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Australian Economist Winton Bates puts McCloskey and Mokyr up for debate

Posted 4 January 2011 in Blog alerts, McCloskey's Economics. Leave a response |

“Was the industrial revolution mainly about the growth of manufacturing industry?” Bates asks.

See Freedom and Flourishing.

1 response

  1. Dears,

    Joel puts it just right. What was astounding was the continuation. Income per head in Britain had doubled in the eighty years down to 1860. Good. Glad to have it. But then it doubled and doubled and double again, even if one measures real income in a way that does not take account of the quality of goods. As Joel says in his book, and as I say in Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World, and as Jack Goldstone and Eric Jones have said, what amazes is that it didn’t wilt like other “efflorescences” (Jack’s word). The debate about growth in Europe before the Industrial Revolution seems to us strange. that British and Dutch incomes were twice that of Italy is, again, swell, but is not the main event, which is the Great Fact of 2000% growth in the real condition of poor people, 1800 to now.

    Deirdre McCloskey

    January 5, 2011 11:06 AM

    Written by Deirdre McCloskey on January 4th, 2011.

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