History

Re: did the civil war start industrialization? is state investment necessary?

Aristippus — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 23:50:15 GMT

Why is it that many countries besides the US were never able to industrialize themselves until the presence of a powerful state, moving resources from agriculture into industry, countries such as egypt and russia?

Are you talking about the industrial development of the latter countries? That development was greatly facilitated by the capital accumulation of the even more industrially developed countries.

It seems that many of these agriculturalist societies had such a high time preference because of the scarcity of goods existing then (in other words: there was so little goods that even a meager amount of consumption leaves little savings), that it would have taken muuch longer to industrialize, had states not intervened to reduce consumption through taxatioon and public investment: short term brutality for medium term prosperity. Thoughts?

Well we can't say. In naturally rich agriculturalist societies, oppressive states were able to arise to stifle economic growth; where societies remained stateless, they were either naturally poor or isolated (thus less trade) or both. An empirical comparison, therefore, cannot really be made, and we cannot really say much a priori about the rate of savings that would occur in a society that is naturally rich and stateless. But I don't think there were necessarily 'so little goods' in agricultural societies - rather that the influence of political means incentivised consumption vs. increased production both directly (via taxation etc.) and indirectly (due to the political control of factors of production which resulted in difficulties of economic calculation and therefore less higher order investment).

Re: did the civil war start industrialization? is state investment necessary?

Wheylous — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:28:16 GMT

I randomly found the above video. Someone in a chat with Tom Woods mentioned Hoppe not believing that property rights were what caused the IR.

Re: did the civil war start industrialization? is state investment necessary?

Jargon — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:17:46 GMT

Excellent, thank you. Will listen.

Re: did the civil war start industrialization? is state investment necessary?

Wheylous — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:04:20 GMT

Might be relevant:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

did the civil war start industrialization? is state investment necessary?

Jargon — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 17:22:30 GMT

Pardon the lack of capitalization, I'm typing by phone.

So the civil war is referred to by many academic types as a catalyst, and event which provided the necessary infrastructure for industrialization. In repoonse I would say that markets could handle it as evidenced by. James j hills great northern, and also that the many subsidized railroads were failing by the twentieth century indicating government malinvestment. That said, though the railroads suffered a sunken oligopoly scenario didn't this open up trade substantially between states? Why is it that many countries besides the US were never able to industrialize themselves until the presence of a powerful state, moving resources from agriculture into industry, countries such as egypt and russia? Something has been bothering me recently about ancap, and that is what the societal time preference would be.

It seems that a free market state with an enlightened elite could set societies time preference so as to lengthen the production structure longer than it would be if people were left tot their own devices. This doesn't immediately mean that I now support monarchy, but it presses questions on my anarchist support.

It seems that many of these agriculturalist societies had such a high time preference because of the scarcity of goods existing then (in other words: there was so little goods that even a meager amount of consumption leaves little savings), that it would have taken muuch longer to industrialize, had states not intervened to reduce consumption through taxatioon and public investment: short term brutality for medium term prosperity. Thoughts?

EDIT: I found a computer to reformat the post.

EDITED AGAIN: Meant to be a discussion.