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Why are some countries free and others not?
I am to speak on this topic in Buenos Aires (details here) and I was considering the following threads:
1. The Catholic capitalism of the Italian Renaissance and to what extent does it refute Max Weber?
2. Facundo and Martin Fierro, or where Domingo Sarmiento and Steve Sailer go wrong.
3. Why didn't either the gauchos or the conquest of Siberia lead to the Turner thesis?
4. Why the old buildings in Oamaru, New Zealand remind me of Chile and what that means for the current Latin economic pecking order.
5. What does the pre-war Japanese growth miracle tell us about the postwar Japanese growth miracle?
6. "Betting on refrigerated transport" as a theme in Argentine history.
Or maybe I'll do something else altogether.
They tell me that dress for the event is "elegant casual." Yikes! This, of course, leads to classic cycling in the sense outlined by William Riker. Since I cannot be elegant (certainly not by B.A. standards), I cannot be casual either.
The talk should eventually show up in print, although possibly only in Spanish in Argentina. I'll get you a link if there ever is one.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 8, 2008 at 05:53 AM in History | Permalink
Comments
This post is like a TS Eliot poem. Every utterance needs a footnote.
Posted by: Sebastian Flyte at Aug 8, 2008 7:30:44 AM
Is this a public event? I'm a long-time reader (as in, when you only posted on VC) who recently moved to BsAs from the US.
Posted by: E at Aug 8, 2008 7:38:41 AM
I hope that you are not a teetotaling vegetarian.
Posted by: liberalarts at Aug 8, 2008 7:45:22 AM
When and where are you going to speak?
Posted by: Diogo at Aug 8, 2008 8:18:09 AM
I added the talk information in a link in the main post...
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Aug 8, 2008 8:32:36 AM
In Ba, casual means you don't need to wear a suit but he elegant means a
blue blazer, gray slacks, and a tie.
Please don't do the old Max Weber routine or its inverse since religions
are probably endogenous. Playing Sarmiento on education is probably a
good idea since education here needs all the help it can get. the high
correlations between education and political and economic freedoms are
worth talking about.
Tell us where and when you will be speaking.
Posted by: George McCandless at Aug 8, 2008 8:35:57 AM
As a regular reader of both of your blogs who usually disagrees with Mr. Sailer on political questions, I'd be really interested to learn where, in you opinion, he went wrong. Never heard of Fecundo or Fierro.
Posted by: LemmusLemmus at Aug 8, 2008 9:17:11 AM
You always find a way to remind me that there is so much about the world that I don't know.
Posted by: John Ur at Aug 8, 2008 9:20:10 AM
"As a regular reader of both of your blogs who usually disagrees with Mr. Sailer on political questions, I'd be really interested to learn where, in you opinion, he went wrong."
Other than in being a white supremacist, you mean?
Posted by: matt at Aug 8, 2008 9:23:05 AM
I hope you someday will visit Brazil too.
Posted by: baldus at Aug 8, 2008 10:12:00 AM
Facundo is the first novel of what you can call a genre in Latinamerica: the fight between civilization( Europe excluded Spain, culture, centralism in facundo) and barabarians( latinamerican and spaniards, tradition, and federalism).Its the story of a argentian Ned Kelly written by who will be president of Argentina.
Martin Fierro is an idealization of gauchos life, a criying for teh gold times gone .More or less ,with apologies to Hernadez author of Martin Fierro, is like that extremely bad movie " cryning of wolf"
Posted by: k at Aug 8, 2008 11:00:38 AM
And what about the school of Salamanca : Juan de Mariana and his monetarist thesis. Juan de Molina and his theory of market prices.Hayek said that they were the founders of modern economic liberalism.
Ann Tourgot in his Discurse made the same point of Adam Smith 50 years sooner. Or the Abbe the Condillac and all the fisiocrtas , they were catholics and liberals
Posted by: k at Aug 8, 2008 11:05:53 AM
And what the fact that the pci of Japan of 1986 was same of the USA and today is 25% lower said to us . Apart than Marcur Olson was wrong
Posted by: k at Aug 8, 2008 11:08:46 AM
#6 looks like fun.
Posted by: Jason Armstrong at Aug 8, 2008 12:26:35 PM
Tyler, if you have not had a chance to see the Argentinean film "La Antena" (The Aerial), dig up a copy while you're there. It's excellent. Appeared here at some film festivals last year, but hasn't gotten a broader release or a US DVD release. The DVD has English subtitles. I ordered one from an Argentinean store, but it would have been more fun to pick one up in BA! See IMDB (or click on my URL) for more info.
Posted by: Mike at Aug 8, 2008 12:57:32 PM
Why are some countries free and others are not? Blame it on Plato. The idea that wisdom flows from some cultural or class elite rather than from the knowledge of many interacting in a democratic society has cursed us for 2,400 years. The rights of individuals arose only after the rise Christendom. The idea of inherent individual value leads to the dignity of the individual and the inevitable conlcusion of the right to be free. Also, the Catholic idea that reason enables us to accumulate knowledge and know the will of the Creator, produces a better world through technology and leads to progress in society.
Posted by: jorod at Aug 8, 2008 1:41:11 PM
Blame it on Plato. The idea that wisdom flows from some classs or cultural elite has cursed us for 2,400 years. True wisdom flows from the interaction of many free people in a democratic society. The Christian ethic raised reason and progress and the dignity of the individual to the level of the divine and served the Western world well.
Posted by: jorod at Aug 8, 2008 1:49:57 PM
I figure military affairs matter at least a bit. Areas that are densely populated all over with many natural barriers lend themselves to constant warring and infantry-based militia armies, which make empire building difficult and the army itself a bit more democratic.
Posted by: Robert Olson at Aug 8, 2008 2:39:16 PM
What is the Turner thesis and what can prewar J miracle tell us about post-war J miracle? Tell us more Tyler please.
Posted by: kc at Aug 8, 2008 2:40:02 PM
I'd like to hear more about #1 just because...
Posted by: sean at Aug 8, 2008 2:53:03 PM
I'd say that Domingo Sarmiento had about 100 times more energy than I do.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Aug 8, 2008 3:17:54 PM
Baldus: I believe Tyler has been to Brazil several times. Ssee, for example, his post about why nobody reads in Brazil, with observations about the Sao Paulo airport. But, considering Brazil is ginormous, I'd second "I hope someday Tyler visits my particular corner of Brazil" (in my case, Porto Alegre).
Posted by: Cisco at Aug 8, 2008 3:27:19 PM
> The rights of individuals arose only after the rise Christendom.
...er, that is not quite the case. Look it up. The Greeks invented human rights before 0 AD. I don't think we know who invented the idea, but one early important implentor is one Solon of Athens. Look it up. Classical Athens' democracy had alot of freedom of speech (at about the level the UK has it), egalitarianism, religious tolerance except to atheists, freedom of avocation, voting, and to run for most offices of all citizens (non-slave, non-immigrant, white males).
Roman ethics were similar in Christ's time for Roman citizens. Early Christian morals appear to me to be largely Roman, MINUS religious tolerance, of course.
Aren't medieval and later Catholic ethics exactly what you were decrying - rule of the elites?
Posted by: Jon Kay at Aug 8, 2008 5:38:42 PM
"Other than in being a white supremacist, you mean?"
Judging from Mr. Sailer's HBD (Human Bio Diversity) writings I think you meant "Ashkenazi/East Asian/Navajo supremecist"!
But seriously, I don't get the Facundo / Martin Fierro analogy. In the epic poem Martin Fierro, the hero commits a hate crime and kills an Afro-Argintinian who was protecting his black girlfriend who Fierro had called "uppity". He then get sent off to prison and has a lot of further adventures. There were no statements about countries having policical or economic freedoms. He basically escapes and becomes a free gaucho again. I confess I never got around to finishing the sequal or Martin Fierro II.
Facunda is a non-fiction work documenting a dictators human rights abuses. What was "wrong" in that book? He's not making any type of HBD analysis, from what I remember it's basically cultural criticism.
Tyler I think you just threw that out there.
Posted by: gymquiz at Aug 8, 2008 11:37:17 PM
Blame it on Plato
That's silly. According to Douglas North and a host of others, unfreedom (like poverty) is the natural state of things.
Posted by: TGGP at Aug 9, 2008 12:02:56 AM
