(The below text version of the notes is for search purposes and convenience. See the PDF version for proper formatting such as bold, italics, etc., and graphics where applicable. Copyright: 2022 Retraice, Inc.)

Re38: Follow up to `Re33: Outsiders, Power and Waste'

Retraice^1

The Rhodes-Milner group, psychos, and power-attention microeconomics.

Air date: Wednesday, 2nd Nov. 2022, 11:00 PM Eastern/US.

There's more to say about `outsiders, power and waste', so now we're going to say it.

Quigley and Ferguson on the Rhodes-Milner group

Quigley^2 says Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Milner and others in the Rhodes-Milner group were "satisfied to possess the reality rather than the appearance of power."^3

Ferguson says "[t]he reality was less thrilling.... [T]he group resembeled nothing more sinister than the junior fellows of an Oxford college on an extended reading holiday."^4

When historians disagree, we must decide which claims to believe, and perhaps which historian to trust. It would be so convenient to be able to `green light' everything an author has ever said (by trusting him/her). And how exciting would it be (declaring our biases) if the more sensational claims were true! Alas, reality doesn't care what excites us.

Evaluating two historians: o historian: Who's better? o scholar: Who's better? o thinker: Who's better?^5 o judgment: Whose is better?^6 o access: Who had more? o rebuttal: Who could and couldn't? o plausibility: Who's claim has more?^7 o evidence: Are both authors equally likely to have written what's attributed to them?^8

And the Rhodes-Milner group were power-only creatures, but not psychos, per Quigley.^9

Psychos: `1 in 25' was wrong

I said, off-the-cuff, that perhaps 1 in 25 of us are psychos. The number is more like 1 in 100, though it may be that high for CEOs.^10

Power-only and power-attention microeconomics: a better explanation

For a better explanation, see the notes at Retraice (2022/10/28), sections `If you want power and attention' and `If you want only power'.

Though I didn't put it this way in the notes, what I'm describing is microeconomics:

"Microeconomics [is] the study of individual choice under scarcity and its implications for the behavior of prices and quantities in individual markets."

"Macroeconomics [is] the study of the performance of national economies and the policies that governments use to try to improve that performance."^11

Other useful concepts are `marginal benefit' and `opportunity cost'.^12

_

References

Barlow, H. B. (2004). Guessing and intelligence. (pp. 382-384). In Gregory (2004).

Ferguson, N. (2017). The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook. Penguin. ISBN: 978-0735222915. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0735222915 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0735222915 https://lccn.loc.gov/2018418429

Frank, R., & Bernanke, B. (2001). Principles of Economics. Mcgraw-Hill. ISBN: 0072289627. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0072289627 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0072289627 https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchArg=0072289627

Gregory, R. L. (Ed.) (2004). The Oxford Companion to the Mind. Oxford University Press, 2nd ed. ISBN: 0198662246. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0198662246 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0198662246 https://lccn.loc.gov/2004275127

Quigley, C. (1961). The Evolution of Civilizations. Macmillan (reprinted by Liberty Fund 1979). ISBN: 0913966576. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0913966576 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0913966576 https://lccn.loc.gov/79004091

Quigley, C. (1981). The Anglo-American Establishment. GSG and Associates. ISBN: 0945001010. Publisher's note in Books in Focus 1981 edition (PDF, below) says the manuscript was completed in 1949 but Quigley couldn't find a publisher. This edition 1981, with different publisher's note that doesn't mention 1949, though Quigley's preface is dated 1949. http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/The_Anglo-American_Establishment.pdf Retrieved 1st Nov. 2022. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0945001010 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0945001010 https://lccn.loc.gov/80070620

Retraice (2020/11/02). Re10: Living to Guess Another Day. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/re10 Retrieved 2nd Nov. 2020.

Retraice (2022/10/28). Re33: Outsiders, Power and Waste. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/re33 Retrieved 2nd Nov. 2022.

Sacks, O. (2013). Speak, memory. New York Review of Books. 21st Feb. 2013 https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/02/21/speak-memory Retrieved 8th Mar. 2019.

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/retraice

^2 For Quigley's bona fides as an historian, see his Quigley (1961), an excellent book. Perhaps Quigley was the `Noam Chomsky' of historians: respected for his day job, but then doubted for his work on conspiracies.

^3 Quigley (1981) pp. 3-5; Ferguson (2017) p. 157; Retraice (2022/10/28) section "Perception, power and deception".

^4 Ferguson (2017) p. 181, citing (pp. 458, 513) an entry in the 2005 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

^5 Even memories can't be trusted completely (Sacks (2013)). Does your historian appreciate this?

^6 If judgment is about guessing correctly, see Barlow (2004). See also Retraice (2020/11/02).

^7 In our case, Ferguson is more plausible because his claims are less unlikely. `Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.' (Carl Sagan paraphrasing Laplace.)

^8 Quigley (1981) was published after Quigley died, and the publisher's note on the first edition doesn't explain how the manuscript was found and prepared.

^9 Retraice (2022/10/28) version November 2nd, 2022, n8.

^10 Retraice (2022/10/28). See section `Perception, power and deception' and footnotes 6, 7.

^11 Frank & Bernanke (2001) p. 13.

^12 Frank & Bernanke (2001) pp. 12, 50-51.