Comments on: Quote notes (#71)

By: admin

admin — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 16:41:45 +0000

Of course I agree — but a brief moment of luxuriating in discomfort felt like a tempting indulgence. (OK, that’s over …)

By: Lesser Bull

Lesser Bull — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 15:16:30 +0000

Yes.

By: James James

James James — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 12:33:09 +0000

Clark says it takes about 300 years for the correlation with your ancestors’ position to disappear. However, his English example surnames all look suspiciously Norman to me.

By: James James

James James — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 12:12:26 +0000

“Clark himself draws the curve-ball conclusion: so why not be a social democrat? It’s not as if rational incentives make any difference anyway.”

1. Because social democracies pursue dysgenic policies.

2. While Clark’s first book demonstrates that Smithian institutions are not sufficient for growth, it does not demonstrate that they are not necessary. Social democracy undermines institutions like property.

By: spandrell

spandrell — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 06:35:24 +0000

Well obviously the commercial elite of pre-Communist China is back again after only 30 years of oppression.

What’s a stretch is to say that extends over centuries. Of course Chinese surnames are quite different from Western ones. But you don’t see the great patrician families of the Song Dynasty overrepresented in today’s elite. Not even close.

By: 5371

5371 — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 06:08:28 +0000

Clark is factually challenged. Surnames are few in China and none are really “characteristic of the elite”. Come to think of it, even English surnames don’t mean what he thinks they do.

By: Hurlock

Hurlock — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 21:40:30 +0000

Clark is forgetting that discrimination against the previous elites is a crucial part of the maoist socio-economic order. His argument doesn’t really hold, he is jumping to conclusions.
Yeah, sure, when you change that part of the system which is keeping group A in position X instead of position Y where they would be under system B, when you modify system A to make it more like system B in precisely that regard, said group will now occupy position Y.
The system was changed (*cough* Xiaoping *cough*) and only then did the elites get back at their previous positions.

By: Hurlock

Hurlock — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 21:22:30 +0000

Can we make this into a T-shirt slogan pls?

By: VXXC

VXXC — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 20:03:00 +0000

Other than Western Maoism=Affirmative Action, this still doesn’t explain fully American Governance. Which is in fact highly competent predators surrounded by a bodyguard of moronic Vogons. The predators are also highly incentivized, more wealth than for instance exists in the world – on paper.

Paper that must burn.

Gracious. I sound positively Red.

By: VXXC

VXXC — Mon, 07 Apr 2014 19:57:43 +0000

Thought provoking.

Perhaps the most level playing field is the one with the least rules and fewest referees.