there is a familiar phenomenon here, in which a certain kind of would-be economic expert loves to cite the supposed lessons of economic experiences that are in the distant past, and where we actually have only a faint grasp of what really happened. Harding 1921 “works” only because people don’t know much about it; you have to navigate through some fairly obscure sources to figure out [what actually happened]. And the same goes even more strongly — let’s say, XII times as strongly — when, say, [Name] starts telling us about the Emperor Diocletian. The point is that the vagueness of the information, and even more so what most people [think they] know about it, lets such people project their prejudices onto the past and then claim that they’re discussing the lessons of experience.
Paul Krugman on the use of examples to obscure rather than clarify
What’s the alternative. Site what’s currently going on in other countries (people generally aren’t to familiar with that either)? Generalize from one example (where people don’t necessarily now all the details either)?
Yes. Because both of those have actual data, and are thus useful—your reasoning can be tested against reality.
We just really don’t know very much about the roman economy, and are unlikely to find out much more than we currently do.
Generalizing from one example isn’t good .. science, logic or argument. But it’s better than generalizing from the fog of history. Not a lot better—Economics only very barely qualifies as a science on a good day, but Krugman is completely correct to call people out for going in this direction because doing so just outright reduces it to storytelling.
there is a familiar phenomenon here, in which a certain kind of would-be economic expert loves to cite the supposed lessons of economic experiences that are in the distant past, and where we actually have only a faint grasp of what really happened. Harding 1921 “works” only because people don’t know much about it; you have to navigate through some fairly obscure sources to figure out [what actually happened]. And the same goes even more strongly — let’s say, XII times as strongly — when, say, [Name] starts telling us about the Emperor Diocletian. The point is that the vagueness of the information, and even more so what most people [think they] know about it, lets such people project their prejudices onto the past and then claim that they’re discussing the lessons of experience.
Paul Krugman on the use of examples to obscure rather than clarify
What’s the alternative. Site what’s currently going on in other countries (people generally aren’t to familiar with that either)? Generalize from one example (where people don’t necessarily now all the details either)?
Yes. Because both of those have actual data, and are thus useful—your reasoning can be tested against reality.
We just really don’t know very much about the roman economy, and are unlikely to find out much more than we currently do. Generalizing from one example isn’t good .. science, logic or argument. But it’s better than generalizing from the fog of history. Not a lot better—Economics only very barely qualifies as a science on a good day, but Krugman is completely correct to call people out for going in this direction because doing so just outright reduces it to storytelling.
On the other hand we do know a lot about what happened in 1921, Krugman just wishes we didn’t because it appears to contradict his theories.
Um, no. History contains evidence, it’s not particularly clean evidence, but evidence nonetheless and we shouldn’t be throwing it away.