In short: Samuelson’s readers were told in 1961 (and shown in a graph) that the economy of the Soviet Union was growing, and would continue to grow, significantly faster than the American
economy. Nine years later, readers were told the very same thing – even though, according to Samuelson’s own 1970 graph, the ratio of Soviet GNP to U.S. GNP in 1970 was the same as it was in 1961.
Which 1970 graph implies the 1960s and before went backward between 1960 and 1970. The 1970 graph implies that the 1960s and before were worse than depicted in the 1960 graph.
In 1910, the Russian Tsardom was a great power. In order to supposedly have rapid Soviet growth, and yet the Soviets are somehow still not yet surpassing the USA, it was necessary to retroactively deindustrialize the Russian Tsardom, and every year, retroactively deindustrialize it more and more.
Samuelson’s graph was one example of many of this retroactive deindustrialization, which sticks out more than most because occurring between two editions of his book—the Soviet implied starting point being worse in his 1970 graph than his 1960 graph.
The 1970 graph implies that the 1960s and before were worse than depicted in the 1960 graph.
Why? Nothing implying that is stated in your link. The 1970 graph certainly implies that things didn’t go as rosely for the USSR during the 60′s as the 1961 graph predicted. But your link doesn’t explain the derivation of the two graphs in enough detail for us to see that they imply different conditions in the USSR prior to 1960.
Again, you could probably find an example of someone doing what you claim (an American academic after 1960 retroactively adjusting pre-1960 Soviet history for political reasons). I acknowledge that that probably happened more than once.
But what you seem to think is documentation of such an event, just isn’t. Furthermore, you never provided any documentation for your claim that doubting such assertions would get a student failed. This leads me to believe that you have a very skewed notion of how often such events happened, which gives me less confidence in your general conclusions about the attitude of academia at the time.
Now, the question is whether the 1970 graph can be interpreted in some reasonable way that wouldn’t imply a revision of the claim about the 1960 GNP ratio in the 1961 book. (Not a revision of the prediction for the 1960s, mind you, but a revision of the 1960 figure that was already in the past when the 1961 edition was being prepared.) I would say that the answer to this question is no, though I can imagine that reasonable people might disagree.
In any case, what I find really scary is the anti-epistemology that makes people believe that these numbers have any sensible meaning in the first place.
Now, the question is whether the 1970 graph can be interpreted in some reasonable way that wouldn’t imply a revision of the claim about the 1960 GNP ratio in the 1961 book. (Not a revision of the prediction for the 1960s, mind you, but a revision of the 1960 figure that was already in the past when the 1961 edition was being prepared.) I would say that the answer to this question is no, though I can imagine that reasonable people might disagree.
Fair enough. My point is only that, until we know more information than sam0345′s link provides, we cannot give a confident answer to this question. (Namely, we need to know the method by which Samuelson converted data into graphs.)
Quoting from the article:
Which 1970 graph implies the 1960s and before went backward between 1960 and 1970. The 1970 graph implies that the 1960s and before were worse than depicted in the 1960 graph.
In 1910, the Russian Tsardom was a great power. In order to supposedly have rapid Soviet growth, and yet the Soviets are somehow still not yet surpassing the USA, it was necessary to retroactively deindustrialize the Russian Tsardom, and every year, retroactively deindustrialize it more and more.
Samuelson’s graph was one example of many of this retroactive deindustrialization, which sticks out more than most because occurring between two editions of his book—the Soviet implied starting point being worse in his 1970 graph than his 1960 graph.
Why? Nothing implying that is stated in your link. The 1970 graph certainly implies that things didn’t go as rosely for the USSR during the 60′s as the 1961 graph predicted. But your link doesn’t explain the derivation of the two graphs in enough detail for us to see that they imply different conditions in the USSR prior to 1960.
Again, you could probably find an example of someone doing what you claim (an American academic after 1960 retroactively adjusting pre-1960 Soviet history for political reasons). I acknowledge that that probably happened more than once.
But what you seem to think is documentation of such an event, just isn’t. Furthermore, you never provided any documentation for your claim that doubting such assertions would get a student failed. This leads me to believe that you have a very skewed notion of how often such events happened, which gives me less confidence in your general conclusions about the attitude of academia at the time.
You can find the graphs from Samuelson’s book along with excerpts from his commentary in this paper (starting on page 8):
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1517983
Now, the question is whether the 1970 graph can be interpreted in some reasonable way that wouldn’t imply a revision of the claim about the 1960 GNP ratio in the 1961 book. (Not a revision of the prediction for the 1960s, mind you, but a revision of the 1960 figure that was already in the past when the 1961 edition was being prepared.) I would say that the answer to this question is no, though I can imagine that reasonable people might disagree.
In any case, what I find really scary is the anti-epistemology that makes people believe that these numbers have any sensible meaning in the first place.
Fair enough. My point is only that, until we know more information than sam0345′s link provides, we cannot give a confident answer to this question. (Namely, we need to know the method by which Samuelson converted data into graphs.)