Episode 50: Gregory Clark
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Social Mobility and the Industrial Revolution: What Can We Learn from History
The first half of the episode discusses distinguished professor Gregory Clark's book, A Farewell To Alms. During the eighteenth century, England underwent a period of rapid industrialization and economic growth. Clark explains why industrialization made the whole world rich but not equally rich.
The episode ends with Prof. Clark and Greg exchanging views on how much our fate is affected by our family status. Clark provides an insider's view into his latest book, The Son Also Rises, demonstrating how little has changed since the 1300s in terms of social mobility.
Listen to Gregory Clark as he shares how history, ancestry, and marriage patterns shape current economics outcomes.
Episode Quotes:
How England's static society eventually lead to fantastic economic opportunities
“Another feature of English history is that between even 1300 and 1800, it was a static society in terms of living standards, life expectancy. A lot of the institutions are not changing that much. But there was significant change occurring economically. And the most dramatic of these changes, is that the prevailing interest rate on the most safe loans in medieval England was 10%— real return that you could get. Now, hedge funds would go wild if they could guarantee without risk a 10% real return. That was available to every person in medieval England. And you could buy land in half acre lots, and you know, a half acre would only cost something like two weeks wages for someone. And so, everyone in medieval England had access to transforming their economic condition in the course of their lifetime. It's a land of fantastic economic opportunities.”
Difference in time spent doing work between pre- and post-industrial world
“And then, another feature of the pre-industrial world is that over the long run, people seem to actually start working much more. We can actually observe very good records of England right about 1800. One of them actually comes from the criminal courts where witnesses describe what they were doing at the time they saw the crime, or they heard the window break or whatever. And from these type of diaries, you can actually observe how much time people are spending at work. And people are working about 10 hours a day, six days a week in this world. That's a very high rate of labor input compared to our hunter-gatherer societies. So, again, it's a puzzle about why do people work so much, right? One of the amazing mysteries of the modern world, is that people are still— once you count things like commuting time or home food preparation, other things like that— they still spend— compared to most creatures in the animal kingdom, a surprisingly high amount of time at work.”
Human Nature and its Relationship to Capitalism
“I think the more interesting, aspect is that we have adapted to capitalism, and we've actually adapted biologically to capitalism. That is going to be part of any story about the delay in the industrial revolution and also the location of the industrial revolution. And that, in the centuries, that preceded the thousands of years of settled agrarian society, there was some kind of interplay going on between human nature and capitalism.”
Time Code Guide:
00:01:53: How did you come up with the explanation on the divergence between highly industrialized and less industrialized countries
00:04:54: Examples of differences in wages in India and Argentina
00:07:46: What are the economist's thoughts on industrial revolution
00:10:21: How literacy rates affect the community's economic development and social mobility
00:12:35: The rewards of industrial revolution
00:21:03: Protestantism and the industrial revolution
00:25:23: Is there something unique about the way you assemble resources in these market economy?
00:29:15: Mortality rate and wealth
00:32:24: What drew you to this idea of tracking social mobility and using the data sets that you used?
00:42:23: Why social mobility was greater during the Medieval England than modern England?
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