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Recent & Popular Posts
- Critiques of Edward Baptist
- Critiques of The History Manifesto
- Did inequality cause the First World War?
- Did the "Invisible Blockade" against Allende work?
- Economic growth in ancient Greece
- Fascism was not left-wing!!!
- Greece from Post-war orthodoxy to "Democratic Peronism"
- Ideology & Human Development (on Cuba's social development)
- Labour repression & the Indo-Japanese divergence
- Markets & famines: Amartya Sen is not the last word!
- Nazi political economy
- Random Thoughts on Robert Allen's theory of the Industrial Revolution
- State Capacity & the Sino-Japanese Divergence
- Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton: A Reductionist Summary
- The Bairoch conjecture & the "tariff-growth paradox" of the late 19th century
- The Calico Acts: Was British cotton made possible by infant industry protection from Indian competition?
- The Napoleonic Blockade & the Infant Industry Argument
- Various posts on slavery
- Was slavery necessary for the Industrial Revolution?
- Where do pro-social institutions come from?
Language Posts
Author Archives: pseudoerasmus
Where do pro-social institutions come from?
AKA “Cooperation, cultural evolution & economic development”. Where do ‘good’ or pro-social institutions come from? Why does the capacity for collective action and cooperative behaviour vary so much across the world today? How do some populations transcend tribalism to form a civil society? How have some societies gone beyond personal … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural Evolution, Institutions, Political Economy, Social & Civic Capital, Social Evolution
Tagged Boyd & Richerson, collective action problem, cooperation, cultural evolution, cultural group selection, Joseph Henrich, market norms, Peter Turchin, social evolution, ultra-sociality
50 Comments
¿De donde vienen las instituciones prosociales?
[19 October 2015] Jesús Alfaro of the Autonomous University of Madrid has translated my previous post into Spanish: ¿De dónde vienen las instituciones prosociales?
Posted in Uncategorized
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“Experimenting with Social Norms” in Small-Scale Societies
Social norms, institutions, and economic development. (A companion post to “Where do pro-social institutions come from?”)
Posted in Cultural Evolution, Economic Anthropology, Institutions, Social Evolution
Tagged behavioral games, Dictator Game, Economic Experiments, Experimenting with Social Norms, Fairness and Punishment in Cross-cultural perspective, Foundations of Human Sociality, Jean Ensminger, Joseph Henrich, Third Party Punishment Game, Trust games, Ultimatum Game
11 Comments
Educational Romanticism & Economic Development
An elaboration on Ricardo Hausmann’s article “The Education Myth” arguing that education is an overrated tool of economic development. This post also responds to a criticism of Hausmann’s views which appeared at the Spanish group blog Politikon; and also discusses whether developing … Continue reading
Posted in economic growth, Education
Tagged PISA, Politikon, Ricardo Hausmann, school quality
14 Comments
Markets & Famine: Amartya Sen is not the last word !
Whether markets help cause or exacerbate famines is one of the great questions of political economy. Cormac Ó Gráda’s recent book Eating People is Wrong, and Other Essays on Famine, its Past, and its Future, along with his earlier volume, Famine: A Short … Continue reading
Posted in Famines
Tagged Amartya Sen, Bengal famine of 1943, Cormac Ó Gráda, famines, Irish Potato Famine
24 Comments
Anachronism & Relevance in History: a comment on Steve Pincus
Anachronism and relevance are in tension. Historians (often) rail against the former and (often) pine for the latter. They can easily manage a bit of relevance by intervening in today’s political and economic debates and offering ‘lessons’ from the past — but at high risk of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged American Revolution, austerity, Grenville Chatham, Pitt, Seven Years' War, Steven Pincus
8 Comments
Did the “Invisible Blockade” against Allende’s Chile work?
Did an “invisible blockade” by the United States fatally undermine the Chilean economy under the presidency of Salvador Allende (1970-73)? Did it actually work? Short answer: No.
Posted in Chile, Political Economy
Tagged Allende, Bloqueo invisible, Chile, Invisible Blockade
16 Comments
Nazi political economy
My previous post about the political orientation of fascists got a response from Jonah Goldberg, the author of Liberal Fascism. This is my brief response to his.
Posted in fascism, Political Economy
Tagged capitalism, fascism, Jonah Goldberg, liberal fascism, Nazi Germany, socialism
67 Comments
Fascism was not left-wing !!!
John Holbo at Crooked Timber reprises a debate which raged 7 years ago when a book called Liberal Fascism was published. His take focuses on Germany but mine puts more weight on Italy. I think the issue is kind of obvious, but it’s … Continue reading
Posted in fascism, Political Economy
Tagged capitalism, fascism, Jonah Goldberg, liberal fascism, Mussolini, Nazi Germany, socialism
68 Comments
Errata dentata: The History Manifesto Revisited
This post, a follow-up to my earlier posts “La longue purée” and “Jo Guldi’s Curiouser & Curiouser Footnotes“, examines the recent revisions made to The History Manifesto. Warning: the post may be tedious. For die-hards only.
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