I'm asking in the context of the last say, 400 years or so, since that's when Europe (and the US eventually) really started to take off.
In part I'm also asking, did imperialism give western nations a head start, or was it other factors such as economic freedom, trade, culture, etc.?
Wrong. G intelligence is very real and can be captured and measured in IQ tests. Social dysfunction correlates very strongly with low intelligence.
filc:instead they would be employed in the open market making money rather than taking grant money working in a state run university somewhere.
Actually, there used to be a lot bigger market for standardized testing before employers started getting hit with 'disparate impact' lawsuits. It's a lot cheaper for companies just to sit a bunch of applicants down in a room and test for the IQ/skill set they need for a particular slot than to jump through all the Title VII-mandated hoops.
Juan:Yes but it seems that Lam's been reading a couple of marxists thinkers and now he's sharing his newfound knowledge about the relationship between material production forces and history.
Is it the marxist idea? I remember reading about the purely economic justification of the end of slavery or the rise of manufacturing in England and Northern Europe.
If I hear not allowed much oftener; said Sam, I'm going to get angry.
J.R.R.Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
slavery is good for the special interest slave owner and bad for the typical consumer (and the slave obviously) in any society.
abolishing slavery on economic grounds would never have been a bad idea.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
nirgrahamUK:slavery is good for the special interest slave owner and bad for the typical consumer (and the slave obviously) in any society.
Its not bad for the typical consumer, slavery can support a large agricultural sector, most of Manchester's textile mills were supplied by slave-picked cotton, but it is bad for the average worker, and contributed to the social undoing of the Roman republic.
I am becoming a Burkean Whig.
- F.A. Hayek
wrong. your mentioning manchester is a non-sequitur.
having a slave deprives the economy of a productive profit seeking member, one who is incentivised, one who can entrepreneurialise. the turning of a free man into a slave necessarily reduces the extent of the market. it is like outright banning trade with a foreign country and looting them pirate style every few years. you would do much better to be at peace and free trade with them. you make a mercantile mistake if you think otherwise.
tacoface:I do remember in the Myth of National Defense a quote from Nicolas Gomez Davila that without Christianity and antiquity as their background, Europeans would be nothing but palefaced barbarians.
That's typical classicist snobbery (or maybe ignorance due to the predominance of the classical education until the XXth century). The "barbarians" had their own unique culture and indivdualistic laws (as evidenced in Anglo-Saxon law).
Natalie:I remember reading about the purely economic justification of the end of slavery or the rise of manufacturing in England and Northern Europe.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
nirgrahamUK:wrong. your mentioning manchester is a non-sequitur.
No its not, Manchester was the center of the English textile-production during the early 19th century, if you don't want to argue the historical evidence than don't make historical claims.
nirgrahamUK:having a slave deprives the economy of a productive profit seeking member, one who is incentivised, one who can entrepreneurialise. the turning of a free man into a slave necessarily reduces the extent of the market.
You completely neglect slavery's importance in pre-industrial agriculture, and the historical evidence as well shows a high correlation between agricultural prosperity, and slavery. The southern American states were once the most prosperous part of the union, and that was because of slavery. Why were the mercantillist colonies of the Carribean so bountiful: slavery. For pre-industrial societies, slavery can be a very much a economic boon.
nirgrahamUK:you would do much better to be at peace and free trade with them. you make a mercantile mistake if you think otherwise.
Enslaving an individual is of a completely different scenario than enslaving an entire nation. While the economic benefits of an individual's slave-work may very well outweight his possible entrepreneurial contribution, yet we have no way of knowing which outweights the other.
laminustacitus:No its not, Manchester was the center of the English textile-production during the early 19th century, if you don't want to argue the historical evidence than don't make historical claims.
this does not prove what you think it proves. its a non-sequitur to your argument. assuming you even have one.
laminustacitus:You completely neglect slavery's importance in pre-industrial agriculture, and the historical evidence as well shows a high correlation between agricultural prosperity, and slavery.
laminustacitus:The southern American states were once the most prosperous part of the union, and that was because of slavery.
evidence? argument? i'm ready when you are.
laminustacitus:Enslaving an individual is of a completely different scenario than enslaving an entire nation. While the economic benefits of an individual's slave-work may very well outweight his possible entrepreneurial contribution, yet we have no way of knowing which outweights the other.
enslaving a nation is enslaving some number of individuals. *completely different?*
Funny how there are two coversations going on here. More or less my fault but in response...
My argument is against blanket tests that preemptively assume the success probability of a person. Not at tests in general as there are several better ways of accurately testing the competency of a person. Having a person look for a series of patterns or calculating how fast they can multiply however does not in all cases identify the most competent person for said position.
Byzantine:Wrong. G intelligence is very real and can be captured and measured in IQ tests. Social dysfunction correlates very strongly with low intelligence.
Socialists make the same defensive argument about Keynesianism. However I argue that you cannot in all cases apply a mathematic formula to discover human competency.
It may also be that the test issued by a specific company recognises’s the criteria that company deems important. For example, Best Buy may have questions which involve a series of patterns, asking the test taker to guess which pattern is next on the list. The argument may be that this skill best qualifies a person as a cash register agent. That doesn’t necessarily mean the person is capable of performing such a job, it also doesn’t mean the person isn’t capable of becoming a physicist. Additionally, it doesn’t accurately identify the competency of that person in a given field. No single test will ever be able to objectively identify every strength and weakness of a person, as individuals perceive questions, patterns, and problems entirely differently, it’s praxeological.
As measured by what, where, and whom? Going to cite me something from the Department of education? Also how can you measure if the company hired the most competent people in the process? Just because private businesses perform a certain action doesn’t mean they are the most efficient action to do.
Byzantine:Actually, there used to be a lot bigger market for standardized testing before employers started getting hit with 'disparate impact' lawsuits. It's a lot cheaper for companies just to sit a bunch of applicants down in a room and test for the IQ/skill set they need for a particular slot than to jump through all the Title VII-mandated hoops.
From personal experience in an engineering industry I can tell you most employers’ place criteria for employment in the following order.
High - Medium - Low
Experience – Personalitu - Career Certs - Education
In many cases education isn't considered at all and the expensive college degree is looked over with glazed eyes. Let’s be honest, the value of a college degree has been devalued. The credit bubble has made education available to everyone. No one gets turned down for education any more, no one gets turned down for said loans any more either. Point is, the highest valuable criteria was proven by some test. That’s not the case in all industries. Best Buy on the other hand lives by this doctrine.
Byzantine: It's a lot cheaper for companies just to sit a bunch of applicants down in a room and test for the IQ/skill set they need for a particular slot than to jump through all the Title VII-mandated hoops.
It's a lot cheaper for companies just to sit a bunch of applicants down in a room and test for the IQ/skill set they need for a particular slot than to jump through all the Title VII-mandated hoops.
It may give the appearance that it's efficient but because ‘Participant A’ was great at memorization and passed the entry exam that does not translate into his ability to operate practically in any given environment. Thomas Gilbert makes his entire living as a business consultant going around the country correcting these errors, specifically retention problems amongst businesses. He, unlike Best Buy’s hiring process, has a good track record.
The belief that standardized tests work is the belief that praxeology does not exist and the belief that the free market is incapable of determining itself, through supply and demand, what society currently considers which skills are of value.
The rules apply across other countries as well, since the test is created by a human who can only take into account the limited variables he is aware of. His test may fail to function correctly in a neighboring country where technical expertise is less demanded. Not realizing that the neighboring country demands agriculture skills instead of math or memorization.
Likewise the doctrine of memorization has actually harmfully spilled over into 3rd world countries from influences of the thought process you just presented. Many third world countries teach by memorization and never teach the mechanical operations of underlying things, like math. I personally was teaching a CCNA cisco class in Honduras several years ago. When the time came for me to teach Binary Math my intentions were to compare Binary math to normal math based on value's of 10 instead of values of 2, binary.
What I discovered was every student in class new their multiplication tables by heart. They new that 9 times 9 was 81. They all tested extremely well at this colegio and were considered exemplar students. They however were incapable of telling me why 9 times 9 was 81. They had no idea that it was 9 groups of 9 that made 81 and when I showed them this on the whiteboard were shocked. They didn’t understand the underlying process. These were 18 year old students. I learned all this the hard way when I lived in Honduras for a year teaching dealing with this.
Point being, you cannot prove that standardized tests objectively identify competent students. Just because ‘company A’ hired alot of people whom they perceived as competent doesn't mean they were the greatest candidates. Statistics will show that company's who perform these kinds of tests (like best buy) have retention problems. It's also a fallacy and common belief in America that people have 1 specific job which they were born to do. The truth is people have specific traits inherited genetically or learned behaviorally which give can usually give them an advantage in a large field of work, not a specific position or job. Like the ability of logic(math), ability of comprehension(history, writing, philosophy. When a fundamental trait is identified a student will usually have several fields with which they could not only excel in but enjoy doing any one.
There is no real way of measuring who is the most competent person. The hiring process is a gamble and a market discovery process; I've also learned this from experience. Managers who have been in the industry for a long time have been burned y these beliefs that tests prove all, they know all too well that it's always a gamble. Finding competent workers is like finding a good product on the free market. It’s trial and error.
The belief that a mathematical process can help identify a more competent person follows the same thought that a mathematical process can identify what’s wrong with the free market. Remember, praxeology.
That’s not to say tests cannot be engineered to augment the education process. I’m just arguing that tests that are held as the definitive deciding factor on who is competent or more likely to succeed is in error. Many competent candidates who do not do well on standard tests will get passed up on a good opportunity. This is both harmful to the employer and employee.
Education is theory and experience is practical. Both are important, but often time’s standard tests do not focus on the theory or the practice of a given topic. Instead they bring up a series of patterns which some unknown, unread physiologists said reveals a competent person. A test should be a tool as an exploratory process that helps a student identify his fundamental strengths and traits. Tests should not be globally standardized but specialized, based on market demand and location. Education itself should be a discovery process. If highschool students graduated highschool recognizing their fundamental strengths as opposed to weakness’s they would be more inclined to make a career decision immediately rather than waste 4 years racking up dept getting a liberal arts degree. Not to say that liberal arts degrees are valueless, just that their quantity is saturated.
In my opinion the idea that a blanket test which can magically identify the success probability of a person is anti-libertarian.
Statism is a religion.
nirgrahamUK: laminustacitus:No its not, Manchester was the center of the English textile-production during the early 19th century, if you don't want to argue the historical evidence than don't make historical claims. this does not prove what you think it proves. its a non-sequitur to your argument. assuming you even have one.
Do you have no idea about the link between the textile-mills of Manchester, and the cotton plantations of the Deep South? Its one of those things that, if you're going to say slavery had absolutely no benefit for consumers, I would have thought that you would have realized. Nevertheless, there was a strong commercial tie between the two, with an economic dependence between the two for decades as well, one that cannot just be thrown to the side. Its not a non sequitur its historical evidence.
nirgrahamUK: laminustacitus:You completely neglect slavery's importance in pre-industrial agriculture, and the historical evidence as well shows a high correlation between agricultural prosperity, and slavery. i suppose you are similarly in the habit of ignoring the importance of the United States government to the good functioning of the US economy. or maybe if you dont you should. ditto slavery
And you're accursing me of non sequiturs? What do you even mean here?
nirgrahamUK: laminustacitus:The southern American states were once the most prosperous part of the union, and that was because of slavery. evidence? argument? i'm ready when you are.
Are you blind to American history, or do I need to write a 50 page thesis in support of a rather established fact?
nirgrahamUK: laminustacitus:Enslaving an individual is of a completely different scenario than enslaving an entire nation. While the economic benefits of an individual's slave-work may very well outweight his possible entrepreneurial contribution, yet we have no way of knowing which outweights the other. enslaving a nation is enslaving some number of individuals. *completely different?*
A large difference of scale that results in the comparison of the two being nothing but a hyperbole.
dude, if i tax my agriculture producing population and governmentally invest in heavy industry, and then try and sell cars to the USA. Will automobiles grow to be a major industry in my economy and will it be a net benefit or net loss for my poor citizens?
ok lam, i'm going to suggest we both quit this debate on this thread. I will invite you to a private conversation, or we can converse on a mod forum. we neednt rush to demolish each others arguments in a rush of eristic vim. we can be measured and attempt to come to agreement on a rational basis to this disagreement in a calm well paced way. perhaps when we feel we have concluded this process to our satisfaction, if it pleases us we could present a condenced report of our how our discourced progress and of what if anything we were able to conclude to the wider forum.
thoughts>?
Bogart: Individuals having marginally more freedom and respect for private property in the West, in the past especially in the USA individuals exercised a lot more freedom, produced the Industrial Revolution and all the goodness that sprung from that. As governments consume individual freedom and lose respect for private property rights you see a slowing of the rate of progress of the West relative to the rest of the world. As individual freedom and respect for private property expand in East Asia, South America and the Pacific Rim, you will see these societies develop faster relative to the Western world.
Individuals having marginally more freedom and respect for private property in the West, in the past especially in the USA individuals exercised a lot more freedom, produced the Industrial Revolution and all the goodness that sprung from that. As governments consume individual freedom and lose respect for private property rights you see a slowing of the rate of progress of the West relative to the rest of the world. As individual freedom and respect for private property expand in East Asia, South America and the Pacific Rim, you will see these societies develop faster relative to the Western world.
I pretty much agree with this.
ok lam, i'm going to suggest we both quit this debate on this thread. I will invite you to a private conversation, or we can converse on a mod forum.
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