Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 110 of the late philosopher Gerald Gaus’s deep 2021 book, The Open Society & Its Complexities:

Eric D. Beinhocker tells a tale of two tribes, the Yanomanö, a contemporary hunter-gatherer tribe living along the Orinoco River between Brazil and Venezuela, and the New Yorkers, a latte-drinking tribe on the banks of the Hudson. It is obvious that the New Yorkers are far wealthier: their average income in 2001 was about $36,000, about 400 times greater than the Yanomanö’s estimated $90. We are well acquainted with understanding differences in terms of wealth inequality. But this overall income differential pales in comparison to the diversity differentials of their economies….

While the New Yorkers’ wealth is 400 times greater than that of the Yanomanö’s, the diversity of the products and services available to them is on the order of a hundred-million fold.

DBx: No free trade for the Yanomami! How lucky, in the eyes of protectionists, they are!