Is god a redneck
22 Jun '05 05:18Since the US has, by far, the largest economy in the world, I assume that you mean that some of these countries you mention might be experiencing a larger "percentage" growth of GDP (or whatever it is you're measuring in your post)...
Yeah, percentage growth. The standard way to measure economic growth is in terms of GDP/capita.
I'm not granting you that these countries' economies are growing faster than the US's, but it's much easier to have larger percentage gains in economic growth when you start from nothing.
Examine the evidence for yourself. Below is a link to the relevant portions of the Penn World Table from U Penn, a standard among international data sets.
http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt61_retrieve.php
If this doesn't work, go to http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu and then select world tables and then take India, China, the US, and Japan GDP/capita and real GDP growth rate for the last 50 years.
Compare the US growth rate to that of India from 1980-2000 and of China from 1979-2000. The US average is significantly lower than India and astonishingly lower than China. For miracle growth in Japan examine real GDP growth from 1950-90.
It's true that a large value must increase by a large amount to attain the same percentage increase, however, this criticism is not entirely well-placed. The wealthier economies that must create more to attain the same growth rate also have a great deal more wealth from which to produce. In order for your criticism to apply to economies you have to assume that they experience decreasing returns to scale in production, that is if you increase all the factors in an economy by the same percentage, the economy will have less than an equivalent percentage increase in production. This is not a common assumption however. Generally, constant returns or even increasing returns are assumed. The increased growth in these countries is not due to a simple mathematical obstacle. Economists generally point to factors like national capital accumulation and technological adoption to help explain it. I think dj2 is hypothesizing that his god may be playing favorites.
Fact is, the US, in a little over 200 years, has outperformed every other country on earth during that time, and has accomplished more in 200 years than any other country on Earth has accomplished in thousands of years.
You're taking great liberties with time. The US economy was not a global economic powerhouse until after the second world war. It's tough to say whether the US would be the largest economy without its unique position in the post-war world. Certainly, the things going on 200 years ago had little effect. The same goes for China 1000 years ago. There are 20th century causes for these phenomena.
The question is "why has the US grown so steadily since WWII?"
Do you have a hypothesis?
China's been around for thousands of years..their economy should completely dwarf the US economy by this time... why doesn't it? Same with Japan...same with India...
This is not true. Being an old economy should not imply that a countries economy will be large. Too many far more important factors play a role.
the fact that they have to catch up with us should be proof enough of the superiority of a system which combines political liberty with economic opportunity... this combination is rare in history, and the US has done it longer than any other country in history....
There is no doubt in my mind that the political arrangements of a state play a very important role in the economic development of the country. As far as economic opportunity goes, examinations of the data from the 19th century suggest that there was very little upward mobility in the US, even for white males. I agree that there were some opportunities to generate private wealth, but certainly no where close to as much opportunity as there is in most developed countries today.
this combination is rare in history, and the US has done it longer than any other country in history....
Political and economic liberty have not been available in the US for 200 years. For most Americans, it's been somewhere between 30 and 80 years.
For crying out loud, even China's population is 3-4 times that of the US... they should be kicking our collective asses all over the place economically... and yet, they're not.
Again it depends on what you mean by "kicking our collective asses." The Chinese gov't has made economic reforms to its economy in the last 30 years which have resulted in incredible sustained economic growth. So in one of the most important senses, they are kicking our asses. As China's economy grows it becomes better able to take advantage of its labor abundance. Combined with its current rate of savings most economists believe that China will be a larger economy than the US in a few decades. So depending on how old you are, you will likely live to see China and perhaps even India overtake the US.
And the thing is, ANY country could be great given 200 years of political liberty and economic opportunity... it's not that the people of the US are "better" than the people of any other country...it's the system...as i said, almost non-existent in history, except for in the US, over the last 200 years...
You're right that it is not US citizens in particular. I do agree that the US's political and economic uniqueness aided growth. I would argue though that England has had a similar economic system for a longer time. Remember that the US did not become the land of opportunity for most Americans until the 20th century.
and the US is the absolute envy of the world as a result.
In terms of wealth, I would tend to agree. You'll have to ask the non-US RHPer's about how much they envy us in general though.
Yeah, percentage growth. The standard way to measure economic growth is in terms of GDP/capita.
I'm not granting you that these countries' economies are growing faster than the US's, but it's much easier to have larger percentage gains in economic growth when you start from nothing.
Examine the evidence for yourself. Below is a link to the relevant portions of the Penn World Table from U Penn, a standard among international data sets.
http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt61_retrieve.php
If this doesn't work, go to http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu and then select world tables and then take India, China, the US, and Japan GDP/capita and real GDP growth rate for the last 50 years.
Compare the US growth rate to that of India from 1980-2000 and of China from 1979-2000. The US average is significantly lower than India and astonishingly lower than China. For miracle growth in Japan examine real GDP growth from 1950-90.
It's true that a large value must increase by a large amount to attain the same percentage increase, however, this criticism is not entirely well-placed. The wealthier economies that must create more to attain the same growth rate also have a great deal more wealth from which to produce. In order for your criticism to apply to economies you have to assume that they experience decreasing returns to scale in production, that is if you increase all the factors in an economy by the same percentage, the economy will have less than an equivalent percentage increase in production. This is not a common assumption however. Generally, constant returns or even increasing returns are assumed. The increased growth in these countries is not due to a simple mathematical obstacle. Economists generally point to factors like national capital accumulation and technological adoption to help explain it. I think dj2 is hypothesizing that his god may be playing favorites.
Fact is, the US, in a little over 200 years, has outperformed every other country on earth during that time, and has accomplished more in 200 years than any other country on Earth has accomplished in thousands of years.
You're taking great liberties with time. The US economy was not a global economic powerhouse until after the second world war. It's tough to say whether the US would be the largest economy without its unique position in the post-war world. Certainly, the things going on 200 years ago had little effect. The same goes for China 1000 years ago. There are 20th century causes for these phenomena.
The question is "why has the US grown so steadily since WWII?"
Do you have a hypothesis?
China's been around for thousands of years..their economy should completely dwarf the US economy by this time... why doesn't it? Same with Japan...same with India...
This is not true. Being an old economy should not imply that a countries economy will be large. Too many far more important factors play a role.
the fact that they have to catch up with us should be proof enough of the superiority of a system which combines political liberty with economic opportunity... this combination is rare in history, and the US has done it longer than any other country in history....
There is no doubt in my mind that the political arrangements of a state play a very important role in the economic development of the country. As far as economic opportunity goes, examinations of the data from the 19th century suggest that there was very little upward mobility in the US, even for white males. I agree that there were some opportunities to generate private wealth, but certainly no where close to as much opportunity as there is in most developed countries today.
this combination is rare in history, and the US has done it longer than any other country in history....
Political and economic liberty have not been available in the US for 200 years. For most Americans, it's been somewhere between 30 and 80 years.
For crying out loud, even China's population is 3-4 times that of the US... they should be kicking our collective asses all over the place economically... and yet, they're not.
Again it depends on what you mean by "kicking our collective asses." The Chinese gov't has made economic reforms to its economy in the last 30 years which have resulted in incredible sustained economic growth. So in one of the most important senses, they are kicking our asses. As China's economy grows it becomes better able to take advantage of its labor abundance. Combined with its current rate of savings most economists believe that China will be a larger economy than the US in a few decades. So depending on how old you are, you will likely live to see China and perhaps even India overtake the US.
And the thing is, ANY country could be great given 200 years of political liberty and economic opportunity... it's not that the people of the US are "better" than the people of any other country...it's the system...as i said, almost non-existent in history, except for in the US, over the last 200 years...
You're right that it is not US citizens in particular. I do agree that the US's political and economic uniqueness aided growth. I would argue though that England has had a similar economic system for a longer time. Remember that the US did not become the land of opportunity for most Americans until the 20th century.
and the US is the absolute envy of the world as a result.
In terms of wealth, I would tend to agree. You'll have to ask the non-US RHPer's about how much they envy us in general though.
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