Agricultural labor intensity and individualism

From Agrarian Origins of Individualism and Collectivism by Martin Fiszbein, Yeonha Jung, and Dietrich Vollrath.  From the Abstract.

This study examines the influence of agricultural labor intensity on individualism across U.S. counties. To measure historical labor intensity in agriculture, we combine data on crop-specific labor requirements and county-specific crop mix around 1900. Potential endogeneity of agricultural labor intensity is addressed using climate-induced variation in crop mix. Our estimates indicate that a one standard deviation increase in labor intensity is associated with a reduction of 0.2-0.3 standard deviations in individualism (as captured by the share of children with infrequent names). We further document significant changes in individualism over time using within-county changes in labor intensity due to mechanization and the boll weevil. We also show that historical agricultural labor intensity continues to influence geographic variation in individualism today.

They are exploring the theory that labor intensive farming orients a culture towards collectivism whereas less labor intensive agriculture favors individualism.   I have heard the theory advanced in the past, probably by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel and/or by Joseph Henrich in The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous.  

Fiszbein, Jung, and Vollrath put some data on the theoretical bones by measuring the labor intensity of different crops, mapping those to the crops in different parts of the world and then measuring relative collectivism or individualism on those locations today.

Regardless of the theory, some neat data.

Pulling together this data is hard work and filled with definitional challenges particularly given the life-cycle nuances and differences between crops such as between rice and wheat and between exogenous conditions.  As an example, in Egypt, grain crops were raised in the annually refreshed soil of the Nile.  However, this would have been much more labor intensive than raising grain crops in the rich soil of the American Mid-west because of the labor necessary to manage the consequences of the annual inundation of the Nile.  In other words, there was a predicate labor investment required in Egypt which doesn't translate elsewhere.

But all comparisons, especially historical comparisons are bedeviled by such challenges.  It makes the work hard and possibly error prone but not inherently wrong.

The same thing with this finding:

Whether it is the economy, voting patterns, linguistics, crime, gun-ownership, etc.  This mapping looks very familiar to every historian or socialist interested in the US.  The South is distinct.  Because of intense agriculture or slavery or ethnic patterns of settlement or whatever.  

It is not that their point is wrong.  It is that it is legitimately debatable.

The paper is full of such intriguing data, well worth mulling.

Alice Evans has her speculations and interpretations in her post The Roots of Cooperation.