A Splendid Exchange
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World from Prehistory to Today by William J. Bernstein
My review
I find myself thinking about this book constantly. It deals with a subject that is so ubiquitous that it is hardly ever closely analyzed: trade. The time period stretches from the stone age to the present. The items covered include spices, coffee, silk, pigs and pork, precious metals, oil, and, really, just about everything else on the planet. He demonstrates thousands of times that the world as we know it would be unrecognizable without trade, and shows that trade has shaped who we are in ways that none of us fully recognize. The historical detail is amazing. The writing is scholarly but clear and fascinating on every page.
My only complaint is an odd one: he doesn't seem to have a solid theory of trade that goes beyond neoclassical conventions. Had he put one up front, he would have been able to go beyond the very good chronicle here to actually forge a solid theory of the social order itself. It is another example of how Smith's "propensity to truck and barter" has misled: instead of seeing trade as a mutually beneficial exchange that extends from the desire to better one's lot in life, and an extension of human rationality, he treats the entire subject as if it were an instinct of some sort.
But that is a regrettable oversight that in no way diminishes the contribution here.
Comments (5)
Dennis
From Jeff's comment, it sounds like Mr. Bernstein needs to read and absorb Part Two,
Action within the Framework of Society of Mises’s “Human Action.”
Published: August 11, 2008 8:41 AM
gene berman
Dennis:
I haven't read the subject treatment by Bernstein but am willing to go out on a limb and agree with you. There simply isn't much left of a theoretical nature to be expressed after Mises. Reason brought men to produce for themselves and then to trade with others and then, to specialize even further in order to produce more of what they could in order to get more of what they couldn't. And, in so doing, to bring into being civilization of increasing complexity and capability. Trade=civilization (and, conversely,
less trade=less civilization.).
Published: August 11, 2008 11:51 AM
Jay Stevens
Sounds like a great book. I will be sure to read it and let you know what I think.
Thanks
jay
Cyber Monday
Published: August 14, 2008 12:30 AM
David Roemer
Tucker's comments were right on target. To Bernstein, economics is mathematics and psychology, not a study of human action. In the beginning, he mentions that Western exceptionalism is due to the system of property rights and rule of law. However, he makes no attempt to explain why these institutions developed in the West. I discuss Western exceptionalism in my review of a book titled "The First Christmas."
It is reasonable to give the Roman Catholic Church credit for this development, because it was the first modern government with laws and courts. On page 81, speaking of the Nestorians, he says they were "repelled by the savage intolerance of the Catholic Church and attracted by the relative tolerance of Islam." Muslims were more tolerant because it was convenient. The Catholic Church was intolerant because it was concerned with human welfare, not only in this world, but in the world to come.
Published: January 13, 2009 12:20 PM
David Roemer
Tucker's comments were right on target. To Bernstein, economics is mathematics and psychology, not a study of human action. In the beginning, he mentions that Western exceptionalism is due to the system of property rights and rule of law. However, he makes no attempt to explain why these institutions developed in the West. I discuss Western exceptionalism in my review of a book titled "The First Christmas."
It is reasonable to give the Roman Catholic Church credit for this development, because it was the first modern government with laws and courts. On page 81, speaking of the Nestorians, he says they were "repelled by the savage intolerance of the Catholic Church and attracted by the relative tolerance of Islam." Muslims were more tolerant because it was convenient. The Catholic Church was intolerant because it was concerned with human welfare, not only in this world, but in the world to come.
Published: January 13, 2009 12:21 PM