It seems to me that many of Ferguson's heavy-lifting abstractions/generalizations go just as under-quantified and un-backed-up as Hanauer's. And several times,

It seems to me that many of Ferguson's heavy-lifting abstractions/generalizations go just as under-quantified and un-backed-up as Hanauer's. And several times, when Ferguson does show numbers, the "why did he pare down the dataset?" or choose that particular measure questions go unremarked. For instance, he mentions the difference between land-ownership in North and South America, but leaves out the wealthy European countries which were explicitly part of his explanandum.