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It is worth knowing that Tooze is a ultra-Marxist historian. So he sees every problem as simply applying enough capital, and the output will magically rise. If

It is worth knowing that Tooze is a ultra-Marxist historian. So he sees every problem as simply applying enough capital, and the output will magically rise. If you consider the chart for two seconds, you realise that it also shows very high investment in Europe...and did Europe have a huge investment boom like the US over the past ten years? No. It is substantially more nuanced than this. You need to look at the structure of financial markets, how research is converted into revenue, and how this gets balanced politically. Investment is just capital balance + domestic savings, and the latter is just your trade balance. Investment in the US has held up despite running a huge deficit because they are importing capital. Comparing that situation with Europe, which cannot import capital on a large scale because of their banking situation, is misleading. Just generally, the UK has more than enough basic research and has always done so. The problem has been that we have no institution like Stanford that excels in applying this research, and we lack the financial structure to enable this even if we did. More public investment won't make the slightest difference, it didn't in the 60/70s and it won't now. Also, the productivity charts are classic. Everyone knows they are misleading, Richard Jones has said the chart is misleading (he also, suspiciously, uses 2009 as the break). Productivity growth has slowed globally, and (ironically as Tooze says later but doesn't connect to the above) we made the decision to destroy our own banking sector. There is no world in which productivity growth continued to be 2+%. It is all so silly.

hackandthink 4y ago
Did not know about it: "For Tooze, this Marx – the ‘empirical’ Marx – anticipates his own brand of grounded contemporary history" (1) But "Ultra-Marxist" surely doesn't fit. I see him as social democrat and as devoted Keynesian. I have not read his books, but think I should. He seems to be one of the most creative intellectuals and historians at the moment. (1) https://renewal.org.uk/archive/vol-30-2022/toozes-marx/ https://renewal.org.uk/archive/vol-30-2022/toozes-marx/
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  Yes it does fit. You may not understand that historical Marxism and political Marxism are not the same thing. Tooze is one of the most famous Marxist historians in the world. Iirc, he used to go to all the Marxist historian conferences (Historical Materialism, he writes for New Left Review, etc.) Wages of Destruction is one of the best economic history books of the 20th century. Everything after that isn't good. I would read more about what historical Marxists believe. If you actually read what he is saying very carefully, you would realise that his view of how economic growth occurs is significantly different to the one that exists in reality. Part of that is empiricism (Marxists were the arch empiricists, they viewed their theories as grounded in a deep understanding of statistics and data...this is obviously ridiculous in retrospect but this view of "scientific Marxism" was pervasive at the time). If you don't know much about economic history, I would read Mokyr/McCloskey, anything that has a vaguely coherent account of how economic growth actually occurs.
  - hackandthink 4y ago
    Thanks, I'll start with Wages of Destruction. Lately Adam Tooze has been writing too much, his Javelin Chartbook post on Substack for example is ridiculous. But probably everyone has bad days. I lived in West Berlin before and after the fall of the Wall and picked up quite a bit about Marxism / Historical Materialism. As far as I see, Tooze is miles away from orthodox Marxism. Tooze knows both Europe and the US well and he has the historical knowledge, so I take his analyses seriously, e.g. (1). But here I do not see a marxist anti-imperialist either. On the contrary, he seems to be enthusiastic about the war of the good West, however many human lives it may cost. (1) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/04/us-lend-lease-act-ukraine-1941-second-world-war https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/04/us-len...
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
      Yes, he is one of the most well-known historical materialists out there...I am not sure what to tell you, I studied economic history, I have read all of his books inc. his PHd thesis, I know what conferences he attended because I know people who know him...and you are telling me I am wrong because you lived in Berlin? Only on HN. Btw, I strongly suspect you still do not understand the difference between historical and political Marxism (nothing to do with "the war of the good West"...just read about historiography) but if you just consider the theme of Wages of Destruction, it should be extremely obvious to you that Tooze is a historical materialist (again though, I would consider whether you know enough about historiography and economics to understand the nuances of these points i.e. if you didn't study economic history to postgrad level, then you likely do not).
denton-scratch 4y ago
>The problem has been that we have no institution like Stanford that excels in applying this research This has been the problem since I was a kid; we make good inventions, but we're bad at exploiting them. Research universities nowadays have incubators; but I think helping inventors exploit their ideas should be a function of central government.
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  Incubators, from what I have seen, do not work. At a fundamental level, the people we have producing basic research are disinterested in the application. It is cultural (the exception is Manchester/Sheffield, the uni near me was doing NLP in the 60s, they recently tried to get professors into business...all of them were laughable, stuff that the sixth-formers are cooking up in the common room after too many Dibdabs). It cannot be a function of central govt (although the level of govt support for early-stage businesses is overwhelming). Ironically, the UK has actually tried this several times: one after WW2, then again in the 60/70s...didn't work either time. Again, the fundamental thing is: do you want to start a business? Or are you happy to sit in your university tithing the rest of the population? You see this in the private sector too, the default position of most execs is to maximise the options package and check out.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    OK, so I don't really don't know what an incubator is; what I mean is that there should be a public institution or agency whose job is to remove the obstacles between invention and exploitation. I'm not talking about throwing money at start-ups at all. Such an agency could run on a shoestring, if it could influence other government agencies like the Patent Office, drafters of bills, committee members and so on. I don't care much for the idea that inventors must also be entrepreneurs, or be doomed to failure. Ideally, inventors and entrepreneurs partner-up; but entrepreneurs are pirates, and inventors partner-up at their peril. I guess that's the benefit of having both roles in the same person.
    - skippyboxedhero 4y ago

hackandthink 4y ago

Did not know about it: "For Tooze, this Marx – the ‘empirical’ Marx – anticipates his own brand of grounded contemporary history" (1) But "Ultra-Marxist" surely doesn't fit. I see him as social democrat and as devoted Keynesian. I have not read his books, but think I should. He seems to be one of the most creative intellectuals and historians at the moment. (1) https://renewal.org.uk/archive/vol-30-2022/toozes-marx/ https://renewal.org.uk/archive/vol-30-2022/toozes-marx/

skippyboxedhero 4y ago
Yes it does fit. You may not understand that historical Marxism and political Marxism are not the same thing. Tooze is one of the most famous Marxist historians in the world. Iirc, he used to go to all the Marxist historian conferences (Historical Materialism, he writes for New Left Review, etc.) Wages of Destruction is one of the best economic history books of the 20th century. Everything after that isn't good. I would read more about what historical Marxists believe. If you actually read what he is saying very carefully, you would realise that his view of how economic growth occurs is significantly different to the one that exists in reality. Part of that is empiricism (Marxists were the arch empiricists, they viewed their theories as grounded in a deep understanding of statistics and data...this is obviously ridiculous in retrospect but this view of "scientific Marxism" was pervasive at the time). If you don't know much about economic history, I would read Mokyr/McCloskey, anything that has a vaguely coherent account of how economic growth actually occurs.
- hackandthink 4y ago
  Thanks, I'll start with Wages of Destruction. Lately Adam Tooze has been writing too much, his Javelin Chartbook post on Substack for example is ridiculous. But probably everyone has bad days. I lived in West Berlin before and after the fall of the Wall and picked up quite a bit about Marxism / Historical Materialism. As far as I see, Tooze is miles away from orthodox Marxism. Tooze knows both Europe and the US well and he has the historical knowledge, so I take his analyses seriously, e.g. (1). But here I do not see a marxist anti-imperialist either. On the contrary, he seems to be enthusiastic about the war of the good West, however many human lives it may cost. (1) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/04/us-lend-lease-act-ukraine-1941-second-world-war https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/04/us-len...
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    Yes, he is one of the most well-known historical materialists out there...I am not sure what to tell you, I studied economic history, I have read all of his books inc. his PHd thesis, I know what conferences he attended because I know people who know him...and you are telling me I am wrong because you lived in Berlin? Only on HN. Btw, I strongly suspect you still do not understand the difference between historical and political Marxism (nothing to do with "the war of the good West"...just read about historiography) but if you just consider the theme of Wages of Destruction, it should be extremely obvious to you that Tooze is a historical materialist (again though, I would consider whether you know enough about historiography and economics to understand the nuances of these points i.e. if you didn't study economic history to postgrad level, then you likely do not).

denton-scratch 4y ago

>The problem has been that we have no institution like Stanford that excels in applying this research This has been the problem since I was a kid; we make good inventions, but we're bad at exploiting them. Research universities nowadays have incubators; but I think helping inventors exploit their ideas should be a function of central government.

skippyboxedhero 4y ago
Incubators, from what I have seen, do not work. At a fundamental level, the people we have producing basic research are disinterested in the application. It is cultural (the exception is Manchester/Sheffield, the uni near me was doing NLP in the 60s, they recently tried to get professors into business...all of them were laughable, stuff that the sixth-formers are cooking up in the common room after too many Dibdabs). It cannot be a function of central govt (although the level of govt support for early-stage businesses is overwhelming). Ironically, the UK has actually tried this several times: one after WW2, then again in the 60/70s...didn't work either time. Again, the fundamental thing is: do you want to start a business? Or are you happy to sit in your university tithing the rest of the population? You see this in the private sector too, the default position of most execs is to maximise the options package and check out.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  OK, so I don't really don't know what an incubator is; what I mean is that there should be a public institution or agency whose job is to remove the obstacles between invention and exploitation. I'm not talking about throwing money at start-ups at all. Such an agency could run on a shoestring, if it could influence other government agencies like the Patent Office, drafters of bills, committee members and so on. I don't care much for the idea that inventors must also be entrepreneurs, or be doomed to failure. Ideally, inventors and entrepreneurs partner-up; but entrepreneurs are pirates, and inventors partner-up at their peril. I guess that's the benefit of having both roles in the same person.
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago