Jared Diamond Quotes
Farming helped bring another curse upon humanity: deep class divisions. Hunter-gatherers have little or no stored food, and no concentrated food sources, like an orchard or a herd of cows: they live off the wild plants and animals they obtain each day. Therefore, there can be no kings, no class of social parasites who grow fat on food seized from others. Only in a farming population could a healthy, non-producing élite set itself above the disease-ridden masses.
Jared Diamond, Geographer, Anthropologist and Historian, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”, Discover Magazine; May 1987
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Salisbury was a brilliant, effective prime minister, but he was a snob and not a democrat. See {639131}.
This was the prevailing view in Europe at the time; it was less so in the United States, where there were so many people who owned their own land and farmed it or developed manufacturing facilities and hence were the mind AND the limbs of the enterprises. However, the upper classes tended to agree with the European view. The difference between the American and European views was one of class mobility. In America “limbs” who demonstrated capacities of “mind” were much more able to advance in America. However, even into the 21st century here was a general feeling of the upper class that the “minds” made the critical and impactful decisions. This is one of the reasons that executive and CEO pay advanced so rapidly when compared with workers (the “linbs”).
The United States money was then on the Gold Standard. The country was growing and needed more money in circulation. But most of the gold that might be available was in England and English bankers could control much of the U. S. economy. The Populists and the Democrats wanted us to use silver to back U. S. money as there was plenty of silver in the United States. The Republicans would not relent and depression was upon the country. A half century later, it would be Republican President Richard M. Nixon, who took the United States off the gold standard. Lease was far ahead of her time.
Most pressure for political correctness comes from the center or the left. On this area however, pressure to avoid speaking of this comes from left and right. The left is concerned that by discussing the reality the poorer performing subgroups will be stigmatized and public behavior will make the situation worse. The right would prefer that there is little or no political dialogue regarding the huge differences in outcome in America where individual ability and effort seems to play such a large part of the differential. I addition, they see the making of these distinctions as the beginning of class warfare.
Jared Mason Diamond is an American geographer, historian, anthropologist, ornithologist, and author best known for his popular science books The Third Chimpanzee (1991); Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997, awarded a Pulitzer Prize); Collapse (2005), The World Until Yesterday (2012), and Upheaval (2019). Originally trained in biochemistry and physiology, Diamond is known for drawing from a variety of fields, including anthropology, ecology, geography, and evolutionary biology. He is a professor of geography at UCLA.
