It's ... complicated. And there's more to the dynamic than that.
One of Clark's observations is that modernity -- not just capitalism, but technology, logistics, healthcare, interventions, etc. -- not only create poverty but make it survivable. A reason that persistant conditions of abject misery are sustained for lifetimes and generations is that they don't simply kill those affected (by disease, starvation, accidents, warfare) in a few weeks or months.
His book is part of a series edited by Joel Mokyr on economic history and progress (much of what Cowan and Collison are calling for), well worth looking at titles. Robert J. Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth is another title, and more generally in 3what I'd consider a larger literature including Polanyi's The Great Transformation and Joseph Needham's work exploring what's come to be known as "the Needham question" -- why China, which developed a phenomenal set of technology and scientific knowledge, catalogued exhaustively in Needham's Science and Civilisation in China, didn't then proceed to have an industrial revolution similar to that which eventually occurred in England.
I think you're also absolutely correct to call out the claims made for capitalism -- that it elevates everyone out of poverty (the poorest billions have actually lost financial wealth in recent years), that it's an engine of creativity (many inventors died broke or broken, many inventions came from uncompensated sources, including famously the one mention of either technology or steam power in Smith's Wealth of Nations -- a boy optimising steam engine function because he wanted to play with his friends), and numerous others.
The contrast between price behaviour of rents vs. wages is very well discussed, going back to Smith, who also discusses the dynamics of poverty in economic growth and decline.
But yes: the orthodox economic theology appears to have several significant gaps with reality. Including though not limited to the behaviour of poverty under market-capitalist-property systems.
One of Clark's observations is that modernity -- not just capitalism, but technology, logistics, healthcare, interventions, etc. -- not only create poverty but make it survivable. A reason that persistant conditions of abject misery are sustained for lifetimes and generations is that they don't simply kill those affected (by disease, starvation, accidents, warfare) in a few weeks or months.
His book is part of a series edited by Joel Mokyr on economic history and progress (much of what Cowan and Collison are calling for), well worth looking at titles. Robert J. Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth is another title, and more generally in 3what I'd consider a larger literature including Polanyi's The Great Transformation and Joseph Needham's work exploring what's come to be known as "the Needham question" -- why China, which developed a phenomenal set of technology and scientific knowledge, catalogued exhaustively in Needham's Science and Civilisation in China, didn't then proceed to have an industrial revolution similar to that which eventually occurred in England.
I think you're also absolutely correct to call out the claims made for capitalism -- that it elevates everyone out of poverty (the poorest billions have actually lost financial wealth in recent years), that it's an engine of creativity (many inventors died broke or broken, many inventions came from uncompensated sources, including famously the one mention of either technology or steam power in Smith's Wealth of Nations -- a boy optimising steam engine function because he wanted to play with his friends), and numerous others.
The contrast between price behaviour of rents vs. wages is very well discussed, going back to Smith, who also discusses the dynamics of poverty in economic growth and decline.
But yes: the orthodox economic theology appears to have several significant gaps with reality. Including though not limited to the behaviour of poverty under market-capitalist-property systems.