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Chris Scoggins, marginalist
Concerning my previous post, he sends me this email:
So if the typical person today couldn't hack it in 1000 AD (I agree that we probably can't) What is the furthest back someone from today could go and have a fighting chance to make ends meet?
I like the idea of walking into an LSE seminar in 1932 and making some nice points.
If we try going back further, I don't think 1700 would be so much easier for me than 1000. Even if I fell into London, patronage would be hard to come by and I would expect that I would end up earning the subsistence wage. Sorry guys, but I just don't know much useful: blogging starts around 2001. In most eras I would expect the subsistence wage, but after the late 1800s I could teach and write for greater pay and better working conditions. As for the start date for effective insider trading, maybe that is the late 19th century as well. You need some start-up capital: does anyone know the minimum market investment circa 1815 and could you sell short?
In most eras my best bet is to be a shyster of some kind.
I don't, by the way, think I would die in 1000, at least assuming I could avoid the plague and a few other maladies. Temporary aid is the natural human tendency, among the poor too, and it is unlikely I would be killed for being a witch. I would end up doing hard physical labor, just like most other people at the time. The economic lesson here is that complementarity really matters.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on June 11, 2008 at 12:59 PM in History | Permalink
Comments
If forced to do physical labor, it probably wouldn't be very hard considering that you would be considerably larger than most of your contemporaries in whichever century you choose.
Posted by: Bobar at Jun 11, 2008 1:05:00 PM
I think in 1700, enough knowledge is there to demonstrate a telegraph and people would immediately see the usefulness. Many of us know how a steam engine works, but a prototype would be more difficult to assemble on a laborer's wages.
Posted by: C L at Jun 11, 2008 1:07:12 PM
I think I'd pretty useful to Columbus in the late 15th Century. I'd make a good sounding board for Newton or Kepler too, once I picked up the language.
Posted by: DC at Jun 11, 2008 1:08:25 PM
I don't, by the way, think I would die in 1000, at least assuming I could avoid the plague and a few other maladies.
You likely wouldn't die. The plague, and other diseases like it, emerged as a result of expanding reservoirs of germs, which expanded because of increasingly globalized trade. The reason these things don't emerge today is because everyone's already touched everyone else, and those who couldn't hack it have already died. As someone living in a very globalized age and who's encountered more pathogens in one hour at BWI than your average Parisian would encounter in his lifetime, you'd have a good chance of surviving the diseases of trade.
Posted by: Stephen Smith at Jun 11, 2008 1:09:33 PM
"I like the idea of walking into an LSE seminar in 1932 and making some nice points. "
Best sentence I read today Tyler.
Posted by: Steve Horwitz at Jun 11, 2008 1:17:42 PM
Do a bunch of reading before you "go", hope you get plunked down in England, and try for the longitude prize :).
Posted by: Quantum Mechanic at Jun 11, 2008 1:20:27 PM
Tyler, I think you're drastically underestimating the advantage any of us would have going back to those times. As pointed out, you'll be significantly taller and drastically smarter than average, and I don't mean educated, I mean that your brain hasn't been malnourished it's entire life. What's the average IQ in 1000 AD England? It's impossible to prove, and I might guess 75, but I certainly wouldn't guess 100. As you walked around you'd start to see glaring deficiencies in the ways people lived their lives, such as, 'wow, none of these doors have proper locks on them' or 'i can't believe no one is boiling their drinking water'. Combine that with a conceptual understanding of markets and entrepreneurship and I can't fathom how you'd fail to be achieve anything less than fabulous wealth.
Posted by: John L at Jun 11, 2008 1:21:48 PM
"In most eras my best bet is to be a shyster of some kind."
Just like today! (I kid! I kid!)
Posted by: matt at Jun 11, 2008 1:22:24 PM
Michael Faraday made it with no capital or connections. Anyone remembering high school chemistry, physics, or math should be able to get a scientific career in the late 1700's/early 1800's.
And shorting stocks was easier, not harder, before financial regulations, although debtor's prison wasn't so great if you screw up.
Posted by: DK at Jun 11, 2008 1:25:16 PM
John says: "What's the average IQ in 1000 AD England?...I certainly wouldn't guess 100"
If the problem today (oft bemoaned by commnetators on education) is that everybody is above average, apparently in the past everybody was below average!
Posted by: tadhgin at Jun 11, 2008 1:29:38 PM
If you've been transported to 1830 or thereabouts, even an American high-school education gives you one incredible, timely, easy-to-exploit bit of insider data: ever heard of a sawmill in central California, built by a Mr. John Sutter? Go there.
Posted by: Ben M at Jun 11, 2008 1:31:37 PM
Re Stephen Smith's comment - isn't it actually more likely that Tyler would cause a plague rather than die from one? Who knows what flu viruses or likewise he has built antibodies to that wouldn't have existed back in the year 1000 (regardless of where on the planet he landed)?
Posted by: Bonapart O Cunasa at Jun 11, 2008 1:34:46 PM
"If the problem today (oft bemoaned by commnetators on education) is that everybody is above average, apparently in the past everybody was below average!"
The average has trended upwards over the past century. Basically, people are getting a bit smarter. The average today is about 116 in 1900 IQ. (Think of it as being similar to inflation.)
Besides, a modern person would also be bigger, more attractive, and more resistant to disease. These are huge advantages if they don't get one killed.
Posted by: MK at Jun 11, 2008 1:40:34 PM
I disagree. We are taller and, on average, stronger, than
our forebears. Smarter? Who knows. But we have more
knowledge. Predicting a solar eclipse can come in handy.
We have less acquired immunity, having grown up in a cleaner
environment -- but we have strong immune systems due to
great nourishment growing-up.
(Fogel's Escape from hunger book is useful here.)
There is as much to say we would thrive, if transported
back in time, as we would find it difficult. Of course,
some of us would find ourselves in shackles, but...
Posted by: Red Crayon at Jun 11, 2008 1:53:48 PM
One thing I fantasize about every no and then is what I would do if I where transported back to 9/1/01, and if I could prevent the terrorists attacks, considering that I know certain information about the event, but not the specifics (such as the times, the exact airports/airplanes or the names of the people responsible)
Posted by: Jonathan Hohensee at Jun 11, 2008 2:09:36 PM
Another fun variation:
How far back would I want to go if I could choose a time to my maximal advantage? Too far and my modern skills become useless. Not far enough and my knowledge of the future isn't big enough to make a difference. What year would I do best? There are probably different answers to this question for different people.
Posted by: harryh at Jun 11, 2008 2:11:58 PM
I don't think there was much to invest in 1815 other than government bonds and canal issues, at least in the US. Real estate speculation was rife though. Shorting was around but it's legality varied. Naked shorts, unregistered securities, issuing additional stock surreptitiously at the discretion of the owner, were common.
Posted by: Lord at Jun 11, 2008 2:12:06 PM
One way of putting this is: you could probably do well until back about the time your profession appeared. This makes sense.
If you are an economist or a marketing professor, you'd better not go back to far. If you are an engineer, you can go back a lot further. And probably the best off are practicioners of the oldest profession...
Posted by: David Wright at Jun 11, 2008 2:25:36 PM
As with most of these mental games, the "when" often depends on "where." Do I get to pick the time and place, or just the time and I am left to my own devices to get to the place I want to be? 18th century onwards in England or Western Europe is a safe bet for most of us, a little earlier if you know some chemistry or engineering. By the time the 19th century rolls around most of us would be well-placed to take advantage of our historical knowledge: we know what will become "big", we might remember a few inventors or company names to seek out as investors, and we might even remember a few inventions that become much more practical for us to invent ourselves now that the basic chemistry and engineering work can be farmed out to a reasonably well-educated workforce.
What all of us carry around as common knowledge would be incredibly valuable by 1800 or so. What might have seemed like a toy to its inventor is something that we know will change the world in a decade or so...
Posted by: evgen at Jun 11, 2008 2:25:37 PM
If you get dropped in 1700, you have a full 70 year head start on inoculating people against smallpox using cowpox, thus making you the preeminent physician on the face of the earth.
I think maybe the best bet for a future-past person is to throw themselves to the mercy of the Royal Society. At the very least, one would be a novelty to them.
Posted by: Kyle B at Jun 11, 2008 2:31:18 PM
Quote harryh: "How far back would I want to go if I could choose a time to my maximal advantage?"
Perhaps the future would be the best place to be transported to. Even the poor in modern day America or Europe have cable tv, modern medicine and an overabundance in food. Arguably, it's better to be lower class today than upper class 1000 years ago. 1000 years into the future we might be greeted by a lavish social safety net, robot butlers, and a much extended lifetime to enjoy and peruse a millennium of intellectual thought, even though we may all be too ignorant to actually produce any marketable goods.
Posted by: John L at Jun 11, 2008 2:33:31 PM
If forced to do physical labor, it probably wouldn't be very hard considering that you would be considerably larger than most of your contemporaries in whichever century you choose.
I am told that the skeletons of people who died ~ 100 years ago have denser bone than people alive today. Bone and muscle mass is laid down when needed – and it is not needed now. I do not know whether the bones, muscles would fully recover.
But unless you are a carpenter or a bricklayer, you would probably find yourself without any manual skill whatsoever. You would have far fewer useful skills than the average peasant.
As someone living in a very globalized age and who's encountered more pathogens in one hour at BWI than your average Parisian would encounter in his lifetime, you'd have a good chance of surviving the diseases of trade.
Is your smallpox inoculation up to date? What about typhoid? You are NOT exposed to many bacteria because houses, clothes, people, water etc are far cleaner today than back then, thus cleaning the germs out of the way.
And exposure to a new disease as an adult, is usually far more dangerous than exposure as a child. The fact that one of your ancestors survived contact with it is no guarantee at all.
Posted by: ad at Jun 11, 2008 2:43:55 PM
In 1700, if you could get your hands on the simplest spyglass, you could easily discover the planet Uranus within a few months. You don't even need to know where it is: just check out all the sixth-magnitude stars along the ecliptic.
There are no more than a couple thousand sixth-magnitude stars in the entire sky, so you would only have to monitor the positions of a small fraction of them. Find the one star out of a few hundred candidates that's moving.
You will win some modest fame and fortune and be able to quit your day job as a musician and devote yourself full-time to astronomy, as William Herschel did in real life.
Next, discover the asteroid Vesta, which will be somewhat tougher since it wanders quite far from the ecliptic, but quite doable in a year or two. Finally, invest in a slightly better telescope (two-inch lens should be quite sufficient) and spend a few years looking for Neptune and Pallas and Ceres.
Retire wealthy and honored.
Posted by: at Jun 11, 2008 2:50:01 PM
Knowledge of college-level math would ensure you know at least some things that haven't been discovered/proved as late as 1900. In 1700 you could preempt Euler, Gauss, Galois, Riemann, Cauchy, etc. and be the greatest mathematician of all time.
Posted by: Andy at Jun 11, 2008 3:24:06 PM
I think a modern American attorney could go as far back as the founding of the country, and perhaps back to the end of the use of Law French in English courts, say around 1680, and find work in the the legal profession, at least as some kind of clerk.
Posted by: t e whalen at Jun 11, 2008 3:34:27 PM
