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==
목차
추천의 글(김두얼 명지대학교 교수, 서울리뷰오브북스 편집장)
서론. 20세기의 거대 내러티브
1장. 세상을 세계화하기
2장. 기술 주도 성장 엔진의 시동을 걸다
3장. 북방세계의 민주화
4장. 글로벌 제국들
5장. 제1차 세계대전
6장. 포효하는 20년대
7장. 대공황
8장. 현실사회주의
9장. 파시즘과 나치즘
10장. 제2차 세계대전
11장. 냉전, 두 적대 체제의 공존
12장. 남방세계의 경제 발전
13장. 포용
14장. 사회민주주의와 영광의 30년
15장. 신자유주의로의 전환
16장. 재세계화, 정보기술, 초세계화
17장. 대침체와 빈약한 회복
결론. 우리는 여전히 유토피아를 향해 웅크린 채 나아가고 있는가?
감사의 말
주석에 대하여
주
찾아보기
===[eBook] 20세기 경제사
우리는 유토피아로 가고 있는가
브래드퍼드 들롱 (지은이), 홍기빈 (옮긴이), 김두얼 (감수) 생각의힘 2024-07-19
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20세기는 다른 무엇보다도 경제 발전이 압도적으로 주도한 최초의 세기였다. 북대서양의 일부 지역에서는 1인당 소득이 1870년에 비해 20배 이상 증가했다. (하루 2달러 이하로 살아가는) 최극빈층은 1870년에는 무려 70%였으나 이제는 9%가 채 되지 않는다. 이 최극빈층마저도 대다수가 공공 의료 그리고 막대한 가치를 지닌 이동통신 기술의 혜택을 누린다. 인류는 1870년을 기점으로 마침내 지긋지긋한 빈곤의 덫 혹은 맬서스의 저주에서 처음으로 벗어났고, 선조들이 유토피아에서나 가능하다고 생각했을 정도의 물질적 풍요를 누리고 있다.
하지만 경이적인 경제성장에도 불구하고 인류는 유토피아에 도달하지 못했고, 그 길 위에 있는지도 불확실하다. 물질적 번영을 이루었으되 그 과실이 매우 불균등하게 분배되었으며, 사람들은 물질적 풍요에만 만족하지 않았다. 오늘날 가장 부유한 사람조차도 특출나게 운이 좋고 행복한, 선택받은 사람이라는 생각을 거의 하지 않는다. 게다가 20세기에는 가장 잔혹했던 독재 정권이 출현했고, 각각 수천만 명의 사상자를 낳은 두 차례의 세계 대전과 대공황을 경험했으며, 2008년에는 대공황 이후 최악의 경제 위기를 경험했다. 21세기의 우리는 기후 위기, 불평등, 포퓰리즘, 미중 패권 경쟁의 이슈로 한 치 앞도 분간하기 어려운 시대로 들어섰다.
《20세기 경제사: 우리는 유토피아로 가고 있는가》는 20세기의 성공과 실패를 경제적 맥락에서 살펴본다. 특히 세계가 어떻게 부유해졌는지를 설명하려고 하기보다는 유례없는 물질적 풍요를 바탕으로 무엇을 하려고 했는지, 성장을 지속하기 위해 어떤 시스템을 개발하고 시도했는지를 살펴본다. 이를 통해 지난 세기와 같은 재앙을 피하고 번영을 유지하기 위해서 무엇을 바로잡아야 하는지에 대한 통찰을 제공한다.
====
목차
추천의 글(김두얼 명지대학교 교수, 서울리뷰오브북스 편집장)
서론. 20세기의 거대 내러티브
1장. 세상을 세계화하기
2장. 기술 주도 성장 엔진의 시동을 걸다
3장. 북방세계의 민주화
4장. 글로벌 제국들
5장. 제1차 세계대전
6장. 포효하는 20년대
7장. 대공황
8장. 현실사회주의
9장. 파시즘과 나치즘
10장. 제2차 세계대전
11장. 냉전, 두 적대 체제의 공존
12장. 남방세계의 경제 발전
13장. 포용
14장. 사회민주주의와 영광의 30년
15장. 신자유주의로의 전환
16장. 재세계화, 정보기술, 초세계화
17장. 대침체와 빈약한 회복
결론. 우리는 여전히 유토피아를 향해 웅크린 채 나아가고 있는가?
감사의 말
주석에 대하여
주
찾아보기
접기
책속에서
P.18
지킬 박사를 닮은 천재 사회사상가인 오스트리아 태생 영국계 시카고인 프리드리히 하이에크가 말했듯이, 시장경제는 자신이 설정한 문제의 해결책을 (대중이 자발적으로 참여하도록 인센티브를 부여함으로써) ‘크라우드소싱’한다
─ 서론 20세기의 거대 내러티브
P.50
적어도 맬서스가 살았던 시대와 그 이전의 시대로 본다면 그의 말은 틀리지 않았다.
─ 1장 세상을 세계화하기
P.165
마르크스는 1853년 《인도에서의 영국 지배가 장래에 가져올 결과들》이라는 에세이를 썼으며, 거기에서 대영제국의 인도 정복은 인도에 있어서 아주 단기적으로 보면 저주이지만 장기적으로 보면 축복이 될 것이라고 예언했다. “영국은 인도에서 이중의 임무를 달성해야만 한다. 첫째는 파괴이며 둘째는… 아시아에 서구 사회의 물질적 기초를 놓는 것이다.”
─ 4장 글로벌 제국들
P.237
케인스는 바로 이 문제에 대해 1924년에 이렇게 말한 바 있다. 레닌은 자본주의 체제를 파괴하는 최선의 방법은 화폐를 마구 풀어 가치를 망가트리는 것이라고 선언했다고 한다. … 레닌의 말은 분명히 맞다.
─ 6장 포효하는 20년대
P.330
볼셰비키들은 영국의 근대화에 대한 마르크스의 비판을 가져다가 자신들의 비즈니스 모델로 만들었다.
(생계가 곤란해진 농민들이 도시로 이주하여 빈털터리 도시 노동자 계급으로 전락하는 과정)
─ 8장 현실사회주의
더보기
저자 소개
지은이: 브래드퍼드 들롱 저자파일 신간알리미 신청
최근작 : <20세기 경제사>,<현실의 경제학>,<애프터 피케티> … 총 25종 (모두보기)
캘리포니아 대학교(버클리)의 경제학 교수. 1960년 보스턴에서 태어나 현재 버클리에 거주한다. 하버드 대학교에서 경제학 박사학위를 받은 후 동 대학교에서 강의했으며, 클린턴 행정부에서 재무부 차관보로 일했다. 경제의 거시적 측면 그리고 자본시장 및 화폐금융 영역에 초점을 맞추어 20세기 역사를 연구한다. 전간기와 대공황 시기에 관한 많은 논문을 썼고, 같은 학과의 배리 아이켄그린 및 크리스티나 로머와 함께 버클리 경제학과를 대공황 연구의 메카로 만드는 데 크게 기여했다. 최근에는 현실 문제에 대한 기고, 대중강연, 블로그 활동을 활발하게 하고 있다.
옮긴이: 홍기빈 저자파일 신간알리미 신청
최근작 : <위기 이후의 경제철학>,<어나더 경제사 2>,<어나더 경제사 1> … 총 111종 (모두보기)
글로벌정치경제연구소 소장. 서울대학교 경제학과를 졸업하고 같은 대학원 외교학과 석사과정을 마쳤으며 캐나다 요크대학교에서 정치학과 박사과정을 수료했다. 금융경제연구소 연구위원, 칼폴라니사회경제연구소 소장을 역임했다. 《어나더 경제사》(전2권), 《위기 이후의 경제철학》 등을 썼고, 케이트 레이워스의 《도넛 경제학》, 칼 폴라니의 《거대한 전환》 등을 옮겼다. 유튜브 채널 ‘홍기빈 클럽’을 운영하고 있다.
감수: 김두얼 저자파일 신간알리미 신청
최근작 : <읽기의 최전선>,<살면서 한번은 경제학 공부>,<서울리뷰오브북스 11호> … 총 31종 (모두보기)
《서울리뷰오브북스》 편집장. 명지대학교에서 경제사, 제도경제학, 경제학 등을 연구하고 강의한다. 저서로 『경제성장과 사법정책』, 『한국경제사의 재해석』, 『사라지는 것은 아쉬움을 남긴다』, 『살면서 한번은 경제학 공부』가 있다.
출판사 제공 책소개
New York Times, Wall Street Journal 베스트셀러
FT, The Economist 올해의 책
폴 크루그먼, 로렌스 서머스, 토마 피케티, 마틴 울프 추천
김두얼 교수 감수/추천
최초의 경제의 세기
에릭 홉스봄은 1914년의 1차 대전부터 1991년 소련의 몰락까지를 현실사회주의와 파시즘이 세계를 뒤흔든 ‘단기 20세기’로 규정한다. 이와 달리 들롱은 1870년부터 2010년까지, 즉 인류를 극심한 빈곤에 가두었던 문을 여는 데 성공한 이후부터 이 성공이 가져온 부의 급격한 상승 궤적의 속도를 유지하는 데 실패하기까지의 시기를 ‘장기 20세기’로 규정한다.
1870년 이전에는 기술이 인구 증가와의 속도 경쟁에서 번번이 패배하며 대부분의 시대에 대부분의 사람들이 자신과 가족들이 입에 풀칠은 할 수 있을지, 지붕도 없는 곳에서 벌벌 떨어야 하지 않을지를 걱정해야 했다. 즉 맬서스 함정이 작동했고, 맬서스가 옳았다. 실제로 1870년대 초반 존 스튜어트 밀은 “지금까지 만들어진 모든 기계적 발명으로 과연 고된 하루가 조금이라도 가벼워진 이가 있는지 의심스럽다”고 말했다.
상황은 1870년 무렵부터 변하기 시작했다. 인류는 조직과 제도와 기술(기업 연구소, 근대적 대기업, 세계화 등)을 갖추며 그전까지 인류를 지독한 가난에 가두었던 문을 열어젖혔다. 인류 경제성장의 핵심인 (자연을 조작하고 인간을 조직하는 것에 관한) 유용한 아이디어의 축적물(총요소생산성)의 세계 평균 성장률은 1870년 이전에는 연 0.45%였는데, 1870년 이후에는 연 2.1%로 높아졌다. 그 결과 1870년 대비 140년 동안 21.5배 증가하였고, 인구 증가에 따른 효과 등을 감안하면 인류는 8.8배 더 잘살게 되었다.
하이에크와 폴라니의 결투,
케인스의 축복을 받은 이들의 강제 결혼과 ‘영광의 30년’
타임머신을 타고 1870년으로 돌아가서 당시 사람들에게 2010년의 세상을 알려주면 어떤 반응을 보일까? 분명 유토피아라고 생각할 것이 확실하다. 8.8배 더 잘살게 되었다면, 자연을 조작하고 인간을 조직하는 충분한 능력을 갖추게 되었음을 의미하는 것이 아닌가.
하지만 물질적 풍요 속에서 조화로운 사회를 건설하는 것은 엄청나게 어려운 과제였다. 인류는 유토피아에 도달하기는커녕 이제 그 길 위에 있는지조차도 확실하지 않다. 무엇이 잘못된 것일까?
경제성장은 무엇보다 시장경제에 의해 매개되었다. 하이에크는 시장만이 성장의 과업을 이룰 수 있으며, 인간은 절대 이해할 수 없는 자체 논리를 가진 시장 시스템의 작동에 믿음을 가지라고 인류에게 명령했다. 즉 ‘주신 분도 시장이시오, 가져가신 분도 시장이시니. 시장의 이름을 찬양하라’고 말한 셈이다.
인류는 이를 거부했다. 시장경제는 1차 대전 직전까지 북방세계를 중심으로 급속한 성장을 가져왔지만, 극심한 불평등과 혼란도 함께 나타났다. 장기 20세기는 이러한 문제를 해결하겠다는 다양한 아이디어가 나타나고 격돌했던 시기라고 할 수 있다. 특히 20세기 전반기에는 무솔리니의 파시즘과 레닌의 현실사회주의가 등장했고, 이들의 실험은 우리 모두가 알고 있는 최악의 재앙으로 끝났다.
폴라니는 사회정의는 잊어버려야 한다던 하이에크와 달리 사람들은 스스로 재산권 이외의 다른 권리들을 가지고 있다고 생각한다며, 다른 해결책을 제시했다. 사람들은 가치 있는 재산을 소유하지 못한 이들도 경청 받을 수 있는 사회적 권력을 가져야 하며, 사회는 마땅히 그들의 필요와 욕구를 고려해야 한다고 생각한다. 그래서 장기 20세기 내내 사람들은 시장경제가 가져온 것을 보며 다른 무언가를 요구했다.
시장의 능력에 대한 하이에크의 비전이 현실화되기 위해서는 세 가지 전제 조건이 있었다. 먼저 시장이 기능하기 위해서는 경쟁이 필요했다. 둘째로 케인스의 아이디어가 중요했는데, 시장경제는 기업이 이윤을 창출할 수 있는 (사람들의) 지출이 있을 경우에만 적절하게 작동할 수 있었다. 사회 전체의 지출이 부족한데 정부가 개입해서는 안 된다는 자유방임의 사상이 가져온 결과가 바로 대공황이었다.
대공황은 자유방임 시스템에서 왼쪽의 좀 더 관리되는 ‘혼합’경제로 이동하는 데에 주요한 동인이 되었다. 혼합경제 혹은 사회민주주의의 목표는 고상한 사회주의의 목표와 확연히 달랐다. 대신 보다 평등한 방향으로 소득을 재분배하기 위해 소득 부조와 누진세를 제공하는 데에 초점을 맞췄다. 필수품을 모두 공공이 제공하는 고도의 사회주의 체제는 비효율적일 수 있었지만, 소득을 단지 좀 더 평등한 방식으로 분배하는 사민주의 시스템은 이를 궁핍한 이들에게만 제공하고 시장의 마법과도 같은 힘을 사회적 목표에 활용함으로써 낭비를 피해 갔다. 이렇게 케인스의 축복 아래 강제로 폴라니와 결혼함으로써(세 번째 조건을 충족하며) 하이에크의 비전은 현실화될 수 있었다. 그 결과는 급속한 성장과 상대적으로 평등한 분배를 달성한 전후 ‘영광의 30년’이었다.
신자유주의로의 전환
빠른 성장과 균등한 분배를 달성한 사회민주주의는 강력했지만, 문제가 하나 있었다. 사회민주주의는 스스로의 몰락과 신자유주의의 발호를 가져오게 될 것이라는 점이었다. 사회민주주의는 기본적으로 시민들이 동등한 존재라는 전제에서 출발하는데, 일부 시민은 자기들은 출생, 교육, 피부색, 종교, 그 밖의 특징들로 인해 자신들이 다른 이들보다 더욱 평등하다고 생각할 수 있다. 고용 수준이 높고 성장이 강력한 동안에는 이 딜레마가 덮어질 수 있지만, 성장이 둔화되고 고용이 줄면 갈등이 증폭된다. 이것이 사민주의의 몰락과 신자유주의로의 전환을 가져온 기본적인 배경이었다.
여기에 더해 1970년대의 인플레이션 위기가 결정적인 역할을 했다. 린든 존슨 정부 후반부터 슬금슬금 올라가던 물가는 닉슨이 취임하던 1969년 5%에 이른다. 이어 1973년 욤-키푸르 전쟁(4차 중동전쟁)이 터지면서 오일 쇼크가 찾아왔다. 그 결과 1970년대 말에 이르면 인플레이션은 통제를 벗어난 것으로 받아들여진다. 이러한 인플레이션을 초래하는 정부는 당연히 무능한 정부이다. 1970년대 후반에 사민주의를 비판하는 이들은 인플레이션을 가리키면서 이렇게 묻기만 하면 됐다. ‘제대로 기능하는 시스템이라면 이런 일을 초래했을까?’ 답은 당연히 ‘노’였다.
이렇게 사회민주주의로부터 신자유주의로의 급격한 전환이 이루어졌고, 레이건과 대처는 이러한 상황에서 집권했다. 흥미롭게도 레이건과 대처 모두 실업과 빈곤이라는 막대한 대가를 치르고 얻은 인플레이션 종식을 제외하면, 그들의 국내 정책은 실패했고 사민주의보다 더 성공적이지 못했다. 그들은 규제를 철폐하여 고용과 임금수준을 올리려고 했고, 부자들의 세금을 낮춰 투자, 기업 활동, 성장을 촉진하려고 했으며, 감세를 통해 정부지출과 정부 규모를 줄이려고 했다. 하지만 임금은 다시 빠르게 상승하지 않았고, 투자와 성장 모두 가속도가 붙지 않았으며, 정부는 축소가 아니라 (대대적인 군비 증강으로) 확대되었다. 미국에서는 그때까지 있다 해도 한두 해 정도에 그쳤던 큰 폭의 재정 적자가 일상화되었다. 1980년대 말이 되자 신자유주의 프로젝트 또한 영광의 30년 동안 높아진 기대 수준을 충족시키지 못했음이 분명해졌다.
특히 미국의 제조업이 무너지고 러스트 벨트가 나타나게 된 계기에 대한 분석이 흥미롭다. 레이건 정부의 재정 적자로 1980년대의 절반 이상 동안 미국 달러가 고평가되었는데, 이로 인해 미국에서의 생산 비용이 외국 기업의 가격보다 높으니 투자를 줄이고 축소하라는 신호가 1980년대에 미국 제조업에 전달되었다고 한다, 그런데 이 경우에는 잘못된 신호였다. 즉 시장이 비교 우위의 논리로 보낸 신호가 아니라 재정 적자로 인해 미국 정부가 차입하려는 단기 현금 수요가 급등하면서 전달된 신호였다. 결국 레이건 정부의 감세 정책은 미국의 제조업에 치명적인 타격을 입혔고, 오늘날 러스트 벨트로 알려진 지역을 만들어냈다.
이렇게 성과가 뛰어나지 못했음에도 신자유주의는 대중의 저항을 부르기보다는 통념으로 받아들여졌다. 저자는 그 이유의 일부를 이데올로기 승리(사회주의의 몰락)의 공을 신자유주의의 기수 레이건이 가져갔다는 데서 찾는다. 대처의 경우에는 포클랜드 전쟁 승리로 한껏 고양된 영국인들의 심리가 영향을 끼쳤다. 물론 1990년대 이후에는 3차 산업혁명으로도 불리는 정보통신 기술의 발전과 이로 인한 일시적인 생산성 상승이 신자유주의 국면을 지속하는 데 영향을 끼쳤다.
2008년 경제 위기와 장기 20세기의 종언
1990년대 초반 시작된 정보기술의 발전(혹자는 3차 산업혁명으로도 부른다)과 함께 25년 가까이 심각한 경기침체나 인플레이션은 자취를 감추었다. 2007년 이전 10년간만 보면 생산성 상승률은 2차 대전 이후의 황금시대에 근접한 수준으로 높았다. 대안정기였던 셈이다.
하지만 첨단기술의 발전이 북방세계의 생산성을 현저히 높이던 시대는 2007년에 끝났다. 무어의 법칙은 기술적 한계에 부딪혔고, 정보 제공(최소한 효용은 높여주었다)에서 주목 경제(attention economy)로 (인간의 심리적 약점과 편향을 이용하여 주목을 끄는 방식으로) 초점이 이동했다. 그 사이 일련의 금융위기가 있었고 파생상품 시장이 커지고 복잡해지고 있었음에도 규제는 완화되었다. 대공황의 기억은 잊혔고, 중앙은행과 금융가들은 자신감과 오만에 가득 차 있었다. 그리고 그 오만이 복수를 불렀다.
들롱은 2007~2008년 경제위기가 불가피했거나 심지어 필요했다는 주장(대표적으로 시카고의 코크레인은 “우리는 경기침체를 겪어야 한다. 네바다의 건설 현장에서 평생 못질하며 살았던 사람은 이제 다른 일을 찾아야 한다”고 말했다. 대공황 때에도 경기침체는 필요한 일이며 아무것도 하지 않고 가만히 있어야 한다는 동일한 주장이 있었다)을 건설업에서의 조정은 위기 이전에 이미 이루어졌다며 반박한다. 또한 정부가 적극적으로 지출을 확대해야 할 시점에 “허리띠를 졸라매야 합니다”라고 한 오바마 대통령을 비판한다. 그리고 이제는 ‘유령 도시’가 된 건설 프로젝트를 일으켰던 중국 정부가 경제위기가 가장 잘 대처한 국가라고 평가한다.
2007~2008년 경제위기에 북방세계의 정부들이 제대로 대처하지 못하면서 장기 20세기는 2010년에 끝났다. 이를 되돌릴 수 없다는 사실은 2016년 도널드 트럼프가 당선되면서 확인되었다. 성장은 느려졌고, 세계화는 역전되었으며, 미국은 더 이상 리더로 여겨지지 않는다. 이제 우리는 새로운 거대 내러티브가 필요한 새로운 시대로 접어들었다.
※ 미국의 1인당 실질 GDP 증가율
1946~1976년 3.4%
1976~1996년 2%
1996~2006년 2.6%
2006~2016년 0.6%
방대하면서도 세밀한, 신랄하면서도 위트 있는 20세기 세계경제사
스스로를 신자유주의 주변의 경제학자라고 이야기하는 저자는 실제 클린턴 행정부의 재무부 차관보로 신자유주의 정책을 앞장서 시행했던 당사자이다. 그런 면에서 이 책은 스스로의 입장에 대한 평가와 반성이라고 할 수도 있겠다.
수많은 쟁점과 깨알 같은 디테일을 담고 있는 것도 이 책의 장점 중 하나다. 저자는 역사의 필연적, 구조적 흐름을 설명하면서도 여러 곳에서 ‘개인’의 역할과 우연적 요인을 상기시킨다. 파시즘과 현실사회주의가 좌우의 정치적 스펙트럼의 문제라기보다 말굽의 편자와 같은 형상일 수도 있다든지, 극단적인 시장지상주의자가 파시즘을 지지하던 사례(하이에크는 대처에게 편지를 보내 피노체트를 지원하라고 요청하지만, 대처는 단호하게 거절한다)도 등장하며. 최근 제기되는 탈성장에 대한 입장도 짐작할 수 있다(노아 스미스와의 인터뷰에서 아직 빈곤선 아래의 사람들이 수억 명이 있다고 에둘러 입장을 밝힘). 이 외에도 중국 근대화 프로젝트 중 하나로 리훙장이 신경 쓰던 카이핑 탄광을 홀라당 벗겨 먹은 허버트 후버, 괴팍한 성격의 니콜라 테슬라, 철도망과 전신망의 건설에 불만을 토로하던 중산층 백인 남성 헨리 소로, 가족과 함께 방문한 뉴욕을 ‘미래가 만들어지고 있는 용광로’라고 칭한 볼셰비키 혁명의 주역 트로츠키, 사회주의자에서 파시스트로 전향한 무솔리니, 뉴욕에 금융가인 외할아버지를 둔 윈스턴 스펜서 처칠 등 흥미진진한 이야기들이 등장한다.
자신의 박사과정 학생에게 “너가 보내준 연구계획서에 노벨상을 받을 만큼 뛰어난 아이디어가 담겨 있다는 것을 잘 알고 있다. 하지만 안타깝게도 그것을 찾을 수가 없었다”고 말하기도 했다는 저자의 독설과 위트도 책 곳곳에서 만날 수 있다.
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===Slouching Toward Utopia: The Economic History of the Twentieth Century Hardcover – 1 September 2012
by DeLong (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 718 ratings
An instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller from one of the world's leading economists, offering a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, but left us unsatisfied
"A magisterial history."--Paul Krugman
Named a Best Book of 2022 by Financial Times * Economist * Fast Company
Before 1870, humanity lived in dire poverty, with a slow crawl of invention offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation and utterly transforming the economy again and again. Our ancestors would have presumed we would have used such powers to build utopia. But it was not so. When 1870-2010 ended, the world instead saw global warming; economic depression, uncertainty, and inequality; and broad rejection of the status quo.
Economist Brad DeLong's Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of how this unprecedented explosion of material wealth occurred, how it transformed the globe, and why it failed to deliver us to utopia. Of remarkable breadth and ambition, it reveals the last century to have been less a march of progress than a slouch in the right direction.
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===
From Australia
Andrew Taylor
2.0 out of 5 stars Rambling
Reviewed in Australia on 20 November 2023
Verified Purchase
First half of the book is interesting enough through to the post-WW2 era, but the second half gradually becomes more rambling and unstructured with the final chapters verging on unreadable.
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From other countries
Isolatrix
5.0 out of 5 stars The best economic history you will read.
Reviewed in the United States on 25 October 2022
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This erudite and masterful economic history uses a framework to document and explain what the author calls the long 20th C, a period from 1870 to 2010 which experienced extraordinary economic and material wealth for everyone (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), yet only partially delivered what should by now have been a utopia by any prior standards.
The period is chosen at its start the rate of economic growth rapidly increases, and for the first time, allows the population to escape from the Malthusian trap that was the lot of humans from prehistory, and certainly since the start of civilization. While before then the upsetting of our ape-evolved social hierarchies was the only way for individuals and groups to improve their lot by getting a larger share of resources, but by and large, elites controlled the social system in a variety of ways ensuring that most of the population remained poor and at the mercy of those elites. After 1870, the wealth rapidly improved for most of the population, although the inequality seemed to increase, except for 2 periods, most recently for the 30 years after WWII. However, since 2010, after the financial collapse of 2007, growth has returned to a slow, pre-1870 rate, and inequality has increased with a vengeance. The author uses the framework of Hayek (the market is all) and Polyani (other rights to wealth and status) is important to show how different political systems have managed their economies, with some moderate, but variable success. [ I well recall a British tv political show that at the beginning of the Thatcher era suggested that the government should stop trying to make teh population happier and focus on wealthier - a Hayekian ideal that was the start of the neoliberal in the US and Britain.] 2010 saw the end of any success of the neoliberal experiment, and populations have been turning back to authoritarian/fascist approaches, last seen between WWI and WWII, and what the socialist systems of the USSR and China evolved into.
DeLong has no answer for the why's of this history, nor any prescription to get societies moving forward toward a utopia again. [This is unlike Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century". DeLong wisely just provides a rich, beautifully written, economic history that could easily become a required reading, and rather than like many historians make historical events seem inevitable with hindsight, he acknowledges that how the twists and turns of history have resulted are not clear and that he may even be an imperfect historian as events overlap with his experiences.
For myself, I think that the struggle of individuals and groups to ascend our evolutionary-determined social pyramid explains some of why various systems resulted in wealth inequality, either stably or by revolution. Whatever the system, some will always do anything to ascend to teh top of the pyramid by whatever means they have - by force of arms, by a revolt of the masses, by wealth accumulation through commerce, and so forth.
My only niggle is that the editors missed some errors - most notable that it was Edward VIII, not VII who abdicated the British throne, and it seems that autocorrect has changed some words that I do not think teh author intended. Hopefully, a 2nd edition will fix any errors and language. But these are niggles in what is a superb book and highly recommended.
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Prasenjit K. Basu
5.0 out of 5 stars The West from 1870 to 2010, reviewed brilliantly (albeit with a couple of blind spots)
Reviewed in India on 9 June 2024
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A superb exploration of the "long twentieth century" (1870-2010), albeit almost exclusively from the perspective of the North Atlantic (plus Japan). There is much to admire in this magnum opus, but the admirable author is too wedded to the "social-democratic utopia" that he extols in 1945-73 for the West (including Japan) -- and 1938-73 for the US. He wants to blame accidental errors like the oil crisis and Vietnam War than systemic rot for the demise of the model in the 1970s (he doesn't even mention the long "winters of discontent" in Britain during the Wilson and Callaghan years that brought Thatcher to power, and glosses over what led to the stagflation of the Carter years that brought Reagan to power). The author is reluctant to acknowledge that it was Reagan and Thatcher's economic and foreign policies that finally ended the Soviet experiment (of "really existing socialism", as DeLong sardonically terms that experiment throughout this fine book). Despite those flaws in analysis, the book is a magnificent read that I highly recommend.
Despite my recommendation though, the book does neglect (and completely misunderstands) the global south. China makes a brief appearance towards the end, but the author fails to examine how the "global investment drought" (the obverse side of the "global savings glut") was caused by China's unbridled growth in industrial capacity -- totally oblivious to the normal tenets of market economies -- over the past 30 years. (China made limitless credit available to its state-owned companies, which kept expanding capacity even when the incremental capacity was highly unprofitable, or was rendering a lot of existing Chinese capacity heavily unprofitable; when domestic demand stopped growing around 2012, China began exporting this excess capacity, crashing world prices and causing a severe investment drought in the rest of the world). The world should never have been trading normally with this non-market economy. Bringing this analysis in would have helped DeLong understand a lot of the economic angst that led to the rise of Trump (and indeed of Marine Le Pen in France, Orban in Hungary and Meloni in Italy).
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Andreu
3.0 out of 5 stars Estado del libro
Reviewed in Spain on 16 October 2023
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El contenido del libro es muy interesante y la narrativa que quiere transmitir se entiende de forma clara. Es un libro enriquecedor.
No obstante, la valoración que yo haré es sobre el rol de Amazon aquí: entrega y envío (para valoración del libro en sí hay mil webs de literatura).
El libro llegó en general en buen estado pero la tapa venía doblada en una esquina. Sé que los libros de tapa blanda son delicados pero si te dedicas a enviar objetos, tendrías que asegurarte de que lleguen bien. El servicio fue rápido, pero la calidad es más importante.
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PIERPIER
5.0 out of 5 stars Interessante libro di storia economica
Reviewed in Italy on 12 February 2023
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Questo è l’ultima libro di Bradford De Long, storico dell’economia, che insegna alla Università di Berkley. Si tratta di un libro storico economico che abbraccia quello che l’autore definisce il lungo XX secolo, che va dal 1870 al 2010. Perché parta dal 1870 è chiaro, perché a partire da quell’anno la crescita economica, sostanzialmente limitata al cosiddetto nord economico (Nord America, Europa, e poi anche Giappone), assume ritmi mai visti nei periodi precedenti. Questo aumento della crescita si deve ad alcuni fattori, in primo luogo la evoluzione tecnologica che diviene più organizzata con la nascita dei laboratori di ricerca pubblici e privati, lo sviluppo delle organizzazioni nelle industrie in grado di far crescere la produzione in modo organico e scientifico, e la globalizzazione dei mercati grazie alla diminuzione dei costi di trasporto. Grazie all’aumento della produzione e della produttività si riesce, almeno nel nord del mondo, a uscire dalla trappola malthusiana, cioè al fatto che l’aumento di produttività riesce a superare l’aumento della popolazione, che per Malthus era il problema che limitava le possibilità di benessere lasciando la maggioranza della popolazione nella indigenza e povertà.
La storia è fatta di idee,ma anche di personalità individuali che fanno la differenza. Da una parte abbiamo le idee pro mercato, in particolare Hayek, per cui è il mercato che riesce meglio di tutto a creare le condizioni per la crescita economica, che l’autore sintetizza nella affermazione: il mercato da, il mercato prende, benedetto sia il mercato. D’altra parte c’è il pensiero di Polanyi per cui il mercato tende a considerare principalmente i diritti di proprietà mentre le persone credono fermamente di avere altri diritti, questo crea tensione nella società che tende ad opporsi agli esiti del mercato lasciato a se stesso. C’è poi una via di mezzo tra queste due visioni che è quella di Keynes. Il libro ripercorre la storia che va dal 1870 al 2010 analizzando sopratutto gli aspetti economici, sociali ed ideologici. Un ottimo e interessante libro che vale la pena leggere. Recensione completa su demo-critica-mente.blogspot.it
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Curious reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Lively synthesis
Reviewed in Germany on 6 December 2023
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Brad DeLong's "Grand Narrative" about the "long 20th century" is a fascinating account on two levels - professional and personal - of 140-year period from 1870 to 2010, and its salient economic aspects and inflection points, which dramatically explains how the world - especially the Global North - got from there to here. Throughout his narrative, he opposes the free Hayekian market and more social democratic and protective Polyanion schools, with side narratives on fascism and socialism.
His writing style is anything but simple prose and is more a series of tendentious arguments peppered with academic jargon to lighten the message.
Ultimately, the book follows a trajectory which is not, nevertheless, radical and in many ways echoes Robert Gordon's "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" in both message and selected timeframe.
For me the most fascinating sections deal with the Great Recession and DeLong's analysis of the shortcoming of nearly all the major players in this crisis - what they got right partly and what they got wrong (largely). He, modestly, takes credit himself for some degree of the lack of preparedness of the economic profession for what took place in 2008 and beyond. In the book's conclusion, he tantalizingly indicates that as of 2020 a new Grand Narrative will have begun, yet to be written.
DeLong's book, "Slouching towards Utopia" is a modest title for a tumultuous period of modern history and one almost wished he had been more spartan in his text through 2010 and had tried to surmise the period we are now entering. Perhaps this will follow in an updated edition or under a new title. But, the sequel to this present book will need to be more international still and examine a world with multiple competing economic approaches.
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Len
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for understanding our prosperity as compared with that of our ancestors and progeny.
Reviewed in Canada on 5 December 2022
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Mr. DeLong marks our slouch towards utopia as beginning in the year 1870 and ending in 2010. Now, what does he mean by the term “slouching towards utopia.” Well, before the year, 1870, mankind was basically, just surviving. Whatever energy that was gained through increased agricultural production was put toward the production of more babies. Beyond that point, malnutrition would set in. Babies died and women could no longer ovulate. It was a one-to-one ratio so to speak and this had been going on since the beginning of time. It was the world written about by Thomas Malthus back in 1798.
So, essentially, man’s existence had been rather miserable. And then, suddenly, in the year, 1870, production began to exceed consumption. Technology had created a situation such that humans in countries like the U.S. produced more food than needed so they could, well, just relax. They could have more babies and feed them or not.
What made this possible? Well, according to Mr. DeLong, it was the corporation, global transportation, global communications, and falling trade barriers. With the corporations came the industrial research lab. Guys and gals could devote all their time inventing. Bradford calls it the invention of invention. If you look around your room, pretty much everything you see would be the result of these research labs. Its filled with stuff our ancestors wouldn’t dream of possessing and we accumulated with a fraction of the effort required by them simply to survive, utopia if you want to think about it that way.
Of course, the corporation reproduces these inventions in mass numbers and can send them all over the world using steel shipping containers such that the movement of these products accounts for about one percent of a good’s retail value.
The slouch towards utopia since 1870 has moved in fits and starts. Utopian began with a start that introduced trade on a global scale as never seen before and instant communication through the telegraph cable. Then came World War I followed by a spurt of growth and productivity followed by the depression and then World War II.
Post-war economic growth has been tremendous bringing increased prosperity to most of the world. And then, 2010 when Barrack Obama had a choice to invest in America and bring it out of a financial crises caused by the very institutions responsible for its stability followed by the election of Donald Trump and a move backward away from increased prosperity to the opposite.
This a book to read if you want to understand our prosperity as compared with our ancestors and possibly, our progeny.
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Caro
4.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 June 2023
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My slight disappointment with this book is that I had expected that such a vast amount of work studying the economic history of the long 20th century would result in at least a few clues as to where we go from here. I would have welcomed more analysis of the impact of population increase and decline and also of the devastating growth of welfare dependency. Globalisation has enabled western governments to disguise increasing inequality by allowing the market to provide cheap material goods/luxuries as well as welfare to the wider populace which has fostered a something-for-nothing culture. What we used to value as a benefit (eg free health care, education) is now seen as a right. With prices rising as globalisation goes into reverse, welfare systems threatening to bankrupt many countries and demographics reducing the tax paying versus dependent population, not to mention the cost of dealing with global warming, how will governments square the circle? No idea but at least after reading this book I realise I am not alone. No-one has any idea.
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Anagh Subhro Ganguly
4.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening
Reviewed in India on 23 May 2023
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A brief sweep of modern political-economic history. The narrative is smooth for most of the part although a bit dense at the end.
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Vlad Thelad
5.0 out of 5 stars Political economy lens for a grand narrative of a long century
Reviewed in Canada on 23 February 2023
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Even though recent history has been, written, interpreted, debated and poured over in so many ways, there is always room to approach things with a twist, and in this case one with very sound underpinnings. Bradford DeLong brings forth his grand narrative of what he terms the long twentieth century. The cornerstone, the fundamental explanatory root of his overarching telling is the examination of the causes and consequences of the extraordinary economic growth, which began in 1870. The political economy lens allows the author to explore how and why, with all this wealth, humankind has not even come close to making this an utopian world. John Maynard Keynes wondered, back in 1930, if once freedom from pressing economic cares was achieved, we could live wisely, and agreeable, and well. The question remains open, and sometimes, it is hard to be optimistic.
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Michael J Atkinson
4.0 out of 5 stars Why did 1870 happen?
Reviewed in the United States on 12 November 2023
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The author picks an unorthodox starting point. He made his case and he is correct. 1870 is a real and permanent bend in the curve. So why did it happen then? What happened that made the change possible. Why did we not just end up with a steampunk world?
Less than 10 years earlier, in 1861-2, Clerk Maxwell published his laws. This enabled advancements in electric motors and generators (which, Maxwell explained) are duals of each other). That meant that power could be generated in one place and used in another place miles away. Without Maxwell, the whole debate between Tesla and Edison could not have happened. Without Maxwell, electronics would have been impossible. No radio, no pop culture in the modern sense.
I'm not a historian, but there is a story to be told here (hint, hint). I would very much like to know that story. Economists so often view science as exogenous to technology and growth, but it shouldn't be ignored entirely.
I know I'm criticizing the author for not writing the book I want and instead writing the one he thought is important, but the 1860s were when it all changed. It just became visible around 1870. Yes, other things happened, too, such as the invention of the industrial research laboratory (which I believe Edison claimed credit for), but I do feel like the fundamental spark (sorry for the pun) is missing.
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M. Yang
5.0 out of 5 stars This book provides you with the tools to call out fake news on economic policy!
Reviewed in the United States on 22 September 2022
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Note: I usually do not review books, but there are just too many fake 1-star reviews, of people who obviously did not read the book but instead complain about a scam seller of a copy of the book.
Additional full disclosure: I am a recovering libertarian, thanks in part to Brad De Long.
I have been waiting for this book for 20 years, ever since I read some draft chapters that Brad De Long posted in the late 90s on his blog. It has been worth the wait. One of the basic truths of our time is the fake news asymmetry principle: “It is much easier to make up lies and fake news, than it is to debunk them.”. Brad Delong’s world economic history of the long 20th Century gives you the tools to debunk and call out fake news.
For example, many other grand stories (or “narratives”) about the 20th Century (“Age of Extremes” by Hobspawn and “Commanding Heights” by Yergin and Stanislaw) focus excessively on the rivalry of ideas between Marxism and “neoliberalism”, as represented by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. Yet, in the political discourse of the last 30 years, Marxism has mostly been a foil for the right and was supported by only a small minority on the left. The viewpoint that today’s left is nothing else than your Grandpa’s Marxism is an example of fake news. Instead, the counterpoint in the battle of ideas to neoliberalism is identified by Brad De Long as Karl Polanyi and related ideas of European-style social democracy. Polanyi’s key insight was that markets did not just bring explosive economic growth since 1870, but also started to decouple themselves from social relations that used to embed them. For example, it used to be much more natural for CEOs to feel social responsibility, instead of focusing on shareholder value only. The vanguard of this decoupling process was Friedrich Hayek, who argued that unless we let unconstrained markets reign, the state will enslave us all. In contrast Polanyi argued that if nobody deliberately regulates the market, the backlash against untamed markets will enslave us all. Or in the words of John Kennedy: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.“ (Inauguration Speech). It is hard to see Republicans' turn towards MAGA not as basically confirming Polanyi's argument. Hayek vs Polanyi is the central tension that makes you understand the long 20th Century and it continues to shape our lives today. And I applaud Brad De Long for writing about Hayek and especially Polanyi in such a clear and accessible way.
A second strength of this book is that I think it is actually ideologically balanced (instead of being fake balanced like Fox News). Much of the tale of economic growth in the 20th Century is about the pendulum swings in globalization and about technological progress and Brad De Long discusses these trends without falling into the trap of only seeing the positive side of less hunger and less poverty for many. Instead, he emphasizes throughout the long shadow of slavery, privilege and exclusion. Similarly, “government failure” isn’t just the story of corruption and incompetence but also of insufficient intervention and failure to keep markets open for everyone.
Finally, the book is full of little historical gems, that are thought-provoking and insightful. For example:
(1) Why did neoliberalism persist as convincing story of the how the world works, both on the left and on the right, when the track record of its policies is quite poor? Brad De Long: Reagan got credit for the fall of the USSR (with lots of hindsight bias about the “inevitable collapse of the Soviet command economy”!) (p.453)
(2) How does pre-1914 globalization differ from post-1989 globalization? Brad De Long: transnational corporate control was infeasible then but is the norm now (p.483) – this reinforces the notion that anonymous global forces shape local daily life and explains why MAGA's rallies against “Globalism” are effective.
(3) How was fascism and Nazism possible in the heart of civilized Western Europe and Germany, the country of Immanuel Kant, a key philosopher of the Enlightenment? Brad De Long: People failed to respond to market forces destroying the social foundations they are based on. And neoliberals have a pretty sad history of standing up for democracy and constitutional human rights. For example, it is well-known that Milton Friedman supported Pinochet’s fascist regime in Chile in the 1970s. But Brad De Long also shows that even the libertarians Ludwig Van Mises and Friedrich Hayek supported the idea that fascism should be used to halt political movements towards social democracy. (p280) Remember that the next time Rand Paul wants to tell you something about civil liberties!
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SJain
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent
Reviewed in India on 18 March 2023
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makes one feel on the right trajectory rather than day-2-day slide one feels in short term
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Heinz Zourek
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding
Reviewed in Germany on 21 October 2023
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An incredibly powerful and well founded analysis and presentation!!
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KEITH D HAXTON
5.0 out of 5 stars Try it
Reviewed in Canada on 19 January 2023
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Expansive narrative. Well written.
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Miles Rutherford
1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed
Reviewed in Canada on 8 October 2022
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This book did not live up to its hype. It tries to cover too much ground and therefore provides cursory coverage of hundreds of issues. His grounding in history is not as firm as I had expected it to be. The writing is awkward. He frequently uses the term ‘really existing.’ I have no idea what that means.
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Andrew Desmond
5.0 out of 5 stars We Live in Interesting Times
Reviewed in the United States on 11 July 2024
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In spite of its curious title, “Slouching Towards Utopia” is an economic history of the world from 1870 to 2010. The book’s author, Brad DeLong, calls this period “the long twentieth century”. It’s a wonderful piece of work.
DeLong is of the view that, by and large, the 140 years that followed on from 1870 was a time of remarkable economic change. The world grew dramatically richer and this despite the damaging effect of two world wars, countless smaller regional wars and the Great Depression. People in 1870 would be amazed at just how much the world had changed in a handful of generations.
Yet the essence of deLong’s argument is not so much that there has been dramatic change but that it’s not been a compelling as one might think at first glance. The world is much richer. However, its movement towards Utopia has been one of slouching change compared to what should have been possible. Many opportunities have been missed.
Perhaps more disconcerting than missed opportunities is that the deLong ends his analysis on a pessimistic note. The so called Great Recession of earlier this century has seen the world grasp for new solutions but unable to find any. Neo liberal technocrats seem bereft of ideas and the most strident demands are coming from Trump or Trump adjacent economic nationalists who would only produce greater inequality and economic rigidity. We are living in perilous times. And, of course, always lurking in the background is the existential threat of climate change.
For the general reader with an interest in modern economic history, this book is highly recommended.
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Thomas Kochan
3.0 out of 5 stars Lincoln was right: DeLong didn’t take the time to write a good short story.
Reviewed in the United States on 6 July 2024
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Good historical analysis but so poorly organized. Repetitive to the point of distraction. Also misses the key turning point: 1980. That date signaled the end of the post WWII Social Contract fueled by the Treaty of Detroit and subsequence collectively bargained wages that kept up with inflation and productivity growth. That was the beginning of the mess we now contend with. A new Social Contract has to be negotiated. Maybe workers are now leading the way again, thankfully.
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Bill
4.0 out of 5 stars Unique perspective on history, and very interesting.
Reviewed in the United States on 16 December 2022
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I found it very interesting, but I also found about a dozen words I had never seen before, about half I could not even find in a cheap dictionary.
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Gary C. Marfin
5.0 out of 5 stars A Grand Narrative, A Great Book
Reviewed in the United States on 6 October 2022
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This remarkable, ambitious book deserves a wide reading. Potential readers should not be intimidated by its size. Bradford DeLong’s economic history of the long twentieth history is well-written and fast paced. True, Professor DeLong can digress. But the digressions, far from a wasteful distraction, work to the reader’s benefit. This is not to say I agree with him on every point. It is simply to say he’s never boring and, more often than not, quite insightful.
At the risk of over simplifying a wide-ranging book, Professor DeLong’s thesis is that, starting in 1870, humanity, for the most part, and especially the global north,
experienced the possibility of basically living above a subsistence level. It continued to enjoy a long century of economic growth, albeit disrupted by two world wars, and a global depression, until approximately 2010.
It’s hard to know whether anyone other than an accomplished economist is actually in a position to declare that mankind achieved glorious years, or otherwise, for the most part, approached an economic utopia. Professor DeLong has the advantage of being able to draw upon quantitative indicators of progress, and that’s critical, because, if you asked individuals in the global north, but especially the U.S., I doubt they felt very happy about their circumstances during much, if not most of the long twentieth century. This is not to say that people were not cognizant of the technological advances unfolding around them; were not unappreciative of those advances, especially in the realm of medicine and digital technology; and were not just plain grateful for the corresponding quality-of-life gains that ensued. That, however, is a long way from the happiness one associates with life in a utopia. Everyone recognizes, and many lament, the political polarization in modern America, the roots of which were probably well antecedent to 2010.
Only a book this well done, and this ambitious can garner relatively minor criticisms on matters outside the grand narrative. Given the importance Mr. DeLong places on the industrial lab, for example, I’m a bit surprised that more was not said about the role of intellectual property (though he does a great job the Tesla-Edison, or AC-DC race) in U.S. development.
Finally, he does hammer home the racial and ethnic disparities and corresponding economic inequality experienced by many, though largely, non-white men. However thorny that problem may be, it is almost certainly not simply a problem of economic policy. As the great biologist, Edward O. Wilson claimed, “The real problem of humanity (in its efforts to address a myriad of future problems) is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.” When do we collectively come to possess the empathy, understanding and long-range perspective required to address inequality? Our ancient predispositions form no small obstacle in the quest.
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Steve Greenleaf
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September 8, 2022
This book provides a comprehensive narrative of a “long twentieth century” (1870-2010) that further informed my thinking about this era. An outstanding work of narrative history should work like a strong magnet among iron filings, pulling diverse pieces (facts) into a coherent pattern without distorting the given shape (reality) of those diverse pieces. And this is what DeLong has accomplished in this work. He draws together into a discernible pattern (to wit, a story) about the intersection of unprecedented economic realities (improvements, mostly) and their effect on national and international politics, and how various thinkers and political leaders responded to these new realities.
Back (well, way back) in the day when I was a political science and history major, I learned a lot about nineteenth and twentieth-century history from some fine professors and reading prominent historians writing about this era. But I realize now that economic history as a sub-discipline and political-economy as a whole were mostly overlooked. The economics of this period of extraordinary economic development and innovation was more or less taken for granted as the backdrop for the political and social history that dominated my curriculum. Until now, has there been a book that has filled this void? If so, I missed it. Columbia historian Adam Tooze has addressed several big chunks of this period quite admirably, but again, no one that I’ve read provides such an informed, comprehensive narrative of the economic and political-economic history of this era.
Another merit of this book comes from a point that DeLong makes about himself; that is, he considers himself both an economist and a historian. I assumed his merits as an economist; he’s worked in the Treasury Department and as a professor of economics at Berkley. And at the beginning of the book, there are facts and figures about economic development over the course of human history and about how economic development skyrocketed beginning about 1870 with the advent of business corporations, modern research labs, and cheaper, more efficient transportation and communication systems. But on the whole, the book is surprisingly light on figures, tables, charts, and formulas; you know, the stuff you’d expect to see from an economist. The flip side (the historian side, if you will) of this is DeLong’s narrative skill in recounting the course of events and thinking of this period. DeLong’s prose has a light touch that avoids economics jargon and avoids falling into ponderous academic prose. Indeed, DeLong’s prose includes a certain playfulness, such as his repeated touch phrase “the market giveth, the market taketh away, blessed be the name of the market.” Another instance of this light touch is his seemingly alternating designation of Hayek as both “genius” and “idiot” and as a Jekyll and Hyde. (Designations that seem spot-on from my perspective in the cheap seats. ) DeLong also frames much of his history as a yin and yang between Hayek’s market mania and Karl Polanyi’s emphasis on traditional rights and communities. And while these two deities of modern political-economic thought and their acolytes receive a lot of attention, John Maynard Keynes—the appropriate reverence seems to demand the full name—presides like Zeus or Thor over these two lesser gods. And as the high-god, Keynes seeks to impose order on the economic universe in the course of a continuing struggle against economic chaos left in the wake of the lesser gods (including old Marx). DeLong describes Keynes as brokering a marriage of the insights of Hayek and Polyani. If it’s a marriage that could be made to last, it will no doubt remain fruitful, but in these times, nothing seems stable. And, I should note that not only has DeLong confirmed by priors about Hayek (and the market in general), he has also confirmed my priors about Keynes as one of the great figures of the twentieth century. (My assessment was established after reading Zachery Carter’s work on Keynes, The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes (2020).)
I want to also note that I’m impressed with DeLong the historian. Not only does he write an engaging and informed narrative, but he also displays insights into the nature of the historical enterprise. For instance, toward the end of the book, while discussing the Great Recession of 2008, he compares his take with that of Adam Tooze in Tooze’s book, Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World (2018). DeLong considers how events in that era (as an example) balance between contingency and necessity; choice and structure. Tooze is more a proponent of structure and necessity; DeLong of contingency and choice. DeLong, however, concedes that future historians may come down closer to Team Structure-Necessity. Perhaps, but then we always wonder, don’t we: what if the Archduke had not been assassinated?
I could go on further at great length about the contents of this book, perhaps in a later essay. But I might find such an exercise futile and genuinely counter-productive. I can’t write as authoritatively or with as much felicity as DeLong about these events. Ergo, you should go immediately to his book and read it. I’m confident that you’ll find it well worth your time and enjoyably spent.
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Todd
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November 2, 2022
Readers might know Brad DeLong from either of two previous lives. In the 1990s he was a deputy under Larry Summers in the Clinton Administration. Then in the early 2000s he was one of the many professors who started semi-popular blogs; while many of the blogs faded away with lowrise jeans, his continues. In any case, DeLong is back with this book- a solid work of economic history. It's a nice refresher for people who know about this stuff and terrific for those who do not. Of course, for the latter some prerequisite understanding of economic policy and its history would be helpful. While it is a solid contribution for readers who spend a bit more time in the economics literature, it's not mindblowing. It is, nevertheless, a strong work that consolidates and expands on a number of arguments that we have seen elsewhere. For starters, I liked DeLong’s enlargement of the historical lens back to the 1870s when the period of economic growth kicked into high gear with the industrial and managerial revolution. It's also helpful that he quantified that increased rate of growth so that we can put the 20th-century rapid acceleration and more recent deceleration into a historical context. Of course, most of us had this knowledge in one way shape or form already, as it is not known as the industrial revolution because industrial production stayed the same as it has always been. DeLong also did a pretty good job periodizing the history. After the first generation of New Dealers passed away, it’s become fairly well accepted economic doctrine that the military production during WWII brought an end to the depression. The end of the New Deal era of course has been of interest for the last few years. DeLong's argument is many ways an expansion and enlargement of Paul Krugman’s argument in The Conscience of a Liberal where he argued that the economic growth rates and liberal policies of the 1940s-1960s created a rising tide that lifted all (or most all) boats and that this came to an end with the neoliberal and reactionary policies of the 1980s. The funny thing is that political scientists coming out of the Leftist tradition like David Harvey have been warning about neoliberalism for decades. It took a long while for liberal economists like DeLong to come along. It's interesting that he also posits the end or transformation of the neoliberal era. Unfortunately for all of us, the thing replacing neoliberalsim may be worse than neoliberalism itself. We are nowhere near utopia and we may not even be slouching towards it like we were until recently. It may or may not be too late, but the tides are certainly stacking against us. We need to regain our footing and catch a wave if we are to get back on our path.
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Mihovmihail55
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September 15, 2022
The book is a good introduction to the economic and political history of the world and the period the author considers "the long twentieth century" (1870-2010) in particular. And nothing more. There is barely anything to be learned from it for people who already have a basic knowledge of history and economics.
The author's way of writing is hard to follow. DeLong goes off on tangents upon tangents and asks questions with a promise of an answer which is often not delivered, or delivered in an unsatisfying and roundabout way. The language is sometimes complex enough for an economics textbook and sometimes absurdly simplified to match internet memes (money printers going "brr" and the phrase "helluva drug" being used).
Some of the figures presented in this book are of dubious validity. The index of humanity's technological progress is useful in comparative perspective but supposedly simpler figures like the number of Soviet losses in 1941 or how many years the average woman living in pre-industrial society would have been pregnant and breastfeeding for are quite off.
A few of the small factoids are just blatantly wrong. For example in the chapter about WWII, DeLong says that the Nazis were unwilling to "go against their ideology" and employ more women in the German workforce. This is wrong, because in 1939 a larger share of German women were working than British or American women worked in 1945. (source: The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. Chapter 10, part IV)
But the greatest crime of this book is that the main question (Why the human race, being on average 8 times wealthier than in 1870, isn't living in an utopian society?) is never explored in much detail. The author talks a bit about inequality, a bit about how our material desires are never truly satisfied, a bit about how politicians and companies can profit from making us angry and unhappy, a bit about economic anxieties... but just a bit. There is a reluctance, in this book of grand narratives, to make a grand statement about what keeps us from transferring an 8-fold increase in living standards into an 8-fold increase in satisfaction with our lives and the state of contemporary civilisation.
In the conclusion, the author is heavily pessimistic about humanity's "slouch" towards utopia in the 21st century. The failure of political leaders and the economic science community to overcome the Great Recession marks the end of the long twentieth century and the beginning of a new much direr age. An age of slower growth (or even stagnation), marked by problems like populism and climate change. It is understandable to hear such prophesies of doom coming from a person who has witnessed in real time the institutional decline of California and the United States during his lifetime.
I urge readers to consider that despite the severe political and economic issues that mark our present, mankind possesses an enormous scientific potential. We have never had better facilities, never been more educated, wealthy, specialised or efficient. Material abundance in the developed world is already high, therefore it is more difficult to push it even higher. Add to this long-term sustainability concerns and we are probably doing almost the best we can. World GDP per capita (PPP and inflation adjusted) has increased by 22.3% since 2010. This may not yet be the end, but another period of instability and depressed growth like 1914-1949.
Finally, in my humble opinion, an 8-fold increase in 140 years through two world wars, decolonisation and the fall of the eastern bloc is not a "slouch" but a glorious march of human ingenuity and spirit in the face of tremendous adversity. May the future bring ever greater triumphs.
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Olan McEvoy
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January 26, 2023
Unlike many who have reviewed this book so far, I'm not a long-time reader of Brad DeLong's blog and I'm not particularly familiar with his previous work, either academic or popular. Unfortunately, I didn't find his account of what he calls "the long 20th century" (the period from 1870 to 2010) to be particularly enlightening on many fronts, largely due to the a few glaring holes in the narrative (most notably climate change). DeLong reassures readers at the start of the book that not being able to cover some topics is a consequence of writing a grand narrative history which he understands well, but I really think he uses this as a crutch to avoid talking about topics which he doesn't feel comfortable in or which disturb his grand narrative.
DeLong's narrative is basically as follows: starting in 1870, the world had achieved some measure of progress in living standards compared to pre-industrial societies, but this was concentrated among the upper and upper-middle classes in the most prosperous countries, while the vast majority of people were either still in a poverty trap, or worse, in servitude or even slavery. After 1870, however, something changed. The coming of the industrial-scientific research lab, the legal structure of the modern corporation, and the globalisation-enhancing technologies of communication and travel, all meant that economic growth went into overdrive, first in the period from 1870-1914, and later in the post-war period until the 1970s. This growth miracle was then complemented (in DeLong's view) by the fact that the world's pre-eminent economic power during the period was liberal-democratic and a supporter of the market system. While the increases in average living standards and aggregate production have been astounding over the long twentieth century, the ways in which increased wealth is dealt with as a society is a long way from the utopias which were envisaged by 19th century political theorists, such as Karl Marx or John Stuart Mill. Instead, as DeLong puts it, humanity learned to 'slouch towards utopia' - i.e. increase the lot of most people through the compounding effect of year-on-year wealth and income growth. With the fractures which have emerged in the twenty-first century (geopolitics, economic stagnation, climate), this progressive advance of global living standards seems to have gone off track, perhaps indefinitely.
Let me start with the things I did like about the book.
DeLong is obviously a competent analyst when applying the lessons of mainstream economics to historical events. When these events happen to be closer to the United States and closer to the times in which DeLong has been working as an economist, his analysis is often really clear, level-headed and focused. The closing chapters on neoliberalism, globalisation, and the great recession are the highlights of the book in my opinion, and perhaps a more humble book which covered the period of 1973-2010 would've made a much more compelling read (although there are quite a few books which tread this path already).
DeLong clearly cares about the state of public policy and economic governance in the United States and provides a clear narrative about how economic mismanagement is at the root of many of the causes of malaise in the modern-day U.S. To try to use the lessons of history as guidance for future policy action is admirable and something which I wish that more economic historians were brave enough to put into their books. DeLong notes at the end of the book that his focus on individual action and contingency is unlikely to be favoured by most historians, but that this is the narrative that he wanted to tell. Again, that probably doesn't make for the most compelling history, but has a function in DeLong's unstated aim of using the history of 20th century economic progress to inform responses to America's current economic woes.
Now for what I didn't like in the book.
DeLong's writing style irked me quite a lot (although I know this kind of personal blogging style has been praised by other reviewers) and some of the stylistic quirks he chooses are odd - particularly insisting on listing some of the places where people lived alongside their national/ethnic identity (for instance, why was Karl Polanyi described as a 'Torontonian'). DeLong also comes up with some catchphrases to summarize ideas which he sees as being too complex to treat at length - notably those of Polanyi and Friedrich Hayek. I can see where this would work in a short blog post, but this is supposed to be a 550 page book of economic history. Treat your readers as if they have the attention span to read something more than crude simplifications.
Content-wise, I found DeLong out of his depth when talking about history which didn't relate to the United States, with the chapters on Really-existing socialism and Fascism/Nazism being particularly boring. It feels like in these chapters that DeLong has nothing to add, past what you would get in a high-school history textbook. There is also a weird trend in the book, that the further away from the US you get, the further away from economic history you get. The extensive detours into the battlefield history of World War II are boring, add nothing to the narrative, and reads like something from an amateur military history aficionado. Not what you pick up an economic history book for. DeLong's treatment of political economy then in the post-war period reads like an economist who is unwilling to learn from other social scientists. Instead, the narrative comes off like an apologia from a self-described 'left neoliberal', who wants you to know that while he is nostalgic for the era of social democracy from 1945-1973, he also doesn't regret the policies which were implemented during his time in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1995. DeLong also is reluctant to try to step out of his own political point of view, and to give opposing points of view a fair hearing. He seems to think the hybrid of Polanyi and Hayek (mediated by Keynes), or of social democracy and neoliberalism, which he supports is so reasonable and unimpeachable that no further discussion is warranted.
The book ends with DeLong discussing the issues which are most important for the 21st century in brief. These are also issues which DeLong knowingly omits from the analysis of his long twentieth century. Climate is the most obviously glaring omission. DeLong knows and accepts the science on climate change, supports policies to redress it, and is aware that it is the biggest challenge which humanity faces. And yet, he's unwilling to take the leap into how this should completely reshape his analysis. He doesn't even begin to entertain the idea that the period after 1945 marked the entry into a new geological era, in which nothing can be understood without considering humans' indelible effect on the climate. How on earth can you sit and write in the 2010s on the history of economic growth and living standards without thinking about how this is related to climate change? DeLong's cursory glances at the history of energy and resources in the twentieth century is also incredibly disappointing. I could go on about the lack of analysis of geopolitics, but at this point I think you get the idea that there just isn't any.
Overall, I can say I learned quite a few things reading DeLong's book and that the actual reading is not at all difficult for a book of this length or scope. Nevertheless, it is a disappointing work of economic history, containing more than a few flaws. Chapters from it could maybe be recommended for high school students or introductory economic history courses in university, but overall this is not a book I would recommend to people who already have a decent understanding of the 20th century.
DeLong's narrative of the three drivers of 20th century growth (the industrial lab, the corporation, communication and travel technologies) is not wrong in many ways, but it is also not that enlightening when it comes to many of the most important questions. The reader is eventually left with questions that are better answered by better books on the subject.
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Boudewijn
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October 27, 2023
This book fell short of my expectations. For someone with a grasp of basic economic knowledge, "Slouching Towards Utopia" offered me no new fresh insights. Instead, I was distracted by the author's frequent and sometimes meandering digressions.
While it may offer a foundational understanding of the subject for newcomers, those seeking an in-depth and objective exploration of 20th-century economic history might consider other books that offer a more substantial and focused econimic history.
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September 10, 2022
Imagine Sapiens, but about the last 150 years of economic history, and actually good – that's what DeLong has accomplished in this sweeping account of economic growth during the industrial and information revolutions, and the political changes that accompanied them.
DeLong is an excellent, clear, and unusually, very funny storyteller. Phrases like "multiverse", "snark", and "permanent Steampunk world" enliven his tale and make it more accessible, which focuses on individuals as well as ideas and statistics and sci-fi style counterfactuals.
The chapters do get a little repetitive toward the end, and as DeLong admits, it's focused on the US. But those are minor dings on a very important book.
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Nilesh Jasani
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December 9, 2022
The book is excellent in its sweep of early history, particularly up to the second World War, and does equally well in criticizing both the extreme left and right economic theories. However, the discussions lose objectivity and relevance as the author turns to the recent decades. They turn blindingly self-serving and completely US-centric as many of the prescriptions are beggar-thy-neighbour variety.
The book is unique for its focus on the history of the global political economy. The author is a devout Keynesian, which allows him to be equally harsh on the free-market theories of Hayek or Friedman as well as the communist policies espoused by the likes of Marx.
Through the horrors of the twentieth century, the book easily slams down every form of political extremism. At the midpoint, it becomes clear that any group that serves itself or an ideology - irrespective of whether political or economic - is naive at best in the assumption that all societies' ills could be solved by sticking to pure theories penned in some books. The end results are almost always far worse when such ideologues use their powers to suppress their internal and external dissenters and refuse to see the most obvious harmful results of their policymaking or politics.
Alas, in trying to promote the case of Keynesianism - re-branded as democratic socialism - the author falls prey to some of the same issues that face the ideologues of other types. This is particularly staggering when we are on the verge of another inflation era globally.
One could author a book with disagreements on the book's take on the era since the 1970s. The author does not even mention how the decades-long, post-WW2 boom was partly because of the low base start and partly also because of the policies that borrowed from the future (ie, led to the corrections of the 1970s).
Another driver of that era was the standing start of the Global South that allowed the already-ahead Global North to keep outperforming. Global South also took longer to get rid of some of the ideological, extremist political, and economic ism's, prolonging its plight.
By many measures, at a global level, the world's least privileged are living more, have materially better access to basic needs, have closed the gap on information/knowledge access substantially in our information age, and are being far less discriminated against than ever. There are still too many ills in the world to self-congratulate, but the author refuses to recognise that the trends on these were not necessarily positive in the decades he yearns for - not from the viewpoint of the world.
Keynesianism, like Capitalism or Communism, becomes too extreme as a stand-alone contender theory to solve all economic issues. Communism's failures are in its suppression of individual rights, its tendency to corrupt its powerbrokers because of the lack of checks, and concentrated, inflexible decision-making on inadequate information. Capitalism - in its purest form - lacks humanity, tends to runaway inequality of all kinds, and does not have enough protection for those left behind. It is also prone to excessive cycles that hurt the unprotected the most. Keynesianism's underbelly is in inefficient state policies, the populism that invariably gives rise to inflation, and the crowding out of the private sector, including in innovation.
The reality is such that any set of economic policies - whether in pure forms or as a mix and with its roots in trying to solve the worst problems of the previous set - will create its own problems over time. The macro policies, by definition, are applied at mass levels - which means there are always some who will be left behind in some ways, and over time their plights become bigger than other positives that accrue from these policies elsewhere. A pragmatic society, with a policymaking class that is not focused on working for themselves or any ideology, will have to keep shifting and shaping to remove the excesses (particularly the harmful ones) while never compromising on society's basic rules and norms. This flexibility is most difficult where those in power are set on any fixed goals - whether in boosting growth, reducing unemployment, or fostering equality - for a long time and/or wedded to a particular theory.
A slavish Keynesian approach causes governments to over-extend. While being morally and even politically correct, policies of subsidies, transfers, guarantees, and debt forgiveness, create obvious rot of a different variety after a while. Notwithstanding the fact that Keynesian or other forms of socialistic policies do not come in one form, none of these are forever right or wrong.
Back to the book: the book is a great read up until a point, and the reader's enjoyment would then depend on how much agreement they have with the author's economic preferences.
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Dylan Matthews
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September 8, 2022
A true joy if you're a longtime DeLong reader, because the prose is deeply, deeply DeLongian.
The deepest weakness is that it sometimes leans too hard into surveying changes at the expense of arguing for its core thesis: that the research lab, corporation, and globalization enabled the massive growth of the long 20th century. That theory comes up repeatedly but DeLong doesn't give it as much space or defense as I would have liked. But he also would've had to cut down on, say, the discussions of the details of World War II, and there's a definite tradeoff there.
Overall, though, a joy, and a great introduction to these topics.
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Jeroen Vandenbossche
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August 10, 2023
This book turned out to be quite different from what I had imagined. Judging by the subtitle, I was anticipating a thorough and impassionate investigation into how the features of the global economy evolved during the twentieth century due to technological change, environmental factors and policy decisions.
It turns out I got both more and less than expected.
I got more because “Slouching towards Utopia” is anything but an impassionate book. From the very first pages, Bradford Delong makes it clear that his “grand narrative” is a very personal story. While his reconstruction of the economic history of the long twentieth century (1870-2010) is based on facts, it is very clearly infused with highly personal views, insights and values.
Delong indeed does not hide behind impartiality; he tells it likes he sees it and states his positions explicitly. Self-identifying as a “left neoliberal”, he openly expresses his high esteem for Karl Polanyi and John Maynard Keynes even though he also praises right-wing economist Martin Feldstein as a “brilliant, charismatic and superb teacher”. Delong is clearly ambivalent about the economic theories and policy prescriptions of Friedrich August von Hayek but has no kind words for Milton Friedman. Whereas the first is portrayed throughout the book as a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”-like figure (both a “far-sighted genius” and “an extraordinary idiot”), Friedman’s and Schwarz's "A Monetary History of the United States" is derided as nothing more than a tautology dressed up as theory.
Although I do not necessarily agree with all of Delong’s opinions and beliefs, I very much appreciated his willingness to express them openly rather than try to obfuscate them by using technical jargon and supposedly “neutral” language. It allows for easier reading if you know what the author stands for.
I also got more out of “Slouching towards Utopia” than I had anticipated because Delong is a born storyteller who clearly loves a good anecdote. The book is full of little stories and “vignette” biographies of famous and less famous men and women which add to the pleasure of reading.
I actually learned quite a lot of things I had never imagined reading about in an economic history book: about Herbert Hoover’s first career as a mining engineer in China, for example, and his efforts to save Belgium from famine in the early years of World War I, about the Tesla vs. Edison “war of the currents”, about why May 1 is celebrated as Labour Day in large parts of the world but not in the US and about why white bread may actually be more healthy than wholegrain depending on how much fibre the rest of your diet contains, etc.
These unexpected insights notwithstanding, the book let me down in other respects.
While I found most of Delong’s digressions interesting in and of themselves, I sometimes had the feeling they led the author astray to the point where he lost sight of the main story all together. Strange as it may sound, some chapters in this “Economic history of the twentieth century” barely discuss economic matters.
The chapter on World War I is a good example. From the point of view of the economic historian, there are numerous interesting angles to explore: the role of Britain in financing the war effort of the Allies and the impact this had on their supply of gold reserves and the level of overseas investment, the huge superiority of the Entente in terms of total output compared to the Central Powers, the impact on global trade flows of the disappearance of European competitors in various manufacturing sectors, etc. Instead of investigating these economic aspects of the conflict, DeLong’s discussion of World War I focuses almost exclusively on the pervasiveness of nationalistic sentiment in Europe. Now you may find his insights on nationalism interesting or not – I personally found them not very insightful and, frankly, a bit weird – but it struck me as odd that an economic historian would want to zoom in on this aspect of the war rather than on its economic determinants and consequences.
The same applies to the chapter on World War II which devotes quite a lot of space to the diplomatic history of the late 1930s as well as to the tactical and operational prowess of the German army. Except for a brief discussion of how economic factors contributed to the belligerent stance of Japan, the chapter hardly discusses economics at all.
On balance, this is definitely a book I can recommend to readers interested in the history of the twentieth century as told by an eminent but by no means narrow-minded economist. However, if it is an economic history in the traditional (more focused) sense of the word you are after, I would not necessarily recommend this book.
(You could try Kenwood and Lougheed's classic "Growth of the International Economy, 1820, 2015 instead (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...). Mind you, if you like a good story, it is much drier and less fun to read than DeLong's take).
3.5 stars.
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Future Perfect
Humanity was stagnant for millennia — then something big changed 150 years ago
Why the years from 1870 to 2010 were humanity’s most important.
by Dylan Matthews
Sep 7, 2022, 9:30 PM GMT+9:30
An illustration combines images of Li Hongzhang, Nikola Tesla, and Friedrich Hayek with a currency note and mechanical diagram, in muted tones of gray and blue-green.
Amanda Northrop/Vox; Getty Images
Dylan Matthews
Dylan Matthews is a senior correspondent and head writer for Vox’s Future Perfect section and has worked at Vox since 2014. He is particularly interested in global health and pandemic prevention, anti-poverty efforts, economic policy and theory, and conflicts about the right way to do philanthropy.
“The 140 years from 1870 to 2010 of the long twentieth century were, I strongly believe, the most consequential years of all humanity’s centuries.”
So argues Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, the new magnum opus from UC Berkeley professor Brad DeLong. It’s a bold claim. Homo sapiens has been around for at least 300,000 years; the “long twentieth century” represents 0.05 percent of that history.
But to DeLong, who beyond his academic work is known for his widely read blog on economics, something incredible happened in that sliver of time that eluded our species for the other 99.95 percent of our history. Whereas before 1870, technological progress proceeded slowly, if at all, after 1870 it accelerated dramatically. And especially for residents of rich countries, this technological progress brought a world of unprecedented plenty.
DeLong reports that in 1870, an average unskilled male worker living in London could afford 5,000 calories for himself and his family on his daily wages. That was more than the 3,000 calories he could’ve afforded in 1600, a 66 percent increase — progress, to be sure. But by 2010, the same worker could afford 2.4 million calories a day, a nearly five hundred fold increase.
DeLong’s book is called Slouching Towards Utopia, though, not Achieving Utopia. The unprecedentedly fast change in the lives of residents of rich nations brought with it profound political instability and conflict. Perhaps the worst off were residents of the Global South, and oppressed communities like women and racial minorities in the Global North, who were denied much of the benefit of the world’s economic revolutions while suffering the bulk of the harm from the ensuing political and social revolutions.
DeLong and I talked last week about the book, the economic significance of the long 20th century, what caused technological progress to speed up so dramatically, and whether this kind of explosive growth can continue.
A transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows.
Dylan Matthews
You argue that 1870 through 2010 were “the most consequential years of all humanity’s centuries.” What’s your case?
Brad DeLong
It really looks that we had as much technological change and progress between 1870 and today as we had between 6000 BC and 1870 AD. We packed what had previously been nearly eight millennia of changes in the underlying technological hardware of society, which required changes in the running sociological code on top of that hardware. To try to pack what had been eight millennia worth of changes before in 150 years is going to produce an awful lot of history.
Before 1870, most of history is how elites run their force-and-fraud, domination-and-extraction mechanism against a poor peasantry so that they, at least, can have enough, and so that their children are only two inches shorter than we are, rather than five or six as the peasants are. It’s about how the elites elbow each other out of the way as they eat from the trough. And it’s about the use they make of their wealth for purposes good and ill, of civilization and destruction.
But if you’re enough of a Marxist, like me, to say that the real motor of history is the forces of production, their changes, and how society reacts for good or ill to changing forces of production, then yes, [1870 to 2010] has to be as consequential because there’s as much technological change-driven history as there is in entire millennia before.
Dylan Matthews
You seem on solid ground in arguing that something radical changed that enabled humans to become dramatically richer over the last 300 years; almost every economic historian would agree with that. But many people start the story in the 18th century, with the development of the steam engine and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. You start it in 1870, well after that process was underway.
Why does the story start later for you?
Brad DeLong
When do we start? Let’s start 300 million years ago in the Permian period, when plants die and they get pushed underground and turn into coal. And then we flash forward to 25,000 years ago, when the last glacier episode scrapes all the rock on top of the coal deposits off of the British Isles and then retreats, leaving Britain with an ungodly amount of surface coal at sea level. Since it’s a wet island, it’s thereupon very easy to move by water.
You need a steam engine if you want to dig even 10 feet down in order to get out the coal, and then around 1770, the steam engine and textile machinery attained critical mass and the Industrial Revolution begins, which is usually taken as the hinge of economic history, although some people push it back further.
However, you look worldwide and you take my index of technological progress, and it [grows by] less than half a percent per year from 1770 to 1870. That’s based on exploitation of really cheap coal and also on the productivity benefits of falling transport costs that gather all of the manufacturing in the world into the place [the United Kingdom] where it’s most productive and most efficient, because it’s the place where coal is cheapest.
I was struck by a line I came across from the 1871 version of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy: “Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toll of any human being.”
Say you have some slowdown in global technological progress after 1870 because the cheapest coal has already been mined and the deeper coal is hard to find, and say that you have some other slowdown because you don’t get the boost from gathering manufacturing in places where it’s productive. We might well have wound up right with a steampunk world after 1870: a world with about the population of today, but the living standards of 1870 on average.
That’s what the pace of progress was, except that we got the industrial research lab, the modern corporation, and then full globalization around 1870. The industrial research lab rationalized and routinized the discovery and development of technologies; the corporation rationalized and routinized the development and deployment of technologies; and globalization diffused them everywhere.
Dylan Matthews
For most of human history since the advent of agriculture, we were ruled by Malthusian dynamics: If we gained the ability to grow more food, we would simply have more children, meaning no one’s quality of life could improve too much. And this, of course, put tremendous pressure on women, who were expected to have many children and do almost all the biological and practical work of gestating and raising them.
You cite a very striking statistic in the book: the average number of years of a woman’s life spent either pregnant or breastfeeding. That has gone down dramatically, from 20 years of a typical woman’s life in 1870 to four years today. Explain that number to me, and what it means.
Brad DeLong
It’s from a book called Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber. We really do not know much about what human life was really like in the hunter-gatherer age. Once we have agriculture, productivity goes way up. Life becomes somewhat boring because our brains are probably built to be hunter-gatherers. Population grows, and living standards fall.
You have this biological situation in which one in seven women appears to die in childbirth; in which [to expect] one son surviving, you need to have two kids survive, which means three reach early adulthood, which means four reach the age of 5, which means seven or so babies born, which means nine advanced pregnancies.
Once you become an undernourished, agrarian Malthusian being, all of a sudden you are biometrically close to being effed completely.
Your children’s immune systems are too compromised to fight off the common cold. Maybe you’re too skinny to ovulate. If you aren’t, maybe you lose two teeth and break an arm as the baby leeches calcium out of your body into itself. Then you add on to that the fact that patriarchy means that if you are female, your only durable source of social power is to have surviving sons. And so any temptation to do much of anything other than have surviving sons, and then have more as insurance, is very hard to resist. Those are the biological, ecological, economic forces tending toward patriarchy, of which men as a group then took absolutely horrible advantage.
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