Frank-Landes Debate, Page 12
William Fowler: I did promise an opportunity for some concluding remarks and I think that promise should be kept. And, so, Professor Frank, if you have some comments to make and I would ask that both participants try to keep their concluding remarks to something in the order of no more than five minutes.
Andre Gunder Frank: Well, we have seen. Let me start with two critiques. The two major critiques that William McNeill of your book in his review, in the New York Review of Books and you say McNeill can also be wrong. I agree, he can be wrong and he is wrong about something, all of us can be wrong.
David Landes: Yeah, you criticize him in your book.
Andre Gunder Frank: Yeah.
David Landes: Yeah.
Andre Gunder Frank: Yeah, okay.
David Landes: Okay.
Andre Gunder Frank: Okay. But that doesn't mean that he can't be right, also. And he's certainly right about two things. One, David Landes first sentence in the book... Would you read the first sentence in your book?
David Landes: My aim in writing this book is to do world history.
Andre Gunder Frank: Okay, the first thing that McNeill says and that I say is that you don't do world history, you do European History and that you don't give a hoot in hell about the rest of the world. Secondly, the other major critique that McNeill makes is that you take zero point zero account of demography, population changes and growth and demographic analysis there of. But it turns out, of course, as we see from what you've been saying here, to be crucial because it has immediate effects on factor prices and incentives and responses there, too. But you take no account, whatsoever, in your book, on that and not even really in your analysis here. Whereas a poor country bumpkin from Peoria, that's me, at least tries to do, one, if not a world history, an analysis of the world economy, which you don't even admit exists, but Smith did. And to try to see how changes in the world economy, including the relation between demographic and economic and political and social and other changes generate changes to which decision makers have to respond and can respond in the ways that macro- and micro-economic analysis would lead us to suspect that they would. You say I write bad history, I grant you I write bad history. If only, because this is the very first time that anyone had even tried to analyze the world economy between 1500 and 1800 and how it generated the rise of the West and the fall of the East. Whereas, you write no history at all. All you do is keep repeating again and again. If you were with him when he did Unbound Prometheus, in, published in 1969, he said exactly the same thing that he is saying now. You keep repeating the same litany about the importance of European cultural values and so forth. There's no world history of any kind and no economic analysis. Sometimes, you say, well, you're not an economist. Well, you're a professor of Economics at Harvard. You owe me half of the salary that you've earned at Harvard for all these past years if you've been there as an impersonator of an Economist and only an Historian.
David Landes: That's your last word?
Andre Gunder Frank: Well, let's see what you say, my dear.
William Fowler: Professor Landes.
David Landes: Well...
Andre Gunder Frank: Well, my last word is actually quoted from him. I would... Would you agree to having the last word between the two of us but letting our moderator quote the last words from your book?
David Landes: No.
Andre Gunder Frank: Okay.
David Landes: By all means...
Andre Gunder Frank: Which are cited in my last question. And, if you like, you can take them right out of here. But, go ahead.
William Fowler: Professor Landes, perhaps you would like to say something.
Andre Gunder Frank: Yeah, well, he's getting the last word, both times...
David Landes: I, I come back to the point that if you want to know how the world got the way it is, you have to understand the innovations that were born in Europe, that changed the mode of production, that enhanced enormously the productivity...
Andre Gunder Frank: Marxism.
David Landes: Marxism?
Andre Gunder Frank: Yeah, mode of production.
David Landes: Mode of production? That changed the mode of production. I don't think of myself as a Marxist. And I must say, my colleagues would be very surprised to hear this, and neither would Marx. But in any case, yeah, that changed the mode of production and that enhanced enormously the productivity of Europe and by diffusion, extension, imperialism and all the rest, has spread, incompletely, unevenly, to other parts of the world. I think that, from that point of view, if I had to make some changes, I would say more than I have about the high cost of labor. I thought I had said it and I do say it, now and again, but I would have gone into it to a greater extent and I have gone into in other writings on the subject. About the business of world history. Well, that's what world history is all about. World history is about finding out what makes the world and how it changes. You don't like the story, that's a problem. But, that's the story and, yes, it was Europe.
Andre Gunder Frank: Now don't dare anybody dare disagree with me!
David Landes: No, no, you notice, asked that you be invited. I am happy to argue with people like you. And... no, it's sheer pleasure. And I will let it go at that and you might...
William Fowler: I suspect, ladies and gentlemen, there can be no last word. But, nonetheless, I will exceed to Professor Frank's request and let me read to you this statement.
Andre Gunder Frank: From Landes, to which you may discuss.
David Landes: That will be on your shoulders.
William Fowler: Well, to cite and make my own, some words of yours, my dear David, at least we can agree that, quote, a good historian tries to keep his balance, end quote, without controversy, no serious pursuit of knowledge and truth. And the very closing words of your own book are, quote, one lesson that emerges is the need to keep trying. No miracles, no perfection, no millennium, no apocalypse, we must cultivate a skeptical faith, avoid dogma, listen and watch well, try to clarify and define ends, the better to chose the means, end quote. I could not agree...
David Landes: Hey, hey, hold on...
William Fowler: I could not agree more, especially about thee, so let's do it. Quote, just because something is obvious does not mean that people will see it or that they will sacrifice belief to reality. You wrote on your page four hundred and ninety-three. Indeed, everybody in the world except thee and me is so mad as to want to retain their cherished beliefs, especially in the face of reality. But sometimes I have doubts, even, about thee, so will you please dispel my doubts, my dear David? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know about you...
David Landes: Mr. Chairman.
William Fowler:...I leave with more doubts than I arrived with.
David Landes: There is one more line to my text. It's a quote. “I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore, choose life.” That comes from Deuteronomy in the Bible and, yes, that's the note I would end on.
William Fowler: Ladies and gentlemen, will you would join me in applauding our participants. Thank you very much for coming.
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