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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Have you seen a copy of the 1758 edition printed at Versailles, “Extraits des Economies Royales”? I'd love to see the title page to this, which apparently includes Quesnay's maxim, "Poor peasants, poor kingdom; poor kingdom, poor king” (which is oft quoted, but hard to find elsewhere in his work).

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

I'm just aware that complaints of luxury at the time often look like this from Arthur Young: “The employment of the women and children is drinking tea with white bread and butter twice a day; an extremity that may surely be called luxury in excess!” A very different idea of luxury...

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Nice :) I know nothing about Fenelon, but without more context wanted to check this wasn't an example of the "common complaint that luxury extends itself even to the lowest ranks of the people" (using the words of Adam Smith) - i.e. reactionary, regressive, directed at the poor rather than the rich

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

I'd like to see a version of this chart on the low UK % who think aid is effective, but comparing with the US, France & Germany. Would help point to whether the UK's lower aid support is more driven by different values or perceptions of efficacy. From: developmentengagementlab.org/publication/...

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Have you any more examples? Reminds me of an old Alpine proverb, "Happy as a corpse" (Graham Robb, The Discovery of France, p.72); or that charwoman’s epitaph, “Don’t mourn for me, friends, don’t weep for me never, for I’m going to do nothing for ever and ever” (in Keynes' Economic Possibilities).

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

And Melito of Sardis once more, giving voice to the risen Christ:

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

For example, I have come across the below from Frederick Law Olmsted (The Cotton Kingdom), which reminded me of the utility of poverty doctrine. But otherwise don't know much regarding slavery and am just curious of the parallels.

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

Have you any thoughts on whether slavery was partly motivated by a backward-sloping (free) labour supply curve? The old "utility of poverty doctrine" (horribly) held that low wages were necessary and desirable on that ground, and I have wondered whether advocates of slavery made a similar argument.

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 19/04/2025

Joseph Ratzinger, on Christ's descent into hell:

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

Melito of Sardis, On Pascha (2nd century):

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

When Jesus asks whose image is on the coin, & whose inscription, are we supposed to remember that we too bear an image & a name? (Cf. Genesis 1, Numbers 6:27) That is, whilst the coin may be Caesar’s, we are God’s. Are the Greek words the same as those used in the Septuagint? Just brilliant, if so

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Hmm... One of the big impacts of the Industrial Revolution was that it made demographics matter a lot less for national power. In 1756 Ange Goudar could say that the “most widely accepted maxim in politics is that only a large population can create a mighty state”. But by 1870? Here's David Landes:

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Samuel Johnson saw this too, in 1783: “it is said there are no weak or deformed people among the Indians; but he with much sagacity assigns the reason of this, which is, that the hardship of their life as hunters and fishers does not allow weak or diseased children to grow up.” (from Boswell’s Life)

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Reposted by Sam Hughes

Ian Mitchell @ianmitchell1.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer just cut the UK aid budget from 0.5% of GNI to 0.3% in 2027 to fund increases in defence spending. He says he’s making tough choices, but cutting funding for the world’s poorest people is the easiest—and cruellest—choice he could make (1/4)

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Reposted by Sam Hughes

Center for Global Development @cgdev.org · 11/02/2025

NEW: @ianmitchell1.bsky.social & @samhugh3s.bsky.social find a 1 year US aid freeze could trigger an economic shock of 1% of GNI in 23 economies—with 8 countries, incl. South Sudan, Somalia & Ethiopia, facing a devastating 3%+ hit. Which other countries could step up? www.cgdev.org/blog/which-c...

cgdev.org

Which Countries Are Most Exposed to US Aid Cuts; And What Other Providers Can Do

While it is still unclear how long the current freeze on US foreign aid will last, and when and where it might resume, it seems the US, under the second Trump administration, may be ready to abandon i...

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

This suggests that the UK's Country Programmable Aid - which is supposed to capture predictable flows to partner countries - may actually be a fifth lower than official stats. And these stats already show that UK CPA fell by ~60% between 2016-22... data-explorer.oecd.org/vis?lc=en&tm...

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

At that IDC session, the FCDO's Nick Dyer said: "we are now managing our budget in a way where we are saying to our country programmes - or I am saying - 80% will be predictable, 20% you've got to manage because we may ask for it back". parliamentlive.tv/event/index/... [see 14:35:34-47]

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Not only does this directly crowd out other overseas aid spending. The uncertainty around asylum costs also limits the FCDO's ability to plan ahead, as highlighted at this week's International Development Committee evidence session:

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

This follows us also highlighting how much of an outlier the UK is versus its peers. The UK spends over two-and-a-half times more aid per refugee and asylum seeker within its own borders than any other G7 economy. www.cgdev.org/blog/costs-h...

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Our new blog highlights how abnormal is the current Gov's policy of using the limited foreign aid budget to fund support for asylum seekers within the UK. Before 2014, nearly no UK asylum seeker support was funded via aid, even when it faced spikes in applicants similar to today's (eg around 2000).

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

"The Centre for Global Development (CGD), a think-tank, reckons that if Britain had classified asylum spending the same way in the 1990s and 2000s, and had spent as much as it does today per asylum-seeker, in some years the entire aid budget would have been swallowed up."

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

I wonder whether recipients value fragmentation as a way to mitigate the risk of bilateral aid cuts... (And though greater use of multilateral channels would also solve the problem, it seems hard to convince donors to make this switch).

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Cool :) What era were these from? Quite a change from 1818! I recently came across this in Robert Owen's autobiography, where he remembers a dinner conversation with Friedrich von Gentz at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (Gentz being the "learned secretary" to the Congress):

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Sam Hughes @samhugh3s.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Do you have a view on whether the labour supply curve was backwards-sloping in the period, and whether the demand for leisure would have been rising or falling anyway due to changes in real wages? But perhaps the banned leisure activities were for the more well-to-do, rather than labourers..?

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