The Birth of Plenty & Civilization, The West and the Rest

I read William Bernstein's The Birth of Plenty, How the Prosperity of the Modern World Was Created, a few years ago.  It was published in 2004.  He lists four conditions necessary for human progress to take off: property rights, scientific rationalism, capital markets and improvements in transportation and communication.  

These four conditions were obviously most likely to be found in a relatively free society, such as those he mentions, the Dutch Republic, England and the United States.  To the extent other societies adopt these principles, such as mainland China today, they loosen the bonds of tyranny somewhat, giving birth to a middle class that one day will become fed up with dictatorship.  

Along comes Niall Ferguson in 2011 with Civilization, The West and the Rest, with his take on how Western Europe came to dominate the world.  He lists six components: competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society and the work ethic.  It seems to me he is restating in a slightly more elaborate manner Bernstein's list.  Yet among the hundreds of works and authors he cites, The Birth of Plenty or Bernstein do not appear.  Are we to believe he did not refer to this book at all?  I find that pretty hard to believe.  

Neither does he cite Hernando deSoto's The Mystery of Capital, which Bernstein does reference,  on the consequences of making the ownership and transfer of private property a bureaucratic nightmare, as it is in many Third World nations.  He does analyze the development of property relationships in South America, as does deSoto, but relying on different souces apparently.  Or perhaps avoiding an author Bernstein relied upon.  

Anyway, I think both books make a valuable contribution to the discussion of what role capitalism and freedom make to improving the lives of ordinary men and women.  They make it clear that socialist and ever-expanding government control of the economic lives of  citizens causes poverty and political subjugation to the all powerful State.
  

Get Your Wheelbarrow Ready

In the 1920's it is said Germans had to use wheelbarrows to take their money to the market to buy food, thanks to hyper-inflation...well we might as well get the wheels greased on our wheel barrels, because Obama's war on our economy is in full swing and he is spending money and printed greenbacks like there is no tomorrow...no acceptable tomorrow for our children to be sure...if we or they survive his soft-on-terrorists foreign policy...one wonders if this neo-Carter would even oppose an attack by some rogue state like Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Cuba, the list goes on...he wants to make friends with these monsters, and ditch our friends like Great Britain, Poland, Hungary...throw them to the lions in the name of better international relations with anyone who is anti-American...so get your wheelbarrows out and pump up the tire and remove the rust, you are going to need it to get to the nearest supermarket with your worthless dollars very soon...

Demos against investment

Why is it the Democrats are pro-choice when it comes to terminating the life of the unborn, and anti-choice in President Bush's proposal for personal investment accounts in Social Security? The investment account would be completely voluntary, no one would be forced to go that route, yet the Democrats carp and carry on like it's the end of the world. They hate to see government cede any authority or power it already has over the individual, apparently. Their opposition also reveals their anti-capitalist stance. Wall Street is a dirty word in their ideology. I suspect they can't stand the idea of some people getting more money than others from their Social Security payments. They don't want people to risk their money because they might make more than other people. The Demos prefer an egalitarian system in which the government collects our money and doles it out in equal payments to everyone.