Is Economic Superiority Due to Cultural Superiority?

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What does developed mean?
China can not possibly have a more sophisticated economy than say Germany or Sweden.
The word large would better fit.
the U.S. has the largest economy followed by China.
Here we are caught in a problem of causality does China have the second largest because it is home to a huge fraction of the worlds population or because of policy or resources?

Is a better economy when it is Larger or more Stable? Does it grows faster or when it is more equitable?
All of these are value judgments.

Romney now says:

Fox radio wonders:

http://radio.foxnews.com/2012/07/31/rom ... n-culture/

Clearly Romney has discovered a brand new and as yet unnamed non-Palestinian culture in the same region which has affected it's development.

I'm guessing Mole People (it would also explain the Gaza-Egypt tunnels).

AKA the Jews. The Holy Land bloomed again after nearly 1700 years when Jewish agronomists arrived and did their thing.

There are portions of Israel that border on Syria, Jordan and Lebenon. You can spot the Jewish areas. They are green. You can spot the non-Jewish areas. They are brown and arid.

ruveyn

That's the one he was contrasting with Israel's?

Although I'm not really happy with the academic rigour behind his work, I think Jared Diamond was pretty much spot-on when he attributed both culture and economic superiority as being largely the product of geography and resources, instead of one being the cause of the other.

Correlation is not causation.

Niall Furgeson demolishes Diamond's thesis. Diamond is wrong. Economic advancement is the result of ideas and world views, not stuff accidentally found under ground or picked from trees.

ruveyn

I can point to dozens of examples where ideas and world views are more likely the result of economic advancement. I just find this whole idea to be utter rubbish, they are correlated but there is no solid ground for a causal link between the two, generally speaking. This all started with Marx, who insisted that the social reality arises out of economic conditions, or that the two are one and the same, and ever since, people have been promoting this idea, sometimes in reverse (with economic conditions arising out of the social reality). It's nonsense, just like his idea that history is a linear teleology, which has gained widespread currency as well. Few people are aware where these ideas originated.

In the same way Krugman demolished Niall?
because then I would have to dismiss Diamond.

Don't argue from authority, and tell us on what basis he demolished it.

Last edited by enrico_dandolo on 01 Aug 2012, 12:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Large is indeed a better fit than developed. My bad.

Not a bad at all I think it is the common usage.

Israel in fact hates it when the desert blooms as it regularly sprays Bedouin crops in the Negev with herbicides. This is yet another example by the way of why Romney's comment is indecent. If I try to build something and my psychopathic neighbour keeps knocking it down every other day how dare someone say that the psycho next door is better than me because he has built more than I have when he keeps knocking down what I have?

A movie that some of you might like: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1172963/

I wonder if stupid Mitt thinks that Qatar is "culturally superior" to Israel.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... el/260546/

Nonsense.

If the Palestinians ever decided to get out of the Jew killing business (vain hope, that) peace would break out in under a month.

ruveyn

As for cultural superiority, imagine daily life in Israel.
Then understand why a growing percentage of Syria's economy consists of arms trade.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARV5LrK9S-k[/youtube]

This is why the parts of the Middle East that aren't Israel and don't have oil aren't quite wealthy, and usually full of violence. It really is a cultural thing - these cultures are described as group-bound and honour-bound. As one of you said, if you look past the border, the land is suddenly arid. At the moment, people are too busy killing each other to grow food, produce consumer goods or work on infrastructure.

They have oil, which makes the two completely different. Israel does not have one of the most expensive and vital products on this planet in bulk.