Category: Books

Moral Progress Accelerated in the 18th Century

(p. A11) For hundreds of years, people flocked to public hangings as a form of entertainment. Onlookers crowded into town squares and brought their families, reveling in the carnival atmosphere. Today most people are sickened at the idea of merriment at an execution. (Many are disturbed that executions take place at all.) We recoil from other once-common practices, too: slavery, the mistreatment of children, animal cruelty. Such shifts in attitude or belief surely constitute a form of moral progress and suggest, for once, that civilization is advancing and not receding.
. . .
Mr. Shermer defines moral progress as an “increase in the survival and flourishing of sentient beings,” which he illustrates with graphs and charts that reveal, among other things, a decline in war-related deaths, the expansion of the food supply, the reduction in major epidemics, the growth of world GDP and the spread of democracy.
Humanitarian achievements in the West, Mr. Shermer notes, began in earnest [in] the 18th century. Yet the ability to reason ethically is not a product of the Enlightenment. A moral instinct seems to be present at birth: Even infants possess innate intuitions about fairness and reciprocity, as Mr. Shermer explains. All societies punish free riders. The Golden Rule and Babylon’s Code of Hammurabi (advocating proportionate punishment) predate the ancient Greeks. So why did we need an Enlightenment to jump-start our moral progress?

For the full review, see:
SALLY SATEL. “BOOKSHELF; Getting Better All the Time; Crowds once flocked to watch executions. Now we recoil at the idea. What causes such transformations of ethical standards?” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Jan. 20, 2015): A11.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed word, added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Jan. 19, 2015.)

The book under review is:
Shermer, Michael. The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2015.

Wealth Can Be Used for Self-Improvement, Not Just Trivial Pursuits

Hamilton, in a letter to his future wife:

(p. 145) I do not, my love, affect modesty. I am conscious of [the] advantages I possess. I know I have talents and a good heart, but why am I not handsome ? Why have I not every acquirement that can embellish human nature? Why have I not fortune, that I might hereafter have more leisure than I shall have to cultivate those improvements for which I am not entirely unfit?

Source:
Alexander Hamilton as quoted in Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004.
(Note: bracketed word in original]

Fishing with Mosquito Nets, Where Food Is the Binding Constraint

(p. 1) BANGWEULU WETLANDS, Zambia — Out here on the endless swamps, a harsh truth has been passed down from generation to generation: There is no fear but the fear of hunger.
With that always weighing on his mind, Mwewa Ndefi gets up at dawn, just as the first orange rays of sun are beginning to spear through the papyrus reeds, and starts to unclump a mosquito net.
Nets like his are widely considered a magic bullet against malaria — one of the cheapest and most effective ways to stop a disease that kills at least half a million Africans each year. But Mr. Ndefi and countless others are not using their mosquito nets as global health experts have intended.
Nobody in his hut, including his seven children, sleeps under a net at night. Instead, Mr. Ndefi has taken his family’s supply of anti-malaria nets and sewn them together into a gigantic sieve that he uses to drag the bottom of the swamp ponds, sweeping up all sorts of life: baby catfish, banded tilapia, tiny mouthbrooders, orange fish eggs, water bugs and the occasional green frog.
“I know it’s not right,” Mr. Ndefi said, “but without these nets, we wouldn’t eat.”
Across Africa, from the mud flats of Nigeria to the coral reefs off Mozambique, mosquito-net fishing is a growing problem, an unintended consequence of one of the biggest and most celebrated public health campaigns in recent years.
The nets have helped save millions of lives, but scientists worry about the collateral damage: Africa’s fish.
. . .
“The nets go straight out of the bag into the sea,” said Isabel Marques da Silva, a marine biologist at Universidade Lúrio in Mozambique. “That’s why the inci-(p. 10)dence for malaria here is so high. The people don’t use the mosquito nets for mosquitoes. They use them to fish.”
But the unsparing mesh, with holes smaller than mosquitoes, traps much more life than traditional fishing nets do. Scientists say that could imperil already stressed fish populations, a critical food source for millions of the world’s poorest people.
. . .
In many places, fish are dried for hours in direct sunlight on treated mosquito nets. Direct sunlight can break down the insecticide coating. Anthony Hay, an associate professor of environmental toxicology at Cornell University, said fish could absorb some of the toxins, leaving people to ingest them when they eat the fish.
“It’s just another one of these ‘white man’s burdens,’ ” Mr. Hay said, referring to William Easterly’s well-known book critical of foreign aid by the West. “We think we have a solution to everybody’s problems, and here’s an example of where we’re creating a new problem.”
. . .
For Mr. Ndefi, it is a simple, if painful, matter of choice. He knows all too well the dangers of malaria. His own toddler son, Junior, died of the disease four years ago. Junior used to always be there, standing outside his hut, when Mr. Ndefi came home from fishing.
Mr. Ndefi hopes his family can survive future bouts of the disease. But he knows his loved ones will not last long without food.

For the full story, see:
JEFFREY GETTLEMAN. “Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., JAN. 25, 2015): 1 & 10.
(Note: ellipses are added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JAN. 24, 2015, and has the title “Meant to Keep Malaria Out, Mosquito Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In.”)

The book referenced by Professor Hay, is:
Easterly, William. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. New York: The Penguin Press, 2006.

“Hamilton Constantly Educated Himself”

(p. 110) During the winter encampments, Hamilton constantly educated himself, as if equipping his mind for the larger tasks ahead. “Force of intellect and force of will were the sources of his success,” Henry Cabot Lodge later wrote. From his days as an artillery captain, Hamilton had kept a pay book with blank pages in the back; while on Washington’s staff, he filled up 112 pages with notes from his extracurricular reading. Hamilton fit the type of the self-improving autodidact, employing all his spare time to better himself. He aspired to the eighteenth-century aristocratic ideal of the versatile man conversant in every area of knowledge. Thanks to his pay book we know that he read a considerable amount of philosophy, including Bacon, Hobbes, Montaigne, and Cicero. He also perused histories of Greece, Prussia, and France.

Source:
Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004.

Machiavelli Experienced “Flow” Writing The Prince

(p. 8) “Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are,” Machiavelli wrote in “The Prince.”
. . .
After the reveling, back in his study at a heavy desk much like the one in Palazzo Vecchio, he would spend the evening on the work that would come to define him. “For four hours,” he wrote, “I feel no boredom, I forget every worry, I don’t dread poverty, nor has death any terrors for me.”

For the full story, see:
ONDINE COHANE. “Footsteps; Following the Rise and Fall of Machiavelli.” The New York Times, Travel Section (Sun., DEC. 7, 2014): 8.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 4, 2014, and has the title “Footsteps; In Tuscany, Following the Rise and Fall of Machiavelli.”.)

Machiavelli’s classic is:
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1992 (based on a translation first published in 1910).

George Washington’s “Entrepreneurial Bent”

(p. 87) Washington proved an excellent businessman, first as a canny speculator in western lands, then as lord of Mount Vernon. Sometimes buying human cargo directly from the holds of slave ships, he came to own more than one hundred slaves by the Revolution and expanded his estate until it encompassed thirteen square miles. An innovative farmer, he invented a plough and presided over a small industrial village at Mount Vernon that included a flour mill and a shop for manufacturing cloth, an entrepreneurial bent that appealed to Hamilton.

Source:
Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004.

Progress Depends on Removing Barriers to Innovation

In the quotation below, Bill Gates is referring to the late, and way-under-appreciated, economist Julian Simon.

(p. A3) “. . . Simon’s view was that humans would have to change to innovate,” Mr. Gates said. Innovation, in other words, is not preordained. Indeed, it’s happened much more in some societies than in others. And it has happened, Mr. Gates was arguing, because people and institutions took steps to remove the barriers to progress.
. . .
. . . , much of the world is enjoying one of history’s most rapid increases in prosperity. Life expectancy has risen more than six years just since 1990. The world, to quote the title of a book by the economist Charles Kenny, is “Getting Better.” As Mr. Gates says: “The world is actually improving a lot. We’re trying to deliver both the good news on the progress and the possibility to do more.”

For the full commentary, see:
David Leonhardt. “Africa’s Economy Is Rising, and Focus Turns to Food.” The New York Times (Thurs., JAN. 22, 2015): A3.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the title “Africa’s Economy Is Rising. Now What Happens to Its Food?”)

The book mentioned by Charles Kenny is:
Kenny, Charles. Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding–and How We Can Improve the World Even More. Philadelphia, PA: Basic Books, 2011.

One of the great books by Julian Simon is:
Moore, Stephen, and Julian L. Simon. It’s Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2000.

Hamilton Was an Autodidact

Others who might be considered autodidacts include Andrew Carnegie, Winston Churchill, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Guglielomo Marconi. When the self-taught can achieve so much, it raises the question of whether we over-emphasize formal education? (Chernow also mentions Hamilton being an autodidact on pages 110, 206, and 682.)

(p. 42) Hamilton’s early itinerary in America closely mirrored the connections of Hugh Knox. Through Knox, he came to know two of New York’s most eminent Presbyterian clergymen: Knox’s old mentor, Dr. John Rodgers– an imposing figure who strutted grandly down Wall Street en route to church, grasping a gold-headed cane and nodding to well-wishers–and the Reverend John M. Mason, whose son would end up attempting an authorized biography of Hamilton. Through another batch of Knox introductory letters, Hamilton ended up studying at a well-regarded preparatory school across the Hudson River, the Elizabethtown Academy. Like all autodidacts, Hamilton had some glaring deficiencies to correct and required cram courses in Latin, Greek, and advanced math to qualify for college.

Source:
Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004.

Depression of 1920-21 Ended Quickly, Without Government Stimulus or Bailouts

(p. C3) Beginning in January 1920, something much worse than a recession blighted the world. The U.S. suffered the steepest plunge in wholesale prices in its history (not even eclipsed by the Great Depression), as well as a 31.6% drop in industrial production and a 46.6% fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Unemployment spiked, and corporate profits plunged.
. . .
In the absence of anything resembling government stimulus, a modern economist may wonder how the depression of 1920-21 ever ended. Oddly enough, deflation turned out to be a tonic. Prices–and, critically, wages too–were allowed to fall, and they fell far enough to entice consumers, employers and investors to part with their money. Europeans, noticing that America was on the bargain counter, shipped their gold across the Atlantic, where it swelled the depression-shrunken U.S. money supply. Shares of profitable and well-financed American companies changed hands at giveaway valuations.
Of course, the year-and-a-half depression must have seemed interminable for all who were jobless or destitute. It was, however, a great deal shorter than the 43 months of the Great Depression of 1929-33. Then too, the 1922 recovery would bring tears of envy to today’s central bankers and policy makers: Passenger-car production shot up by 63%, for instance, and the Dow jumped by 21.5%. “From practically all angles,” this newspaper judged in a New Year’s Day 1923 retrospective, “1922 can be recorded as the renaissance of prosperity.”
In 2008, as Lehman Brothers toppled, the Great Depression monopolized the market on historical analogies. To avoid a recurrence of the 1930s, officials declared, the U.S. had to knock down interest rates, manipulate stock prices to go higher, repave the highways and trade in the clunkers.
The forgotten depression teaches a very different lesson. Sometimes the best stimulus is none at all.

For the full commentary, see:
JAMES GRANT. “The Depression Fixed by Doing Nothing; The agonizing but often forgotten 1920-21 economic crisis suggests that sometimes the best stimulus is none at all.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Jan. 3, 2015): C3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Jan. 2, 2015, and has the title “The Depression That Was Fixed by Doing Nothing; The often forgotten 1920-21 economic crisis suggests that sometimes the best stimulus is none at all.”)

Grant’s commentary is elaborated on in his book:
Grant, James. The Forgotten Depression: 1921, the Crash That Cured Itself. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.

Stalin Showed that a Single Individual’s Decisions Can Matter

(p. C29) . . . , [Stephen Kotkin] is not shy about assailing what he regards as false interpretations by other historians. His Stalin is not a disciple who deviates from Lenin; he is Lenin’s true disciple, in pitiless class warfare, in the inability to compromise, and, above all, in unshakable ideological conviction.
. . .
There is little equivocation in Mr. Kotkin’s judgments. Scholars who argue collectivization was necessary to force Russian peasants into a modern state are “dead wrong.” The conclusion by the British historian E. H. Carr that Stalin was a product of circumstances, and not the other way around, is “utterly, eternally wrong.” On the contrary, it is one of Mr. Kotkin’s major theses that Stalin “reveals how, on extremely rare occasions, a single individual’s decisions can radically transform an entire country’s political and socioeconomic structures, with global repercussions.” Or, as he puts it in a more graphic passage: “The Bolshevik putsch could have been prevented by a pair of bullets” — one for Lenin and one for Stalin.
. . .
This reader, for one, still hopes for more evidence that Stalin was indeed singular, a historical malignancy, and not a product of circumstances of the kind that might already be shaping the next chapter of Russian history. And that only whets the appetite for the next installment, in which Stalin decides to starve Russia almost to death to bring peasants under state control. That, Mr. Kotkin has already declared, was an assault on the peasantry for which there was no political or social logic, and that only Stalin could have done. It is a testament to Mr. Kotkin’s skill that even after almost a thousand pages, one wants more.

For the full review, see:
SERGE SCHMEMANN. “From Czarist Rubble, a Russian Autocrat Rises.” The New York Times (Sat., JAN. 8, 2015): C29.
(Note: ellipses, and book author’s name in brackets, added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date JAN. 8, 2015.)

The book under review is:
Kotkin, Stephen. Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928. New York: Penguin Press, 2014.