CHANGE: Economics 210a: Readings and Memo Question for January 28, 2009

Readings:

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson (2005), "The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change, and Economic Growth," American Economic Review 95, PP. 546-79 http://tinyurl.com/dl20090122.

Jeffrey Williamson and Kevin O'Rourke, "After Columbus: Explaining Europe's Overseas Trade Boom, 1500-1800," Journal of Economic History 62, pp. 417-456 http://www.nber.org/papers/w8186.

Jan de Vries (forthcoming), "The Limits to Globalization in the Early Modern World," Economic History Review http://tinyurl.com/dl20090122a.

Karl Marx, "The So-called Primitive Capital Accumulation," Capital Vol. 1, Part VIII, Chs. 26-32 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch.26.htm.

Ralph Austen and Woodruff D. Smith (1992), "Private Tooth Decay as Public Economic Virtue: The Slave-Sugar Triangle, Consumerism, and European Industrialization," in Joseph E. Imkori and Stanley L. Engerman, eds., The Atlantic Slave Trade (Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, 1992), pp. 183-203 http://tinyurl.com/dl20090122b.

Memo Question for January 28:

"The treasure captured outside Europe by undisguised looting, enslavement and murder, floated back to the mother-country and were there turned into capital." -- Marx, Capital, Vol. 1 Ch. 32. Do the other assigned readings provide any basis for assessing the general truth of this passage from Marx? In what sense did colonial trade in the 1497-1800 period contribute to capital formation in Europe?

Comments

[Jhonny]

It's a dilemma.BdL seems to oprtaee, consciously or otherwise, on the assumption that some future scholar may want to read his work, whether three days from now or three centuries from now. Under the dead tree publishing paradigm, he can simply refer to his source and have a high degree of confidence that the source will be available should the scholar wish to track it down. But he has already observed that under the online paradigm there is no guarantee that the material he is referencing will still be accessible. This is part of what the people warning of a digital dark age are complaining about.Balanced against that is the fair use issue. Quoting an excerpt for noncommercial purposes is usually considered fair use. Quoting an entire article is generally not. BdL generally does provide the link to the primary source, which include links to other sources (these second-order links, at least under Typepad as Brad has it configured, generally do not carry over; Brad normally quotes that other source as well if he feels it is important enough to the argument). I can understand his reasons for doing so, but he is at minimum playing very close to the fair use line, quite aside from considerations about linking etiquette.