A Farewell to Alms
| Author | Gregory Clark |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Economics, social evolution |
| Published | 2007 (Princeton University Press) |
| Media type | Hardcover, Paperback, Audio CD, Audio Cassette, Audio Download |
| Pages | 432 pages (Princeton edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | (Princeton edition, paperback) |
A Farewell to Alms is a book about economic history by Gregory Clark, subtitled "A Brief Economic History of the World". It is published by Princeton University Press.
The book's title is a pun on Ernest Hemingway's novel, A Farewell to Arms.
The book discusses the divide between rich and poor nations that came about as a result of the Industrial Revolution in terms of the evolution of particular behaviours that Clark claims first occurred in Britain. Prior to 1790, Clark asserts that man faced a Malthusian trap: new technology enabled greater productivity and more food, but was quickly gobbled up by higher populations.
In Britain, however, as disease continually killed off poorer members of society, their positions in society were taken over by the sons of the wealthy. In that way, according to Clark, less violent, more literate and more hard-working behaviour - middle-class values - were spread culturally and biologically throughout the population. This process of "downward social mobility" eventually enabled Britain to attain a rate of productivity that allowed it to break out of the Malthusian trap. Clark sees this process, continuing today, as the major factor why some countries are poor and others are rich.
With its controversial theses, the book received attention and several reviews from newspapers and scholars. Christof Dejung from the University of Konstanz criticised the book for not considering the oppressive aspects of colonialism, and concluded: "It seems that the warm welcome the book has found in some circles comes not least from the fact that it discharges the West from every responsibility for the grinding poverty most people on the globe are living in until today." The book has received praise from authors like Benjamin M. Friedman and Tyler Cowen (Mercatus Center director) ("idea-rich book", maybe "next blockbuster in economics"), although authors from this political direction do not all agree fully with the theses of the book. For example, Kuznicki from the libertarian Cato Institute stated, in a generally positive review, that "his explanation begins to look very ad hoc when considering the last few decades".
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