I have been thinking about the horribleness of the Arab people who saddled Western Civilization with all the Greek stuff and algebra. Here are a few notes from Chang's larger discussion of ethnic stereotypes. Hodgskin, by the way, was a very creative economist, who had considerable influence on a famous German philosopher/economist, who never held down a real job.
Chang, Ha-Joon. 2009. Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (New York: Bloomsbury Press). 183: "After her tour of Asia in 1911-1912, Beatrice Webb, the famous leader of British Fabian socialism, described the Japanese as having 'objectionable notions of leisure and a quite intolerable personal independence.' [B. Webb 1984, The Diary of Beatrice Webb: The Power to Alter Things, vol. 3. edited by N. MacKenzie and J. MacKenzie Virago/LSE, London, p. 160.] She said that, in Japan, 'there is evidently no desire to teach people to think'. [p. 166] She was even more scathing about my ancestors. She described the Koreans as '12 millions of dirty, degraded, sullen, lazy and religionless savages who slouch about in dirty white garments of the most inept kind and who live in filthy mud huts'. [S. Webb & B. Webb. 1978, The Letters of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, edited by N. MacKenzie and J. MacKenzie (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge): p. 375] No wonder she thought that 'if anyone can raise the Koreans out of their present state of barbarism I think the Japanese will', despite her rather low opinion of the Japanese. [Webb & Webb 1978, p. 375. When Webb visited Korea, it had been just annexed by Japan in 1910.] 183: "Before their economic take-off in the mid-19th century, the Germans were typically described by the British as 'a dull and heavy people'. [Hodgskin, Thomas. 1820. Travels in the North of Germany, 2 vols. (New York: Kelley). He cites a different edition. Archbald, Edinburgh, I, p. 50, n. 2.] 'Indolence' was a word that was frequently associated with the Germanic nature." [Hodgskin has a section entitled 'the causes of German indolence' as p. 59. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
