreciable variation in the rate of growth “of the order of 2–5 percent.”
Redoing this exercise nearly 50 years later shows just how much progress we have made. Kaldor’s first five facts have moved from research papers to textbooks. There is no longer any interesting debate about the features that a model must contain to explain them. These features are embodied in one of the great successes of growth theory in the 1950s and 1960s, the neoclassical growth model. Today, researchers are now grappling with Kaldor’s sixth fact and have moved on to several others that we list below.
One might have imagined that the first round of growth theory clarified the deep foundational issues and that subsequent rounds filled in the details. This is not what we observe. The striking feature of the new stylized facts driving the research agenda today is how much more ambitious they are. Economists now expect that economic theory should inform our thinking about issues that we once ruled out of bounds as important but too difficult to capture in a formal model.
Here is a summary of our new list of stylized facts, to be discussed in more detail below:
1. Increases in the extent of the market. Increased flows of goods, ideas, finance, and people — via globalization as well as urbanization — have increased the extent of the market for all workers and consumers.
2. Accelerating growth. For thousands of years, growth in both population and per capita GDP has accelerated, rising from virtually zero to the relatively rapid rates observed in the last century.
3. Variation in modern growth rates. The variation in the rate of growth of per capita GDP increases with the distance from the technology frontier.
4. Large income and TFP differences. Differences in measured inputs explain less than half of the enormous cross country differences in per capita GDP.
5. Increases in human capital per worker. Human capital per worker is rising dramatically throughout the world.
6. Long-run stability of relative wages. The rising quantity of human capital relative to unskilled labor has not been matched by a sustained decline in its relative price.
In assessing the change since Kaldor developed his list, it is important to recognize that Kaldor himself was raising expectations relative to the initial neoclassical model of growth as outlined by Solow (1956) and Swan (1956). When the neoclassical model was being developed, a narrow focus on physical capital alone was no doubt a wise choice
Thursday, July 16, 2009
From - Economists View
Financial Community Norms
Bill Easterly:
Rulers, communities, and revolution, by Bill Easterly: ...Some have had a simplistic view of institutions in development as deriving only from top-down formal rules and laws. ...[M]uch research indicates otherwise.
First, formal rules that are incompatible with community norms often have no effect (this extends to things like trying to have registered land titles when the local community already has customary allocation of land rights, research on paper land titles in Africa confirms they have little effect on anything).
Second, if the rulers are especially oppressive they could enforce the incompatible formal rules by force, which would make communities worse off. But in a free society, the community can resist the rulers, which is part of the benefit of a free society.
Third, most rules we live by in a free society are more the product of community norms than they are of formal laws. (Fancy version: Rules emerge out of complex social interactions in a spontaneous order.) This is a good thing, as it makes the rules more responsive to local circumstances and needs. Down with arbitrary rules, up with community norms.
There's a lesson here for regulation. It's not enough to change the rules. If the culture doesn't change to support those rules, the rules won't be effective.
Bill Easterly:
Rulers, communities, and revolution, by Bill Easterly: ...Some have had a simplistic view of institutions in development as deriving only from top-down formal rules and laws. ...[M]uch research indicates otherwise.
First, formal rules that are incompatible with community norms often have no effect (this extends to things like trying to have registered land titles when the local community already has customary allocation of land rights, research on paper land titles in Africa confirms they have little effect on anything).
Second, if the rulers are especially oppressive they could enforce the incompatible formal rules by force, which would make communities worse off. But in a free society, the community can resist the rulers, which is part of the benefit of a free society.
Third, most rules we live by in a free society are more the product of community norms than they are of formal laws. (Fancy version: Rules emerge out of complex social interactions in a spontaneous order.) This is a good thing, as it makes the rules more responsive to local circumstances and needs. Down with arbitrary rules, up with community norms.
There's a lesson here for regulation. It's not enough to change the rules. If the culture doesn't change to support those rules, the rules won't be effective.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Part 6
Part 7
Part VI: Of the Character of Virtue. First sentence: "When we consider the character of any individual, we naturally view it under two different aspects; first, as it may affect his own happiness; and secondly, as it may affect that of other people." Concerned about character. Challenge to take care of yourself; prudence depends on communion with impartial spectator.
Podcast 6
Part VI: Of the Character of Virtue. First sentence: "When we consider the character of any individual, we naturally view it under two different aspects; first, as it may affect his own happiness; and secondly, as it may affect that of other people." Concerned about character. Challenge to take care of yourself; prudence depends on communion with impartial spectator.
Podcast 6
Saturday, July 11, 2009
The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Part 5
Podcast 5
Two great articles on the invisible hand.
"In Adam Smith's Invisible Hands: Comment on Gavin Kennedy", by Daniel B. Klein. Econ Journal Watch, vol. 6, no. 2, pp 264-279. May 2009.
"Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand: From Metaphor to Myth", by Gavin Kennedy. Econ Journal Watch, vol. 6, no. 2, pp 239-263. May 2009.
Two great articles on the invisible hand.
"In Adam Smith's Invisible Hands: Comment on Gavin Kennedy", by Daniel B. Klein. Econ Journal Watch, vol. 6, no. 2, pp 264-279. May 2009.
"Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand: From Metaphor to Myth", by Gavin Kennedy. Econ Journal Watch, vol. 6, no. 2, pp 239-263. May 2009.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Part 3
This is another in a series of posts anticipating the July 2009 Liberty Fund colloquia dealing with Adam Smith
Part 3 - Duty
Chapter 1 - Self examination
What is required of the individual - that is our own duty. How do we judge ourselves? This section is the most intense application of the impartial spectator.
"The principle by which we naturally either approve or disapprove of our own conduct, seems to be altogether the same with that by which we exercise the like judgments concerning the conduct of other people. We either approve or disapprove of the conduct of another man according as we feel that, when we bring his case home to ourselves, we either can or cannot entirely sympathize with the sentiments and motives which directed it. And, in the same manner, we either approve or disapprove of our own conduct, according as we feel that, when we place ourselves in the situation of another man, and view it, as it were, with his eyes and from his station, we either can or cannot entirely enter into and sympathize with the sentiments and motives which influenced it."
1. View our conduct as we image the impartial spectator would. (This is the only looking glass by which we can, in some measure . . . scrutinize the propriety of our won conduct." III.1.5
2. Praise virtue and condemn (punish) vice.
Chapter 2 - Praise v blame
1. Must deserve the praise or blame by motive and action.
2. Behavior should conform to measure of conduct we know to exist (these are the emergent and evolutionary informal norms and conventions as well as formal institutions)
3. Smith argues we are endowed with a desire to please others and a desire to be pleasing in character.
4. Golden median or place between pleasure and pain. And pain a greater motivator than pleasure.
5. Poets v mathematicians
6. Judgments from society (external) and conscience (internal) - how are these a part of the impartial spectator?
Chapter 3 - Conscience
1. Natural eye of the mind (eye of the impartial spectator)
2. Impartial spectator
3. China example hundred million dead v my pinky - self love countered by reason, principle, conscience
4. Famous perspective (Stoic) act and regard ourselves "as a citizen of the world, a member of the vast commonwealth of nature" III.3.10
5. How to get self command? - page 145 "sentiments of the real or supposed spectator of our conduct."
6. 2 philosophies - whining and melancholy v Stoics
7. Back to a pinky (147) fortitude in the face of scratched finger not the same as lost leg
8. Happiness = tranquillity and enjoyment
9. Misery = discord
10. Man of perfect virtue - page 152
Chapter 4 - Self deceit and general rules
Challenge to self judgment - self deceit
Response - general rules from experience
1. Rules emergent and evolutionary
2. Come from moral faculties, natural sense of merit and propriety
3. Also called general rules of conduct - Hayek
Chapter 5 - Influence and authority of the rules of morality
1. Key point - page 102-3 - course clay can reach a minimum standard, not perfection
2. Is God the ultimate enforcer of these rules of conduct/morality - 165?
3. Basis for moral faculties - reason and/or moral sense
4. WN anticipated on pages 166 - incentive of "success in every sort of business" and 168
Chapter 6 - role of Duty
1. Self interest in "common, little and ordinary cases" - follow the general rules
2. Self interest in extraordinary and important objects"(173) - subject to passion called ambition - this can be very positive.
3. Rules of conduct - grammar v aesthetics that is p175 precise, accurate and indispensable (commutative justice) v loose, vague and indeterminant (distributive justice).
Podcast 4
"Thinking of yourself as being observed, not comfortable place to be. Thinking about it unconsciously all the time. Allows for independence, but founded on dependence of internal spectator which itself is derived from society."
Podcast 1 - Introduction
Dan Klein anticipates the discussion of justice and the famous differences between commutative and distributive justice and the rules that govern each:
Justice
Smith is explicit about that remaining "loose, vague, and indeterminate." Rules like grammar, that are precise and accurate, versus the rules of aesthetics, what critics lay down for what is sublime and elegant in writing.
Everything in TMS except for Smith's demand for commutative justice which he says is precise and accurate and indispensable like grammar--the punishment fitting the crime and that you shouldn't commit crimes that violate property or contract, which are black and white; also adds reputation, shouldn't do something to injure someone's reputation (p. 84 doesn't mention reputation but other times does). Apart from that justice--reserves that justice as justice, means this commutative justice--everything else for Smith is in the category of "vague, loose and indeterminate."
Part 3 - Duty
Chapter 1 - Self examination
What is required of the individual - that is our own duty. How do we judge ourselves? This section is the most intense application of the impartial spectator.
"The principle by which we naturally either approve or disapprove of our own conduct, seems to be altogether the same with that by which we exercise the like judgments concerning the conduct of other people. We either approve or disapprove of the conduct of another man according as we feel that, when we bring his case home to ourselves, we either can or cannot entirely sympathize with the sentiments and motives which directed it. And, in the same manner, we either approve or disapprove of our own conduct, according as we feel that, when we place ourselves in the situation of another man, and view it, as it were, with his eyes and from his station, we either can or cannot entirely enter into and sympathize with the sentiments and motives which influenced it."
1. View our conduct as we image the impartial spectator would. (This is the only looking glass by which we can, in some measure . . . scrutinize the propriety of our won conduct." III.1.5
2. Praise virtue and condemn (punish) vice.
Chapter 2 - Praise v blame
1. Must deserve the praise or blame by motive and action.
2. Behavior should conform to measure of conduct we know to exist (these are the emergent and evolutionary informal norms and conventions as well as formal institutions)
3. Smith argues we are endowed with a desire to please others and a desire to be pleasing in character.
4. Golden median or place between pleasure and pain. And pain a greater motivator than pleasure.
5. Poets v mathematicians
6. Judgments from society (external) and conscience (internal) - how are these a part of the impartial spectator?
Chapter 3 - Conscience
1. Natural eye of the mind (eye of the impartial spectator)
2. Impartial spectator
3. China example hundred million dead v my pinky - self love countered by reason, principle, conscience
4. Famous perspective (Stoic) act and regard ourselves "as a citizen of the world, a member of the vast commonwealth of nature" III.3.10
5. How to get self command? - page 145 "sentiments of the real or supposed spectator of our conduct."
6. 2 philosophies - whining and melancholy v Stoics
7. Back to a pinky (147) fortitude in the face of scratched finger not the same as lost leg
8. Happiness = tranquillity and enjoyment
9. Misery = discord
10. Man of perfect virtue - page 152
Chapter 4 - Self deceit and general rules
Challenge to self judgment - self deceit
Response - general rules from experience
1. Rules emergent and evolutionary
2. Come from moral faculties, natural sense of merit and propriety
3. Also called general rules of conduct - Hayek
Chapter 5 - Influence and authority of the rules of morality
1. Key point - page 102-3 - course clay can reach a minimum standard, not perfection
2. Is God the ultimate enforcer of these rules of conduct/morality - 165?
3. Basis for moral faculties - reason and/or moral sense
4. WN anticipated on pages 166 - incentive of "success in every sort of business" and 168
Chapter 6 - role of Duty
1. Self interest in "common, little and ordinary cases" - follow the general rules
2. Self interest in extraordinary and important objects"(173) - subject to passion called ambition - this can be very positive.
3. Rules of conduct - grammar v aesthetics that is p175 precise, accurate and indispensable (commutative justice) v loose, vague and indeterminant (distributive justice).
Podcast 4
"Thinking of yourself as being observed, not comfortable place to be. Thinking about it unconsciously all the time. Allows for independence, but founded on dependence of internal spectator which itself is derived from society."
Podcast 1 - Introduction
Dan Klein anticipates the discussion of justice and the famous differences between commutative and distributive justice and the rules that govern each:
Justice
Smith is explicit about that remaining "loose, vague, and indeterminate." Rules like grammar, that are precise and accurate, versus the rules of aesthetics, what critics lay down for what is sublime and elegant in writing.
Everything in TMS except for Smith's demand for commutative justice which he says is precise and accurate and indispensable like grammar--the punishment fitting the crime and that you shouldn't commit crimes that violate property or contract, which are black and white; also adds reputation, shouldn't do something to injure someone's reputation (p. 84 doesn't mention reputation but other times does). Apart from that justice--reserves that justice as justice, means this commutative justice--everything else for Smith is in the category of "vague, loose and indeterminate."
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Part 2
Part 2 - Merit and Demerit
1. Two types of sympathy - direct (with the actor) and indirect (with the object)
2. Role of government in justice
3. Interesting analysis of resentment and punishment - sentinel example.
4.
Podcast 3
"What is Part II about? Merit and demerit: consequences and effects of actions as well as the motives. Gratitude and resentment, compounded sentiments: the action one is grateful for.
Justice and beneficence, discussed in first podcast: Justice can be enforced with force, whereas beneficence has to be voluntary and free--among equals. Justice like grammar is precise; justice is of a negative nature. You don't praise for getting grammar or justice right; satisfying grammar or justice is not cause for praise or approbation. Beneficence, like aesthetics, is both positive and negative.
P. 82-84, "sacred laws of justice"--some of best writing so far. You think more about yourself than other people do. "Though every man may, according to the proverb, be the whole world to himself, to the rest of mankind he is a most insignificant part of it...". "In the race for wealth, and honours, and preferments, he may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and every muscle, in order to outstrip all his competitors. But if he should justle, or throw down any of them, the indulgence of the spectators is entirely at an end. It is a violation of fair play, which they cannot admit of...". "To be deprived of that which we are possessed of, is a greater evil than to be disappointed of what we have only the expectation," discussed last time. P. 87 and following: utility not our primary source of sentiment, but notions of justice are.
I think the sources for Smith's or for Hayek's thinking about spontaneous order would be diffuse. For Smith, I think Mandeville must have been big, as well as his teacher Hutcheson, and probably Hume's economics and other evolutionary tendencies. Ferguson was Smith's contemporary (in fact, it seems they were born nearly the same week), and I wouldn't say Ferguson was particularly influential on Smith. As for Hayek, again, I don't think you can point to a specific source. Surely Menger and Mises would figure prominently in his years up to age 30. I think Hayek first uses spontaneous order in The Constitution of Liberty (1960, 160), and credits Michael Polanyi's The Logic of Liberty (1951) for it. But Hayek addresses the general idea, and refers to Hume and Smith, as early as his 1933 lecture "The Trend of Economic Thinking." Someone, btw, who I think was much more influential up to that time than shows in the citations is Herbert Spencer. I think that a lot people, perhaps Hayek, were influenced greatly by him but didn't cite him because doing so would be politically/academically incorrect."
1. Two types of sympathy - direct (with the actor) and indirect (with the object)
2. Role of government in justice
3. Interesting analysis of resentment and punishment - sentinel example.
4.
Podcast 3
"What is Part II about? Merit and demerit: consequences and effects of actions as well as the motives. Gratitude and resentment, compounded sentiments: the action one is grateful for.
Justice and beneficence, discussed in first podcast: Justice can be enforced with force, whereas beneficence has to be voluntary and free--among equals. Justice like grammar is precise; justice is of a negative nature. You don't praise for getting grammar or justice right; satisfying grammar or justice is not cause for praise or approbation. Beneficence, like aesthetics, is both positive and negative.
P. 82-84, "sacred laws of justice"--some of best writing so far. You think more about yourself than other people do. "Though every man may, according to the proverb, be the whole world to himself, to the rest of mankind he is a most insignificant part of it...". "In the race for wealth, and honours, and preferments, he may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and every muscle, in order to outstrip all his competitors. But if he should justle, or throw down any of them, the indulgence of the spectators is entirely at an end. It is a violation of fair play, which they cannot admit of...". "To be deprived of that which we are possessed of, is a greater evil than to be disappointed of what we have only the expectation," discussed last time. P. 87 and following: utility not our primary source of sentiment, but notions of justice are.
I think the sources for Smith's or for Hayek's thinking about spontaneous order would be diffuse. For Smith, I think Mandeville must have been big, as well as his teacher Hutcheson, and probably Hume's economics and other evolutionary tendencies. Ferguson was Smith's contemporary (in fact, it seems they were born nearly the same week), and I wouldn't say Ferguson was particularly influential on Smith. As for Hayek, again, I don't think you can point to a specific source. Surely Menger and Mises would figure prominently in his years up to age 30. I think Hayek first uses spontaneous order in The Constitution of Liberty (1960, 160), and credits Michael Polanyi's The Logic of Liberty (1951) for it. But Hayek addresses the general idea, and refers to Hume and Smith, as early as his 1933 lecture "The Trend of Economic Thinking." Someone, btw, who I think was much more influential up to that time than shows in the citations is Herbert Spencer. I think that a lot people, perhaps Hayek, were influenced greatly by him but didn't cite him because doing so would be politically/academically incorrect."
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Part 1
This posting continues preparation for the Liberty Fund colloqia dealing with Adam Smith
Part 1 - Propriety
Section 1
Chapter 1 - sympathy
1. Imagination key to setting up process of impartial spectator
2. Need to place ourselves in position of person to determine propriety
3. Dread of death (pain a great incentive)
Chapter 2 - Pleasure in mutual sympathy
1. Moral context that of community/society and therefore part of body politic
2. Pain > pleasure
Chapters 3 and 4 - judge propriety/impropriety of others
1. Golden Mean (page 17) - not moderate but appropriate response
2. Actions judged by cause and effect
3. Key point - page 20 - we judge as proper those things first that we see as true and real, then that have utility, but utility is secondary.
Chapter 5 - amiable v respectable virtues
1. Soft v awful virtues
2. Soft - humanity
3. Awful - self denial (self command?)and self government
4. Perfection of human nature cannot be attained - perfect self command - 25
5. Virtue > propriety (25) - huge distance between admired/celebrated and "merely" approved
Section 2 Passions that have propriety
Chapter 1 - Passions from the body
1. Examples - hunger, sex - need virtue of temperance
2. Passions can come from imagination - love, etc. ..
Chapter 2 - Passions from the imagination
1. Love (33)
2. Great line - page 34 - use reserve when discussing friends, studies, profession
Chapter 3 - Unsocial Passions
1. Hatred, anger and resentment must be brought down to an appropriate level
2. 37 - hatred and anger the greatest poison to happiness
Chapter 4 - Social Passions
1. Amiable passions - love, benevolent affection
Chapter 5 - Selfish Passions - joy and grief
Section 3 - Impact of Prosperity and Adversity on propriety
Chapter 1 - sympathy and joy
"What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt and has a clear conscience?" - 45
So, most people, according to Smith are in the above state so there is no real additional prosperity prospect, only potential adversity.
Chapter 2 - ambition "the great purpose of life is to bettering our condition"(50)
Chapter 3 - corruption of moral sentiments
Distinction between getting respect via wisdom and virtue or wealth and greatness (62) and the "great mob of mankind" are motivated and corrupted by the former.
Podcast 2
"Daniel Klein writes:
Pietro, yes, I see great parallel between Hayek and Smith, though Hayek never did any moral analysis like TMS, and scarcely refers to TMS (in fact, hardly any of the epic classical liberals of the renaissance period, say 1947-1990, seem to have much grasp of TMS). You suggest that in TMS Smith is trying to do a 'supply and demand' of sympathy. I'd caution against drawing too strong a parallel between the moral dynamics and market dynamics. Yes there are some important parallels, and exit and innovation play key roles in both, and arguably in both a presumption-of-liberty punchline stems from knowledge's richness and particularism, but, as you note, the moral ecology is without money and prices -- or at least goes much farther beyond money and prices. The "culture market" -- from the arts to the most deep-seated, existential sources of meaning and identity -- really is a lot different from the toothpaste market.
Adam, yes, I think propriety has to do with fit with community norms, customs, rules, while (becoming) virtue with going one better. These, however, are frames of analysis. When we go one better we identify or imagine a higher community, and it is propriety to that higher community that makes for (supposedly) praiseworthy becoming virtue in the frame of the lower community. See for example the "exalted propriety" on p. 192.
Adam, yes, I think Smith has a vision (a hope?) of a moral ecology wherein people are prompted to take an ever more impartial view of matters, and in this way continually approach a better sense of moral aesthetics, perhaps like an infinite sequence that converges toward a limit. Arguable, Smith's impartial spectator is that limit, a being of universalist wisdom. I understand that Kant somewhere says that Smith was his favorite among the British moralists. Remember, "the man in the breast," the conscience, is not the impartial spectator, but rather the supposed impartial spectator, the representative of the impartial spectator, etc.
But we never get close to the limit. Moreover, one might argue that as we go along the limit in fact changes. James Otteson's book Adam Smith's Marketplace of Life (Cambridge 2002) interprets Smith's moral ecology as an invisible hand process.
Eric H., I like your sentence, "Basically Smith is saying that society is protected by imagination." I find that your comment is getting at the notion that the impartial spectator -- in the sense of a being universally emanating universalist wisdom (though with mixed success) -- corresponds somehow to the being whose hand is invisible.
I now better see, John Strong, your point. Yes, when we disagree significantly with someone over deeper beauties (4th source), we typically moderate in the situation, we temper, we show courtesy, maybe showing more respect for him than we would in other situations. We do this partly out of regard for proprieties at the 1, 2, and 3 sources.
Incidentally, I feel that Smith is somewhat partial toward such bargainers, as opposed to challengers. The challenger is respectful to the opponent, but not deferent. The challenger -- think Thomas Paine, Jeremy Bentham, Frederic Bastiat (often), Lysander Spooner, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Thomas Szasz, Robert Higgs -- challenges the opponent's fundamental judgment -- deeper root judgment (hence "radical") -- and doing so challenges the opponent's claim to eminence, and hence challenges the cultural system that confers eminence on the opponent. I find that, at least from our contemporary viewpoint, Smith gives short shrift to challengers.
Adam, regarding the invisible hand of the moral ecology, you write: "communities that approve of destructive behavior will not last long and those that don't will persist." I'm not sure how widely you mean "communities." Say we distinguish between communities within Britain and Britain as but one community within humanity. Within Britain, yes, by and large, to what you say, so long as we confine such communities to voluntary means; the king or civil magistrate, on the other had, might, by other means, do destructive things and prosper by it. At the level of Britain as a "community" among humanity: This very broad "survival of fittest" type mechanism is perhaps more relevant to WN where Smith writes of the stages of society and the emergence of "our present sense of the word Freedom" (WN p. 400). But in TMS, it seems to me that he focuses more on mechanisms internal to a single moral ecology, and ascribes melioristic tendencies to its internal workings. There is very little in TMS that speaks to a successful nation exporting its culture and norms, or morally colonizing its neighbors. And there is little about the global selection of national communities on the basis of the success of their moral ecology -- in fact, at the moment, I can't think of anything along such lines in TMS -- please correct me if I am overlooking anything.
A very important question, in my mind, is the kind of setting TMS is assuming for the moral ecology. Perhaps in some settings the meliorism, the set of moral/cultural invisible-hand mechanisms, is overmatched by counter mechanisms?
Do the invisible-hand mechanisms have the upper hand in the moral ecology of America 2009?"
Part 1 - Propriety
Section 1
Chapter 1 - sympathy
1. Imagination key to setting up process of impartial spectator
2. Need to place ourselves in position of person to determine propriety
3. Dread of death (pain a great incentive)
Chapter 2 - Pleasure in mutual sympathy
1. Moral context that of community/society and therefore part of body politic
2. Pain > pleasure
Chapters 3 and 4 - judge propriety/impropriety of others
1. Golden Mean (page 17) - not moderate but appropriate response
2. Actions judged by cause and effect
3. Key point - page 20 - we judge as proper those things first that we see as true and real, then that have utility, but utility is secondary.
Chapter 5 - amiable v respectable virtues
1. Soft v awful virtues
2. Soft - humanity
3. Awful - self denial (self command?)and self government
4. Perfection of human nature cannot be attained - perfect self command - 25
5. Virtue > propriety (25) - huge distance between admired/celebrated and "merely" approved
Section 2 Passions that have propriety
Chapter 1 - Passions from the body
1. Examples - hunger, sex - need virtue of temperance
2. Passions can come from imagination - love, etc. ..
Chapter 2 - Passions from the imagination
1. Love (33)
2. Great line - page 34 - use reserve when discussing friends, studies, profession
Chapter 3 - Unsocial Passions
1. Hatred, anger and resentment must be brought down to an appropriate level
2. 37 - hatred and anger the greatest poison to happiness
Chapter 4 - Social Passions
1. Amiable passions - love, benevolent affection
Chapter 5 - Selfish Passions - joy and grief
Section 3 - Impact of Prosperity and Adversity on propriety
Chapter 1 - sympathy and joy
"What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt and has a clear conscience?" - 45
So, most people, according to Smith are in the above state so there is no real additional prosperity prospect, only potential adversity.
Chapter 2 - ambition "the great purpose of life is to bettering our condition"(50)
Chapter 3 - corruption of moral sentiments
Distinction between getting respect via wisdom and virtue or wealth and greatness (62) and the "great mob of mankind" are motivated and corrupted by the former.
Podcast 2
"Daniel Klein writes:
Pietro, yes, I see great parallel between Hayek and Smith, though Hayek never did any moral analysis like TMS, and scarcely refers to TMS (in fact, hardly any of the epic classical liberals of the renaissance period, say 1947-1990, seem to have much grasp of TMS). You suggest that in TMS Smith is trying to do a 'supply and demand' of sympathy. I'd caution against drawing too strong a parallel between the moral dynamics and market dynamics. Yes there are some important parallels, and exit and innovation play key roles in both, and arguably in both a presumption-of-liberty punchline stems from knowledge's richness and particularism, but, as you note, the moral ecology is without money and prices -- or at least goes much farther beyond money and prices. The "culture market" -- from the arts to the most deep-seated, existential sources of meaning and identity -- really is a lot different from the toothpaste market.
Adam, yes, I think propriety has to do with fit with community norms, customs, rules, while (becoming) virtue with going one better. These, however, are frames of analysis. When we go one better we identify or imagine a higher community, and it is propriety to that higher community that makes for (supposedly) praiseworthy becoming virtue in the frame of the lower community. See for example the "exalted propriety" on p. 192.
Adam, yes, I think Smith has a vision (a hope?) of a moral ecology wherein people are prompted to take an ever more impartial view of matters, and in this way continually approach a better sense of moral aesthetics, perhaps like an infinite sequence that converges toward a limit. Arguable, Smith's impartial spectator is that limit, a being of universalist wisdom. I understand that Kant somewhere says that Smith was his favorite among the British moralists. Remember, "the man in the breast," the conscience, is not the impartial spectator, but rather the supposed impartial spectator, the representative of the impartial spectator, etc.
But we never get close to the limit. Moreover, one might argue that as we go along the limit in fact changes. James Otteson's book Adam Smith's Marketplace of Life (Cambridge 2002) interprets Smith's moral ecology as an invisible hand process.
Eric H., I like your sentence, "Basically Smith is saying that society is protected by imagination." I find that your comment is getting at the notion that the impartial spectator -- in the sense of a being universally emanating universalist wisdom (though with mixed success) -- corresponds somehow to the being whose hand is invisible.
I now better see, John Strong, your point. Yes, when we disagree significantly with someone over deeper beauties (4th source), we typically moderate in the situation, we temper, we show courtesy, maybe showing more respect for him than we would in other situations. We do this partly out of regard for proprieties at the 1, 2, and 3 sources.
Incidentally, I feel that Smith is somewhat partial toward such bargainers, as opposed to challengers. The challenger is respectful to the opponent, but not deferent. The challenger -- think Thomas Paine, Jeremy Bentham, Frederic Bastiat (often), Lysander Spooner, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Thomas Szasz, Robert Higgs -- challenges the opponent's fundamental judgment -- deeper root judgment (hence "radical") -- and doing so challenges the opponent's claim to eminence, and hence challenges the cultural system that confers eminence on the opponent. I find that, at least from our contemporary viewpoint, Smith gives short shrift to challengers.
Adam, regarding the invisible hand of the moral ecology, you write: "communities that approve of destructive behavior will not last long and those that don't will persist." I'm not sure how widely you mean "communities." Say we distinguish between communities within Britain and Britain as but one community within humanity. Within Britain, yes, by and large, to what you say, so long as we confine such communities to voluntary means; the king or civil magistrate, on the other had, might, by other means, do destructive things and prosper by it. At the level of Britain as a "community" among humanity: This very broad "survival of fittest" type mechanism is perhaps more relevant to WN where Smith writes of the stages of society and the emergence of "our present sense of the word Freedom" (WN p. 400). But in TMS, it seems to me that he focuses more on mechanisms internal to a single moral ecology, and ascribes melioristic tendencies to its internal workings. There is very little in TMS that speaks to a successful nation exporting its culture and norms, or morally colonizing its neighbors. And there is little about the global selection of national communities on the basis of the success of their moral ecology -- in fact, at the moment, I can't think of anything along such lines in TMS -- please correct me if I am overlooking anything.
A very important question, in my mind, is the kind of setting TMS is assuming for the moral ecology. Perhaps in some settings the meliorism, the set of moral/cultural invisible-hand mechanisms, is overmatched by counter mechanisms?
Do the invisible-hand mechanisms have the upper hand in the moral ecology of America 2009?"
Monday, July 6, 2009
“Liberty and Responsibility in Adam Smith”
I'm looking forward to the Liberty Fund Colloquia “Liberty and Responsibility in Adam Smith” which runs July 6-12, 2009
READING LIST
Session I: Theory of Moral Sentiments, Parts 1 and 2 (99 pages).
Session II: Theory of Moral Sentiments, Parts 3 and 4 (84 pages).
Session III: Theory of Moral Sentiments, Parts 5 and 6 (70 pages).
Session IV: Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part 7 (78 pages).
Session V: “Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages,” Hume’s letter to Smith dated 28 July 1759 (letter #36 in Correspondence, pages 42–44); and Smith’s letter to Gilbert Elliot dated 10 October 1759 (letter #40 in Correspondence, pages 48–57) (33 pages).
Session VI: Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Lectures 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 21–25, and 28 (72 pages).
Session VII: Lectures on Jurisprudence, B (Report dated 1766), pages 397–462, 471–515, 521–522, 528–535, and 538–544 (144 pages).
Session VIII: Wealth of Nations, “Introduction;” and Book 1, Chapters 1–5 and 6–8, pages 10–56 and 65–104 (86 pages).
Session IX: Wealth of Nations, Book 2, “Introduction,” and Chapters 1, 2, and 3, pages 276–285, 320–329, and 330–349; and Book 3, Chapters 1 and 4, pages 376–380 and 411–412 (70 pages).
Session X: Wealth of Nations, Book 4, “Introduction” and Chapters 2, 7, and 9, pages 452–472, 556–566, 572–577, 586–587, 610–618, 622–627, and 687–688; and Book 5, Chapter 1, and Parts II and III, pages 689–701, 708–716, and 723–729 (85 pages).
Session XI: Wealth of Nations, Book 5, Chapter 1, Article II, pages 758–797 (39 pages).
Session XII: Essays on Philosophical Subjects, “The History of Astronomy,” “The History of Ancient Physics,” and “The History of Ancient Logics and Metaphysics” (pages 33–129) (96 pages).
Session XIII: Essays on Philosophical Subjects, “Of the External Senses” and “Of the Imitative Arts” (pages 135–213) and “Letter to the Edinburgh Review” (pages 242-254) (78 pages).
READING LIST
Session I: Theory of Moral Sentiments, Parts 1 and 2 (99 pages).
Session II: Theory of Moral Sentiments, Parts 3 and 4 (84 pages).
Session III: Theory of Moral Sentiments, Parts 5 and 6 (70 pages).
Session IV: Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part 7 (78 pages).
Session V: “Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages,” Hume’s letter to Smith dated 28 July 1759 (letter #36 in Correspondence, pages 42–44); and Smith’s letter to Gilbert Elliot dated 10 October 1759 (letter #40 in Correspondence, pages 48–57) (33 pages).
Session VI: Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Lectures 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 21–25, and 28 (72 pages).
Session VII: Lectures on Jurisprudence, B (Report dated 1766), pages 397–462, 471–515, 521–522, 528–535, and 538–544 (144 pages).
Session VIII: Wealth of Nations, “Introduction;” and Book 1, Chapters 1–5 and 6–8, pages 10–56 and 65–104 (86 pages).
Session IX: Wealth of Nations, Book 2, “Introduction,” and Chapters 1, 2, and 3, pages 276–285, 320–329, and 330–349; and Book 3, Chapters 1 and 4, pages 376–380 and 411–412 (70 pages).
Session X: Wealth of Nations, Book 4, “Introduction” and Chapters 2, 7, and 9, pages 452–472, 556–566, 572–577, 586–587, 610–618, 622–627, and 687–688; and Book 5, Chapter 1, and Parts II and III, pages 689–701, 708–716, and 723–729 (85 pages).
Session XI: Wealth of Nations, Book 5, Chapter 1, Article II, pages 758–797 (39 pages).
Session XII: Essays on Philosophical Subjects, “The History of Astronomy,” “The History of Ancient Physics,” and “The History of Ancient Logics and Metaphysics” (pages 33–129) (96 pages).
Session XIII: Essays on Philosophical Subjects, “Of the External Senses” and “Of the Imitative Arts” (pages 135–213) and “Letter to the Edinburgh Review” (pages 242-254) (78 pages).
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Book club - Theory of Moral Sentiments - overview
This posting and the subsequent ones dealing with the EconTalk podcast of TMS is to prepare for a Liberty Fund colloqia in July on Adam Smith.
This posting deals with the introduction to TMS and the first podcast.
Introduction to Raphael edition of TMS - pages 1 -52
1. Influence of Stoic philosophy
2. 3 virtues of prudence, beneficence and self command
3. Self command permeates all virtue (great precept of nature)
4. Stoicism permeated range of ethics and social science
5. View nature as a cosmic harmony - informs metaphor of invisible hand - the Stoic idea of harmonious system
6. Impartial (indifferent) spectator - as related to conscience
7. Natural harmony and natural liberty
8. Role of prudence and how prudence works with self command to reinforce moral/ethical behavior
9. Sympathy or fellow feeling
10. Judge the agent's motive not the action
11. Ethics - criterion for determining right action - impartial spectator (preferred by Smith) and utility
12. TMS and WN compliment each other - TMS - argument to understand sympathy's role in moral judgment. WN deals with motives for action - which include self love.
From the first podcast:
"Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) first published in 1759, revised, final edition 1790; spanned publication of Wealth of Nations, which was published in 1776. Impression of TMS: richer version of Wealth of Nations. Caricature of Adam Smith is focus on greed and self-interest. By contrast, TMS focuses on a richer set of motivations: fame, glory, guilt, reputation, self-esteem. Is that a good characterization? Moral dimensions of our conduct. Sometimes people feel that there is a tension between the two books. Smith trying to explore moral considerations and understandings, but also engaging in a project to advance them, improve them. Not just social psychology or moral psychology; agenda driven, part of enlightenment movement, sees developments of all kinds around him. Smith sees that he needs to explore natural jurisprudence, includes political economy--what the laws ought to be, proper law, desirable law as opposed to the positive law of each nation. Larger project: exploring the moral sentiments, wisdom, virtue."
Economics and the Ordinary Person: Re-reading Adam Smith
"In his Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), he criticizes several philosophical theories of morality for not attending properly to the way moral sentiments are actually experienced. And in both TMS and WN he condemns those entranced by "the love of system," those who want to impose their own vision of how the human world should work on the people who actually live in that world. Smith's account of moral and political cognition is strikingly egalitarian: experts know less than they claim to know, and ordinary people know more than they seem to know, about what will best promote the human good.
This egalitarian view of human cognition provides the essential premise for Smith's arguments against government interference with the economy. Smith's teacher Hutcheson, Smith's rival James Steuart, and many other political economists, did not share Smith's confidence in ordinary people's judgment, and therefore looked to a government where the wise would guide investment, and control the labor- and consumption-choices of the poor. For Smith, by contrast, the decisions made by individuals in their own local situations—all individuals, even the poor and uneducated people regarded with so much disdain by Smith's contemporaries—will almost always more effectively promote the public good than any plan aimed directly at that good. And the decisions individuals make about their own moral problems will also normally be at least as wise as any they would come to if they were guided, morally, by their political leaders.
First, if Smith believes that good philosophical and scientific work should be rooted in common sense, then we should not expect him to approve of an economic science, like the one we have today, carried on in a highly abstract and technical jargon. Nor is his own work written that way. WN was admired in its day for its great clarity, and for its avoidance of detailed calculations in favor of historical narrative.
Second, a moral philosophy rooted in common sense is unlikely to endorse a counter-intuitive view of human nature, and Smith in fact combats the counter-intuitive views of his predecessors and colleagues. This is one reason why he rejects the notion that human beings are thoroughly selfish, put about by Hobbes and Mandeville. But for the same reason he rejects the idea that human beings ever were or ever will be capable of the passionate altruism or patriotism on which utopian thinkers pinned their hopes (Thomas More before Smith; Rousseauvians in his time; Marxists later on).
Third, and perhaps most importantly, Smith's distrust of the ability of "systems"—whether philosophical, religious, or political—to improve human beings goes with a belief that what really provides us with moral education are the humble institutions of everyday social interaction, including the market. The foundation of all virtue for Smith is "self-command," the ability to control our feelings, to restrain our passion for our own interests and to enhance our feelings for others. But we achieve self-command only after the disapproval of others has led us to develop a habit of dampening our self-love. The first great "school of self-command," says Smith, is the company of our playfellows, who refuse to indulge us the way our parents do; when we are adult, the major arena in which we need constantly to attend to the interests of others, and restrain our self-absorption, is the market."
This posting deals with the introduction to TMS and the first podcast.
Introduction to Raphael edition of TMS - pages 1 -52
1. Influence of Stoic philosophy
2. 3 virtues of prudence, beneficence and self command
3. Self command permeates all virtue (great precept of nature)
4. Stoicism permeated range of ethics and social science
5. View nature as a cosmic harmony - informs metaphor of invisible hand - the Stoic idea of harmonious system
6. Impartial (indifferent) spectator - as related to conscience
7. Natural harmony and natural liberty
8. Role of prudence and how prudence works with self command to reinforce moral/ethical behavior
9. Sympathy or fellow feeling
10. Judge the agent's motive not the action
11. Ethics - criterion for determining right action - impartial spectator (preferred by Smith) and utility
12. TMS and WN compliment each other - TMS - argument to understand sympathy's role in moral judgment. WN deals with motives for action - which include self love.
From the first podcast:
"Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) first published in 1759, revised, final edition 1790; spanned publication of Wealth of Nations, which was published in 1776. Impression of TMS: richer version of Wealth of Nations. Caricature of Adam Smith is focus on greed and self-interest. By contrast, TMS focuses on a richer set of motivations: fame, glory, guilt, reputation, self-esteem. Is that a good characterization? Moral dimensions of our conduct. Sometimes people feel that there is a tension between the two books. Smith trying to explore moral considerations and understandings, but also engaging in a project to advance them, improve them. Not just social psychology or moral psychology; agenda driven, part of enlightenment movement, sees developments of all kinds around him. Smith sees that he needs to explore natural jurisprudence, includes political economy--what the laws ought to be, proper law, desirable law as opposed to the positive law of each nation. Larger project: exploring the moral sentiments, wisdom, virtue."
Economics and the Ordinary Person: Re-reading Adam Smith
"In his Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), he criticizes several philosophical theories of morality for not attending properly to the way moral sentiments are actually experienced. And in both TMS and WN he condemns those entranced by "the love of system," those who want to impose their own vision of how the human world should work on the people who actually live in that world. Smith's account of moral and political cognition is strikingly egalitarian: experts know less than they claim to know, and ordinary people know more than they seem to know, about what will best promote the human good.
This egalitarian view of human cognition provides the essential premise for Smith's arguments against government interference with the economy. Smith's teacher Hutcheson, Smith's rival James Steuart, and many other political economists, did not share Smith's confidence in ordinary people's judgment, and therefore looked to a government where the wise would guide investment, and control the labor- and consumption-choices of the poor. For Smith, by contrast, the decisions made by individuals in their own local situations—all individuals, even the poor and uneducated people regarded with so much disdain by Smith's contemporaries—will almost always more effectively promote the public good than any plan aimed directly at that good. And the decisions individuals make about their own moral problems will also normally be at least as wise as any they would come to if they were guided, morally, by their political leaders.
First, if Smith believes that good philosophical and scientific work should be rooted in common sense, then we should not expect him to approve of an economic science, like the one we have today, carried on in a highly abstract and technical jargon. Nor is his own work written that way. WN was admired in its day for its great clarity, and for its avoidance of detailed calculations in favor of historical narrative.
Second, a moral philosophy rooted in common sense is unlikely to endorse a counter-intuitive view of human nature, and Smith in fact combats the counter-intuitive views of his predecessors and colleagues. This is one reason why he rejects the notion that human beings are thoroughly selfish, put about by Hobbes and Mandeville. But for the same reason he rejects the idea that human beings ever were or ever will be capable of the passionate altruism or patriotism on which utopian thinkers pinned their hopes (Thomas More before Smith; Rousseauvians in his time; Marxists later on).
Third, and perhaps most importantly, Smith's distrust of the ability of "systems"—whether philosophical, religious, or political—to improve human beings goes with a belief that what really provides us with moral education are the humble institutions of everyday social interaction, including the market. The foundation of all virtue for Smith is "self-command," the ability to control our feelings, to restrain our passion for our own interests and to enhance our feelings for others. But we achieve self-command only after the disapproval of others has led us to develop a habit of dampening our self-love. The first great "school of self-command," says Smith, is the company of our playfellows, who refuse to indulge us the way our parents do; when we are adult, the major arena in which we need constantly to attend to the interests of others, and restrain our self-absorption, is the market."
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Are [Government Funded]Incentives Smart Business or Race to the Bottom?
Of course, all this begs the question: Do these incentives do any good to develop the economy? The theory behind incentives is that by paying for jobs, the state/county will create more jobs, which will create more tax revenues. But advocates and some economists dismiss the practice as a zero-sum game where states and municipalities are played against each other, in the process lowering the quality of life for both communities.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Gilder Lehrman Summer Seminar - The American Revolution
The American Revolution
July 5-July 11, 2009
Director: Gary Nash, Professor and Director,
National Center for History in the Schools,
University of California, Los Angeles
This seminar will proceed from two premises: 1) that the Revolution had many meanings to its diverse participants; and 2) that it has been interpreted—its causes, dynamics, and outcomes—ever since. Therefore, we will read secondary works of various historians who have disagreed sharply on how to interpret the American Revolution; and we will examine a variety of primary documents through which we can better understand how people at the time understood what they were fighting for and what outcomes they hoped to enjoy. "Who shall write the history of the American Revolution?" wrote John Adams to Thomas Jefferson (in 1815). "Nobody," Jefferson replied, "except merely its external facts . . . The life and soul of its history must be forever unknown." Almost two centuries later, let's discover for ourselves.
July 5-July 11, 2009
Director: Gary Nash, Professor and Director,
National Center for History in the Schools,
University of California, Los Angeles
This seminar will proceed from two premises: 1) that the Revolution had many meanings to its diverse participants; and 2) that it has been interpreted—its causes, dynamics, and outcomes—ever since. Therefore, we will read secondary works of various historians who have disagreed sharply on how to interpret the American Revolution; and we will examine a variety of primary documents through which we can better understand how people at the time understood what they were fighting for and what outcomes they hoped to enjoy. "Who shall write the history of the American Revolution?" wrote John Adams to Thomas Jefferson (in 1815). "Nobody," Jefferson replied, "except merely its external facts . . . The life and soul of its history must be forever unknown." Almost two centuries later, let's discover for ourselves.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
"Education and Technology: Supply, Demand, and Income Inequality"
Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz say that "the educational slowdown caused much of the recent rise in economic inequality," and that "the future of inequality and this nation depend on increasing the supply of highly educated workers,"
From Economists View
From Economists View
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