I generally like Norberg, his writing was foundational for me to open my lefty, wokey, stupid (...stop repeating yourself...) eyes some 15 years ago. His new book Peak Human I'm been awaiting for a while... The Economist got an early copy, bastards.
There were two golden ages in recent times — with completely opposite economic structures, and this is a longer/more detailed economic history story: (#960480): post-war growth miracle 1950-1973, and classical gold standard, 1871-1914 — but the authors of this piece talk about the ancient world of empires and comparative poverty, as contrasted by Mr. Trump's tariff wars. Not exactly comparable and/or relevant.
Also, fuck TDS (#969515).
In recent years, Norberg has become a repeat-previous-book author, saying nothing original or new that he hadn't in 2001, or 2009, or 2012 (all good books, even today.)
This bit/insight from the review is derivative from his Covid-era book Open — and fair enough, everyone was too busy messing about with different sort of nonsense to read that one (except me...), so OK try again:
Norberg finds that the polities that outshone their peers did so because they were more open: to trade, to strangers and to ideas that discomfited the mighty. When they closed up again, they lost their shine.
I was pretty negative on his last one (The Capitalist Manifesto) even though Elon tweeted about it; it was just a faint, boring, somewhat self-contradictory echo of his former self.
Dude, if you don't have anything left to say, you can just be QUIET
Some of the golden ages Mr Norberg describes will be familiar to readers, but he adds fresh details and provocative arguments. Athens was not just the birthplace of democracy; it grew rich because it was, by ancient standards, liberal. Tariffs were only 2%. Foreigners were welcome: a Syrian ex-slave became one of the richest men in town.
Rome grew strong by cultivating alliances and granting citizenship to conquered peoples. It learned voraciously from those it vanquished—Greek slaves taught Roman children about logic, philosophy and drama. During Rome’s golden age, one set of laws governed a gigantic empire, markets were relatively free and 400,000km of roads sped goods from vessel to villa. As a gobsmacked Greek orator put it: to see all the world’s products, either travel the world or come to Rome.
Mje, maybe. I'm really not sure how much we can derive from a pre-industrial world... that's so foreign from anything of today's relevant that I just don't care very much... tech, instant communication, 8bn people, world wars, welfare state and material abundance are just complete game-changers from the world before, say, 1850. (#960480)
Could a history book be more timely? Of all the golden ages, the greatest is here and now. Of all the progress of the past 10,000 years in raising human living standards, half has occurred since 1990. Openness went global after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But now it is in rapid retreat, as a multilateral trade war looms and ever more states suppress free inquiry.
Previous golden ages all ended like Rome’s did, jinxed by a mix of bad luck and bad leadership. Many thriving societies isolated themselves or suffered a “Socrates moment”, silencing their most rational voices.
Too bad European (let alone British) authors (#968945, #968401) can't see the bad luck and bad leadership they are under.
Please, for the love of god, leave Trump nonsense out of it! (#969515)
Anyway. Will report back once I've read the book! (Maybe some Stackers beat me to it, hint hint...)