That’s typical classicist snobbery (or maybe ignorance due to the predominance of the classical education until the XXth century). The “barbarians” had their own unique culture and indivdualistic laws (as evidenced in Anglo-Saxon law).
Economic considerations alone do not ‘dictate’ the course of history nor justify or un-justify anything - to justify something is to prove that it’s in line with justice - it’s a moral consideration, not an economic one.
Market organization is more efficient than non-market organization but it doesn’t follow that people will automatically adopt market practices.
People’s actions are not determined by “material productive forces” nor are they determined only by economic efficiency.
No its not, Manchester was the center of the English textile-production during the early 19th century, if you don’t want to argue the historical evidence than don’t make historical claims.
You completely neglect slavery’s importance in pre-industrial agriculture, and the historical evidence as well shows a high correlation between agricultural prosperity, and slavery. The southern American states were once the most prosperous part of the union, and that was because of slavery. Why were the mercantillist colonies of the Carribean so bountiful: slavery. For pre-industrial societies, slavery can be a very much a economic boon.
Enslaving an individual is of a completely different scenario than enslaving an entire nation. While the economic benefits of an individual’s slave-work may very well outweight his possible entrepreneurial contribution, yet we have no way of knowing which outweights the other.
this does not prove what you think it proves. its a non-sequitur to your argument. assuming you even have one.
i suppose you are similarly in the habit of ignoring the importance of the United States government to the good functioning of the US economy. or maybe if you dont you should. ditto slavery
evidence? argument? i’m ready when you are.
enslaving a nation is enslaving some number of individuals. completely different?
Funny how there are two coversations going on here. More or less my fault but in response…
My argument is against blanket tests that preemptively assume the success probability of a person. Not at tests in general as there are several better ways of accurately testing the competency of a person. Having a person look for a series of patterns or calculating how fast they can multiply however does not in all cases identify the most competent person for said position.
Socialists make the same defensive argument about Keynesianism. However I argue that you cannot in all cases apply a mathematic formula to discover human competency.
It may also be that the test issued by a specific company recognises’s the criteria that company deems important. For example, Best Buy may have questions which involve a series of patterns, asking the test taker to guess which pattern is next on the list. The argument may be that this skill best qualifies a person as a cash register agent. That doesn’t necessarily mean the person is capable of performing such a job, it also doesn’t mean the person isn’t capable of becoming a physicist. Additionally, it doesn’t accurately identify the competency of that person in a given field. No single test will ever be able to objectively identify every strength and weakness of a person, as individuals perceive questions, patterns, and problems entirely differently, it’s praxeological.
As measured by what, where, and whom? Going to cite me something from the Department of education? Also how can you measure if the company hired the most competent people in the process? Just because private businesses perform a certain action doesn’t mean they are the most efficient action to do.
From personal experience in an engineering industry I can tell you most employers’ place criteria for employment in the following order.
High - Medium - Low
Experience – Personalitu - Career Certs - Education
In many cases education isn’t considered at all and the expensive college degree is looked over with glazed eyes. Let’s be honest, the value of a college degree has been devalued. The credit bubble has made education available to everyone. No one gets turned down for education any more, no one gets turned down for said loans any more either. Point is, the highest valuable criteria was proven by some test. That’s not the case in all industries. Best Buy on the other hand lives by this doctrine.
It may give the appearance that it’s efficient but because ‘Participant A’ was great at memorization and passed the entry exam that does not translate into his ability to operate practically in any given environment. Thomas Gilbert makes his entire living as a business consultant going around the country correcting these errors, specifically retention problems amongst businesses. He, unlike Best Buy’s hiring process, has a good track record.
The belief that standardized tests work is the belief that praxeology does not exist and the belief that the free market is incapable of determining itself, through supply and demand, what society currently considers which skills are of value.
The rules apply across other countries as well, since the test is created by a human who can only take into account the limited variables he is aware of. His test may fail to function correctly in a neighboring country where technical expertise is less demanded. Not realizing that the neighboring country demands agriculture skills instead of math or memorization.
Likewise the doctrine of memorization has actually harmfully spilled over into 3rd world countries from influences of the thought process you just presented. Many third world countries teach by memorization and never teach the mechanical operations of underlying things, like math. I personally was teaching a CCNA cisco class in Honduras several years ago. When the time came for me to teach Binary Math my intentions were to compare Binary math to normal math based on value’s of 10 instead of values of 2, binary.
What I discovered was every student in class new their multiplication tables by heart. They new that 9 times 9 was 81. They all tested extremely well at this colegio and were considered exemplar students. They however were incapable of telling me why 9 times 9 was 81. They had no idea that it was 9 groups of 9 that made 81 and when I showed them this on the whiteboard were shocked. They didn’t understand the underlying process. These were 18 year old students. I learned all this the hard way when I lived in Honduras for a year teaching dealing with this.
Point being, you cannot prove that standardized tests objectively identify competent students. Just because ‘company A’ hired alot of people whom they perceived as competent doesn’t mean they were the greatest candidates. Statistics will show that company’s who perform these kinds of tests (like best buy) have retention problems. It’s also a fallacy and common belief in America that people have 1 specific job which they were born to do. The truth is people have specific traits inherited genetically or learned behaviorally which give can usually give them an advantage in a large field of work, not a specific position or job. Like the ability of logic(math), ability of comprehension(history, writing, philosophy. When a fundamental trait is identified a student will usually have several fields with which they could not only excel in but enjoy doing any one.
There is no real way of measuring who is the most competent person. The hiring process is a gamble and a market discovery process; I’ve also learned this from experience. Managers who have been in the industry for a long time have been burned y these beliefs that tests prove all, they know all too well that it’s always a gamble. Finding competent workers is like finding a good product on the free market. It’s trial and error.
The belief that a mathematical process can help identify a more competent person follows the same thought that a mathematical process can identify what’s wrong with the free market. Remember, praxeology.
That’s not to say tests cannot be engineered to augment the education process. I’m just arguing that tests that are held as the definitive deciding factor on who is competent or more likely to succeed is in error. Many competent candidates who do not do well on standard tests will get passed up on a good opportunity. This is both harmful to the employer and employee.
Education is theory and experience is practical. Both are important, but often time’s standard tests do not focus on the theory or the practice of a given topic. Instead they bring up a series of patterns which some unknown, unread physiologists said reveals a competent person. A test should be a tool as an exploratory process that helps a student identify his fundamental strengths and traits. Tests should not be globally standardized but specialized, based on market demand and location. Education itself should be a discovery process. If highschool students graduated highschool recognizing their fundamental strengths as opposed to weakness’s they would be more inclined to make a career decision immediately rather than waste 4 years racking up dept getting a liberal arts degree. Not to say that liberal arts degrees are valueless, just that their quantity is saturated.
In my opinion the idea that a blanket test which can magically identify the success probability of a person is anti-libertarian.
Do you have no idea about the link between the textile-mills of Manchester, and the cotton plantations of the Deep South? Its one of those things that, if you’re going to say slavery had absolutely no benefit for consumers, I would have thought that you would have realized. Nevertheless, there was a strong commercial tie between the two, with an economic dependence between the two for decades as well, one that cannot just be thrown to the side. Its not a non sequitur its historical evidence.
And you’re accursing me of non sequiturs? What do you even mean here?
Are you blind to American history, or do I need to write a 50 page thesis in support of a rather established fact?
A large difference of scale that results in the comparison of the two being nothing but a hyperbole.
dude, if i tax my agriculture producing population and governmentally invest in heavy industry, and then try and sell cars to the USA. Will automobiles grow to be a major industry in my economy and will it be a net benefit or net loss for my poor citizens?
ok lam, i’m going to suggest we both quit this debate on this thread. I will invite you to a private conversation, or we can converse on a mod forum. we neednt rush to demolish each others arguments in a rush of eristic vim. we can be measured and attempt to come to agreement on a rational basis to this disagreement in a calm well paced way. perhaps when we feel we have concluded this process to our satisfaction, if it pleases us we could present a condenced report of our how our discourced progress and of what if anything we were able to conclude to the wider forum.
thoughts>?
I pretty much agree with this.
I’m enjoying Lam’s pro-slavery dialectic materialism…
I think that Byzantine’s point stands. Just because IQ tests are imperfect in measuring intelligence, it doesn’t mean that they don’t measure it at all. Designing the proper test is more of an art form than an exact science.
Going off Richard Lynn’s tables here, Japanese are actually more intelligent than Germans and Italians, who are of course more intelligient than the other white groups.
Yes, but can they “think like white people”?
I can’t believe this is still going on. So, assuming that “the Japanese” (whatever that means) are more intelligent, why is it that they didn’t develop an industrial society ? Well, maybe an industrial society is a stupid idea, so the japanese avoided it. But now they seem to have adopted it. So it must be a good idea after all ? Or “the japanese” are not that intelligent ? Something doesn’t seem right there…
…Or maybe this arm-chair ‘sociology’ and ‘scientific’ racism is sheer nonsense.
We have a winner.
The Japanese are supposedly big time savers. That could go a long way.
Guns, Germs and Steel is written by someone that is actually quite biased against likely explanations. He is a staunch defender of tribal societies, for example. He refuses to believe that anything but geographic accident or statism can be an explanation.
You trying to add anti-economist to your resume?
Slavery decreases aggregate productivity, so it can’t benefit consumers. Furthermore, slavery in the south existed because the cost of slave ownership was dispersed over the entire tax base. There was no need to “abolish” slavery, all that was needed was to stop subsidizing it.
The entire thesis that slavery reduces aggregate production in a pre-industrial society is flimsy at best, and slavery existed in the South because it was an economic boon for plantation-owners, and those who owned slaves; the problem of slave-catching, which I believe is what you address when you speak of the costs, only became a problem after the 1840s.
This may sound odd, but I am leaning towards Lam.
I’m ready to become a slave owning monopolist.
Let’s make some money.
At the expense of everyone else.
Next you’re going to say Intectual monopolies are good for consumers since they are a boon for monopolists?
There would have been no slavery in the 1840s if not the central state’s repeated crushings of slave rebellions.