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I find this entire argument suspect. It all boils down to pointing to instances when catastrophe lowered inequality, ignoring all the instances when catastrophe

I find this entire argument suspect. It all boils down to pointing to instances when catastrophe lowered inequality, ignoring all the instances when catastrophe increases inequality, and then claiming that's the only thing that causes inequality. The entire line of reasoning is specious. You can't prove a negative. It confuses correlation with causation.

Nomentatus 10y ago
It would have been nice to have a control group, true, but howya gonna do dat? We have to look at the evidence we have, and there is a fair bit of it, so we might as well take a look. I don't think the author is cherry-picking. There's nothing shocking about stability increasing organization and stratification that's hard to maintain during chaotic times. Power tends to concentrate, I think that was noted before Marx came along. And I've read books highlighting the phenomenon from a couple decades back that focused more on China and the east, as warlords rose and fell in three-century cycles. A better argument against this idea is that the article mentions that reductions in inequality continued a full thirty years after WWII, which doesn't fit the thesis all that well.
- openasocket 10y ago
  > It would have been nice to have a control group, true, but howya gonna do dat? We have to look at the evidence we have, and there is a fair bit of it, so we might as well take a look. I totally get that, but that's no excuse for saying you have causation when you have only correlation. It's also no excuse for claiming to have proved a negative. > I don't think the author is cherry-picking Calling it cherry picking is generous: this is anecdotal evidence. You need more than a half dozen examples to prove a trend, and I'd prefer examples more precise than the events that occurred across an entire country over the course of decades. To be clear, I don't question that catastrophe can reduce inequality, but I don't think it is the only thing.
  - Nomentatus 10y ago
    Only if you assume the data have been fiddled do you have to worry about correlation not being causation; otherwise the law of large numbers applies thoroughly - if not coincidence, that leaves causation in this case. Why? Because present inequality can't be causing previous peace; and as for both being a downstream cause of something else ... well that just beggars my imagination - Descarte's Evil Genius or Aliens with a sense of humor are the only such upstream causes I can imagine. But if you can do better, I'm open. Most eras of history consist of anecdotal evidence; ya gotta examine and play the cards you have, not those you'd prefer. You infer that you've done a lot of reading plump with evidence contradicting this without ever offering bibliography or counterexamples; but my reading, which I mentioned, supports the thesis (for example, in the East as well) (and as it happens, supports Marx in this matter.) Please raise, call, or fold.

Nomentatus 10y ago

It would have been nice to have a control group, true, but howya gonna do dat? We have to look at the evidence we have, and there is a fair bit of it, so we might as well take a look. I don't think the author is cherry-picking. There's nothing shocking about stability increasing organization and stratification that's hard to maintain during chaotic times. Power tends to concentrate, I think that was noted before Marx came along. And I've read books highlighting the phenomenon from a couple decades back that focused more on China and the east, as warlords rose and fell in three-century cycles. A better argument against this idea is that the article mentions that reductions in inequality continued a full thirty years after WWII, which doesn't fit the thesis all that well.

openasocket 10y ago
> It would have been nice to have a control group, true, but howya gonna do dat? We have to look at the evidence we have, and there is a fair bit of it, so we might as well take a look. I totally get that, but that's no excuse for saying you have causation when you have only correlation. It's also no excuse for claiming to have proved a negative. > I don't think the author is cherry-picking Calling it cherry picking is generous: this is anecdotal evidence. You need more than a half dozen examples to prove a trend, and I'd prefer examples more precise than the events that occurred across an entire country over the course of decades. To be clear, I don't question that catastrophe can reduce inequality, but I don't think it is the only thing.
- Nomentatus 10y ago
  Only if you assume the data have been fiddled do you have to worry about correlation not being causation; otherwise the law of large numbers applies thoroughly - if not coincidence, that leaves causation in this case. Why? Because present inequality can't be causing previous peace; and as for both being a downstream cause of something else ... well that just beggars my imagination - Descarte's Evil Genius or Aliens with a sense of humor are the only such upstream causes I can imagine. But if you can do better, I'm open. Most eras of history consist of anecdotal evidence; ya gotta examine and play the cards you have, not those you'd prefer. You infer that you've done a lot of reading plump with evidence contradicting this without ever offering bibliography or counterexamples; but my reading, which I mentioned, supports the thesis (for example, in the East as well) (and as it happens, supports Marx in this matter.) Please raise, call, or fold.