''A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World'' is a 2007 book about economic history by
Gregory Clark. It is published by Princeton University Press.
The book's title is a
pun
A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...
on
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
's novel, ''
A Farewell to Arms''.
Content
The book discusses the divide between
rich
Rich may refer to:
Common uses
* Rich, an entity possessing wealth
* Rich, an intense flavor, color, sound, texture, or feeling
**Rich (wine), a descriptor in wine tasting
Places United States
* Rich, Mississippi, an unincorporated commun ...
and
poor nations that came about as a result of the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
in terms of the evolution of particular behaviours that Clark claims first occurred in Britain. Prior to 1790, Clark asserts that man faced a
Malthusian trap
Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, ...
: new technology enabled greater productivity and more food, but was quickly gobbled up by higher populations.
In Britain, however, as disease continually killed off poorer members of society, their positions in society were taken over by the descendants of the wealthy. In that way, according to Clark, less violent, more literate and more hard-working behaviour -
middle-class values The term middle-class values is used by various writers and politicians to include such qualities as hard work, self-discipline, frugality, thrift, honesty, aspiration and ambition. Thus, people in lower or upper classes can also possess middle-clas ...
- were spread culturally and biologically throughout the population. This process of "downward social mobility" eventually enabled Britain to attain a rate of productivity that allowed it to break out of the Malthusian trap. Clark sees this process, continuing today, as the major factor why some countries are poor and others are rich.
[
]
Responses
With its theses, the book received attention and several reviews from newspapers and scholars. Christof Dejung from the University of Konstanz
The University of Konstanz (german: Universität Konstanz) is a university in the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Its main campus was opened on the Gießberg in 1972 after being founded in 1966. The university is Germany's ...
criticised the book for not considering the oppressive aspects of colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colony, colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose the ...
, and concluded: "It seems that the warm welcome the book has found in some circles comes not least from the fact that it discharges the West from every responsibility for the grinding poverty most people on the globe are living in until today."[Christof Dejung, University of Konstanz: Review for geschichte.transnational und H-Soz-u-Kult]
, 2009 The book has received praise from authors like Benjamin M. Friedman
Benjamin Morton Friedman (; born 1944) is an American political economist, who is the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institute's Panel o ...
and Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen (; born January 21, 1962) is an American economist, columnist and blogger. He is a professor at George Mason University, where he holds the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department. He hosts the economics blog ''Marginal R ...
(Mercatus Center
The Mercatus Center is an American libertarian, free-market-oriented non-profit think tank. Located at George Mason University and directed by the American economist Tyler Cowen, the Mercatus Center works with policy experts, lobbyists, and gov ...
director) ("idea-rich book", maybe "next blockbuster in economics"), although authors from this political direction do not all agree fully with the theses of the book. For example, Kuznicki from the libertarian Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Ind ...
stated, in a generally positive review, that "his explanation begins to look very ad hoc when considering the last few decades".
Deirdre McCloskey
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey (born Donald N. McCloskey; September 11, 1942 in Ann Arbor, Michigan) is the distinguished professor of economics, history, english, and communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She is also adjunct pr ...
(University of Illinois) wrote about Clark's theses on genetic influence, that "the main failure of his hypothesis is, oddly, that a book filled with ingenious calculations ..does not calculate enough. It doesn't ask or answer the crucial historical questions." She concluded: " ..Clark's socio-neoDarwinianism, which he appears to have acquired from a recent article by some economic theorists, has as little to recommend it as history." The economist Karl Gunnar Persson opined that Clark's Malthusianism
Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, ...
"is at times more evangelical than empirical and analytical". John S. Lyons (Miami University) concluded his review with humour in the Journal of Socio-Economics with the claim: "casual observation suggests that reviewers have pointed to at least one distinct fault in the book for every two pages or so".[John S. Lyons: The audacity of Clark: A review essay, ''Journal of Socio-Economics'', February 2011]
Even more critical are Robert C. Allen, David Warsh, and Hans-Joachim Voth
Hans-Joachim Voth (born March 31, 1968) is a German economic historian. He joined the University of Zurich economics faculty in 2014 and has been the Scientific Director of the UBS Center for Economics in Society since 2017.
Early life and educati ...
. Voth argues that Greg Clark's book is mainly based on a paper of the authors Galor and Moav from 2002 and that Clark has just added some fragmentary and probably unrepresentative points. Similarly, Warsh suggested that "Clark's book is, to put it frankly, self-aggrandizing to the point of being intellectually dishonest".
Some mixed reviews were critical of the theses and statistics but evaluated the book as well written and interesting. Robert Solow
Robert Merton Solow, GCIH (; born August 23, 1924) is an American economist whose work on the theory of economic growth culminated in the exogenous growth model named after him. He is currently Emeritus Institute Professor of Economics at the ...
disagreed on the main thesis and accented instead for example institutional changes as reasons for industrialisation. He described some part of the book as stereotypical, some parts as fascinating and thought-provoking—and some parts as just irritating. John S. Lyons, who has worked together with Clark, stated that there are many mistakes in the book, but thinks of the book as interesting though: "wrong in parts, inadequate in others, yet suggestive elsewhere, and fascinating even when annoying".
Clark's rejoinder and subsequent publications
Clark responded to some of his critics, including McCloskey and Voth, in a journal article. In this article, Clark argues, using an estimate of heritability of wealth derived from his data, that "the wealthy in pre-industrial England had to be different in personality and culture from the poor". He says such differences must have been relevant to economic success, and could have been passed on by culture, genetics or a combination of the two. However, he goes on to state that "the rich in modern industrial society are genetically different from the poor", according to Clark twin studies
Twin studies are studies conducted on identical or fraternal twins. They aim to reveal the importance of environmental and genetic influences for traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics ...
show a greater correlation of incomes between identical twins than non-identical twins, and differences in outcomes for biological children versus adopted children. He therefore suggests that ''A Farewell to Alms''' hypothesis of how statistically significant genetic differences between the rich and the poor might have arisen "is a very real possibility".
See also
* '' A Troublesome Inheritance'', a book partly inspired by ''A Farewell to Alms''
* '' The Son Also Rises'', a related 2014 book by the same author, about social mobility.
References
Further reading
*
External links
World Economic History before the Industrial Revolution, Spring 2009
YouTube Lecture Series at University of California Davis by Professor Clark based on his Book
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farewell to Alms
Books about economic history
2007 non-fiction books
History books about ethnic groups
Sociology books
English-language books
Books about race and ethnicity
Race and intelligence controversy
Princeton University Press books