David B. Shemano > wrote: ... the Fogel/North evidence that the massive diversion of 19th century capital to US railroad construction added little to historical wealth creation ...
When I was studying economic history in grad school, Fogel's work on railroads was the clearest case of bogus history, applying the "counterfactual" method where it didn't apply (i.e., history). Counterfactuals -- what if the railroads had never been built? what if the South had won the Civil War? what if Hitler had been toilet-trained in a different way? etc. -- are fun but their validity assume (1) a complete knowledge of the relevant past and (2) a completely accurate theory of how the economy, politics, etc. work. All economic history can do is to make a case for one theory compared to others. But in his favor, it should be mentioned that that book is much much better than Fogel's TIME ON THE CROSS. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
