[Igor Antunov]

I was sprung in August.

[Rich]

I dont give a fuck, the communists ruined the country completely, they were fucking mental patients ala the loons in North Korea and the fact that these fucking mental patients did worse than the Keynesian idiots is not really a cause of celebration for me. It is like bragging that you beat the mentally retarded kid in your class on the math test.

What's this got to do with the price of sausages? The fact is that Deng and his successors have pulled off one of the greatest economic miracles in the history of the world. This may be difficult for Libertarians to understand but pulling this off in country of hundreds of millions is not the same as doing it in a city port state like Hong Kong or Singapore. The Libertarian retards thought they knew how to do things much better than China, hence their advice to Russia. Look how that turned out.

[Kman]

You could be right, but if you are getting A's and A+'s it isn't really your fault if the other students are retarded. After all, you are still doing better than anyone imagined was even possible. That's hardly grounds for criticism. Now as they are graduating to middle income status soon they may no longer continue to pass with flying colours. If not, then you may have grounds for real criticism.

More like the commies get an F for total failure and the keynesians get a D for being a tiny bit bit better than total failure and mass starvation.

I know what I am doing and if the chinese people had taken my advice 30 years ago in regards to the economy then I am confident their living standards today would be higher than the japanese. They wouldnt be doing their laundry by hand.

What's this got to do with the price of sausages? The fact is that Deng and his successors have pulled off one of the greatest economic miracles in the history of the world. This may be difficult for Libertarians to understand but pulling this off in country of hundreds of millions is not the same as doing it in a city port state like Hong Kong or Singapore. The Libertarian retards thought they knew how to do things much better than China, hence their advice to Russia. Look how that turned out.

It is not a ''miracle'' that China stopped starving its own citizens to death, China had one of the strongest economies in the world during the middle ages, it is not normal for them to be extremely poor since many chinese people have good work ethics and they behave relatively civilized, the communism they adopted basically turned a relatively decent country into a third world hellhole with mass starvation.
The amount of people in a country also dont change how economics work on them, it doesnt get harder to fix a country simply because there are more people in it.

As for Russia, that is an absurd comparison, Russia is about as libertarian as Somalia, that means it is not as I explained in another thread on Somalia.

[VoiceOfReason]

I know what I am doing and if the chinese people had taken my advice 30 years ago in regards to the economy then I am confident their living standards today would be higher than the japanese. They wouldnt be doing their laundry by hand.

I realize you were probably being somewhat facetious but I will try to respond with sound figures and reasoning anyway.

First, I will assume that you were not saying Japanese living standards would have been brought down to Chinese levels, rather that Chinese living standards would have been raised to Japanese levels. Is that fair?

Second, can we take GDP as a simple measure of growth over the last 30+ years? I realize it may be a somewhat crude measure but, as a starting point for measuring standards of living, it is reasonable, no?

Using an intial starting figure for China of $507.5 (real per capita GDP) in 1979, and a Japanese figure of $45 870 (real GDP per capita) for 2011, we can start to do some basic calculations.

For example, if China were to have averaged 12% economic growth over the 32 year period from 1979 to 2011 they would have reached $19 072 by 2011. If they had averaged 14% they would have been at $33 604 as of 2011. They would have had to have averaged just a shade over 15% growth for that 32 year span to get up to Japanese levels. Now, just as a rising tide lifts all boats (in this case an open China trading with its neighbors further enriches its neighbors), this kind of Chinese growth probably would have meant Japan would actually have had a higher avergae GDP than they do right now. To reach a commensurate level, China's growth would have had to have been even higher than the aforementioned tad over 15%. Since that is partly speculation, though, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you just mean your plan would have rendered roughly 15% growth.

Now, I would love to know exactly what you were advocating 30 or so years ago.

Remember, we agree that pre-opening up and reform was a disaster. I am only saying that you can hardly expect better results than they have had since 1979, at least based on any other historical precedent in galactic history. I suspect we actually pretty well agree on that and really just both think the preceeding decades of the 20th century were all more or less disasters.



Incidentally, assuming they still reached a population of 1.3 billion they would currently have a GDP of over 35 triliion dollars, or well over double what the USA currently has.


Sources:
http://www.chinability.com/GDP.htm Chinese GDP Data

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Japan Japanese GDP Data

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_usa USA GDP Data

[Kman]

First, I will assume that you were not saying Japanese living standards would have been brought down to Chinese levels, rather that Chinese living standards would have been raised to Japanese levels. Is that fair?

Yes that is fair.

Second, can we take GDP as a simple measure of growth over the last 30+ years? I realize it may be a somewhat crude measure but, as a starting point for measuring standards of living, it is reasonable, no?

No I dont think that is reasonable, GDP is a worthless way of measuring living standards since it counts totally useless government projects as being just as good as productive private sector projects that make people happier. If you want to measure living standards you have to look at what wages can buy, how much oil/gold/grain/beef/eggs etc etc can a worker buy with his wage. That is how you measure growth, not by how much money they government wastes on useless things.

Using an intial starting figure for China of $507.5 (real per capita GDP) in 1979, and a Japanese figure of $45 870 (real GDP per capita) for 2011, we can start to do some basic calculations.

For example, if China were to have averaged 12% economic growth over the 32 year period from 1979 to 2011 they would have reached $19 072 by 2011. If they had averaged 14% they would have been at $33 604 as of 2011. They would have had to have averaged just a shade over 15% growth for that 32 year span to get up to Japanese levels. Now, just as a rising tide lifts all boats (in this case an open China trading with its neighbors further enriches its neighbors), this kind of Chinese growth probably would have meant Japan would actually have had a higher avergae GDP than they do right now. To reach a commensurate level, China's growth would have had to have been even higher than the aforementioned tad over 15%. Since that is partly speculation, though, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you just mean your plan would have rendered roughly 15% growth.

I dont care about GDP, I care about real living standards and living standards in Japan are not all that great, goods cost a fortune to buy and so does housing and this is with a population that works insane hours per week (what you can buy for x hours of work is a good way of measuring real living standards and real economic growth) so getting up to the bad living standards that exist in modern Japan is not that hard I think, Japan has been falling apart for quite a while.

Now, I would love to know exactly what you were advocating 30 or so years ago.

I wasnt born back then but what I meant is basically the austro-libertarian prescription to economic growth IE no central bank, no currency monopoly, no welfare state and a pretty much non-existant military (Ideally I would prefer anarcho-capitalism but let us stick to things that are realistic in China for the sake of keeping the argument simple).

Remember, we agree that pre-opening up and reform was a disaster. I am only saying that you can hardly expect better results than they have had since 1979

Well as a trained economist I disagree with you, China has made a ton of mistakes since 1980, mistakes that has cost the chinese people dearly in terms of lower living standards like for example their continued propping up of the USA via their insane monetary policy.

Incidentally, assuming they still reached a population of 1.3 billion they would currently have a GDP of over 35 triliion dollars, or well over double what the USA currently has.

So? China has 3 times more people than the US so it would be no wonder if they had a larger GDP.

[VoiceOfReason]

No I dont think that is reasonable, GDP is a worthless way of measuring living standards

Then we can use PPP measures of GDP which, as a trained economist, you know are created precisely to take account of those price differentials you mentioned.

If you reject GDP out of hand then what measures are you proposing? UN HDI index? Let's come to an agreement before I proceed with the analysis of any more numbers.

I dont care about GDP, I care about real living standards and living standards in Japan are not all that great...Japan has been falling apart for quite a while.

What objective measures would you like to use? Japan actually does quite well by the aforementioned United Nations Human Development Index and it is HIGHLY unlikely that, given its 1979 starting point, China could have come close to matching Japan by that measure by 2012.

I wasnt born back then but what I meant is basically the austro-libertarian prescription to economic growth IE no central bank, no currency monopoly, no welfare state and a pretty much non-existant military

Okay, that is your rough system, but I still do not know how you would objectively measure progress. I am not saying you don't have a system for that, just that it is not yet clear to me what indexes you are willing to use.

Well as a trained economist I disagree with you, China has made a ton of mistakes since 1980

This is surely the case. Remember, I am not claiming perfection just outperformance over a 30+ year period of time. I am curious what examples of "austro-libertarian" economic growth from the past you are going to point to to match this period of protracted and peaceful Chinese expansion. In any event, I don't want to say much more until I know what index(es) you would like to use.

So? China has 3 times more people than the US so it would be no wonder if they had a larger GDP.

Keep in mind that this whole conversation is in the context of where they were starting from roughly 30 years ago. I doubt you could find even one respected economist who would say they could right now have an economy twice the size of the USA's given where they were in 1979.

[Kman]

Then we can use PPP measures of GDP which, as a trained economist, you know are created precisely to take account of those price differentials you mentioned.

Well I am self trained so I never bothered learning much about mainstream economics other than the basics of GDP and why it is wrong.

If you reject GDP out of hand then what measures are you proposing? UN HDI index? Let's come to an agreement before I proceed with the analysis of any more numbers.

I just told you, you look at how long people have to work to get various items, you can look at the average wage of a country and then ask yourself ok so if I have the average of 20.000 RNB per month (just an example) then I need to work X amount of minutes in order to buy a gold coin on the world markets or I need to work X amount of minutes in order to buy a Playstation or a porsche 911 etc..etc.. Then you compare the numbers and that gives you a pretty good idea about whether a countries population has experienced economic growth, if the amount of work needed to buy stuff has gone up they have not experienced growth, if it goes down they have.

Now what this number is called officially and whether it even exist in the corrupt world of modern economics I dont know but that is how I would calculate it if I had to calculate it.

What objective measures would you like to use? Japan actually does quite well by the aforementioned United Nations Human Development Index and it is HIGHLY unlikely that, given its 1979 starting point, China could have come close to matching Japan by that measure by 2012.

I dont think so, Germany was bombed into oblivion during WW2 and after just 15 years of semi-competant economic rule they were doing ok in 1960, now that is in 15 years for a country, I am sure in 30 you could get
very far provided you organized your society correctly IE the libertarian way.

Okay, that is your rough system, but I still do not know how you would objectively measure progress. I am not saying you don't have a system for that, just that it is not yet clear to me what indexes you are willing to use.

Look above.

This is surely the case. Remember, I am not claiming perfection just outperformance over a 30+ year period of time. I am curious what examples of "austro-libertarian" economic growth from the past you are going to point to to match this period of protracted and peaceful Chinese expansion. In any event, I don't want to say much more until I know what index(es) you would like to use.

19th century USA is the best example of Austro-libertarian policies I think, they were never perfect but it was a century where there was no income tax in the US for the vast majority of the century and central banking was either non-existant or severely restrained by the use of the gold standard (although they never adhered to the standard perfectly it still constrained money printing severely). This was also 100 years of explosive growth in the US, a period where a backwater rural colony turned into the biggest economy on earth that payed the largest wages to its workers.

I doubt you could find even one respected economist who would say they could right now have an economy twice the size of the USA's given where they were in 1979.

I dont care about the opinion of ''respected economists'', the economics profession is extremely corrupt because of central banks buying influence.

[VoiceOfReason]

Well I am self trained so I never bothered learning much about mainstream economics other than the basics of GDP and why it is wrong.

I think you will find there is a strong correlation between average GDP and standard of living as measured by indexes such as the UN HDI. I am willing to use GDP or the HDI.

I just told you, you look at how long people have to work to get various items, you can look at the average wage of a country and then ask yourself ok so if I have the average of 20.000 RNB per month (just an example) then I need to work X amount of minutes in order to buy a gold coin on the world markets or I need to work X amount of minutes in order to buy a Playstation or a porsche 911 etc..etc.. Then you compare the numbers and that gives you a pretty good idea about whether a countries population has experienced economic growth, if the amount of work needed to buy stuff has gone up they have not experienced growth, if it goes down they have.

Now what this number is called officially and whether it even exist in the corrupt world of modern economics I dont know but that is how I would calculate it if I had to calculate it.

Okay. That is what "Purchasing Power Parity" is for. Please don't take this the wrong way, but you might wan't to study a little more basic economics before you go around calling yourself an economist- self-trained or otherwise.

Anyway, as China has very high real economic growth AND the value of their currecncy has been rising, relative to a wide basket of currencies, the amount of time they work to pay for things on the "world markets" is going down.

I dont think so, Germany was bombed into oblivion during WW2 and after just 15 years of semi-competant economic rule they were doing ok in 1960, now that is in 15 years for a country, I am sure in 30 you could get very far provided you organized your society correctly IE the libertarian way.

[/quote]

I still have not seen one number on which you are basing your *comparative* "analysis." I will gladly respond if I have something concrete to which I can respond.

19th century USA is the best example of Austro-libertarian policies I think, they were never perfect but it was a century where there was no income tax in the US for the vast majority of the century and central banking was either non-existant or severely restrained by the use of the gold standard (although they never adhered to the standard perfectly it still constrained money printing severely). This was also 100 years of explosive growth in the US, a period where a backwater rural colony turned into the biggest economy on earth that payed the largest wages to its workers.

You are just making generalizations. What specific "explosive" growth numbers can you point me to so I can respond？ I know you have already said you don't care about GDP, so what specific numbers that you can provide are you referring to?

Also, you do realize China is on pace to become the largest economy in the world fairly soon, right? You mentioned that as a good thing for the US so I figured I'd point that out.

I dont care about the opinion of ''respected economists'', the economics profession is extremely corrupt because of central banks buying influence.

Well do the economists you prefer offer alternative indexes that we can compare?

Also, would you mind telling me which countries you think have the highest standard of living? Maybe that would help me start to understand what you are talking about. I would like to see how many on your list don't have a high average GDP.

[Kman]

I think you will find there is a strong correlation between average GDP and standard of living as measured by indexes such as the UN HDI. I am willing to use GDP or the HDI.

There might be correlation but that still doesnt change the fact that GDP includes wasteful government spending when calculating living standards which makes it highly inaccurate, if the US government started spending a trillion dollars per year getting people to dig holes and then fill them up again then the GDP would stay the same but living standards would drop a ton since there would be less people available to produce things that actually increase living standards. Now digging holes and filling them up again is an extreme example but this is essentially the kind of waste that many government programs engage in, like for example when the government builds aircraft carriers that are not used for actual war (dropping a bomb per month on some third world shithole doesnt count).

As for indexes, I dont see what you want indexes for, they are not gonna help you disprove a scenario that has not actually taken place in the real world (my claim that I think you could have brought Chinese people up to japanese living standards with austrian economics).

Okay. That is what "Purchasing Power Parity" is for. Please don't take this the wrong way, but you might wan't to study a little more basic economics before you go around calling yourself an economist- self-trained or otherwise.

Why? I have made exactly zero economic errors in all of this, my economic logic has been rock solid and so far I have seen nothing that you provided to disprove that. The fact that I didnt think of purchasing power parity is also totally irrelevant since economic theory is not determined by indexes, it is determined by logic and insight into human nature.

Anyway, as China has very high real economic growth AND the value of their currecncy has been rising, relative to a wide basket of currencies, the amount of time they work to pay for things on the "world markets" is going down.

Yeah but this is happening really slowly, especially when you consider the fact that chinese people do a ton of manufacturing, in a free world a country producing more than others would quickly see the domestic wages rise.

I still have not seen one number on which you are basing your *comparative* "analysis." I will gladly respond if I have something concrete to which I can respond.

I am not basing this on any numbers, economics has very little to do with math, I am basing this on my logical system that I have inside my head with regards to how human societies work and how they stop working.

You are just making generalizations. What specific "explosive" growth numbers can you point me to so I can respond？ I know you have already said you don't care about GDP, so what specific numbers that you can provide are you referring to?

It is common knowledge that the average american living in 1800 had a much lower standard of living than the average american living in 1900, in 1900 they had things like electricity and indoor plumbing and appliances of different types. I am not gonna waste my time proving something that everyone knows already.
I am confident that if you look at the amount of hours a man had to work to provide the basics for himself this number would be significantly lower in 1900 than it was in 1800 precisely because there had been so much economic growth and so many new production machines had been created during this time period.

Also, would you mind telling me which countries you think have the highest standard of living? Maybe that would help me start to understand what you are talking about. I would like to see how many on your list don't have a high average GDP.

Off the top of my head I would say probably Japan, the US, Canada, the Scandinavian countries, Germany and Switzerland. When I said that Japan had a bad standard of living I did not mean compared to other countries, I meant compared to a perfectly functioning economy where you didnt have huge amounts of debt, a huge elderly population with a tiny young population and things like zombie banks and corporations that are badly run.

[VoiceOfReason]

Posted very late so may be spelling and grammar errors, please excuse.

Once again I think you are steering this off track a bit as the original point was that China has done as well as anyone to develop their country over a 30 year period. I provided numbers to support this and you countered with ideas that you have in your head. I don't know if this comes from any readings on what actually happened as you seem to be working with no numbers whatsoever. The reason for this, apparently, is that economic numbers are all by mainstream economists who are virtually all corrupt.

There might be correlation but that still doesnt change the fact that GDP includes wasteful government spending when calculating living standards which makes it highly inaccurate...

Here we go again with the problem of you talking about things and then having no numbers whatsoever to put things in a comparative context. It seems you may be suggesting that the China of the past 32 years has been wasting more than other places when they were at a similar stage of development. If they haven't been, then the government spending portion could be held fairly constant and GDP numbers need not be invalidated at all. Do you have numbers suggesting there has been relatively a lot of waste in China compared to when other countries were at their level of development?

As for indexes, I dont see what you want indexes for, they are not gonna help you disprove a scenario that has not actually taken place in the real world (my claim that I think you could have brought Chinese people up to japanese living standards with austrian economics).

It seems you are being very clear that you are not making an argument here, merely assertions. You have yet to offer any quantified, comparable facts. You are making vague assertions to contest my claim that China has done an amazing job over the last 30 years. One of them is to say that American growth from 1800-1900 period transformed the country. We all know it did. They also had a civil war that killed 2.5% of their population and slavery for more than half that time. Could they have done some things better? Yes. Did they do well? Yes. Most importantly, is it relevant to if China has done exceedingly well compared to other growth stories for the past 30 years? No.

I have made exactly zero economic errors in all of this

Let’s see.

More like the commies get an F for total failure and the keynesians get a D for being a tiny bit bit better than total failure and mass starvation.

From The World Bank:
“Since initiating market reforms in 1978, China has shifted from a centrally planned to a market based economy and experienced rapid economic and social development. GDP growth averaging about 10 percent a year has lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty. All Millennium Development Goals have been reached or are within reach.”
A bit better than total failure and mass starvation? Mistake #1.

China has 3 times more people than the US so it would be no wonder if they had a larger GDP.

Maybe not economic but pretty basic knowledge. China actually has over 4 times the population. On the rare occasions you do use numbers please try to get them right.

Well I am self trained so I never bothered learning much about mainstream economics other than the basics of GDP and why it is wrong.

GDP = the size of the economy, so what does your statement even mean? If you say the USA has a bigger GDP than Nepal it is exactly the same as saying it has a bigger economy. No difference. If you mean it cannot be exactly accurate down to the dollar then, well, duh.

chinese people do a ton of manufacturing, in a free world a country producing more than others would quickly see the domestic wages rise.

Wow! Stunning! Stupefying! Dumbfounding! This is officially my last post responding to you on this thread. I am sitting here listening to someone who doesn’t know that China has kept low wage increases due to their massive population. Have you not heard any of the mountains of news stories over the last decade plus of jobs leaving to China for cheap wages due to their endless supply of workers?
Anyway, wages ARE rising fast now and the very rapid increase comes as that surplus shrinks. Is 12-14% fast enough for you?
“Average urban salaries rose 12 per cent in the first nine months from a year earlier without adjusting for inflation, slowing from 14.4 per cent for all of last year and 13.3 per cent in 2010, government data shows”

The second thing I apparently need to point out is that the USA had, up until 2010, been the largest manufacturer in the world (“producing more than others”). It is now still number 2 by a long shot but it did not “quickly see the domestic wages rise.” Could it be there are more factors at work here than you recognize? You need some “mainstream economics” if you ever want to have a hope of getting anyone to take you seriously.

I am not basing this on any numbers, economics has very little to do with math, I am basing this on my logical system that I have inside my head with regards to how human societies work and how they stop working.

Okay, I get it. You don’t do that whole weird using numbers and statistics shtick. All of those formulas, graphs, percentages and everything are too gimmicky and they make people’s heads hurt. Good call leaving those behind.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperie ... h-numbers/ civil war data

http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/overview China Poverty Data

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... population Populations

http://www.scmp.com/business/economy/ar ... lows-china

http://www.economist.com.hk/node/21549956 rising wages and US as second largest manufacturer

[Kman]

Once again I think you are steering this off track a bit as the original point was that China has done as well as anyone to develop their country over a 30 year period. I provided numbers to support this and you countered with ideas that you have in your head. I don't know if this comes from any readings on what actually happened as you seem to be working with no numbers whatsoever.

This is a logical a priori claim I am making here about an alternative path in history that has not happened, there are no numbers I can pull up to prove this and you proving that China has done well compared to all the other keynesian nations doesnt disprove my claim. What I am talking about is based on logic, not indexes measuring real world prices.

Here we go again with the problem of you talking about things and then having no numbers whatsoever to put things in a comparative context. It seems you may be suggesting that the China of the past 32 years has been wasting more than other places when they were at a similar stage of development. If they haven't been, then the government spending portion could be held fairly constant and GDP numbers need not be invalidated at all.

No what I am saying is that China has been wasteful with its resources compared to the ideal, I dont care whether China has been more or less wasteful than other countries. Starting from a low point also enables you to grow the economy faster since there is more low hanging fruit, if your economy is already highly advanced then it is harder to make factories more efficient and increase living standards.

It seems you are being very clear that you are not making an argument here, merely assertions.

And so are you, an index doesnt prove anything when I am comparing China to the ideal society, not other flawed Keynesian societies.

From The World Bank:
“Since initiating market reforms in 1978, China has shifted from a centrally planned to a market based economy and experienced rapid economic and social development. GDP growth averaging about 10 percent a year has lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty. All Millennium Development Goals have been reached or are within reach.”

Well the World Bank is not the word of god, it was after all created by John Maynard Keynes. These people at the World Bank might get excited about the meager progress of China, personally I dont, chinese workers are still very poor compared to western workers and I would venture to say they work harder than westerners so I dont really think that is a good result.

A bit better than total failure and mass starvation? Mistake #1.

Not a mistake.

Maybe not economic but pretty basic knowledge. China actually has over 4 times the population. On the rare occasions you do use numbers please try to get them right.

Doesnt matter at all, way to nit pick about irrelevant things.

GDP = the size of the economy, so what does your statement even mean? If you say the USA has a bigger GDP than Nepal it is exactly the same as saying it has a bigger economy. No difference. If you mean it cannot be exactly accurate down to the dollar then, well, duh.

Seems to me like GDP basically just measures money supply and money value, money supply doesnt tell you how good living standards are though.

Wow! Stunning! Stupefying! Dumbfounding! This is officially my last post responding to you on this thread. I am sitting here listening to someone who doesn’t know that China has kept low wage increases due to their massive population. Have you not heard any of the mountains of news stories over the last decade plus of jobs leaving to China for cheap wages due to their endless supply of workers?

How could you ever deduce that from what I said? I think you misread my post.

Again not a mistake.

The second thing I apparently need to point out is that the USA had, up until 2010, been the largest manufacturer in the world (“producing more than others”). It is now still number 2 by a long shot but it did not “quickly see the domestic wages rise.”

So ?

Could it be there are more factors at work here than you recognize?

I strongly doubt it, I got my education from reading scholars who were true masters of the craft, people like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.

You need some “mainstream economics” if you ever want to have a hope of getting anyone to take you seriously.

I dont care about mainstreamers and their thoughts of me, communists also think I am a total lunatic because I am an ultra-capitalist but I know for a fact that they are the crazy ones so I dont really care.

Okay, I get it. You don’t do that whole weird using numbers and statistics shtick. All of those formulas, graphs, percentages and everything are too gimmicky and they make people’s heads hurt. Good call leaving those behind.

I do use some statistics like money supply charts, those can serve as valuable guiding tools for understanding what is happening in the economy, charts and indexes are not useful for proving what would have happened in China if they had followed austro-libertarian prescriptions for economic growth since there is no index of this event so you can only use logic and insight into human nature to aproximate the effects of this policy. We know for a fact that a hard currency calculates better, we know for a fact that people respond to incentives and if you remove the rewards from unproductive government behavior then people will become more productive.

[VoiceOfReason]

First, I would like to apologize for the foul tone of my last post. I was on 4 hours of sleep over the course of two nights so I don't expect it to happen again. You were never insulting towards me and I don't want to degrade this board.

I understand better where your views come after your last post. I guess the difference between us is I am not convinced by the theory. You are and that is fine. How boring this board would be if we all agreed.

I can agree to disagree and admit there is a chance, however small, that you could be right.

I look forward to crossing swords again at some point.

[Rich]

One of them is to say that American growth from 1800-1900 period transformed the country. We all know it did. They also had a civil war that killed 2.5% of their population and slavery for more than half that time. Could they have done some things better? Yes. Did they do well? Yes.

No they didn't. I haven't found figures but my guess is that average growth in GDP 1775 - 1900 of the US (excluding the American Indians, it would be even worse for America, if you included them) severely underperformed that of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I would also guess that the average growth in GDP per person 1775 - 1900 of the US underperformed that of Britain. I wouldn't be surprised if it underperformed France and what would be the territory of Germany as well. The Americans brought the civil war entirely on themselves. One of the drivers for independence was to destroy liberty. The fugitive slave clause was included in the Constitution as a deliberate rebuke of Somerset vs Stewart. Why do you think the slavers were so keen to get independence from Britain? Measured against any reasonable level of expectations, America was a tragic failure in its first hundred and twenty five years.

[Kman]

Measured against any reasonable level of expectations, America was a tragic failure in its first hundred and twenty five years.

Seems to me that you have been reading made to order economics IE studies that were made to show a specific conclusion.

[VoiceOfReason]

No they didn't. I haven't found figures but my guess is that average growth in GDP 1775 - 1900 of the US (excluding the American Indians, it would be even worse for America, if you included them) severely underperformed that of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I would also guess that the average growth in GDP per person 1775 - 1900 of the US underperformed that of Britain. I wouldn't be surprised if it underperformed France and what would be the territory of Germany as well. The Americans brought the civil war entirely on themselves. One of the drivers for independence was to destroy liberty. The fugitive slave clause was included in the Constitution as a deliberate rebuke of Somerset vs Stewart. Why do you think the slavers were so keen to get independence from Britain? Measured against any reasonable level of expectations, America was a tragic failure in its first hundred and twenty five years.

You guess that it underperformed those countries? Only two of those places, Britain and France, were even independent countries throughout the whole time period you mentioned. I personally am not at all clear on what you are even comparing. Most of the continental United States was not even a part of the union until after the second half of the 19th century. Canada was also expanding during 19th century and only becomes a nation as of 1865.

In that period the "USA" went from an agrarian backwater to the largest economy with a massive free trade zone. The industrial revolution allowed a construction boom never before seen on earth. By the 1890s they were also manufacturing more than anywhere else on earth and were the largest economy on earth. Nobody would have guessed it at the time but they were on their way to becoming almost 40% of the world economy by the 1960s.

Our conversation in this thread thus far has been in the context of economic growth. Given that they became the largest economy in the world by the end of the 1800s how are you defining "tragic failure?" Should they have reached that point in the 1880s? 1870s? 1860s? 1850s? Can you please offer three specific economic criteria they did not meet over the course of the time period you mentioned that you feel they should have? The criteria should show their performance was tragic and a failure. Otherwise, we have another poster making assertions and not providing any data. I realize it is tempting to look back and be critical. Looking back over 100 years in the past, though, is the ultimate in Monday morning quarterbacking.

Furthermore, I would also point out that there are a huge number of dead Europeans who felt very differently from you and felt there were better prospects in the US. From 1841 to 1850 alone over 1.7 million immigrants moved there. From 1870-1900 over 17 million immigrants uprooted from their homelands, the vast majority from Europe, and moved to the United States. Those 17 million people obviously would not have agreed with you that they were moving to a place that was a "tragic failure" during the preceeding 70 years, at least not compared to the Euopean countries they were fleeing for a better life. Now, I am not saying it is not possible that YOU are right and those 17 million people were all wrong, but I'd have to guess that they put a lot more time into thinking about it than you have.

To recapitulate the sum of my post, please explain 3 specific, major criteria by which the USA could be considered an economic failure in the 1800s and how much better they would have had to have done for you to remove that one liner tag. Then, maybe one day far in the future when someone invents a time machine, we can have them travel back and tell all of those 17 million people what a terrile mistake they were making. It's not really the Land of the Free they were going to but the Land of the Tragic.


Sources:
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0763770.html US states' time of settling and statehood

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... ted_States Immigration
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroomma ... d/immgnts/ Immigration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical ... iven_Years Showing US as being almost 40% of world economy in 1960