Economists and economic philosophers have been preoccupied with studying the past, identifying various social, political or cultural trends, for anticipating the future. In their articles, DeLong (“Growth is Good” and Lucas (“The Industrial Revolution: Past and Future”) develop economic theories consistent with their understanding of the past, analysis of the present and vision of the future. While developing their theories, the two economic writers touch various ideas, which are part of both discourses. Inspired by the known history and their contemporary reality, DeLong and Lucas reach similar conclusions, but there are also different points in their economic argumentations, which will further be discussed in this essay.
Preoccupied with presenting the statistical growth of the living standard of the world’s population, in general, Lucas reaches the idea that economic progress is a standard, not an exception that characterizes specific world regions, such as the Western world or emerging Asian countries. The economist finds that compared to past historic periods, people nowadays have an increased per capita income. In comparison, DeLong also observes a progress in the human living standard as compared to the past centuries, but he emphasizes the physical and health condition: people are taller and live longer, enjoying more entertainment opportunities. In other words, both economists agree that the quality of life has improved across time in most regions of the world. However, Lucas punctuates better how the economic progress registered and how much the living standards grew in different world regions. He explains that the English speaking countries, followed by Japan and the northeast European countries recognized a better economic evolution across time than the rest of the Asia and Africa. The reason for this evolution consisted in the fact that the top three regions better adapted to the new economic conditions, especially to the industrial revolution. DeLucas also brings similar arguments about why the evolution of United States was different than that of India or Africa, explaining that people in U.S. better and faster adjusted to the technological revolution.
While Lucas draws a more global analysis of the economic development, DeLong mostly focus on the economic progress of United States in relation to other world countries. DeLong enters more directly the political sphere compared to Lucas, because he mentions the political dynamics between U.S. and Russia, U.S. and Japan and U.S and China. Through this comparison between U.S. and the major powers of the world, DeLong positions United States as a leading economic actor, threatened only by China, who is becoming a superpower. On the other hand, Lucas makes no mention about the relationship between U.S. and other states, being more objective in presenting the facts, as the history and the social sciences reveal them.
Both economists agree that while the world, in general, recognizes an economic progress and it is far away of the Malthusian theory, nevertheless, the country standard of living does not represent all its citizens. Mostly, DeLong states that the discrepancies between the rich and the poor from the same country are actually harming the economic development. Lucas does not follow on this direction, but he does underline the severe disparities between the developed countries and the fourth world nations and the gravity of this aspect. Nevertheless, the latest is confident that even the poorest countries will recognize economic progress, which is an idea that DeLong shares.
In his essay, DeLong notes that the increased living standards allowed people to reach their seventies and to rise up the globe’s population. However, none of the economic writers does not talk about how the lack of proper health and living conditions could impede the people in the poorest world regions to reach their seventies. Both theorists seem to not take into consideration the gravity of the poverty, stating that in fact the world does not confront with poverty, but with the wealth disparity. In fact, wealth disparity implies high living standards for the rich ones and very low, subsistence level conditions for the poor people.
DeLong and Lucas both sustain that the less numerous the families are, the wealthier the children will be when they grow up. Lucas argues that the main reason for this aspect to occur is that the family members have the opportunity to better provide for fewer children than for more, preparing them for life as adults. On the other hand, DeLong states that fewer children are preferred, because parents will have the opportunity to better dedicate their time to prepare their children, developing their skills or investing into their education for achieving better living standards. While Lucas does not disagree with this idea, he considers that skills represent a matter of adaptation to the time’s trends: agriculture skills in the pre-industrial revolution era, industrial skills in the dedicated century and respectively education in the current period. Actually DeLong agrees with Lucas’ adaptation idea, suggesting that economy and the focus on economic progress makes people more tolerant, adjustable, friendly and more civilized.
An interesting point that Lucas touches and DeLong does not mention is that in different periods, where a certain type of economy prevailed, the society either advanced in terms of population growth or increased living standards. In the agricultural economy the population growth registered high rates, while the technological progress was minimal. Both theorists indicate that there are, to date, many societies living in the feudal economic system and reliable on agriculture.
In the current economy, wherein the technology prevails, societies register both technologic and population growth, which has as an effect increased economic standards, because there are more individuals contributing to the production.
DeLong believes that the rise of economy will eventually lead to a stagnation, which will lead the world into a new depression. On the other hand, Lucas does not believe that continuous growth will have any negative effects, so this is the point where their theories contradict. However, Friedman (205) agrees that further pushes from the rulers’ side to obtain increased financial performances can lead to severe consequences for society.
The two theorists mostly develop their essays on the same ideas, with small differences in their exposure. However, DeLong mostly focuses on the U.S. economy, comparing it with other advanced, developing or under-developed economies. Lucas’ analysis is more accurate and comprehensive, enumerating more pure economic, statistical and financial figures for supporting his argument that he world follows a ascendant trend regarding the increase in the life standard. Both economic theorists anticipate that the recent pace of growth will continue and that people will only be able to achieve better living standards if they adjust to the new social trends, through permanently improving their knowledge and their skills through education.
Works Cited
A review of Benjamin Friedman's The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, New York, Knopf, 2005.
DeLong, Brad. Growth is Good. Available at http://harvardmagazine.com/2006/01/growth-is-good.html. Harvard Magazine. 2006. Web.
Lucas, Robert. “The Industrial Revolution: Past and Future The Region”, Banking and Policy Issues Magazine of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2003 Annual Report Issue.
