Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived
A subtle change has been made to the comments links, so they no longer pop up. Does this in any way help with the problem about comments not appearing on permalinked posts, readers?
Update: seemingly not
Update: Oh yeah!
Monday, December 12, 2011
Could Henry the Eighth have got a cheeseburger, if he wanted one?
Via Paul Krugman, this guy tries to do the "I, Pencil" bit with respect to the cheeseburger. Basically it's a bait-and-switch, possibly an unintentional one, but by the definition he is using (multiple specialized vendors, ability to transport foodstuffs large distances while keeping them fresh), the Homeric Greeks were probably an "highly-developed, post-agrarian society" and the Romans certainly were. I think that where he went wrong was in starting off thinking about Thanksgiving, and assuming that the whole world was like America[1] - a tribal subsistence farmer-hunter society, that suddenly became a modern capitalist one at the end of the eighteenth century. Also one where pasture is a "near zero cost" input (see comments), which has only been even nearly true in a small number of geographical and historical islands.
[1] Actually, like New England - I bet the Incas and Aztecs weren't far off being able to do the same things with food as the Romans. They were also positioned near the equator and thus presumably didn't have to deal with this strange thing about only slaughtering animals in the autumn, about which the author seems very strict.
this item posted by the management 12/12/2011 02:10:00 AM
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