A Theory of Economic Development

If I had to give the Most Underrated Professor Award to anyone I studied under, it would easily have to be Professor Meir Kohn. His work falls squarely outside the paradigm of mainstream economics, which (coming from me anyway) could not be a higher compliment – yet also makes it difficult to get traction inside the field. Kohn himself wrote a great essay contrasting the mainstream paradigm of Samuelson and Hicks with the lineage of more qualitative thinking descended from Adam Smith, including fields like economic history and new institutional economics and public choice theory among others.

He has been working on a theory of economic development for two decades now, and in my opinion it appears to be substantially correct. He first composed an unpublishable opus about European economic development from 1000-1600, which I read in its entirety. Then he wrote a more condensed version, where he applied the theory to China as well as Europe, which is likely going to be published in the next couple of years. In private correspondence, he has indicated that he and his students are now applying the model quite successfully to analyzing other economies throughout history.

The first chapter of his first opus contains the best description of his overall model I have yet read. Because I hold it in high regard, believe it to be fundamentally true, and I refer to it often, I am posting my summary of it below. All errors and omissions are mine.

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Religious Fasting Traditions

If you’ve ever talked to me about nutrition, you would know that I’m a huge proponent of fasting. I knew that cultural and religious traditions throughout the world had incorporated some form of fasting practice into their doctrines, though I had not systematically tried to document it myself at the time. There may be a decent review article on this somewhere, but I decided to sit down and do a little research myself last year, and these are my notes from that exercise.

tl;dr: there are lots of different kinds of fasting. Some commonalities include the use of sunrise/sunset, fasting as a spiritual practice (opposed to mere starvation) including prayer and charity, proscribed feasting days/periods, and not drinking water either. Longer-term fasts usually restrict eating during daylight hours and/or restricted types of food during the night, and these appear to be the most common. Fasts of 1-2 days can involve complete cessation of both food and water. The strictest fast is 2 meals over 5 days. Fasting is at most 250 days/year, and 1-2 times per week or month is very common. Exceptions for the young, the old, the sick, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, laborers, and travelers are relatively common. Not every religion has a fasting tradition.

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