What do we mean by "global poverty"? Who is poor?
Back before the industrial revolution everybody was--by our standards, at least--desperately poor.
Even the rich were poor. Consider Nathan Meyer Rothschild:
- Nathan Meyer Rothschild was the richest man in the world in the first half of the nineteenth century. Nathan Meyer Rothschild died in his fifties of an infected abscess in his back--an abscess that we oils have cured by lancing and antibiotics without even a hospital admission for day surgery.
- Nathan Meyer Rothschild did not live to see his grandchildren grow up--something that the guys working the loading dock at Target expect as a matter of course, as their birthright.
- Who is richer: Nathan Meyer Rothschild or America's working poor today?
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January 30, 2008
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From Brad DeLong
J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics at U.C Berkeley, a Research Associate of the NBER, a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Chair of Berkeley's Political Economy major.
Among his best works are: "Is Increased Price Flexibility Stabilizing?" "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare," "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," "Princes and Merchants: European City Growth Before the Industrial Revolution," "Why Does the Stock Market Fluctuate?" "Keynesianism, Pennsylvania-Avenue Style," "America's Peacetime Inflation: The 1970s," "American Fiscal Policy in the Shadow of the Great Depression," "Review of Robert Skidelsky (2000), John Maynard Keynes, volume 3, Fighting for Britain," "Between Meltdown and Moral Hazard: Clinton Administration International Monetary and Financial Policy," "Productivity Growth in the 2000s," "Asset Returns and Economic Growth."
- Leigh Speakers' Bureau:
The Eighteen-Year-Old is going to college next year, which means that I need to think about making more money. (The idea that one might write checks to rather than receive checks from universities is now strange to me.) So I have signed up with the Leigh Speakers' Bureau which also handles, among many others: Chris Anderson; Suzanne Berger; Michael Boskin; Kenneth Courtis; Clive Crook; Bill Emmott; Robert H. Frank; William Goetzmann; Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin; Paul Krugman; Bill McKibben; Paul Romer; Jeffrey Sachs; Robert Shiller;James Surowiecki; Martin Wolf; Adrian Wooldridge.
About Brad DeLong
- Leigh Speakers' Bureau
The Eighteen-Year-Old is going to college, which means that I need to think about making more money. (The idea that one might write checks to rather than receive checks from universities still seems very strange to me.) So I have signed up with the Leigh Speakers' Bureau which also handles, among many others: Chris Anderson; Suzanne Berger; Michael Boskin; Kenneth Courtis; Clive Crook; Bill Emmott; Robert H. Frank; William Goetzmann; Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin; Paul Krugman; Bill McKibben; Paul Romer; Jeffrey Sachs; Robert Shiller;James Surowiecki; Martin Wolf; Adrian Wooldridge.
- J. Bradford DeLong is a professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, chair of its political economy major, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and was in the Clinton administration a deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His best work extends from business cycle dynamics through economic growth, behavioral finance, political economy, economic history, international finance to the history of economic thought and other topics.
- Among his best works are: "Is Increased Price Flexibility Stabilizing?" "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare," "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," "Princes and Merchants: European City Growth Before the Industrial Revolution," "Why Does the Stock Market Fluctuate?" "Keynesianism, Pennsylvania-Avenue Style," "America's Peacetime Inflation: The 1970s," "American Fiscal Policy in the Shadow of the Great Depression," "Review of Robert Skidelsky (2000), John Maynard Keynes, volume 3, Fighting for Britain," "Between Meltdown and Moral Hazard: Clinton Administration International Monetary and Financial Policy," "Productivity Growth in the 2000s," "Asset Returns and Economic Growth."
Recent Posts
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- "We Took Great Store of Codfish and Called it Cape Cod:" Bartholomew Gosnold Sails Along Northeastern North America, 1602
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- The Shadow of Malthus
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- The Really Upper Tail
- The Upper Tail
Poverty is always a "relative" judgement. It is a relation between an individual and the social context he inhabits. Was Rothschild richer-yes he had more than everybody else. That is the important distinction. Do correct me if I'm wrong.
Posted by: Sabyasachi Ray | February 25, 2008 at 03:48 AM