tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post681453350797664630..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Stealing Our Way To Wealth Assistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-42940261351143972332022-01-04T12:59:43.658-05:002022-01-04T12:59:43.658-05:00I have a significant objection to this article. Th...I have a significant objection to this article. There is also a minor objection, which is that the conceit of the article -- 'you have to look at the numbers' -- is accompanied by a hand-wave about what the numbers might be. How much does one get from killing a man and taking all his stuff? Might be 20 percent; 100 percent; whatever. Without some clarity on that matter, I'm not sure how useful the discussion is.<br /><br />Even granting that the real source of the increase is the free market -- things like the miracle of compound interest, or the ability to invest in growing industries and factories and the like -- the premise leaves out something very important about how one obtains the capital to make such initial investments. Let's say that, due to these economic miracles, we could become rich with an investment of merely $100,000 -- that this will produce an increase like she's discussing, so that it will become worth $2,500,000 in time (and that will continue to grow). <br /><br />Yet I do not have an extra $100,000 to invest. If, however, there is a legal and successful way for me to rob another man for it -- taking it out of him in labor, or a legally contrived way of stealing his house, or whatever else -- then I can make the investment. And then I will become rich, and my descendants even richer! He will become destitute, and his descendants will not enjoy the increase in wealth that mine do. They may become better off if 'a rising tide lifts all boats,' as they may become well-paid servants of my descendants. Nevertheless, the initial theft really matters and produces long-term differentials in wealth and power. <br /><br />I'm inclined to go on about this at length, with specific historical examples, but this is long enough for a comment and conveys the basic idea. <br />Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-63948769105254822522022-01-04T06:48:59.481-05:002022-01-04T06:48:59.481-05:00...as sharp practice and cheating others may not h...<i>...as sharp practice and cheating others may not have been the central driver of wealth, but it did contribute some.</i><br /><br />It seems to me that she deals with that contention several times, and in some ways refuting it is the underpinning of her entire essay. She notes that transfer of goods or labor by fair means or foul does enrich the receiver but it cannot account for the expansion of the standard of living for people who are far removed from the transaction. The Dutch can be said to have gotten a legendary deal obtaining Manhattan for some blankets and trinkets but at the time they didn't know what it would become two centuries hence any more than the Natives did. There isn't much left at Jamestown or Plymouth. That the Saudi princes lined their pockets and Saddam Hussein focused on purchasing weapons rather than developing their people is not entirely the fault of the Anglo companies which developed the oil fields.Christopher Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00396671757183163171noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-12122069452465118232022-01-03T18:07:12.456-05:002022-01-03T18:07:12.456-05:00You could quibble about a few details (were Icelan...You could quibble about a few details (were Iceland, Ireland, India and the Congo colonies in the same sense of the word?) but generally spot on. And it is by Deirdre McCloskey of all people. Like many clever-silly people, when s/he has sense to speak s/he speaks it very well.Philip Nealhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12504667206584786787noreply@blogger.com