[Marxism] why England led the Industrial Revolution

[Andrew Pollack <acpollack2@xxxxxxxxx>]

It's all in their genes!
  I kid you not -- that's the insane and dangerous conclusion of a study  which 
today's Science Times is giving serious and extended play:
  
  "Generation after generation, the rich had more surviving children than  the 
poor, his research showed. That meant there must have been constant  downward 
social mobility as the poor failed to reproduce themselves and  the progeny of 
the rich took over their occupations. 'The modern  population of the English is 
largely descended from the economic upper  classes of the Middle Ages,' he 
[Gregory Clark] concluded.
  "As the progeny of the rich pervaded all levels of society, Dr. Clark  
considered, the behaviors that made for wealth could have spread with  them. He 
has documented that several aspects of what might now be  called middle-class 
values changed significantly from the days of  hunter gatherer societies to 
1800. Work hours increased, literacy and  numeracy rose, and the level of 
interpersonal violence dropped."
  The article includes a brief quote from Brenner on the idea:
  "Robert P. Brenner, a historian at the University of California, Los  
Angeles, said although there was no satisfactory explanation at present  for 
why economic growth took off in Europe around 1800, he believed  that 
institutional explanations would provide the answer and that Dr.  Clark?s idea 
of genes for capitalist behavior was 'quite a speculative  leap.'?
  Sam Bowles, who should know better, is quoted repeatedly leaving open the 
possibility that Clark is on to something.
  
       
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