Re: equation to describe the economy

Les Cargill wrote:

> Quirk wrote:

> There've been highly structured historical societies that
> practiced outright exposure of infants.

Statisticly irrelevant, you want to furnish a _contemporary_ example
that is of significant size?

> The obsession with
> infant survival beyond mother-child bond is an artifact
> of 14th/15th Century Europe's obsession with child loss
> during the Black Death. It is therefore, by
> counterexample, not "inherently human"
> - it's actually an anthropological exception

Complete nonsense Les, we are not discussing a way to compare _modern_
society with _historic_ societies, but rather _contemporary_ societies
with each other, or at least that is what I thought the question was
about.

> Most societies were not
> all that enamored of another mouth to feed, except
> when that mouth meant a high probability of useable
> labor.

????

And if a person within a society _does not_ mean a high probability of
useable labour, doesn't mean that there are some _very serious_
economic problems???

> Clearly, there's no single metric to assign numbers on
> big foam fingers for each nation.

I agree, however, I consider Infant Mortality Rate to be the single
best comparative indicator, as it has clear advantages over others.

> And I'm surprised
> Canada is so far down the list - except that Canada is
> highly immigrant. Child death is a cost of immmigration.

Canada is not "so far" down the list except for positionally, which is
meaning less as it is not a complete list, it is within the median
range of 4-5.

> If anything, the above list looks like a predictor of
> cultural homogeneity and/or low birth rates.

which is proven false by the fact that Canada is closer to Germany than
it is to the States, even though in terms cultural homogeneity and/or
low birth rates it is more like the US than Germany. As well is the
wide gap between Denmark and Sweden, which as far as I know, are quite
similar as regards to cultural homogeneity and birth rates.

Regards.

.

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