Matt Ridley has written a new book, The Rational Optimis: How Prosperity Evolves

http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-How-Prosperity-Evolves/dp/006145205X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279807456&sr=8-1

TED Talks has a 16 minute session of him giving highlights in a talk titled "When Ideas Have Sex".

http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html

For the purposes of this blog, an interesting point he makes is that it seems there was a sexual division of labor among hunter-gatherer societies, where the men hunt and the women gather.  And that this division of labor results in a benefit for both genders/participants in the division of labor.  A women/wife gets access to high protein meat in exchange for gathering more veggies and a man/husband gets access to a consistent source of food when going on risky animal hunts, which often result in no meat at all, but sometimes result in big gains.  So, in a sense, the wife is exchanging veggies with her husband for a share of the meat, whatever it might be and both are better off than if they tried to do it all each by themself.

And this division of labor seems to be fairly consistent across ALL hunter gatherer cultures, the woman, even if she hunts some, does not go after big game, while the man does.

See the Ricardo explanation in the talk for why both win, EVEN IF one participant is better at everything than the other. 

Another aspect is that this division of labor was before money of any sort was invented.  Division of labor allows for specialization and getting better at doing the job needed, perhaps using less time, energy, etc.

Here are my first thoughts as I listened to Matt:

    His book ought to have an addition in the title making it "the rational according to Matt values opti...whatever"

It seems to me that his understanding and value of sex/time/relationship is for the purpose of 'technological progress'.  He measures progress by his measure of prosperity where his definition of prosperity is 'saving of time in providing for needs'.  I wonder if his capacity for Godly measurement is messed up or not being exercised or used well.     I'm just offering what went through my mind as I was listening to Matt speak.

1.  God is the Creator.  But I think God also greatly values 'rest'.  Matt didn't talk about 'rest'.

2.  God created humanity to be more than animals.  Matt equates humanity with animal.  This point also seems to me to be related to the human will.  That is, maybe it is better, according to Godly measure, better to stay separate with a 'scraper' and working hard to provide for oneself and those you love than to have a 'mouse'. Providing, or trying to provide, of course, what is of higher value than the lastest technological progress item.

3.  A true story came to mind as I listened to Matt talk about his value of 'trade'.  This point is actually related to point 2.  Here is the story:

     A friend of mine is great at ministering to people that others would not make effort to relate to in a personal way.  She was helping a woman, struggling emotionally, financially,  and with addictions.  I think that my friend did refuse to buy her cigarettes, but she did visit some with this women and this women grew closer to her and opened up to tell her that she had a man that she wasn't married to who was just using her.   She wanted him out of her life because he did not treat her well.  The woman was out of money with no food in the cupboards or refrigerater.  The man shows up after she has asked him out of her life.  He shows up with bags of groceries and asks to come in.  He was offering , I think, one of Matt's 'trades'  food for sex.

I find it hard to forget that story and it came to mind in listening to Matt.  He doesn't discuss exploitation, oppression.  At least he didn't use the language 'fair trade'. 

4,  It is interesting that Matt brings up , for a moment, language.   I believe he was stating how we now have abilities , with the help of technological progress, to do much that we don't understand.  He mentioned that we could not do this with language.  I wonder.  It is interesting, though, that at this place in his talk he is speaking of a collective mind that he thinks is greater in a positive way than the individuals...all for the purpose of 'technological progress' and saving time in providing for needs.  I can't help but think that this is so different that God, the Father, sending Jesus to be with us and pray for us that we might be where He is and be one with the Father as He is.  I don't want to turn myself over to a 'mouse'.  It's not the way.

5.  The hunter/gatherer construct came up in my mind yesterday as I was out gathering.....hunting.  It really struck me how the two are the same when one is searching for the 'best'.

Matt discusses saving time, which is needed to be ABLE to rest.  If you spend all your time just getting food to survive, you have no time to rest.

In a hunter gatherer society, the term hunting is used for the idea of killing animals for food and the term gathering is used for the idea of obtaining fruits and veggies for food.  They are similar in that both are seeking food.  The interesting point for me is that no animals, not even apes, show a division of labor in obtaining food.

Ricardo's example as given by Matt is as follows, easy to understand.
1. Adam can make a spear in 4 hours and make an axe in 3 hours.
2. Oz can make a spear in 1 hour and make an axe in 2 hours.

Notice Oz is better at everything than Adam.  It takes Adam 7 hours to make both himself and Oz 3 hours to make both himself.

But if they can trade, Oz makes 2 spears in 2 hours and Adam makes 2 axes in 6 hours and then trade an axe for a spear, they have no accomplished each having an axe and a spear, but it takes less time for each to get to this result.  This frees up time to do other things, such as rest.  And spears and axes are obviously arbitrary, it could be anything.  This is the "magic" of trade, even without money.

I guess I am just on a different wavelength.  I did listen again.  One statement that I did like was that it is how well a society communicates and cooperates together, not how clever or smart they are that makes a positive difference. 

I wonder what others think of this topic.

I think it makes sense for primitive cultures.  Hunting is much more dangerous than gathering-- and let's face it, if you're a small community in the wilderness, it's your child-bearers who must live.

The IDEA of division of labor makes a lot of sense to me, as a way to increase productivity and therefore wealth.

And due to other constraints, women being gatherers and men being hunters makes sense, but not to REQUIRE it.
That is, each family would do things to try to make it more successful and much of the time, this is what happened.

Thanks for the additional thoughts.  I think that the idea of cooperatively working together to have 'better' than an individual alone would have makes sense.  I don't necessarily agree with his measure of success, though, for families.  It seems like his ideas might be more useful and appropriate in the business world.