On “Moneyball” by Michael Lewis *****

 

Economics applied to baseball—that was my thinking in choosing to add this to my economics reading list. It wasn't that heavily into the theory, though, as in the the stories surrounding those who applied new ideas about statistics to sports, and specifically baseball and the early 2000s Oakland A's. In a way, the book adhered much more closely to the movie based on it than I would have imagined. That is, it was much more centered on Billy Beane's life and how his experiences shaped his work as general manager of the team. For a baseball fan, especially for one who grew up in the 1980s, with Bill James's abstracts and Status Pro Baseball, this book is a really fun read; given its heavily narrative nature, I'm not sure how much one gets from it from an economic theory perspective.

For me, much of the book was about how little I know about baseball of the era that Lewis writes about. I followed baseball deeply as a preteen and early teen, from about age twelve to sixteen, and continued to know it fairly well through the miraculous 1988 Dodgers season, when I turned eighteen. But once I started work and especially after I graduated from high school, I found myself with much less time to devote to the sport. Sure, I might check in on how a team is doing from time to time and who are the stat leaders, but I don't listen to virtually every game of my team, scour stats on summer days, or spend those days playing simulation games. As such, players come and go and I know nothing of them. This means, that outside of Jason Giambi, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Nick Swisher, I knew virtually none of the players discussed in this book. And even of the four mentioned, I knew almost nothing of them, other than that they were for a while very good players. I found myself, as such, looking up some of the other players Lewis writes about.

The essence of the book is an attempt to answer how it is that the A's of the early 2000s, one of the cheapest teams in the sport, managed to put up teams that were constant winners. The answer is, of course, to any familiar with what has become standard now in the stport, by paying attention to statistics that others aren't. Things like batting average, for example, really aren't as important as on base percentage. ERA isn't as important as walk-to-strike ratio or homers pet batters. It's these sort of stats that the A's started recruiting with and building a team around. Such was essential, because a poor team like the A's can't afford to keep players like Jason Giambi, who can hit for power and average, so instead one gathers nonnames who actually do significant things.

Beane was apparently an incredible athlete and a potentially great player, but his major league career never panned out. The issue for him was psychological. He couldn't deal with getting out. The game is as much mental as physical. As a result, he floundered, until one day he quit—or sort of did. He walked from the clubhouse into the back office and asked instead to work there, which is odd coming from a relatively young player.

Thereafter, we learn about Bill James and his baseball writing. We learn about why the A's don't run. We learn about various players the A's recruited, such as the catcher Jeremy Brown (an on-base machine who is otherwise not that impressive and thus of no interest to other teams) or the pitcher Chad Bradford (whose low velocity and weird delivery disinterested other teams, despite statistical major- and mostly minor-league success, but whose extremely high groundball rate was of particular interest to the A's). We see how Beane goes about trading with other teams and drafting players, and how his success has meant that he's had to find ways to do so deviously such that teams don't realize who he's really after and thus raise the price.

Lewis's book is a throwback in a way, to a time when the sport was first discovering the more efficient way of operating. Teams like the A's and Rays could still take advantage. I'm not sure that's as much the case anymore, as teams like the Dodgers have both the money and the brains now, and it's sad really. In addition, the focus on stats has taken away for many teams things like the steal and encouraged things like the shift, making for more predictable play. Pro baseball has attempted to adjust the rules, making larger bases, taking away the shift as a legal move, as to bring some things back, but at the same time, it's also encouraged more homers and jettisoned pitchers batting such that to one who enjoys the strategy element of the sport, it seems less interesting than it once did.

On “John, the Son of Zebedee” by R. Alan Culpepper *****

I'm something of a traditionalist in terms of who wrote what in the New Testament (it's the simplest answer); Culpepper, like so many modern scholars is not. He believes that John the apostle wrote none of the books attributed to him; rather, a community of early Christians wrote the works that were later associated with the apostle. Culpepper includes his arguments for why he believes this is so in his biography of John and raises a number of good questions for those who would take other positions. What makes this work so great, however, is that it isn't just an expression of Culpepper's views. Rather, it's an exploration of how the “myth” of John came to be. As such, it's a compendium of all the writing (alongside some other creative works) that has been done about John and that has been credited to John. It's probably the most complete and encyclopedic source on this subject around.

In discrete chapters, Culpepper explores who John actually was (What does Sons of Thunder mean? How was he a pillar of the church? Was he a priest or related to one? Did he know Greek?); who the Beloved Disciple, the author of the gospel of John, was (the apostle? the elder? Lazarus?); who the authors of the apocalypse and letters were (the apostle? the elder? a seer? the beloved disciple? a community?); how traditions in the second through fifth centuries tied or did not tie John to these writings; how John's reputation was burnished in various largely fictional Acts about his life and how much we can know about his life outside scripture (did he die a martyr? did he go to Ephesus? travel through Parthia?); the art and poetry about John; nineteenth-century scholarship on John; and twentieth-century scholarship on John (which scholars fall into which of three basic camps: John the apostle as author, John the Elder as author, or a Johannine community as author)?

For me, the chapter about the various mythic Acts was a slog. Culpepper provides a lengthy summary of many of them. That said, the summary is extremely useful as a reference and likely one I will return to. The chapter on art of poetry did not, for me, not all that useful, but it fits well with Culpepper's main goal, which is to provide a summary how John has been seen across the ages, even if these works never even purport to be accurate.

What in the end makes this such a great work is that while Culpepper has his own views on the subject, he provides full summaries of the points of views others have had. As such, one learns why some people claim the Beloved Disciple is John, why some claim the Elder never existed, why some claim John the apostle died early, and so on, even as one learns the views Culpepper himself holds. There really is so much that can be argued, and it's nice to have it all in one place.

On "Why Nations Fail" by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson *****

Countries are poor or rich because of their institutions. That is the basic argument. The authors use the example of the two Koreas and even more the two Nogaleses, one in Mexico and one in Arizona. Each has a better off partner. Why? They have the same geography, culture, people, and knowledge. It is because on one side the institutions exploit the people and on the other the people have more say in those institutions. I think the authors are pretty much correct, though I wouldn’t credit the institutions so much as the character of the leadership. That is, corrupt government leads to poverty.

The authors reference inclusive versus extractive economies and politics. Historical examples proliferate, which makes for great reading. In the examples, only rarely does a political system and economy not match and usually not for long. Extractive situations enrich and empower a small elite, while inclusive ones do so for the vast swath of society. With this also is the need for a strong central authority; without such, there will be no one to enforce laws, and thus society will fail to be extractive but also will not be able to be stable enough to provide the benefits of inclusivity. While inclusive societies are better off, extractive political systems don’t give way to inclusive ones because of creative destruction. That is, inclusivity also means less power and less ability to hold on to resources for the elite, meaning they would lose out even in a richer society.

Two other factors affect growth: critical junctures and institutional drift. Sometimes a plague, disaster, or invention will come along and change all the rules. Small adjustments at these junctures become big differences between nations as the institutions drift along based on that reaction.

Extractive economies can provide economic growth for a time. The problem they inevitably encounter, however, is the lack of creative destruction. When elites are focused only on gaining riches, they fail to spur innovation among others and thus the economy eventually stalls, or others attempt to take the elite position and centralized authority disappears, bringing an end to the structure and stability needed to extract wealth.

It is in the best interest of those in power to prevent creative destruction and thus to continue to extract wealth. A broad coalition of stakeholders, however, can interfere with the ability of the elite to continue to hold power, and once that broad coalition exerts its own power to force creative destruction, society revolutionizes. If that broad coalition holds, you have inclusion and the advantages that come with it. But often new elites emerge in whose interest it is to prevent continuing creative destruction.

The slave trade of course was part of that extractive economy. But so too was colonialism. Once slave trading was banned in the west, the authors bring out, slavery continued into the twentieth century via rules put into place in African countries that kept locals essentially enslaved to corporations and rich folks in the country itself. I hadn’t really thought about this before. The history of South Africa was particularly galling to read, where laws were put in place to create a racial underclass to be low wage workers, where previously there had been a greater degree of equality and advancement. One small Asian nation was completely obliterated, fourteen thousand killed, by the Dutch east Asia company because the people refused essentially to become subservient to the corporation. These were cases as such where nations were made to fail so that others could succeed by extracting land and labor and resources.

Countries that adopted inclusive political dynamics in the nineteenth century as the Industrial Revolution was taking place tend to be the rich ones today.

A virtuous cycle exists for nations with inclusive politics and economies. As elites sense that by not giving in on small issues could lead to revolution, they tend to expand power to less well off people in a gradual process. Likewise, such elites recognize the power monopolies wield over them and not wanting to compete, they break them up. Essentially so many parties have some degree of power that they recognize that not following equality in the law, even when it hurts their own cause, could lead to trouble down the road when they are no longer in charge. An example is given with regard to how fdr tried to pack the courts, which proved unpopular even though his policies were popular and the courts were interfering. Such preserved rule of law. In Argentina the opposite happened. Peron managed to get power to fire judges and install his own and ever since there has not been an independent judiciary and thus rarely a functioning democracy. (I fear that our virtuous cycle is drawing to a close in America, as parties, especially conservatives, play zero sum games. Republicans packed the Supreme Court in a dubious manner. Now the president is wielding powers he doesn’t actually have and congress is letting him and aiding him.)

The vicious cycle is just the opposite of the virtuous. Political power is extractive and limited to a few; this gives economic power, which in turn aids the political power. When the regime changes, it’s not a broad coalition of people but just another group setting themselves up as elites. This is what happened in Africa. Colonial empires extracted resources and set up government to do so; when they left, those who took over used the same techniques to continue extracting resources. Such is also why the us south persisted in poverty for so long. Plantation elites extracted from cheap slave labor; after the civil war, they set up a new system that more or less continued the same practices and kept the rich rich and the poor poor. Very little manufacturing or urbanization or modernization occurred because the system was set up to allow the well off to continue extracting. Eventually if such vicious circles aren’t broken, constant fighting to be top dog leads to a breakdown in the entire system and a lack of any central authority.

The few countries that have broken the mold have done so, the authors claim, with a broad coalition of interests. They give the example of Botswana, which I did not realize was as wealthy as it is. It was not heavily victimized by colonialism. When it became independent it was very poor and had few educated. But what it did have, I would say, were good leaders. I’m not sure they could not have personally benefited from forging an extractive economy. But their focus was on the nation. When diamonds were discovered—likely the source of much of the national wealth—they ensured that the money made was invested not in the tribe who owned the land (which seems would have been easy, especially as it was the tribe of the nation’s leader) but in the nation itself. The wealth is shared. In this sense I can see the virtuous circle taking hold. Everyone knows that if one person or tribe took the wealth for themselves, the nation would lose out. Better to share.

The authors close by noting that their theory is historical. There is no policy prescription that will bring about such changes. Giving money to poor countries usually just enriches the charities and the people in charge, rather than aiding the poor in the country. Increasing trade with an extractive regime, like china, will not make the regime change to an inclusive one. As such, growth in such a country will be temporal, the authors argue. Indeed, in a concrete example given, where a man started a company that was too successful compared with the government companies, he was arrested. The people aren’t actually free to innovate; riches belong to the elite. That is China. But in Brazil, a workers party, a broad coalition, has taken over the government and positive changes seems to be taking hold. Inclusivity. In both examples, however, I see more personal character and lack of corruption as the reason for a given success. You can’t have inclusivity unless the leaders are truly servants more interested in helping their coalition than manipulating it to enrich themselves. In this regard, the American experiment may have benefited by such leaders and may be drawing to a close with the loss of such.

For those wanting a spiritual explanation, Paul and Peter note that God puts the leaders of nations in charge; as such nations rise and fall, succeed and fail, by the leaders who ultimately take those positions. Call it inclusivity versus extraction if you want, but such hardly seems a result of pure happenstance.