Dædalus coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus

on intellectual Richard Posner, Carla Hesse, Arnold Relman & Marcia Angell, Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences property Daniel Kevles, Lawrence Lessig, Adrian Johns, James Boyle, Rebecca Eisenberg & Richard Nelson, Roger Chartier, Arthur Winter 2002 Goldhammer, and classic texts by Diderot and Condorcet; plus a poem by Paul Muldoon, a story by Frederick Busch, and notes Winter 2002: on inequality by Wendy Doniger, Roald Hoffmann, W. G. Runciman, and Leo Breiman comment Ira Katznelson Evil & politics 7

on education Diane Ravitch, with comments by Howard Gardner, Theodore on inequality James K. Galbraith A perfect crime: global inequality 11 after the Sizer, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Deborah Meier, Patricia Graham, Orlando Patterson Beyond compassion 26 culture wars Thomas Bender, Joyce Appleby, Robert Boyers, Catharine Stimpson, and Andrew Delbanco; plus Antonio Gramsci, Jeffrey Richard A. Epstein Against redress 39 Mirel, and Joel Cohen & David Bloom Christopher Jencks Does inequality matter? 49 Sean Wilentz America’s lost egalitarian tradition 66

on beauty Susan Sontag, Arthur C. Danto, Denis Donoghue, Dave Hickey, James F. Crow Unequal by nature: a geneticist’s perspective 81 Alexander Nehamas, Robert Campbell, David Carrier, Ernst Mayr The biology of race 89 Margo Jefferson, Kathy L. Peiss, Nancy Etcoff, and Martha C. Nussbaum Sex, laws & inequality: India’s experience 95 Gary William Flake Robert W. Fogel & Chulhee Lee Who gets health care 107 on international Stanley Hoffmann, Martha C. Nussbaum, Jean Bethke Ian Shapiro Why the poor don’t soak the rich 118 justice Elshtain, Stephen Krasner & Jack Goldsmith, Gary Bass, David Rieff, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Charles R. Beitz, Jonathan Schell, Carl Kaysen, and Anthony Lewis poetry Frank Bidart Young Marx 129

½ction Bharati Mukherjee A wedding 131 on time Thomas Gold, Michael Rosbash, Danielle Allen, Mary Douglas, Anthony Grafton, J. Hillis Miller, David S. Landes, Michael notes Howard Gardner on intelligence 139 Gazzaniga, D. Graham Burnett, and Richard K. Fenn Frank Wilczek on the world’s numerical recipe 142 David G.Nathan on clinical research & the future of medicine 147 Neil J. Smelser on a new encyclopedia 151 Gerald Early on Miles Davis &Vince Lombardi 154 U.S. $9.95/Canada $12.95

Inside front cover: Detail from Goya’s “Estragos de la guerra” (Ravages of War), etching num- ber 30 from “Los desastres de la guerra” (The Disasters of War). Some experts believe that this is the ½rst depiction by an artist of the civilian victims of a wartime bombing. See Ira Katznelson on Evil & politics, pages 7–10. Courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery. Board of editors

Joyce Appleby (u.s. history, ucla), Stanley Hoffmann (government, Harvard), Donald Kennedy (environmental science, Stanford), Martha C. Nussbaum (law and philosophy, Chicago), Neil J. Smelser (sociology, Berkeley), Steven Weinberg (physics, University of Texas-Austin)

Steven Marcus, Editor of the Academy

James Miller, Editor of Dædalus

Russell Banks, Fiction Adviser

Rosanna Warren, Poetry Adviser

Editorial advisers

Michael Boudin (law, u.s. Court of Appeals), Wendy Doniger (religion, Chicago), Clifford Geertz (anthropology, Institute for Advanced Study), Carol Gluck (Asian history, Columbia), Stephen Greenblatt (English, Harvard), Thomas Laqueur (European history, Berkeley), Alan Lightman (English and physics, mit), Steven Pinker (neuroscience, mit), Diane Ravitch (education, nyu), Richard Shweder (human development, Chicago), Frank Wilczek (physics, mit)

Editorial staff

Phyllis S. Bendell, Managing Editor and Director of Academy Publications

Sarah M. Shoemaker, Associate Editor

Dædalus is designed by Alvin Eisenman Dædalus

Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

The Academy was chartered in 1780. Its seal depicts Minerva flanked by a quadrant and a telescope in a ½eld of Indian corn. The sun above the cloud represents the nation’s rising state “in regard to empire, and the arts and sciences,” while the motto, Sub libertate florent, conveys the idea that arts and sciences flourish best in free states. Dædalus was founded in 1955 and established as a quarterly in 1958. The journal’s namesake was renowned in ancient Greece as an inventor, scientist, and unriddler of riddles. Its emblem, a labyrinth seen from above, symbolizes the aspiration of its founders to “lift each of us above his cell in the labyrinth of learning in order that he may see the entire structure as if from above, where each separate part loses its comfortable separateness.” Dædalus Winter 2002 gst number: 14034 3229 rt. Issued as Volume 131, Number 1 All subscription orders, single-copy orders, and © 2002 by the American Academy change-of-address information must be sent in of Arts & Sciences. writing to the Dædalus Business Of½ce, 136 Irv- Who gets health care? ing Street, Suite 100, Cambridge ma 02138. © 2002 by Robert W. Fogel The three faces of intelligence Newsstand distribution by Eastern News Dis- © 2002 by Howard Gardner tributors, Inc., 2020 Superior Street, Sandusky, Does inequality matter? oh 44870; Telephone: 800 221 3148. © 2002 by Christopher Jencks Periodicals postage paid at Boston ma, and at A wedding additional mailing of½ces. © 2002 by Bharati Mukherjee Postmaster: Send address changes to Library of Congress Catalog No. 12-30299. Dædalus, 136 Irving Street, Suite 100, Cambridge ma 02138, u.s.a. isbn 0-87724-029-9 If you wish to reprint an article from Dædalus Editorial of½ces: Dædalus, Norton’s Woods, in another publication or to reproduce an arti- 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma 02138. cle for classroom or other use, please send a Phone: 617 491 2600. Fax: 617 576 5088. written request to: Email: [email protected]. Permissions Manager, Dædalus, Dædalus publishes by invitation only, and as- 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma 02138. sumes no responsibility for unsolicited manu- Permission can be granted in most cases; scripts. The views expressed are those of the charges vary according to use of the copyright- author of each article, and not necessarily of ed materials. If you have questions call 617 491 the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 2600 and speak to the permissions manager. Dædalus (issn 0011-5266) is published quarter- Printed in the United States of America by ly by the American Academy of Arts & Sci- Cadmus Professional Communications, Science Press Division, 300 West Chestnut ences. u.s. subscription rates: for individuals - Street, Ephrata $33, one year; $60.50, two years; $82.50, three pa 17522. years; for institutions - $49.50, one year; The typeface is Cycles, designed by Sumner $82.50, two years; $110, three years. Canadian Stone at the Stone Type Foundry of Guinda subscription rates: for individuals - $42, one ca. Each size of Cycles has been separately year; $78.75, two years; $109.50, three years; designed in the tradition of metal types; some for institutions - $60, one year; $102, two sizes appear here for the ½rst time. years; $138.50, three years. All other foreign subscribers must add $7.00 per year to the Maps and graphs were designed by Joe Moore price of u.s. subscriptions. Replacement of Moore+Associates of Cambridge ma. copies for damaged or misrouted issues will be sent free of charge up to six months from the Computer applications run by Peter Johnson of date of original publication. Thereafter back ris, Yale University. copies are available for the current cover price plus postage and handling. With this issue Dædalus enters a new era. Founded in 1955 and launched as a quarterly in 1958, the journal took shape under the pioneering leadership of Walter Muir Whitehill, Gerald Holton, and Philip Rieff–and then flourished for nearly forty years under the distinguished direction of Stephen R. Graubard. Over these years Graubard produced memorable issues on a wide variety of topics, from The Negro American in 1965 to Why South Africa Matters just last year. Professor Graubard, like his predecessors, has left a remarkable legacy that a new editor can only hope to extend.

From its inception Dædalus has been notes are meant to keep readers abreast published by one of the nation’s oldest of developments in every ½eld repre- honori½c societies, the American Acad- sented in the Academy. In each issue emy of Arts and Sciences. But from the readers may thus expect to hear from start, Dædalus has been an experiment, some of our nation’s most accom- a work in progress–a bold effort to plished ½gures, addressing topics from bring a variety of specialists from every the meaning of intelligence to the future ½eld of endeavor into ongoing contact of American medicine. with educated readers from all walks of In 1958, upon launching Dædalus as a life. quarterly, Gerald Holton promised to It is in this spirit of interdisciplinary turn the journal into “a medium experimentation that the present issue through which leading scholars in all of Dædalus introduces some novel fea- ½elds can address one another,” in order tures. As before, the journal at its heart to focus “our attention again on that will consist of essays on a single theme which does or should make us members that changes with each issue. But in of one community.” addition to this core of thematic essays, I share this vision. And as I start my we will regularly publish poetry and editorship, I hope to be able–like ½ction; we will occasionally include Whitehill, Rieff, Holton, and Graubard commentary on current events; and we – to honor in practice the eighteenth- will sometimes print letters from our century charter of the American Acade- readers. In addition we are inaugurat- my of Arts and Sciences: ing a new department in the journal To cultivate every art and science which consisting of brief “notes” written may tend to advance the interest, honor, exclusively by Fellows of the American dignity, and happiness of a free, independ- Academy of Arts and Sciences. These ent, and virtuous people.

James Miller Editor of Dædalus

Comment by Ira Katznelson

Evil & politics

In the immediate aftermath of the innocents. Behavior is evil when it events of September 11, 2001, it was hard attacks valued goods proffered by West- to know what to say. We seemed bereft ern modernity. of “a terminology,” as Madame de Staël Disputing the integrity and worth of observed after the Jacobin Terror, in a these goods, critics in other intellectual situation “beyond the common meas- circles have focused instead on the evils ure.” In the days that followed, my own of postcolonialism and the exploitative thoughts turned to Hannah Arendt, and relationships characteristic of global the works she had written in an effort to capitalism. It is these iniquities that grapple with another situation beyond should command our attention, not the the common measure. “The problem of acts of terror they consider in a cooler, evil,” Arendt forecast in 1945, “will be sometimes icy, register. the fundamental question of postwar I ½nd the impulses at play in both intellectual life in Europe–as death responses unsettling. Each group is bet- became the fundamental problem after ter at assuming a posture than develop- the last war.” ing ways of acting and living decently in ‘Evil’ is a word one heard with some a world riven by heterogeneous, inter- frequency in the aftermath of the attacks connected, and sometimes conflicting on the World Trade Center and the Pen- cultures. A rote defense of Western lib- tagon, though rarely deployed with eralism could very well authorize a new Arendt’s precision. Within some intel- brand of colonialism, once again making lectual circles, a denunciation of these many non-Western peoples ineligible for acts as evil has been accompanied by a its core values of rights, toleration, par- far too simple justi½cation of liberalism ticipation, and consent. A wholesale and the Enlightenment as decency incar- rejection of enlightened liberalism as a nate. Evil, in this view, implies more mere ½gment of Western imperialism than doing harm or inflicting pain on could very well license an irresponsible and foundationless antimodernism, reinforcing a mirror-image view of ‘us’ Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Sci- against ‘them.’ Intransigently advanced, ence and History at Columbia University, is the each perspective evades asking how we author of numerous books and articles on Ameri- can shade the sensibilities, deepen the can politics, political theory, and social history, capacities, and address the limitations of including “Liberalism’s Crooked Circle: Letters to the liberal tradition in full awareness Adam Michnik” (1996). A Fellow of the Ameri- that credulous notions of human per- can Academy since 2000, he is completing a new fectibility have been mocked by the book on the New Deal, the South, and the origins global diffusion of human superfluous- of postwar American liberalism. ness, the central hallmark of modern

Dædalus Winter 2002 7 Comment “radical evil,” as Hannah Arendt argued Any meaningful effort to re½ne the by Ira in The Origins of Totalitarianism. language and institutions that a robust Katznelson Writing in the aftermath of total war liberalism requires must move beyond a and the Shoah, Arendt sought both to thin and often misleading claim to uni- apprehend the appearance of “radical versality; it also can gain con½dence evil, previously unknown to us,” and to from a fresh appreciation for the En- transform the eschatology of evil into a lightenment’s rich, though often neg- systematic tool with which to name and lected, lineage of realism and a recogni- explain the terrible cost Nazism and tion of liberalism’s history of invention Stalinism had exacted. By ‘radical evil,’ and transformation. Kant, for example, she understood the project of erasing the worried about the demagogic uses of moral and the juridical person as a prel- reason and the possibility that a new set ude to physical annihilation. Justi½ed by of ostensibly enlightened “prejudices millenarian ideologies and advanced by [can] serve, like the old, as the leading what Arendt called manufactured unre- strings of the thoughtless masses.” He alities, radical evil literally erased human also well knew that demonic violence plurality by stripping large populations has long characterized human affairs. of their rights as citizens, including the Such realism is quite distinct from the right to a name, as a prelude to mass rosy optimism of those eighteenth-cen- killing. Turning innocents into nonpeo- tury philosophes who supposed that sys- ple, both the Nazis and the Soviets thus tematic understanding would trump tor- elided the liberal tradition’s central puz- ture and barbarism, as if to realize the zle of how to make it possible for incom- title of Pierre-Paul Prud’hon’s painting mensurable values and identities to of 1798: Darkness Dissipates as Wisdom and coexist, perhaps even flourish, in a cli- Truth Descend to Earth. Rather than mate of toleration. Prud’hon’s canvas, it is Goya’s etchings Although today’s constellation of of Los desastres de la guerra after the Span- Muslim fervency, fascist-style mobiliza- ish insurrection of 1808 and the Peninsu- tion, and Internet-friendly coordination lar War with Napoleon that might better may be new in some respects, it is mani- be adopted as chastening emblems of a festly as capable of producing radical evil humane realism. as the barbarous offshoots of Western Today’s terror forces, or should force, civilization Arendt addressed, even if an engagement not just with this year’s thankfully it has yet to equal them. Fa- instance of evil but with a proper role for miliar, too, are the challenges that Islam- realistic reason and institutional innova- ic zealotry can pose to the tradition of tion in the face of a persistent human Enlightenment and to the possibilities of capacity for desolation, now enhanced a decent liberal politics. by the legacy and diffusion of twentieth- Given these hazards, we need to century models of radical evil. Times of explore whether the Western liberal tra- turmoil and fear urgently pose two ques- dition can effectively contest radical evil tions: whether liberalism can thrive in without sacri½cing its own best features. the face of determined adversaries and I think it can, though not on its own and what kind of liberalism we should wish only if liberals can ½nd a terminology to have. Answers to ‘what kind’ affect and institutional practices to engage the possibilities for ‘whether’ by offering with nonliberal beliefs and cultures choices not only about doctrines but also without dismissing them too hastily as about institutions and public policies. irremediably antiliberal. The ideals of the liberal tradition, 8 Dædalus Winter 2002 properly appreciated, represent an open nance of an idea may affect its status but Evil & sensibility rather than a ½xed set of not its value or capacity. Even if liberal politics arrangements or ideas. The most impor- political thought is inescapably Western tant moments of innovation and change in origin, it no longer belongs only to the in the modern West’s liberal political West. “Concepts such as citizenship, the tradition have come in circumstances state, civil society, public sphere, human governed by anxiety and alarm. Consider rights, equality before the law, the indi- not only Locke’s institutional formula vidual, distinctions between public and for toleration in conditions of religious private, the idea of the subject, democra- warfare between Catholics and Protes- cy, popular sovereignty, social justice, tants, but his speci½cations for political scienti½c rationality, and so on,” he consent and representation in the con- observes, “all bear the burden of Euro- text of a century of civil war in England. pean thought and history.” These secular Consider, too, the constitutional innova- and universal categories and concepts tions of Benjamin Constant in France were preached “at the colonized and at when faced with a global war and the the same time denied . . . in practice. But collapse of legitimate kingship. Consid- the vision,” writes Chakrabarty, “has er, ½nally, the development of the twen- been powerful in its effects. It has histor- tieth-century liberal welfare state in ically provided a strong foundation on response to depression, class conflict, which to erect–both in Europe and out- and the rise of Bolshevism, Fascism, and side–critiques of socially unjust prac- Nazism. tices. . . . This heritage is now global.” Especially at moments of danger and Even when contradicted by such deep innovation, the liberal tradition has been injustices as slavery and Jim Crow, Euro- neither self-contained nor homoge- pean imperialism, and today’s spectacu- neous. There have been liberal demo- lar global inequalities, struggles based on crats, liberal socialists, liberal republi- these orientations ensue “because there cans, liberal monarchists–and also lib- is no easy way of dispensing with these eral Christians, liberal Jews, liberal Mus- universals in the condition of political lims. In each instance, the absence of a modernity.” Or at least, one might say, partnership with political liberalism has no attractive struggles are possible whol- proved an invitation to oppression. ly outside their frame. Without a commitment to such a cardi- Both liberalism and the Enlightenment nal liberal value as toleration, even a within which it nestles advance a philo- declared democrat may be tempted by sophical anthropology of rational actors despotism. The liberal tradition is thus and rational action, insisting that human necessary to an effectively decent poli- agents develop the capacity to deliberate, tics. But it is not suf½cient. An abstract choose, and achieve sensible goals. In commitment to universal human rights their effort to cultivate such rational citi- by itself, without depth, passion, and zens, liberal regimes in the past have all historical particularity, cannot possibly too often imposed various limits, draw- contend with radical evil. An effective ing boundaries that stunt the capacities liberalism modi½es but does not replace of individuals based on their religion, other commitments. race, gender, literacy, criminality, or col- The more global our world, as Dipesh onized status. But after centuries of Chakrabarty reminds us, the more im- struggle about the dimensions of free- perative it is to register that the prove- dom, enlightened political liberalism

Dædalus Winter 2002 9 Comment today acknowledges no legitimate barri- by Ira ers to reason, hence no legitimate ascrip- Katznelson tive barriers to liberal inclusion and lib- eral citizenship. The result is a deep paradox. The glob- al appeal of an enlightened liberalism cannot help but jeopardize the local attachments, the historical particulari- ties–the human plurality–that consti- tute its most important rationale. Here, then, lies liberalism’s most basic current conundrum: how to broaden its endowments in order to protect and nourish heterogeneity while coping with its perils. As our version of this challenge beck- ons, it is not a war on terrorism that will de½ne the early twenty-½rst century, but a series of battles for the soul–that is, for the content, rules, and respectful inclusiveness–of a properly robust, and realistic, liberalism. This endeavor, rather than a stylized conflict about the merits of Enlightenment, had better be the struggle we make our ½rst priority.

10 Dædalus Winter 2002 James K. Galbraith

A perfect crime: inequality in the age of globalization

Most of the world’s political leaders Genoa. In poor countries, globalization have embraced economic globalization is the new synonym for imperialism and on two grounds: that open markets and colonialism; generally the word evokes transnational production networks are collapse rather than common gain. All in unstoppable; and that the bene½ts will all, if the imposition of deregulation, pri- surely flow out to all the world’s people, vatization, free trade, and free capital rich and poor. Leading economists and mobility has in fact raised living stan- journalists agree, convinced by the logic dards worldwide, gratitude is devilishly of laissez-faire, comparative advantage, hard to ½nd. and technology transfer. Accordingly, So what are the facts? Has globaliza- they declare, class conflict and competi- tion hurt or helped? Oddly, researchers tive struggle are obsolete. do not know; mostly they do not ask. Yet, outside elite circles, conflict and For the doctrine of globalization as it is struggle refuse to disappear. In rich understood in elite circles contains the countries, electorates and pressure curious assumption that the global mar- groups remain protectionist and proreg- ket is itself beyond reproach. The formu- ulation, even socialist in parts of Europe; lae for success in that market–from there is wide sympathy for the (nonvio- openness and transparency to sound lent) protestors of Seattle, Davos, and ½nance to investment in education– remain matters of national responsibili- ty; countries that fail have only their James K. Galbraith is a professor at the Lyndon B. own de½ciencies to blame. In line with Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University this view, most research has focused on of Texas at Austin, and a senior scholar at the national conditions and national poli- Levy Economics Institute of Bard College; in the cies, and not on global conditions or the early 1980s, he served as executive director of the effects of globalization as such. congressional Joint Economic Committee. His Whether such a national focus is recent academic work emphasizes practical issues appropriate, or whether a global view of measurement and data quality as the key to would be better, is a question of great progress on important questions of economic poli- importance. To resolve it, we would cy. His books include “Created Unequal” (1998) need new efforts to measure economic and “Inequality and Industrial Change: A Global development and social progress across View” (2001). countries around the world–in effect,

Dædalus Winter 2002 11 James K. we would need to write a global report rural divide. But as industrialization Galbraith card. But of½cial initiatives in this vein, deepened, the center of economic gravi- on inequality notably the World Bank’s Human Devel- ty would shift to the cities. To live in opment Report, are caught in contradic- cities, to work for wages, requires free tions between the cheerful predictions labor and that every family have some of globalization theory and what the evi- access to cash. The larger the share of dence of epidemics, illiteracy, unem- basic consumption goods provided ployment, and poverty suggests is actu- through the marketplace, the more equal ally happening–contradictions that money incomes must become. Eventual- have driven several senior ½gures (most ly, democracy and social-welfare systems famously, former chief economist Joseph would emerge; progress toward the Stiglitz) out of the Bank. Meanwhile, the social democratic frameworks of West- International Monetary Fund (imf) and ern Europe and North America was a World Trade Organization (wto) are pragmatic possibility as well as an ideal. today closed societies, sealed off from Kuznets offered an optimistic vision, most forms of serious critical discussion. similar to that of John Maynard Keynes So, what can independent research con- though more austere in style. Properly tribute to an understanding of the state managed, development could be civi- of the global economy today? Not much, lized; it need not lead to the misery and perhaps, beyond the fragmentary evi- upheaval that Karl Marx had earlier fore- dence of case studies and ½eld reports. seen. But in recent years, as the Marxian Truly independent scholars usually lack threat disappeared, Kuznets’s vision also the resources to bring together new receded. With unions in disorder and information on a global scale. welfare states in disrepute, the ‘Kuznets Still, one broader area has attracted hypothesis’ now serves mainly as a attention: economic inequality and its whipping boy of development research- relationship to economic growth. In this ers, to be raised, sometimes at length, area, data (collated, as we shall see but usually to be dismissed as discon- below, from many independent sources) ½rmed by modern data, generally by are already available. A rich (but inex- economists who see no contradiction pensive) econometrics can be brought to between inequality and development. bear. And much hinges on the ½ndings. In a 1993 report entitled the East Asian For, while inequality and economic Miracle (hereafter referred to as eam), growth are hardly the only issues in economists at the World Bank offered an world development–life, health, litera- alternative theory. They argued that cy, and peace are more important–the early redistributions, especially of land perceived relationship between these and primary schooling, were precondi- two economic variables underlies devel- tions for industrial success in Japan, Ko- opment policy in profound ways. rea, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. This argument has been Long ago, the great economist Simon widely cited to underpin a case for edu- Kuznets (1901–1985) linked equality to cation as a development tool, to support the development process. Kuznets ar- redistributive policies in the early stages, gued that as industrialization began, it and especially to argue that development might lead to an increasing inequality at can be market-friendly, provided the ½rst: the rough parity among farmers “right” pattern of endowments and in- would give way to an emerging urban- centives exists at the outset.

12 Dædalus Winter 2002 By emphasizing market-friendly pre- fers nearly 750 country/year observa- A perfect conditions for growth, the eam team tions on which dozens of papers have crime undermined the presumption that devel- been based. opment and rising equality normally The result has been an unintended de- occur together–even though the Asian scent into confusion. As scholars sought evidence did suggest that this was in fact systematic relationships between in- the case in most places. The team also equality, income, and growth in the downplayed the policy activism of many World Bank’s data, no consistent pat- Asian states, especially their commit- tern emerged. Some seemed to con½rm ments to planning, industrial policy, the Kuznets hypothesis. Others argued ½nancial control, and the development instead that inequality ½rst falls and of social welfare–all cornerstones of a then rises with rising income: the oppo- normal development process as under- site pattern. The eam ½nding of a rela- stood by Keynes and Kuznets in their tionship between low inequality and day. later growth was ½rst supported, and The eam’s striking hypothesis also then questioned, on the ground that the called attention, indirectly, to the in- relationship seemed to rest on conti- completeness of information about in- nent-speci½c differences between Latin equality around the world. While there America and Asia. had been many efforts to measure in- Meanwhile, pro-equality viewpoints equalities at the national level, no one came under challenge, from a quarter had brought those measurements to- associated with older theories and con- gether in a single global data set. As a servative policy views. In Victorian eco- result, it remained unclear whether one nomic thought, inequality was itself the could generalize from the East Asian ex- spur of growth. Growth required capital perience. Were the apparent lessons accumulation, and it was the accumula- valid on a wider scale? Was it really true tions made possible by concentrating that redistributive policies set the stage incomes that justi½ed an unequal class for growth? structure. The Victorian system worked To help answer that question, Klaus well enough–so long as, in practice, Deininger and Lyn Squire of the World growth did occur and the working class- Bank decided to mine the economic de- es enjoyed the bene½t of a steadily rising velopment literature for surveys of in- living standard. But, as Keynes particu- come inequality. Finding thousands of larly well understood, all this had died such measures in scores of studies, they with World War I. evaluated each data point on three crite- And then, after sixty years, the very ria. Did the study focus on households, same idea was born again. Let the rich rather than persons? Did it attempt to rule–so wrote the supply-side econo- measure all forms of income, including mists who came to power behind Ron- in-kind incomes? Did it attempt to cov- ald Reagan in America and Margaret er all parts of the society, including rural Thatcher in Britain. Tax cuts would im- as well as urban areas? In 1996 they re- prove the incentives of the wealthy to published the data satisfying these three “work, save, and invest.” High interest criteria as a “high-quality” data set on rates would reward saving and quash household income inequality since 1950. inflation. And a fetish of the entrepre- The Deininger-Squire data set is now a neur spread through political and busi- standard reference; a recent version of- ness culture, a doctrine that implicitly

Dædalus Winter 2002 13 James K. rooted the concept of value in innova- change. Inequality may well rise, but the Galbraith tion and leadership, rather than in labor success of a growth strategy makes the on inequality or even in the happiness of consumers. sacri½ce worthwhile. Today, a similar doctrine ½nds expres- The Kuznets and Keynes view implies that sion in models that emphasize syner- increasing equality is the normal out- gies, increasing returns, technological come of a process of rising incomes– change. Two good educations, in part- whether fast or slow–and that social nership, are more than twice as good as welfare policies are normal outgrowths one, so the educated should concentrate of the transition to an urban industrial into enclaves. Technical development economy. This perspective does not pre- raises the relative productivity of the suppose that redistribution should pre- well trained–therefore, pay the skilled cede growth; it only implies that in- more and the unskilled less. In these equality will decline as the development cases, inequalities expressed as clusters process matures. But if Kuznets and of privileged opportunity will foster Keynes were right, then strategies of more rapid growth. planning, industrial diversi½cation, im- Seeking an empirical basis for such port substitution, ½nancial control, and claims, Kristin Forbes uses the Dein- the welfare state are a legitimate part of inger and Squire data set to ½nd that in- the development tool kit; they do not creases in inequality are followed by in- contradict the fundamental project. creased growth rates. If valid, these ½nd- The Scotch verdict–“not proven”–is ings would reverse the eam idea without that development may be unrelated to restoring lost luster to Simon Kuznets.1 social and economic inequalities in any systematic way. This is the fallback posi- As matters stand, economists have tion of some who argue for growth as the broached four different possibilities, sole development objective. each with different implications for the Plainly, the world is complex. Many strategy of economic development: different things could be true. But how The redistributionist view holds that egal- many of these four conflicting hypothe- itarian social policies are a precondition ses are, actually, correct? At most, one.2 for growth and points to the Asian mira- Which one? A great deal rides on the cle–before the crash of 1997–as prime answer. evidence. This view emphasizes land reform and education, but tends to resist One reason why the question remains intervention in market processes once unresolved is that the evidence against preconditions have been successfully which the modern views have been test- met. ed–the Deininger-Squire data set–is The neoliberal view is that policymakers unreliable. should go for growth, concentrating re- sources on comparative advantage, ex- 2 To see the contradiction between the ports, and the fostering of technological Kuznets hypothesis and, say, the Forbes hypothesis, consider two countries that start with identical levels of income and inequality. If both then grow to a higher income level, 1 See Kristin Forbes, “A Reassessment of the under Kuznets inequality should decline in Relationship Between Inequality and Growth,” both. But the Forbes model suggests that one American Economic Review 90 (3) (September country can raise its growth rate by increasing 2000): 869–887. inequality in the short run. It follows that later

14 Dædalus Winter 2002 One cannot but admire the effort of the affluent member countries of the A perfect Deininger and Squire to bring some or- Organization for Economic Cooperation crime der to the chaotic history of income-in- and Development (this is true of the equality measurement. Still, a compari- Forbes study, for example). A simple son of coef½cient values from their effort to compare changes from the “high-quality” data set quickly reveals 1980s to the 1990s–the decades for fundamental problems. which the Bank reports the most obser- First, in many parts of the world–in vations–shows no data for most of Africa most of all, but also in Latin Africa, West Asia, and Latin America. America, Asia, and even in parts of Eu- And where observations exist, they are rope–measurements are sparse, sepa- questionable: inequality falls for about rated in time by many years or even dec- half the countries in this exercise, in a ades. Second, while some of the rank- decade marked by wide protests against ings seem reasonable–one might expect rising inequality! When data and com- low inequality readings from Eastern mon perception clash so sharply, which Europe during the communist years– is to be believed? others are, to put it mildly, implausible. Is inequality in India, Pakistan, and In- We clearly need more and better data. donesia really in the same general league A new data set should, ideally, approach as in Norway? Is inequality in Spain comprehensive coverage of the global really lower than in France? Is inequali- economy on a year-to-year basis, per- ty in the United States and Australia mitting detailed comparison of changes really comparable to, say, Nigeria or the in inequality to changes in gdp. It Sudan? It is doubtful that any Sudanese should be based on data that are reason- thinks so. ably accurate and reasonably consistent The thin coverage on which these re- across countries. sults are based becomes a more serious This turns out to be possible, so long problem still when one tries to compute as one is willing to narrow the focus and changes in the World Bank’s inequality to return to of½cial sources of informa- data over some consistent time period. tion–sources that are very rich, but One is rapidly reduced to a data set widely neglected. Inequalities of house- where half of all observations are from hold income–the focus of Deininger and Squire–are very dif½cult to meas- on that country will have, other things being ure, and the measurements we do have equal, higher income and at least equal, or per- often come from unof½cial surveys.3 haps higher, inequality. The downward-sloping Levels of pay, on the other hand, may Kuznets relation will no longer be observed, be measured easily and accurately for either in time series or panel data. Similarly, if many countries. Pay is, of course, a large the EAM model is correct, then a country reducing inequality in the short run will be observed at lower inequality but initially the 3 The only consistent formal de½nition of same income level as one that does not. In this income we have comes from the income tax, case, if growth then accelerates in the redistrib- whose code speci½es the precise allowable uting country, the Kuznets pattern may be re- treatment of each type of inflow and outflow. stored after a time. But it will not be observed It is tax law that speci½es that wages and during the transition, and it may not be re- salaries are income, but that gifts received are stored at all; the EAM hypothesis does not not, that reimbursements of business expenses clearly specify what happens to inequality after should be deducted, and so on. Since tax laws growth accelerates. vary, the concept of income is therefore nation-

Dædalus Winter 2002 15 James K. subset of income. Levels of manufactur- information, using an inequality metric Galbraith ing pay–an important subset of all pay– developed in the 1960s by the late econo- on inequality have been measured with reasonable metrician Henri Theil.5 The application accuracy as a matter of of½cial routine in of this technique to unido’s industrial most countries around the world for data set permits us to generate large nearly forty years. The resulting data– numbers of inequality measures that can payrolls by manufacturing sector–have be compared across countries and been placed in a single systematic indus- through time. The year 2000 release of trial accounting framework by the Unit- the unido data set alone contains suf½- ed Nations International Development cient information for nearly 3,200 coun- Organization (unido), which makes try/year observations between 1963 and cross-country comparison both easy and 1998–more than four times the coverage relatively reliable. of Deininger and Squire. In short, if one is willing to look at the growth-inequality relationship through 4 The main trade-off is between comprehen- the narrow lens of pay rates and earnings siveness and accuracy: we emphasize accurate structures, it is possible to get the picture measurement of a limited domain, manufactur- 4 ing pay inequality, over implausible measure- into focus. ment of a comprehensive one, income inequali- ty. However, manufacturing pay inequalities The contribution of the University of are interesting in their own right. First, many Texas Inequality Project (utip) has been important economic problems, particularly the to compute consistent measures of man- effects of trade, technological change, and the Kuznets hypothesis itself, concern the distribu- ufacturing pay inequality from this tion of pay, rather than the broader concept of household income distribution, which includes ally speci½c, well de½ned only where precise confounding the effects of transfers, taxes, and accounting conventions are codi½ed in the tax changing household composition. Second, laws. Differences in accounting and tax treat- there is nevertheless a strong apparent correla- ments across countries will produce differences tion between our measures of manufacturing in measured incomes. In countries where sub- pay inequality and the (we believe, reliable) stantial parts of income are unrecorded, or measures of income inequality reported–but delivered in kind, or hidden from tax, or where only for a limited range of countries–by the accounting standards are vague, problems of Luxembourg Income Studies. This is, of course, valuation and aggregation rapidly mount. highly plausible: countries with strongly egali- There is no reason to expect measurements to tarian values are likely to have both com- be consistent through time or across surveys. pressed pay structures and strong welfare These facts make the project of comparing states. Thus we believe that the utip approach income inequality across countries and years provides a very inexpensive way to approxi- doubly dif½cult, and in practice even to arrive mate rankings of income inequality for many at moderately reliable comparisons requires countries, where detailed and reliable micro- meticulous examination of micro-level data. data are not available. Such a project has been undertaken with skill in recent years by the Luxembourg Income 5 To be precise, we compute the between- Studies, but it is restricted mainly to the groups component of Theil’s T statistic across wealthiest countries. The World Bank’s a set of industrial categories, generally at the researchers, on the other hand, had to base two- to three-digit international standard their judgments of data quality on summary industrial classi½cation (isic) levels. Theil’s T information about work done over a half cen- statistic is the best-known example of a class of tury in far-flung locales, often through inde- inequality measures known as “generalized pendent surveys. It cannot be surprising–and entropy measures,” based originally on infor- is not their fault–that the resulting inequality mation theory. Such measures have all the coef½cients are problematic. desirable mathematical characteristics of the

16 Dædalus Winter 2002 A map averaging values of an inequali- and food, and the weakest development A perfect ty coef½cient computed from these data of mass manufacturing and the produc- crime (see ½gure 1) graphically displays the key tion of capital goods. ½ndings. Over the 1963–1998 period, as These ½ndings are in striking accord these data reveal, manufacturing pay in- with Kuznets’s basic hypothesis. Higher equality was lowest in the social democ- incomes and lower pay inequality are racies of Scandinavia and in Australia strongly associated. Because this is true, and under the communist regimes of there is no reason to expect a systematic Eastern Europe, China and Cuba (be- relationship between inequality today cause of the boundary changes, data for and growth later, and none can be Russia here exclude the Soviet years). found. Redistribution in either direc- Southern Europe and North America tion–up or down–is apparently not a form a second group of countries with precondition for economic growth; in- relatively low levels of pay inequality. stead, successful growth and redistribu- The wealthier countries of Latin Ameri- tion tend to go hand in hand. ca (such as Argentina, Venezuela, and Although the Kuznets hypothesis Colombia) and West Asia (Iran) form a relating levels of inequality to levels of middle group; Russia (after 1991) and pay or income is broadly corroborated South Africa rank slightly higher. The by these ½ndings, some doubts about his regions of highest inequality are found views do remain. It is debatable, for in a broad equatorial belt, from Peru and example, if inequality must increase, as Brazil through central Africa and south- Kuznets supposed, in the earliest stages ern Asia, reflecting the largest gaps be- of industrial development. Yet that tween city and countryside, between oil question is moot in most places, so far as modern times and data are con- more widely known Gini coef½cient, and in cerned: most countries are past the ear- addition they are additive and decomposable ly stages. It may also be that inequality (meaning that inequality within a set of groups plus inequality between the groups sums to rises slightly in a few of the very richest total inequality for the combined population). countries as income grows, due partly to This makes them a very flexible tool for work- capital gains in technology sectors–a ing with semi-aggregated data, and we have pattern of interest for students of the shown that changes in between-group meas- United States and the United Kingdom, ures are often a very robust indicator of but not broadly relevant to the study of changes in the whole distribution (including the unobserved within-groups component). economic development. Use of industrial category schemes for purpos- On the whole, inequalities of pay es of international comparison is the principal within manufacturing tend to be lower innovation of the utip project. For further dis- in rich countries than in poor. That cussion of technical details, please consult the means that inequality almost surely de- technical appendices in James K. Galbraith and Maureen Berner, eds., Inequality and Industrial clines as industrialization deepens and Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University as incomes rise. This ½nding is consis- Press, 2001). I thank Pedro Conceição, Hyun- tent over the globe, with limited excep- sub Kum, and George Purcell especially, from tions, over a thirty-½ve-year run of an- among the utip team, for diligent help with nual data, beginning in the early 1960s. concepts and with calculations; the present world data set in particular is Kum’s handi- work. The utip measurements are at Besides con½rming that Kuznets’s . view of the relationship between growth and inequality remains basically correct,

Dædalus Winter 2002 17 James K. Figure 1 Galbraith on Global Inequality inequality 1963–1997 Inequality of manufac- turing pay computed by the University of Texas Inequality Project from the unido 2000 edition of Industrial Statistics and averaged over 1963– 1997; countries ranked into six quantiles as in Figure 3. Note the high coverage and geographic consistency of inequality patterns in the oecd and across the develop- ing regions. Data for Russia are post-Soviet only; those for China Inequality (Theil Statistic) start in 1979. Data for 1 <=0.018, least inequality the Czech Republic, 2 0.018–0.036 Slovakia, and the post- 3 0.036–0.052 Yugoslav states begin 4 0.052–0.074 with the formation of 5 0.074–0.099 those states in the 1990s. 6 0.099–0.893, most inequality No data available

1 Least inequality 2 3 China 0.002510 Canada 0.018428 Gambia 0.037424 Cape Verde 0.002604 Bulgaria 0.019515 Colombia 0.037912 Latvia 0.002916 Italy 0.019734 Burkina Faso 0.038420 Cuba 0.004644 Algeria 0.020126 Azerbaijan 0.038456 Sweden 0.005988 Croatia 0.020982 Costa Rica 0.038469 Czech Republic 0.006639 Nicaragua 0.022988 Portugal 0.039110 Denmark 0.007344 Afghanistan 0.023208 Nigeria 0.040251 Seychelles 0.007539 New Zealand 0.025219 Libya 0.040600 Romania 0.008529 Ireland 0.025589 Turkey 0.040697 Macau 0.009058 Belgium 0.025629 Iran 0.040782 Norway 0.009170 United States 0.025646 Burma 0.041626 Australia 0.009634 Mexico 0.027479 Senegal 0.042025 Finland 0.010957 Iceland 0.028083 Madagascar 0.042821 Germany 0.011076 Bangladesh 0.028631 Cyprus 0.043173 Netherlands 0.011777 South Korea 0.028825 Macedonia 0.043215 Poland 0.012012 Ethiopia 0.029650 Israel 0.044112 Luxembourg 0.013181 Egypt 0.029919 Fiji 0.045027 Hong Kong 0.013624 Bosnia & Herz. 0.030493 Ecuador 0.045361 Hungary 0.014684 Iraq 0.030966 North Yemen 0.045504 Slovakia 0.015137 Japan 0.031031 Pakistan 0.045698 Malta 0.015548 Namibia 0.031425 Uruguay 0.045894 Britain 0.015610 Moldavia 0.031845 Argentina 0.048402 Taiwan 0.015858 Spain 0.033788 Sudan 0.048610 Slovenia 0.016014 Malaysia 0.034413 Somalia 0.048952 France 0.016278 Ukraine 0.034697 El Salvador 0.051577 Austria 0.017799 Greece 0.035561 Venezuela 0.051952

18 Dædalus Winter 2002 A perfect crime

4 5 6 Most inequality Haiti 0.052814 Benin 0.074386 Lesotho 0.105516 Zimbabwe 0.054305 India 0.075959 Belize 0.105935 Botswana 0.055032 Yugoslavia 0.076278 Gabon 0.106911 Sri Lanka 0.056491 Brazil 0.077607 Swaziland 0.106922 Singapore 0.058459 Rwanda 0.078161 Armenia 0.108136 Chile 0.058507 Domincan Rep. 0.079278 South Yemen 0.109596 Russia 0.058517 Tanzania 0.079455 Uganda 0.109652 South Africa 0.058699 Lithuania 0.080079 Oman 0.113724 Zambia 0.061265 Tunisia 0.080430 Ghana 0.118893 Tonga 0.061392 Burundi 0.082687 Puerto Rico 0.121705 Neth. Antilles 0.061593 Jordan 0.082940 Cameroon 0.129300 Philippines 0.061596 Peru 0.082944 Congo 0.136999 Suriname 0.062061 Indonesia 0.084083 Trinidad & Tobago 0.145823 Panama 0.062894 Kyrgystan 0.085131 Mozambique 0.149679 Barbados 0.063116 Liberia 0.085607 Saudi Arabia 0.184693 Ivory Coast 0.064147 Morocco 0.085982 Niger 0.188703 Syria 0.065215 Kenya 0.086183 St. Vincent & Gren. 0.194245 Cen. African Rep. 0.066105 Togo 0.086519 Angola 0.201428 Bolivia 0.066374 Papua N. Guinea 0.086716 Cambodia 0.206362 Nepal 0.068082 Honduras 0.086866 Kuwait 0.230317 Am. Samoa 0.069093 Eq. Guinea 0.089228 Sierra Leone 0.253880 U. Arab Emir. 0.069918 Mauritania 0.092261 Jamaica 0.312738 Mauritius 0.071762 Thailand 0.094014 Bahrain 0.403546 Eritrea 0.072629 Bhutan 0.095370 Qatar 0.404105 Albania 0.073632 Malawi 0.095639 Mongolia 0.442336 Guatemala 0.097286 Paraguay 0.892605 Bahamas 0.098721

Dædalus Winter 2002 19 James K. Figure 2 Galbraith A regression of inequality on on income and time, utip data inequality set. The regression reflects a downward sloping Kuznets 0.20 relation as well as a global drift toward sharply higher inequali- 0.16 ty over time. (Color scales have a similar gradient but are not 0.12 matched to previous graphs.) Theil Statistic 0.08

0.04

30000 36 25000 32 28 20000 24 15000 20 16 12 10000 8 GDPPC Time 5000 4 0 (1963–1998)

Year 97 95 93 91 89 87 85 83 81 79 77 75 73 71 69 67 65 63 0.00

–0.05

–0.10

–0.15

–0.20

–0.25 Time Effect –0.30

–0.35

–0.40

Figure 5 Panel estimates of the world- wide time pattern of rising in- equality, controlling for coun- try-specific effects and the ef- fect of changes in per capita re- al income levels. The method of panel estimates permits calcu- lation of a year-to-year pattern in changing inequality.

20 Dædalus Winter 2002 A perfect crime

Change 1981 to 1987 –42.4 to –1.09 –1.09 to 0.65 0.65 to 3.42 3.42 to 9.14 9.14 to 24.74 n.a.

Figure 3 (above) Figure 4 (below) Inequality in the Age of Debt. ed from the global ½nancial sys- Patterns of rising inequality in Changes in inequality from 1981 tem (China, India, Iran). Greece the age of globalization. to 1987. Dark gray indicates the and Turkey showed very large Changes in inequality from largest increases (notably in increases following their con- 1988 to 1994. The rise in Russia Latin America and among oil frontation over Cyprus in the is extreme. The only signi½cant producers at this time of col- 1970s; declines in the 1980s region of declining inequality is lapsing oil prices); blue indi- may be a return to normality, in the boom countries of South- cates declines; light gray is including policy in Greece after east Asia – more evidence of “neutral.” Almost the only cas- the end of military rule. the Kuznets effect. es of declining inequality in this period are in countries insulat-

Change 1988 to 1994 –32.59 to –3.65 –3.65 to 1.77 1.77 to 5.5 5.5 to 11.82 11.82 to 78.83 n.a.

Dædalus Winter 2002 21 James K. the utip data also permit us to detect of the oil slump that followed. During Galbraith that time, inequality rises most rapidly on global patterns in changes of inequality, inequality to take a fresh look at the New World in the Southern cone of Latin America Order. and in parts of the Middle East. Second, This exercise produces a disquieting there was the collapse (in part induced, result. For when the global trend is iso- as in Yugoslavia and Poland, by intract- lated, we ½nd that in the last two de- able debts) of the communist world; cades, inequality has increased through- these countries become the focus of ris- out the world in a pattern that cuts ing inequalities in the late 1980s. By the across the effect of national income mid-1990s, as ½gure 4 reveals, almost the changes. During the decades that hap- only countries with declining inequality pen to coincide with the rise of neoliber- were the booming countries of Southern al ideology, with the breakdown of Asia (even if the crash after 1997 almost national sovereignties, and with the end surely took some of them in another of Keynesian policies in the global debt direction). crisis of the early 1980s, inequality rose This pattern shows–as clearly as any worldwide. In effect, the Kuznets curve one indicator might hope to do–the ser- relating inequality to income shifted ial failure of the global development upward. This ½nding–the upward slope process as a whole to permit the build- of the plane in ½gure 2–points to influ- ing of advanced industrial democracies ences on inequality of a global order. and welfare states on which Kuznets and The ½nding that there is a common Keynes rested their hopes ½fty years ago. global upward trend in inequality pro- Even so, the ½gures do not fully capture vides strong evidence for one of two (though they do reflect) the deepening propositions. One possibility is that na- dissolution of nation-states, whose ex- tional economic policies have almost treme cases lead to war, as in Bosnia, universally raised inequality independ- Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, the eastern ent of income changes–but for what Congo, Chechnya, Aceh, southern Co- reason? Alternatively, it may be that lombia, and even Chiapas–all of them national economic policies alone do not among the poorest parts of their parent and cannot entirely control national pay states. But as inequality deepens, more structures, that there is a common, and of this is surely on the way. pernicious, global element in the global economy. Since Kuznets passed out of fashion, In the latter case we have to ask, what economists have generally fallen into is that element? Is there, perhaps, some- two camps: those who believe that redis- thing about the process of global laissez- tribution fosters growth, on the one faire itself that created this outcome? hand, and those who believe on the con- And if so, is it an inherent feature of trary that rising inequality is a price “globalization?” Or is it only an artifact worth paying for development. These of the particular policies under which are, however, statements about national the global market has been liberalized in conditions. Working with the utip data recent years? set, it is possible to isolate a different set Figures 3 and 4 illustrate the regional of factors: those factors that co-evolve in patterns of increasing inequality during the world economy through time, inde- two key episodes. First, there was the pendently of the movement of national early 1980s, the years of debt crisis and income. The annual pattern of these

22 Dædalus Winter 2002 time effects, presented in ½gure 5, gives Nor can accelerating technological A perfect us an essential clue so far lacking: the change explain the pattern. The story crime precise turning point at which the global often hinted at for the American case is element in inequality ceased declining that the rapid spread of computers after and started to rise.6 1980 made “skill-biased technological As ½gure 5 shows, the common global change” a driving force behind rising element in pay inequalities declines pay differentials. But the utip (and all slightly through the late 1970s. It then other) data clearly show rising inequali- turns around in 1981–1982, just as Ron- ty in the United States beginning in the ald Reagan took of½ce in the United 1970s, long before the personal comput- States. At this time, a shift in the global er revolution. And after 1980, inequality climate of real interest rates brought the rises more sharply in poorer countries, latter from near 0 to 5 percent or higher where of course new technologies for completely riskless assets–and spread the least. In a country like Fin- much higher for most countries with land, a leader in Internet penetration, depreciating currencies. The result was inequality hardly rose at all. to precipitate a global debt crisis in the What can explain a sequence of events course of which many poorer nations that affects an almost universal spec- were forced ½rst to cut imports and capi- trum of poorer countries after 1980, ex- tal spending, and then were pressured to cluding only India and China in that de- abandon long-standing trade and wel- cade and a handful of the booming eco- fare policies. The years since 1980 have nomies of South Asia in the 1990s? thus seen an empirical test of the second The evidence of timing points toward point of view: an extraordinary, system- the effect of rising real interest rates and atic increase in inequality. It has not the debt crisis. For this, the stage was set been followed by any increase in the glo- by the dissolution in 1973 of the Bretton bal rate of economic expansion. Woods framework of ½xed-but-adjust- For a cause of worldwide rising in- able exchange rates and international equality, one must look to events that supervision of capital flow. As ½gure 5 characterize the period after 1980, but shows, the collapse of that framework not before. Growth of trade will not do. ended a period of relatively stable Worldwide trade grew very rapidly growth–and stable pay structures. through the period of “stabilizing devel- There then followed a short period of opment” (the Mexican term) that began the oil and commodities boom, with in 1945 and ended in the 1970s; it is not a declining inequality fueled by commer- peculiar feature of the environment af- cial debt. But this was unsustainable, ter 1980. and it came to a crashing end in the worldwide ½nancial shock that was ini- 6 Our technique here is a two-way ½xed ef- tiated in 1980–1981 by the United fects panel data estimation, which entails cre- States, as the u.s. Federal Reserve ating “dummy” variables for each country and year in the sample. The coef½cient estimates pushed nominal interest rates past 20 on the country dummies then reveal the pat- percent. The rise in interest rates pro- tern of national institutions, while the coef½- duced dramatic and continuing cuts in cient estimates of the time dummies reveal the imports, with devastating results for the common course of inequality in the global development prospects of poorer coun- economy over the years, controlling for tries. Many of them have never recov- income changes. The time effects are present- ed in ½gure 5. ered.

Dædalus Winter 2002 23 James K. Indeed, matters were made worse by Russia and Eastern Europe, and then in Galbraith the concurrent triumph of neoliberal- Asia. on inequality ism in the United States and the United Everywhere, crisis ensued. Only where Kingdom in these same years. Following countries successfully resisted the neo- the debt crisis, the rich countries liberal policy prescriptions–most preached the “magic of the market- notably in China, in Northern Europe, place” to the poor. No new ½nancial ar- and in the United States itself after the chitecture was created from the wreck- mid-1990s–did growth continue and age left by the commercial banks. In- pay inequality remain under reasonable stead, the International Monetary Fund control. preached austerity, and then ½nancial It is not, then, by accident that the deregulation and privatization–sale of effects of neoliberalism at a global level state assets at ½re-sale prices to foreign resemble those of a coup d’état at a investors. national level. After honing these policies in Latin In an early analysis using utip’s data America, they were applied after 1989 in set, George Purcell and I calculated the

Figure 6 Inequality before, during, Inequality in Chile and after coups: the case of 300 Chile and the general pat- 250 tern. The chart on the bot- tom averages the change of 200 Coup d’état inequality for up to ½ve years 150 before and up to ½ve years after a coup d’état; the aver- 100

age is calculated across twen- Index (1970=100) 50 ty-seven historical cases. 0 9593918987858381797775737169676563 Year

Change in Inequality: 27 Coups D’Etat 10 8 6 4 2 0 entage Change –2 Perc –4 –6 5 before 3 before 1 before 1 after 3 after 5 after 4 before 2 before Coup year 2 after 4 after

24 Dædalus Winter 2002 average effects of twenty-seven coups In sum, it is not increasing trade as such A perfect d’état on our measurements of pay in- that we should fear. Nor is technology crime equality. We found a pattern of striking the culprit. To focus on “globalization” consistency. After rising four and ½ve as such misstates the issue. The problem years before the coup, inequality would is a process of integration carried out decline sharply in the two years immedi- since at least 1980 under circumstances ately beforehand. In the year of the coup of unsustainable ½nance, in which itself, the decline in inequality would wealth has flowed upwards from the stop. And in the ½ve repressive years poor countries to the rich, and mainly to that followed (coups, as distinct from the upper financial strata of the richest revolutions, are almost invariably right- countries. wing), rising inequality would occur sys- In the course of these events, progress tematically in each year, until overall toward tolerable levels of inequality and inequality stood far higher than in the sustainable development virtually period before the coup. Figure 6 presents stopped. Neocolonial patterns of center- our data for the canonical case of Chile periphery dependence, and of debt and the curve that emerges from averag- peonage, were reestablished, but with- ing effects over the twenty-seven cases. out the slightest assumption of responsi- Viewed from a global perspective, the bility by the rich countries for the fate of pattern of time effects observed world- the poor. wide after 1975 strongly resembles this It has been, it would appear, a perfect characteristic curve. Global inequality crime. And while statistical forensics fell in the late 1970s. In those years, poor can play a small role in pointing this out, countries had the bene½t of low interest no mechanism to reverse the policy rates and easy credit, and high commod- exists, still less any that might repair the ity prices, especially for oil. Indeed, in damage. The developed countries have the 1970s, the utip data shows that it abandoned the pretense of attempting was the lower-income workers in the to foster development in the world at poorer countries who made the largest large, preferring to substitute the rheto- gains in pay. But in 1980–1981, the age of ric of ungoverned markets for the hard low interest rates and high commodity work of stabilizing regulation. The prog- prices ended. nosis is grim: a descent into apathy, In 1982, the repression took hold–a despair, disease, ecological disaster, and ½nancial repression, to be sure, but not wars of separatism and survival in many less real for having taken that form. And of the poorest parts of the world. while the debt crisis was not accompa- Unless, of course, the wise spirits of nied by overt violence–coups are, in- Kuznets and Keynes can be summoned deed, often very limited in their overt back to life, to deal more constructively violence–the effects were soon felt with the appalling disorder of the past worldwide, and with a savage intensity twenty years. that has continued for two decades.

Dædalus Winter 2002 25 Orlando Patterson

Beyond compassion: sel½sh reasons for being unsel½sh

tion of character–is believed by the America has developed an unusual majority, which has its own successes to class system. It is a highly competitive prove it. society in which the majority of players Paradoxically, the great majority of are winners, but in which the winners to Americans continue to espouse the ideal an increasing degree take all, or nearly of equality. Surveys indicate that the all. This is the best of all possible worlds commitment is genuine and plays an for the majority of winners. But for the important role in the struggle of disad- losers, especially those at the bottom, it vantaged groups to improve their lot.1 is the worst of all possible worlds. It Still, as Sidney Verba and Gary Orren means that, even as inequality grows, concluded ½fteen years ago, “The United the dominant value legitimizing, as well States ranks among the most open and as driving, America’s enormously suc- participatory of modern democracies cessful social economy–the conviction when it comes to politics and among the that anyone can make it if they only try least egalitarian when it comes to eco- hard enough, and that failure is a reflec- nomic matters.”2 How do Americans reconcile their egalitarianism with the realities of Orlando Patterson, John Cowles Professor of extreme inequality and rampant poverty Sociology at Harvard University, has long been in the midst of affluence? Partly by sepa- interested in the comparative study of slavery; the rating economic life from egalitarian study of its antithesis, freedom; and the study of ideals, con½ning the latter to the domain socioeconomic underdevelopment with special ref- of the personal and political; and partly erence to Jamaica and the Caribbean Basin. His through widespread denial about the 1991 study “Freedom” received the National Book realities of inequality. As Jennifer Award. In the past decade, Patterson has shifted Hochschild found, “almost all [Ameri- the focus of his research to contemporary America with special emphasis on the intersecting problems 1 Herbert McClosky and John Zaller, The Amer- of race, immigration, and multiculturalism, pub- ican Ethos: Public Attitudes toward Capitalism and lishing most recently “Rituals of Blood: The Con- Democracy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer- sequences of Slavery in Two American Centuries” sity Press, 1984), chap. 3. (1999). He has been a Fellow of the American 2 Sidney Verba and Gary Orren, Equality in Academy since 1991. America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), chap. 1.

26 Dædalus Winter 2002 cans] de½ne themselves as members of at soldiering from those competent at Beyond the middle class, no matter how poor or political and civic leadership. compassion rich they are.”3 One dif½culty with America’s Above all, Americans seem to be con- approach to inequalities like this is that fused about the notion of equality, and we reward different kinds of compe- either naive or hypocritical about the tence at different rates–and there is no relationship between equity and the eco- rationale or fairness to how we do this. nomic system. It is hard to know what In a capitalist society, people are paid in else to make of ½ndings such as the fol- relation to the market value of their pro- lowing: “Although few Americans are ductive activities. But as a justi½cation willing to blame the poor for their for the distribution of income prevailing plight, even fewer blame the economic at any given time, the market is a moral system for making them poor.”4 The nonstarter. Is a good manager really problem, I want to argue, lies in the very worth over 150 times the earnings of a idea of equality itself, and in our failure good worker, not to mention thousands to ½nd ways of reconciling modern of times the latter’s wealth? Is the work American conceptions of it with the of nude dancers and Playboy pinups real- individualist indeterminism that is the ly hundreds of times more valuable than foundation of America’s successful capi- what homemakers do? Is an actress talist system. playing Mother Teresa millions of times more worthwhile than the relatively For Aristotle, equality meant equal poor saint she plays? Clearly not. Mar- treatment for equals and unequal treat- ket logic dictates that a diligent nude ment for unequals with respect to given lap-dancer earning $250,000 per year is qualities, a conception of fairness that ten times more productive than a dedi- virtually requires a very unequal society. cated day-care teacher earning $25,000, It is obvious that human beings differ but no economist still in his moral sens- greatly in their capacities: some are es would ever argue that this is a fair or stronger than others; some are more socially reasonable outcome. beautiful; some can do math better; But if the market cannot function as a some can sing better; and some are moral yardstick, what can? All attempts clearly better athletes. These qualities by social scientists to come up with are nonassociative. Cognitively smart some kind of general standard for people are not necessarily beautiful or assessing the relative worth of qualities physically agile. Indeed, they may not have failed, most notably the various even be very smart in areas of cognition functionalist theories of competence– outside of their special ½elds of compe- arguments that the worth of qualities is tence. We have all met the great scientist proportionate to their contribution to who is hopelessly naive in social or society at large. As John Rawls has political matters. And there are good cogently argued, the standard merito- reasons for distinguishing people good cratic argument also fails, for the reason that native endowments (such as high 3 Jennifer Hochschild, What’s Fair? American intelligence, beauty, and athletic talent) Beliefs about Distributive Justice (Cambridge, are qualities that we did nothing to Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), 143 and deserve, and therefore it is unjust to chap. 5 passim. reward them unduly. 4 McClosky and Zaller, The American Ethos, 125.

Dædalus Winter 2002 27 Orlando las, we live in a very imperfect world, the environment by private ½rms. If the Patterson A on and given the trends toward growing state does not intervene to regulate and inequality inequality, it is one that daily becomes forestall such degradation, society as a more imperfect. In America today, it is whole will suffer. Even the winners suf- also true that appeals to justice, or gener- fer in a city where the air is not ½t to al moral principles, such as those enun- breathe. ciated by Rawls, carry little weight in A similar argument holds for the social practice. Ours is a harsh moral universe. and cultural degradation that comes as a Apart from a few “deserving” exceptions result of pursuing a totally sel½sh, uncar- such as the badly crippled or otherwise ing social policy. Chronic poverty and disabled, most highly successful Ameri- unemployment in the midst of plenty is cans see the poor and disadvantaged as directly related to chronic drug use, self-made failures. Under these circum- criminality, the desolation of communi- stances, we have to ask not how we can ties both urban and, increasingly, rural, change the terms of moral judgment, but and growing violence in all aspects of how we can remedy the worst inequities life. A semiliterate and alienated lower of the system despite the currently pre- class wastes much of America’s potential vailing terms of moral judgment. We manpower. also need to know how to defend such Worse, a discouraged, angry, and remedies in a manner that might appeal alienated lower class is directly related to to the most morally insensitive “win- the growing debasement of our popular ners.” culture. The mass media, driven by Is there any way of analyzing the con- advertising revenues, increasingly pan- sequences of inequality that will have der to the lowest common denominator. persuasive power in our winner-take-all This accounts for the decline in public- world? interest programming and in the shrink- Only one kind of argument seems like- ing amount of time devoted to serious ly to succeed: an argument based on news on tv, as well as the growing self-interest, or, to put it more bluntly, reliance on the banalities of survivor on sel½shness. If it can be shown that shows and on gruesomely violent dra- too brutal a disregard for losers under- mas. Accompanying these developments mines the interests of the winners, then has been the well-documented and fre- it may be possible to salvage some of quently lamented degradation of popu- what remains of the welfare state. In lar music. what follows, I will ignore the “stand- What is true of the weather is equally point of justice” defended by Rawls. true of the moral climate we share: Instead, I will rehearse three sociologi- the rich winners, and their children, cally pragmatic–and morally ignoble– can no more escape cultural pollution lines of reasoning: what I will call the than they can escape air pollution. As Degradation argument; the Acts of Man distinguished economists Robert Frank argument; and the Acts of History argu- and Philip Cook have argued at length ment. in their landmark study of The Winner- Take-All Society, “activities that affect Few deny any longer that a market our preferences affect the well-being of regime will, in some circumstances, fail others, just as activities that generate to prevent the physical degradation of pollution affect the well-being of oth-

28 Dædalus Winter 2002 ers.”5 There is growing evidence that the result has been to undermine all Beyond compassion America’s lowest-common-denomina- forms of individualism, good and bad.” tor popular culture is having a damaging As is well known, Adam Smith was effect on middle- and upper-class chil- acutely aware of such problems. So, to a dren, even as early as kindergarten. It degree, are some modern American con- has not gone unnoticed that the per- servatives. However, their preferred petrators of mass murder in our high solutions seem unable to address the schools have all been children from the kinds of cultural degradation that families of privileged winners. And it is inequality breeds. There are clear limits now well known that the major audi- to what voluntary organizations can do ence for the most brutally misogynistic to remedy the ½ssiparous tendencies of and violent of rap lyrics is composed of an inherently sel½sh capitalism. And upper-middle-class Euro-American there are equally clear limits to what a youngsters. mass incarceration of the most violent As the sociologist David Riesman ar- of the degraded classes can accomplish: gued over a half century ago, untram- rather than deterring crime, jail time in meled individualism ultimately under- many of our largest cities is now seen by mines individualism itself: “People can many potential gang leaders as a neces- become deeply attached only to a society sary rite of passage, a period of harden- which takes account of longings for con- ing and a badge of “honor” that lends nection with each other,” he wrote, and prestige on the outside. “to the degree that capitalist individual- Since voluntary associations and the ism has fostered an ethic of callousness, so-called prison-industrial complex have evidently failed to counteract the 5 Robert H. Frank and Philip J. Cook, The Win- cultural degradation wrought by grow- ner-Take-All Society (New York: Free Press, ing inequality, perhaps it is time for our 1995), 202 and chap. 10 passim. Frank and elites, out of pure self-interest, including Cook have vigorously argued that there is a an interest in their most vulnerable chil- close relationship between the spectacular rise dren, to shift gears and reconsider the in inequality in recent decades and the spread of winner-take-all markets. There has been a need for a more humane set of social change in the distribution of opportunities, policies aimed at reconnecting those rather than talents, and in the ability of those who lose to their societies. At the very at the top to leverage their relative standing least, such policies might produce a larg- into disproportionately higher earnings (The er body of literate, more pliant workers. Winner-Take-All Society, 61–84; 86–89). While I am in general sympathy with Frank and Cook’s argument, we differ in one important empha- My Acts of Man argument is also sis. While they emphasize an elite of winners, modeled on an existing approach to it seems to me that what has emerged is a soci- remedial action acceptable to the greedi- ety in which the majority are winners and, of est and most atomistically individualis- equal importance, are smug in their belief that they are successful middle-class winners. Sur- tic among us. No one denies that people veys repeatedly show that over three-quarters who have suffered catastrophic losses as of Americans believe that “in a capitalist socie- a result of earthquakes, hurricanes, and ty, every individual has an opportunity to other “Acts of God” deserve rapid help develop his/her own special abilities.” See, for from their government. If we can justify example, Robert Peterson, Gerald Albaum, and such help on the grounds that those who George Kozmetsky, Modern American Capital- ism: Understanding Public Attitudes and Percep- suffer are not at fault, it seems only rea- tions (New York: Quorum Books, 1990), 43. sonable that an otherwise implacably

Dædalus Winter 2002 29 Orlando individualistic society can justify reme- The data suggest that the controversy Patterson dies aimed at injuries suffered as an surrounding af½rmative action has been on inequality unintended consequence of manmade largely generated by vocal elites con- changes in the social environment. cerned about its fairness for themselves Indeed, precisely because others are and their friends and family.6 responsible for Acts of Man, there is all Remedying Acts of History neverthe- the more reason why any untoward con- less poses special problems. Since many sequences of such acts should be attend- of the relevant issues have been aired in ed to with even greater urgency than we the ongoing debate over af½rmative respond to Acts of God. Thus, when the action, there is no need to rehash them chairman of a company decides, with here.7 the stroke of a pen, to relocate a factory What I propose to do in the remainder in another part of the country or another of this essay is address some of the other nation, thereby devastating the lives of a problems generated by Acts of History. whole town, some remedial action How should we think about evaluating seems justi½ed. There is no more moral the injuries caused by historic discrimi- hazard here–to use the peculiar lan- nation? To what extent should those guage of economics–than that which injured be treated as responsible moral goes with helping those who suffer Acts agents in their own right? of God. (And there is a lot less spiritual In our sel½sh, winner-take-all world, hazard, since we are never sure whether we need some way of determining those our efforts to remedy Acts of God may aspects of a losing group’s problems for not amount to a hubristic de½ance of His which they are not liable, and those for divine judgment.) which they must be held responsible. But before sketching a framework for What I have called Acts of History doing this, it is necessary briefly to say may similarly justify extending aid to something about what may be called the victims. By Acts of History I mean the moral sociology of human agency. injuries that come from systematic pat- terns of oppression and exclusion in the As human beings we experience long past and from continuing discrimination years of socialization and are clearly the in the present. Ethnic, gender, and class products of our upbringing and our cir- discrimination are typical of what I have cumstances. In purely objective terms, in mind. One of the extraordinary we are utterly determined–by our ironies of contemporary America is that social, economic, and physical environ- many of its most successful large corpo- ment, by our genes, and by the interac- rations are more amenable than the state to remedying such Acts of History. The 6 For an analysis of the survey data, see Orlan- strongest opposition to af½rmative do Patterson, The Ordeal of Integration (Wash- action has come from noncorporate ington, D.C.: Civitas/Counterpoint, 1977), interest groups and politicians. Further- 147–158. more, while there is apparently strong 7 Ibid., 158–169. See also Derek Bok and opposition to af½rmative action in the William Bowen, The Shape of the River: Long- abstract among ordinary American term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University (Princeton: Princeton University workers, the number who oppose Press, 1998), and John Skrentny, The Ironies of af½rmative-action programs at their own Af½rmative Action (Chicago: University of workplaces slumps to under 8 percent. Chicago Press, 1996).

30 Dædalus Winter 2002 tions between and within our genes and some of the policies advocated by liberal Beyond environments, in ways that are still social scientists assume an oversocial- compassion largely indecipherable and may remain ized view of human beings. The perva- so. siveness of liberal social science policy Nonetheless, it is sociologically has, in turn, legitimized a crudely deter- impossible to behave in terms of this ministic approach to the problems of objective deterministic truth. For socie- the unfortunate minority of the poor. ty to be possible, and for individuals to One consequence has been a devastating be successful, it is necessary that we embrace by America’s disadvantaged of believe, and act as if, we are free of such a view of themselves as purely passive conditioning. The more complex and victims. advanced a society, the greater the forces At the same time, one must beware that constrain and determine us, but the the even greater danger in upholding an greater the need to deny the truth of undersocialized view of human beings determinism and assert the necessary that simply denies the overwhelming belief in personal agency. Indeed, as I evidence of objective determinism. This have argued elsewhere, a totalitarian view was given perhaps its most famous tyrant determined to create a world con- recent expression in the inane declara- sistent with the scienti½cally true dic- tion of Prime Minister Margaret tates of determinism would have to Thatcher that there “is no such thing as invent the myth of agency. Determinism Society. There are individual men and is perhaps the only truth that requires a women and their families.” This is the belief in its denial for its realization.8 same Margaret Thatcher who fervently The sociologically necessary myth of appealed to some thing called the British agency–made real by the intensity of nation during her war with Argentina, our belief in it–is a sine qua non of any which was clearly meant to be more kind of successful modern society.9 than the sum of individuals and their A major drawback of liberal social sci- families claiming British citizenship. ence is the failure to recognize the con- The necessary ideology of human tradiction in determinism. As a result, agency can be, and has been, taken too far by some in conservative Anglo- 8 It was Epicurus who ½rst recognized this American circles, all of whom contra- contradiction in determinism and the implied dict themselves in their deep commit- sociological necessity for human agency. Indeed, he went further and showed that the ment to clearly extra-individual entities very terms in which any possible defense of such as business corporations, church, determinism may be argued will always assume army, and nation. There is no need to a contradiction. I have argued elsewhere that waste time arguing against such obvious sociological pragmatism originates in his work. contradictions.10 See Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus,” in A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, eds., The Hellenistic A commitment to a vigorous ideology Philosophers (Cambridge: Cambridge University of human agency is not inconsistent Press, 1987). For a more detailed discussion, see with recognition of the fact that some Orlando Patterson, Freedom in the Making of 10 For more on the problems of undersocial- Western Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1991), ized and oversocialized conceptions of human 187–190. agency, see Mark Granovetter, “Economic 9 I made this point many years ago in my Action and Social Structure,” in Mark Gra- paper “The Moral Crisis of the Black Ameri- novetter and Richard Swedberg, eds., The Sociol- can,” The Public Interest 32 (Summer 1973): ogy of Economic Life (Boulder, Colo.: Westview 43–69. Press, 1992), 53–81.

Dædalus Winter 2002 31 Orlando people will fail for reasons that are not This distinction, however, is unsatis- Patterson primarily their own and are clearly soci- factory as it stands, and the reason on inequality etal in origin. becomes apparent as soon as we ask: How do we avoid these two extremes? what are the origins of internal and This is a dif½cult question, and I have no external problems? It happens that easy answers. But it may be helpful to many internal problems (both individu- map out some of the different possibili- ally and collectively) originate in exter- ties, using a simple framework. We may nal circumstances, and it is also the case begin with a basic distinction in the that many external problems originate problems that people face: between in internal conditions. those with internal causes, and those We can produce, then, a fourfold with external causes. matrix of the sources of social problems, External causes include both Acts of which I will review here only in the God and Acts of Man: a person is obvi- broadest outline. ously not responsible for being born blind, or for being discriminated against The ½rst type of problems involves because of his religion or the way she external outcomes with external origins. Such looks. problems have clear-cut external causes Internal causes include acts or predis- both in current circumstances and in positions of an individual or a group past conditions. Racial discrimination in (when this is the unit of interest). If a employment is perhaps the best exam- person loses his job because of alco- ple; gender discrimination is another. holism or for sexually harassing col- African Americans and women continue leagues, this would seem to be an inter- to experience discrimination at the nal cause for which he is wholly respon- workplace on the basis of their ethnicity sible. When we are speaking on the level or gender, or both. Such discrimination of groups of persons, internal problems has a long history and grows out of pre- are those cultural patterns or typical pre- vious patterns of discrimination both in dispositions that increase the probability and out of the workplace. One impor- of failure. Traditions of masculinity or tant consequence of this is that current notions of ethnic pride that disdain discrimination is of two types: continu- schoolwork as geeky, negative attitudes ing direct discrimination, and what has toward working for others, early mar- been called institutional discrimination. riage for girls, extravagant and wasteful Direct discrimination is on the decline, expenditure on rite-of-passage cere- due to recent laws against it and chang- monies–all these may be examples of ing attitudes resulting from vigorous internally caused problems.11 political action on the part of African Americans, women, and other groups 11 These examples will immediately raise the who have suffered some form of dis- hackles of many, since there is a dogmatic tra- dition in social science that rejects all cultural crimination. In many areas, it is reason- explanations of problems. I say “may” to signal able to say that it has been largely elimi- my own position that cultural effects always nated. However, it is incorrect to point operate interactively. A cultural pattern may be solely to the decline of such direct dis- a real source of failure in one context, yet be crimination as evidence of improve- harmless in another. See my chapter, “Taking ment. Institutional discrimination per- Culture Seriously,” in Lawrence Harrison and Samuel Huntington, eds., Culture Matters (New sists in those inherited prejudices, many York: Basic Books, 2000), chap. 15. of them unintended, that still constrain

32 Dædalus Winter 2002 women and minorities. Thus, the isola- cipline of working in a modern work- Beyond tion of African Americans in segregated place. Their incapacity is conditioned, in compassion communities is largely a product of pre- the sense that external circumstances vious racial prejudice and discrimina- clearly help to explain their characteris- tion in housing. But this isolation cuts tic behavior. A near-experimental them off from social networks and cul- demonstration of this is seen in those tural capital that are indispensable for cases in which the environment of a survival and success at all levels of the seemingly work-incapacitated person is workplace. Similarly, women’s exclu- changed. Just such a case is found sion from male bonding practices seri- among Jamaicans who are brought to ously impedes their access to vital tacit the United States to work as contracted knowledge for successful entrepreneur- farm laborers during the harvest season. ial activity. In addition, cultural assump- The same people who, in Jamaica, seem tions by caregivers and role models dur- shiftless become such prized workers in ing child-rearing and schooling create America that in the apple growing areas biases that lead women and minorities of New Hampshire they earn more away from successful paths. money than native workers do. A second category of problems may be A third type of problems involves described as internal outcomes with external external outcomes with internal causes. An causes. Many problems faced by disad- extreme example, on the individual vantaged groups are, on the surface, level, is the condition of agoraphobia. internal and hence would seem to be of On the social level, these are the kinds of their own making. However, on closer problems that more conservative ana- scrutiny, such problems are seen to be lysts and leaders like to point to. For the direct outcome of externalities for example, it is now well established that which the persons involved cannot be single parenting greatly increases the held wholly responsible. A good exam- likelihood of a woman and her children ple of this is the condition of unemploy- living in poverty, and, since the 1960s, it ability that comes from chronic long has become a major cause of poverty in periods of unemployment. Economists the United States. Such families have a who measure unemployment know that poverty rate several times greater than the rate is often flawed by the fact that a families headed by married couples. substantial number of persons have sim- While the issue is still controversial, I ply removed themselves from the work- have concluded from my own review of force. Some of these people may be sim- the historical and contemporary data ply shiftless–that is, unwilling to do that the pattern of single parenting regular work in the ½rst place. But many among African Americans, combined studies–including studies by me of with the abandonment of children and unemployment among the urban poor families by men, is predominantly cul- of Kingston, Jamaica–indicate that tural, although its behavioral expres- most persons who remove themselves sions have to be understood in terms of from the workforce are discouraged the interaction of these cultural propen- workers. After seeking work for years sities with structural factors. Poverty, of and not ½nding adequate employment course, has several major causes. Still, or employment that offers a living wage, being a single mother has other impor- such workers may become unemploy- tant external consequences for one’s able in that they have lost the basic dis- children, such as the greater risk of juve-

Dædalus Winter 2002 33 Orlando nile delinquency, teen pregnancy, single rent African American familial problems Patterson parenting, lower educational attain- by showing that the far greater internal on inequality ment, and poverty. Other, perhaps less propensity of poor African American controversial examples of internal cul- men to abandon their children and the tural sources of external problems are mothers of their progeny originated in religious and other values that lead to the very external conditions of slavery behaviors that increase the risk of pover- and, later, the sharecropping regime. ty. In many Third World countries such Nonetheless–and this point is criti- as India, for example, the rural poor have cal–while we can always trace the ori- a strong tradition of having large num- gins of internal causes back to external bers of children, often due to the bias in roots in the past, all that this demon- favor of boys; such behavior reinforces strates is that in the ½nal analysis our their impoverishment. lives and our behaviors are ultimately The fourth and ½nal category of prob- conditioned. Indeed, given perfect lems involves internal outcomes with inter- knowledge, it would be possible to show nal causes. This cluster of problematic how every behavior, right down to our outcomes is usually what we have in most intimate gestures, is the result of mind when we think of patterns of some previous condition. This, however, behavior that are the result of a person’s takes us back to the point made earlier– socialization or, on the collective level, that we cannot allow this fact of ulti- when we think of the secondary cultural mate, objective determinism (assuming consequences of highly institutionalized omniscience) to dominate or frame our cultural patterns. On the individual personal morality or view of others, level, tragic cases in point are the ten- including the disadvantaged, or our pub- dency for child abusers to have been lic policies aimed at helping them. The themselves abused as children, or of practical necessity of the belief in alcoholics and wife batterers to be the human agency–not to mention the children of alcoholic fathers who bat- impossible assumption of omniscience tered their mothers. Collectively, a good required by outright determinism–puts example is the extremely fraught pattern limits on the degree to which we can of gender relations among some groups explain away internal sources of our that come from wholly internal patterns actions. As historians and social scien- of inherited gender attitudes and behav- tists, it is our task to pursue causal ioral models. regresses as far back as they can mean- ingfully explain present problems. But to These four types of problems and their explain is not to justify. The social logic causes are by no means exhaustive, even of human agency requires a shorter leash within the terms explored here. For on justi½cation than on explanation. example, it will have already occurred to How much shorter? Where do we some that the internal causes of external draw the line and say “Enough! Here the outcomes may themselves have originat- explanatory buck stops–however force- ed at an earlier period in external causes. ful and valid the historical and socioeco- Individually, this is the classic Freudian nomic arguments–and agency begins”? model of neurotic behavior. On the One cannot be precise, for the simple group level, I myself have attempted to reason that what may be called the buck- demonstrate just such a more complicat- stops-here point is often the product of ed causal path in my discussion of cur- negotiation, struggle, and sometimes

34 Dædalus Winter 2002 conflict between individuals and groups. tion of external intervention and, if nec- Beyond Just such a process is taking place in the essary, forceful prevention; but they pri- compassion heated, largely middle-class national marily require rehabilitative measures. debate over af½rmative action. With Here, however, America has failed badly, regard to the real losers (William Julius due to the undersocialized approach of Wilson’s “truly disadvantaged” and its leaders and most successful citizens Cynthia Duncan’s “worlds apart” to this kind of problem. A substantial Appalachians), as violent collective proportion of persons in the nation’s action becomes less and less feasible in exploding prison population are drug America–with the state’s security agen- addicts who are clearly suffering from cies, legal system, and prison-industrial this class of problems. Incarceration has complex becoming more ef½cient and worsened the problem, not only turning draconian in protecting the majority of nonviolent offenders into hardened “winners”–this increasingly aggrieved criminals, but also making drugs far minority may well resort to the only more expensive and the drug trade far weapon it has in its relation with the more lucrative than it would be under a winner-take-all majority. This is what I decriminalized regime (such as that in have called elsewhere their counter- Holland). leviathan power–their ability to subvert The third type of problems, involving prevailing social and cultural norms by external outcomes with internal causes, acting in often self-destructive ways is complex, and calls for very nuanced that degrade the quality of life for all: and intricate responses. In extreme cases through drug addiction, personal vio- of incapacitation, such as social prob- lence, petty criminality, bad attitudes, lems resulting from chronic mental ill- and widespread vandalism. ness, there is clearly a need for substan- Despite its limitations, our fourfold tial intervention, although, even here, it matrix of the sources of social problems is important not to regress to Victorian may help convince the sel½sh skeptic systems of institutionalization. The that some measure of social justice story of the deinstitutionalization of the requires redressing the unfair conse- mentally ill in America is very instruc- quences of Acts of Man and Acts of His- tive. Up to the early 1970s, as Christo- tory. By clarifying the social logic of pher Jencks has shown in his study The human agency, the fourfold matrix may Homeless, this was a successful process, help to indicate where government one that nicely balanced respect for intervention is not simply justi½ed but individual autonomy with concern for necessary. the public interest. But after the mid- 1970s, this balance collapsed, with disas- In brief: problems involving external trous consequences–a worst-case sce- outcomes with external origins all nario of liberal and conservative blun- require vigorous intervention and a ders reinforcing each other. In most combination of strongly enforced laws problems of this sort, the challenge is to and compensatory af½rmative action on ½nd ways to support individuals in their behalf of those who have been, and con- efforts to reform themselves. If single tinue to be, injured and excluded from parenting and paternal abandonment social, economic, and cultural resources. are major causes of poverty, especially Problems involving internal outcomes childhood poverty, then it is clear that with external causes require a combina- government intervention has serious

Dædalus Winter 2002 35 Orlando limitations. Of course, the state has a cates to exaggerate the risk and spread of Patterson responsibility to the children who are the disease in the United States, which, on inequality innocently trapped in this internally we now know, never came close to being driven disaster. Still, there can be little the mass epidemic that was warned. doubt now that the nation’s welfare sys- aids, in the vast majority of cases, is tem before its recent reform created seri- undoubtedly the consequence of inter- ous moral hazards for certain groups. nally problematic behavior. Its recent Change was imperative. The more than spread among poor, rural African Ameri- moderate success of these reform meas- can women is without doubt the result ures, however many transitional prob- of a combination of predatory male sex- lems have accompanied them, indicates ual behavior and unthinking, high-risk so far that the changes were justi½ed and sexual conduct by women. In the ½nal reinforces our view that the primary analysis, the disease will only be halted, responsibility for problems involving barring a vaccine, by a change of such external outcomes with internal causes high-risk behavior, although recent lies with the individuals involved. No research suggests that even persons fully one forces a single woman or man, or a aware of the risks nonetheless take poor couple, to have more children than them. As a public-health menace with their resources permit, certainly not in dire implications for some innocent per- an advanced society with readily avail- sons, especially the children of victims, able birth-control facilities; in overex- aids requires substantial intervention, tending themselves, such people are regardless of the level of personal freely exercising their God-given right to responsibility involved. reproduce as much as they like. And as The same cannot be said, however, for human agents fully aware of the conse- external problems resulting from inter- quences of their actions, they–though nal choices and cultural predispositions emphatically not their children, for that have no public-health or urgent whom the most radical interventions are social implications. A person who drops necessary–must pay the price of low- out of school and later refuses to take ered income when that is the outcome of advantage of the many compensatory their choices. educational facilities available in the The tragic case of aids infection also United States can hardly complain about falls into this third category of problems. receiving a low wage for his or her labor. Here, however, internal attitudes and In a capitalist society it is high-risk patterns of behavior have external con- behavior to remain unquali½ed. Beyond sequences for the innocent or unwary– preventing its citizens from falling and this justi½es vigorous intervention beneath an absolute floor of poverty, a by the government. One extreme kind of government has no responsibility to sup- conservative response, which is as cruel plement the income of sane persons who as it is myopic, is that aids is the result choose–and it is a choice, however self- of high-risk internal choices and prac- destructive–not to educate themselves tices and that its victims have only them- in what they know to be a knowledge- selves to blame. One suspects that the intensive, high-technology society. Lib- tragic neglect of the pandemic spread of eral advocates, in irrational denial of this the disease in Africa also springs from simple fact, insist on blaming bad such thinking. It was fear of such atti- schools rather than bad choices for these tudes that led early activists and advo- outcomes, even though nearly all the

36 Dædalus Winter 2002 best studies on the nation’s schools enormous dynamism and affluence. Beyond (usually done by scholars with impecca- Nowhere has this been made more compassion ble liberal credentials) indicate that obvious than in the wholly contradicto- poor schooling and inadequate school ry messages being sent out by the opportunities explain only a very small nation’s leaders since the terrorist part of low educational attainments. attacks of September 11, 2001. One reac- The fourth type of problem, involving tion to the national tragedy has been an internal outcomes with internal causes, all-too-rare tendency for citizens to is the sole responsibility of the individu- think in national, almost solidaristic als and groups involved. Only Native terms, as well as to turn inward and Americans can change the eating and reflect on what is valuable beyond the drinking habits that lead to chronic dia- purely materialistic and sel½sh pursuit betes, obesity, and alcoholism among of affluence. This collective soul-search- them. Only Appalachian poor whites ing has led to an unusual increase in can overcome the chronic patterns of con½dence in the government and a turn false pride, dysfunctional familial and to the nation’s politicians, usually a gender attitudes, obsessive regional and despised group, for leadership and guid- communal loyalties, and corrupt local ance.12 The national leadership has politics that have proved resistant to greatly welcomed this attention and the countless well-meaning, and often high poll ratings that come with it. And counterproductive, interventions by the new mood has made it easier to gar- government and private groups alike. ner support for war and to make appeals And only African Americans can heal for alertness in the ½ght against terror- the sad and deeply fraught state of gen- ism. der relations that have long beset them, However, the leadership is also accounting for the fact that they have increasingly worried that the turn from the smallest network of close, support- the sel½sh pursuit of affluence, especial- ive ties of all Americans (the compensa- ly by the majority of winners, is bad for tory rhetoric of “sisterhood” and the economy–hence the utterly contra- “brotherhood” notwithstanding). dictory calls for ostentatious displays of consumer con½dence and for a rapid It is time to go beyond moral principles return to business as usual, even as the and political rhetoric in our approach to politicians try to implement tax policies social policy in regard to the poor and that will shift even more wealth from disadvantaged. We have to begin by accepting the fact that America is an 12 A recent study by the National Opinion advanced capitalist society, the most Research Center of public responses to the ter- successful and the most purely capitalis- rorist attack of September 11 found the percent- tic system that has ever existed. We have age of Americans expressing “great con½dence” to accept as well the fact that it is the in the executive branch of government increas- ing from 13.5 percent prior to the attack to 51.5 most unequal of all advanced modern percent in the weeks afterwards. There was a societies and becoming ever more un- similar increase from 12.7 percent to 43.8 per- equal with each passing day. We have cent of persons having “great con½dence” in ½nally to accept the fact that greed and Congress. Tom W. Smith, Kenneth A. Rasinski, sel½shness are not just the dominant and Marianna Toce, America Rebounds: A Na- tional Study of Public Response to the September 11th values of its most successful citizens, but Terrorist Attacks (Chicago: NORC, October may well be the necessary source of its 2001), Table 1.

Dædalus Winter 2002 37 Orlando the poorest bottom ½fth of losers to the taged members of society.”15 Nothing Patterson top 1 percent of winners. This being so, on like such conditions currently obtain in inequality it is a waste of time to keep calling for America–and they are not likely to policies and programs that are complete- obtain any time soon. Even though most ly at variance with the self-interested, Americans ruefully disagree with the highly individualistic ethic of the society statement that they are “very proud” of and the sel½sh pursuit of riches that is as the country’s “fair and equal treatment often as not driven by pure greed. Even of all groups in society,” fully 85 percent in the days after September 11, one of them, nonetheless, are of the view would be hard put to ½nd any willing- that “generally speaking” America is a ness among Americans to share John better country than most other coun- Rawls’s noble egalitarian concern with tries, and less than 3 percent would wish “the goodness of the settled desire to to be a citizen of any other country in take up the standpoint of justice.” the world.16 To be sure, Rawls’s ½rst principle of In this essay I have attempted to offer “justice as fairness” is alive and well arguments for intervention on behalf of among all winners and even most losers those who lose that are premised on the who are citizens. This is the principle ethic of extreme individualism and that “[E]ach person has an equal claim chronic sel½shness. In essence, I have to a fully adequate scheme of basic argued that it is bad for business to neg- rights and liberties, which scheme is lect those who lose. The continued compatible with the same scheme for sel½sh pursuit of affluence requires a all.”13 While not fully realized in prac- minimal commitment to a handful of tice, a similar view is strongly held by all unsel½sh social policies. but the bottom 10 percent of citizens, as If my arguments have not appealed to demonstrated in my own recent survey our noblest motives, that is only because on Americans’ views of freedom.14 such appeals have repeatedly failed. I However, Rawls’s second principle of have not tried to show how to produce justice is honored largely in the breach the greatest happiness for the greatest in the United States. According to Rawls, number of people–but rather how to “social and economic inequalities are to secure the least possible unhappiness for satisfy two conditions: ½rst, they are to the minority of losers in the winner- be attached to positions and of½ces open take-all society that most Americans to all under conditions of fair equality of now enjoy. opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest bene½t of the least advan- 14 Orlando Patterson, “The American View of Freedom: What They Say; What They Mean,” 13 John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Society 38 (4) (Spring 2001): 34–45. Columbia University Press, 1993), 5. Note this is 15 Rawls, Political Liberalism, 6. the revised version of the principle. Compare the earlier version in Rawls, A Theory of Justice 16 Smith et al., America Rebounds, Table 1. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 302.

38 Dædalus Winter 2002 Richard A. Epstein

Against redress

One of the hardy perennials of politi- ees. He condemns the society that offers cal theory asks how, if at all, one might nothing but small handouts to mothers justify the inequality of wealth and who raise small children but awards for- opportunity that is so manifest in socie- tunes to go-go dancers. ty. The issue has been with us from the It is easy to recite statistics to show earliest times, but it seems to have that an ever-greater percentage of gained renewed urgency in the past wealth is concentrated in–take your decade or so as economic inequality in pick–the top 1, 5, or 10 percent of the the United States, if not in the rest of the income distribution in the United States. world, seems to have become more Public discomfort with the current situa- extreme with the rise of technology. tion is only magni½ed because this eco- In his essay “Beyond Compassion,” nomic divide between rich and poor Orlando Patterson captures something often tracks profound and enduring of the current anger over inequality racial cleavages. when he laments the perverse distribu- In our multiracial society, it is an over- tion of wealth that allows the ceo of a simpli½cation to treat the inequality of large corporation to pull down wages income and wealth as a racial problem. and stock options that exceed the wages But, that said, there is ample evidence to and bene½ts of a thousand line employ- support the proposition that whites as a group are blessed with both greater wealth and higher income than their Richard A. Epstein, James Parker Hall Distin- black counterparts. In many quarters, guished Service Professor of Law at the University the combination of these two dominant of Chicago Law School and Peter and Kirsten features raises twin concerns about Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, political stability and racial and econom- has been a Fellow of the American Academy since ic justice. 1985. He has written extensively in many legal In light of this sorry state of affairs, it areas and played an especially prominent role in is perhaps too easy for Patterson to con- the ½eld of law and economics. His most recent clude that the market is a “moral non- books include “Principles for a Free Society: Rec- starter.” But denunciation is not quite onciling Individual Liberty with the Common the same as argumentation. The current Good” (1998) and “Mortal Peril: Our Inalien- distribution of wealth in America is not able Right to Health Care?” (1997). just the product of the market. It is also

Dædalus Winter 2002 39 Richard A. the product of the crazy-quilt pattern of United States does not, and should not, Epstein on regulation and taxation that seeps into rank high on the list of legislative priori- inequality every area of life. It is therefore neces- ties for the social and economic reforms sary to disentangle the consequences of the next generation. that flow from regulation from those It is nevertheless this hazardous posi- that flow from the market, which in tion that I wish to defend. return requires some theory of what a In order to show why the redress of society based on the market looks like. inequalities should not rank on our list Frederich von Hayek’s claim that local of legislative priorities, I shall ½rst try to knowledge in a decentralized system will outline a sensible theory that helps outperform the handiwork of state min- explain both the uses and the limitations isters (many of whom control literally of the market. The theory here is rightly tens of thousands of times the wealth of described as libertarian in its orienta- ordinary peasants) remains unrefuted by tion, but it makes no pretense that the history, so much so that virtually all sys- market can discharge all social functions tems of regulation, wise or foolish, treat or indeed operate on its own resources the market almost by default as the start- without the assistance of the state. ing place for analysis. Labor statutes do Rather, it argues that state intervention not prohibit negotiations between man- is needed to supply all individuals with agement and labor to set wages and protection against force, fraud, and working conditions. They just institute a monopoly. system of collective bargaining. Antidis- Once this benchmark is established, I crimination laws do not shut down pri- shall then sketch out in general terms vate employment markets. They only two separate lines of argument used to specify certain grounds on which em- justify government intervention to ployers are not allowed to base their hir- redress economic and social inequality, ing decisions. One can attack or defend and then indicate why both of these fall these institutions for the consequences short of their intended goal. These are that follow in their wake, but the simple arguments about restitution and redis- and inescapable truth today is that when tribution, respectively. it comes to the provision of goods and Finally, I shall indicate briefly a gener- services, nothing beats the market. al strategy for social reform that could, Like it or not–and “moral” or not– and should, be adopted to achieve a with the demise of central planning, the more just society, without the costly and market is our starting point. unneeded by-products of government intervention. Rather than add more lay- It hardly follows, however, that the ers of taxation and regulation, the best market is both the starting and the end- tonic for a healthy society is to free up ing point of the analysis. Questions of entry into a host of markets by removing both social and economic inequality the plethora of taxes and regulations remain with us still. Today’s sorry state already in place. The emphasis should be of affairs, which ½nds prosperity tem- on self-suf½ciency, not transfer; it pered with poverty, surely invites some should be on making the economic pie wholesale reform. Obviously, as a politi- greater, not trying ½tfully to use govern- cal matter, it is hazardous to argue that, ment action to put more goods in the even if we keep our market institutions, hands of those who need them the the redress of inequalities within the most.

40 Dædalus Winter 2002 The question of economic and racial to the transaction is rich and the other Against inequalities plays itself out on a vast can- poor, because the voluntary transaction redress vas. But as with so many large problems, will improve the position of both, it is best attacked by breaking it down regardless of their initial endowments of into smaller problems that may prove wealth. amenable to legal solutions that satisfy This is why a market analysis is, our best moral and political instincts. emphatically, a moral starter for social Before attempting to understand the role theory. of state power in dealing with claims The standard libertarian theory there- between groups, it is far easier to ask fore has ample grounds to draw a sharp when the state should back a claim for line between aggression and deceit, compensation or support brought by which it condemns, and competition, one individual against another. which it praises. Competition expands The ½rst place to turn is the theory of the size of the pie, and of each of its corrective justice that has dominated slices; coercion reduces the size of the our view of human interactions since overall pie, and forces some individuals Aristotle. It takes little imagination to to bear a disproportionate share of the award compensation to the person who loss. is either physically attacked or duped by Many Marxist or left-wing theorists another. dispute this result by insisting that ordi- As an initial matter, it is hard to deny nary market transactions are contami- the proposition that the (indiscriminate) nated by exploitation, which is, when all use of force or fraud seriously diminish- is said and done, a form of theft. es the overall welfare of society. The The term “exploitation” requires, of individual who takes from another course, some explication. Clearly, no one always gains, but that gain pales into is particularly upset when it is said that a insigni½cance beside the loss inflicted skillful halfback exploited an opening in on the other person. This reduction in the defense in order to run for a touch- overall wealth and utility (for in this down. Taking advantage of opportuni- context the two go hand-in-hand) more- ties made available within the context of over has adverse consequences on third the rules is often a good, not a bad, parties, who perceive themselves as at thing. And the ½rm that exploits an risk when force and fraud are allowed opening in the market to introduce a unabated. new widget that displaces its creakier At the same time, Aristotelian, rival deserves our thanks, not our con- Kantian, and utilitarian moral theories demnation. are all hard-pressed to condemn any To the determined Marxist or his form of vigorous economic competition modern sympathizers, however, exploi- that involves neither force nor fraud. tation often carries the more cynical The routine business transactions of connotation that one side of the transac- everyday life produce a common good– tion is left worse off than he would have economic gains for all parties to the been if he had never entered it at all. transactions. That increased wealth in But this view of exploitation offers no turn creates still greater opportunities to explanation as to why someone down on produce more goods for trade through his luck would choose to make a con- third parties. Insofar as this is true, we tract that left him poorer than before. do not need to know whether one party Many contracts are performed on a

Dædalus Winter 2002 41 Richard A. repetitive basis: the ordinary worker can This does not mean, however, that Epstein on quit at any time and yet frequently will exploitation is an empty concept. It inequality return to work day after day. He obvious- receives its best de½nition from classical ly does so because he thinks that this economic theory, which condemns (as opportunity is better than any of his some hard-core libertarians do not) alternatives, and it would be an odd monopoly, even if it grows out of volun- form of assistance to ban him from that tary combination and not government line of work altogether. (or private) coercion. In some cases, the charges of exploita- For the purposes of this essay, I shall tion are re½ned so that they concede the accept the standard ef½ciency-based point of mutual gain by contract, but economic theory that in general seeks to insist that the worker is exploited regulate or outlaw monopoly for the because the ½rm has obtained a dispro- resource losses that it imposes on society portionate share of the joint pro½t from as a whole. Hence it may in principle the transaction. Why they presume the make sense to regulate the rates charged asymmetrical division of this unob- by natural monopolies (i.e., traditional served gain remains something of a mys- water, power, and light companies) that tery. Their intuition is that minimum cannot be divided without fatal losses in wage laws, for example, can boost the ef½ciency. And it may in principle be least fortunate worker’s share of the gain possible to prevent the formation of vol- to a larger, and more just, proportion. untary cartels that seek to divide mar- But the imposition of any such rule of kets or to rig prices. division does more than alter shares But if this theory allows the use of gov- enjoyed by current players. It also ernment force to break up or limit changes the entire landscape. The higher monopoly power, by the same token it minimum wage will induce some takes a very grim view of any state barri- employers to reduce their workforces, ers to entry into various economic or others to change nonwage terms of the social markets. The state that imposes a contract. It will narrow the gap between protective tariff may bene½t some local lower- and higher-skilled employees and industry, but that interference with trade thus reduce worker incentives to invest places a far greater burden on those in their own human capital. other individuals who are blocked from Yet, ironically, the one effect that is not choosing their trading partners. likely is a reduction in the employer’s Within this general framework, the share of the surplus, for the higher the state also commits a wrong against its minimum wage, the more likely that own citizens when it imposes restric- some ½rms will exit from the market. tions against their entering into some Hence, the one con½dent prediction trade or business, unless that restriction we can make is this: any effort to tilt by is clearly calibrated, as most occupation- legislation the contractual wage balance al restrictions are not, to prevent the in competitive markets will block volun- practice of fraud on hapless customers. tary transactions, leaving both sides worse off than before. The Marxist con- We are now in a position to outline ception of exploitation is in the end the relationship between this general undermined by the unjust consequences theory of individual rights and the larger that its application in practice will pro- issues of economic and racial inequality. duce. One way to frame the issue is to ask

42 Dædalus Winter 2002 whether poor people generally, or black today to the descendants of the victims Against people speci½cally, have a claim for resti- of state and private violence. redress tution from society at large. Critical problems arise on both sides To state the question in this way of the line. Who should receive restitu- requires us to observe at least two tion? And who should be made to pay important caveats. The ½rst is that we for it? Let us take these two elements in cannot predicate sound theories of resti- order. tution on bad theories of social justice. First, who counts as a victim? That The case here cannot rest therefore on question was easy to answer in 1865 undifferentiated charges of exploitation when huge portions of the African but must be tied to a demonstration that American population in the United these individuals have been the group States had just been released from the victims of force and fraud, including the bonds of slavery. But it is far harder to imposition of barriers to entry, by other afford victim status, over 135 years later, members of society. to their descendants. No one alive today The second caveat is that in principle suffered the cruelties of past regimes. the question of restitution is not The point here is especially true when restricted solely to the position of claims for restitution are pressed on a African Americans, but could in fact be limited basis. For over twenty years, for asked in connection with American example, black parents in Kansas City, Indian tribes, with Chinese and Japanese Missouri, have pressed claims for resti- immigrants, or indeed with any group tution by claiming that black children in that claims to have suffered injustice at the city had been victims of the vestiges the hands of others. But for these pur- of segregation that survived after the poses at least, I shall concentrate on the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. black experience precisely because the Board of Education. But no remedy here answer to the question of whether resti- can ½t the ostensible wrong, for today’s tution should be provided may seem to schoolchildren in the district bear no be self-evidently in the af½rmative. relationship to the black children in that After all, there is little question that district whom segregation might have the institution of slavery as practiced in shortchanged two generations ago. the United States before the Civil War Quite simply, the program forces vast and the racial restrictions that lay at the amounts of state tax revenue into lavish heart of Jim Crow and the black codes expenditures in one school district, were wholly indefensible when meas- while the educational needs of other ured against a basic theory of libertarian children, black and white alike, suffer rights. Excluding blacks from participa- from comparative neglect. tion in the political and social life of that The dif½culties are, if anything, time constitutes one of the great stains greater in considering who should pay on our history, made still worse by the these claims for restitution. Here the countless acts of private violence and nub of the dif½culty is that the state is intimidation to which the state turned a not just some disembodied entity with a blind eye. heart and mind of its own. Even more Yet it is one thing to recognize the than the private corporation, it is a com- commission of these past serious posite of huge numbers of individuals wrongs, and quite another to conclude who bring to this sprawling nation their that they support claims for restitution own distinctive pasts. Any program of

Dædalus Winter 2002 43 Richard A. restitution, however, contemplates the its moral compass and provide extensive Epstein on use of tax dollars to bene½t some sub- programs that were designed to remedy inequality class of the population at the expense of some of the past conditions of slavery. everyone else. In all cases, this approach We have had extensive af½rmative- necessarily results in risks of overinclu- action programs; we have had programs sion. that targeted the educational shortfalls For example, the claim for restitution on inner-city youth, predominantly brought against the German state after black; we have extensive welfare pro- World War II necessarily fell with equal grams that bene½t disproportionate weight on resistance ½ghters and the numbers of African Americans. most ardent Nazis. Even so, the state ran As a matter of social cohesion, I the risk of overinclusion because of the believe that we would do far better keep- immediacy and enormity of the wrong; ing some general programs in place that it adopted a two-pronged approach that help those at the bottom than trying to compensated survivors of the Holocaust ½nd ways to pay restitution to blacks and their descendants, and then, gener- rich and poor alike. Owing to the com- ally, the state of Israel. plexities involved, my great fear is that It is hard to see how one could devise any program of restitution will emerge any similar program of restitution for as a twisted jumble of preferences that the descendants of former slaves in heaps a second set of injustices on the America. Too much time has passed to ½rst. have any con½dence that the brunt of these payments will be borne by individ- Having examined the claims for resti- uals who had any connection, direct or tution made by African Americans indirect, with the wrongs of a previous today, I shall next briefly address the generation. Many Americans today question of the best social response to descend from those individuals who inequalities of wealth. gave their lives during the Civil War to Much of the wind would be taken free the slaves. Millions of people have from the sails of the current restitution migrated to our shores from just about movement if the average income of every point on the globe, often to escape black citizens were equal to that of the physical danger and economic whites. But while claims of economic oppression of their own lands. By what inequality only lurk behind restitution right do we ask these immigrants and claims, they become the centerpiece of their children to compensate blacks any claim for the redistribution of whose ancestors have been injured by income and wealth. others when they have done nothing This claim of course runs smack into wrong themselves? the libertarian prohibitions on the use of We could, of course, bite the bullet force and fraud, for it honors claims for and conclude that some substantial redistribution even when the poor per- transfer payment should be made from son concedes that he has no corrective general resources nonetheless. But even justice claim to the wealth of the rich here, we have to consider the complica- person. The question is whether these tions that remain. inequalities of wealth justify some Claims for restitution today do not action for redress when the wealth is occur in a vacuum. The same country acquired, and accumulated, through that saw Jim Crow was able to redirect industry, thrift, and invention.

44 Dædalus Winter 2002 Perhaps the easiest way to make the on the edge of starvation do on average Against case for some redistributive action is to need that next dollar more than the redress appeal to the diminishing marginal utili- fashionable elites choosing between vin- ty of wealth. The point here is that the tage wines. The entire enterprise of value of the additional dollar drops the charitable activities, through churches, more dollars that a given person has. A hospitals, and schools, would be largely perfect system of wealth transfer unintelligible if in fact the marginal dol- between persons could presumably lar of wealth were, and were perceived improve aggregate social utility by tak- to be, worth as much in the hands of the ing dollars from the persons who need rich as in the hands of the poor. Who them the least, giving them to the per- would choose to fund soup kitchens, sons who need them most. The total childhood vaccinations, and scholar- number of dollars could, in some ideal ships under those circumstances? world, remain constant after the trans- So one conceptual objection to redis- fer. Does greater satisfaction from these tribution fails to deliver a knockout (redistributed) dollars justify the coer- blow. How then does one continue to cive transfer? dislodge demands for state-mandated One conceptual obstacle to this argu- redistributions of wealth? ment is that it is fanciful at best and mis- A more promising line of argument chievous at worst to purport to make seeks to demystify the state by treating it these interpersonal comparisons of merely as the agent for those individuals wealth. Clearly no social ruler (pun who in any given situation bene½t from intended) lets us know with certainty its actions. Hence the question of that wealth is worth more in the hands whether the state can take wealth from of a poor person than in the hands of a A and give it to B can be reposed: can B rich person, so the determined econo- demand some part of A’s wealth, solely mist can shipwreck the case for wealth because B needs it more? transfers from the start by denying the At this point, the hard-core libertarian possibilities of interpersonal compar- will dismiss B’s claim as mere theft–a isons of utility. I can assert that wealth is coercive seizure of private property. The worth more to the poor person than to state, therefore, is no better than the the rich person; you can deny that Robin Hood who takes from A and gives proposition. The rich person might use to B. the next dollar to complete work on an This argument looks too glib to be invention that will improve the lives of wholly convincing. There are marked others. The poor person might squander differences between an organized sys- it on a drinking binge. We have no way tem of state redistribution and the iso- of knowing if wealth is more useful to a lated actions of a brigand. State action poor than a rich person. can proceed through the ordinary chan- Still, this hard-edged argument has nels of taxation and thus does not pres- bite only insofar as it cautions us against ent the same threat to peace and social the easy assumption that the marginal order as the actions of the ordinary dollar is always worth more in the hands thief. In addition, the social levies in of the poor person than in the hands of question are not concentrated against the rich person. But it does not in my one person on a whim, but are part of a view show that in general these compar- comprehensive social plan that asks all isons are ill conceived. Homeless people of the more fortunate among us to con-

Dædalus Winter 2002 45 Richard A. tribute something to the support of might argue that whenever the thief has Epstein on those who are least fortunate. This web more use for the stolen goods than their inequality of institutional constraint surely makes owner does, the theft helps to advance state action less of a threat than that happiness. But that shortsighted calcula- individual action. tion ignores the broader dynamics of Or does it? theft. In reply, one could argue that it would If the state were to legalize individual be odd to sanction individual thefts on theft, the scope of these activities would the grounds that the thief took only sharply increase, as many individuals some predetermined amounts of wealth would forsake productive activities for from those individuals who were in a what once passed as a life of crime. In position to pay for it. The interposition response, property holders would be of political majorities does not necessar- forced to hire more armed guards to pro- ily insulate the state’s decision from all tect their possessions. Worse, they might criticism. As James Madison reminds us, avoid theft by prematurely consuming political factions often act and vote in goods that they would otherwise save, ways that allow them to line their own thereby depleting the social store of pockets. It hardly counts as a tribute to wealth over time. And if consumption is the democratic process if a minority of not possible, a property holder can wealthy persons is consistently outvoted always choose to invest resources in and outmuscled by those who enjoy the bricks and mortar, which are harder to advantage of greater numbers, namely, steal than money. the poor. Theft is therefore a losing proposition The objection of theft may not be a on both sides of the ledger. The proper showstopper, but it can hardly be dis- social response is to make it illegal– missed on the grounds that the processes both for individuals and for the state. of deliberative democracy insulate all of The hard social question is how many its decisions from substantive attack. resources should be devoted to its elimi- The owners of private property are enti- nation. Here the idealist might be tempt- tled to nothing more than the protec- ed to hold that the state simply has a tions that deliberative democracy wishes moral and social duty to eradicate all to confer upon them. Outright con½sca- forms of theft, including taxation. For tion is not cleansed simply because it is our purposes, the critical point is that authorized by a majority, or even super- the destructive cycle wrought by individ- majority, vote. Progressive taxation is ual theft may be mirrored when the state not cut from the same cloth as those uses coercive means to redistribute forms of collective action that raise the wealth. standards of wealth and happiness for Thus the wise citizens of Hong Kong, all, which is what the state tries to do by fearful of expropriation after the Chi- supplying certain standard public nese takeover in 1997, invested large goods–military defense, a judicial sys- sums of free cash into their new local tem, police protection, public infrastruc- airport, where it was relatively insulated ture–to all its citizens. from expropriation. Allowing the state This last observation is forti½ed when to steal from the wealthy alters the full one looks more closely at the unhappi- range of productive and consumptive ness created by individual acts of theft. activities–generally for the worse. Here a proponent of redistribution Here again, a note of caution is need-

46 Dædalus Winter 2002 ed. I have no doubt that the strong sense their younger and poorer brethren. Pub- Against that motivates private charitable trans- lic cynicism can mount, as it has mount- redress fers affords some political margin of ed, in response to the transparent efforts error against certain state-mandated to make it appear as though every give- transfers designed to help those in dire away on the map should be extolled in need. Most people who are taxed would the name of the public good. be prepared to devote for religious or Why believe that the total sum of state moral reasons some fraction of their and federal redistributive activities pro- wealth to the alleviation of poverty and vides any net bene½t to the poor, who misery. Once the state undertakes that pay through the nose for every major role, private citizens can reduce their subsidy only to receive relatively paltry amount of private giving to offset the welfare bene½ts in exchange? state exaction. Hence the public system In the struggle between different of support displaces the ordinary system political factions over transfer pay- of private charity, but meets with rela- ments, as with individual theft, two tively little resistance so long as the sides are engaged in either blocking or reductions in private giving are avail- securing wealth transfers. Their com- able. bined activities result in a net diminu- Yet the margin for error in this sce- tion of wealth across the board, whether nario is not in½nite. Raise the level of peanut farmers or tobacco farmers win transfer payments for public services too their vaunted subsidies. high, and the private adaptive response The parallel to individual theft goes will be less charity–such that it will no one step further. Once wealth redistrib- longer be able to offset the increased ution is fair game, people will alter their burden of public taxation. Matters only patterns of consumption and invest- get worse if the transfer payments in ment. They will leave less to the next question have, as is so often the case, lit- generation out of fear that the estate tax tle to do with the alleviation of poverty will gobble up their bequests. And they and hardship in our midst. will hire the ½nest lawyers and planners At this point, Madison’s warning to navigate their private fortunes safely about factions becomes pertinent. How through the arcane niceties of the tax taxes are spent generally depends on the code. kind of bare-knuckled political struggle My conclusion is simple: any effort to that makes Washington politics so ugly secure redistribution necessarily reduces today. Losers from proposed legislation the total stock of wealth. And it is not can lobby furiously against it. But lobby- likely to result in transferring wealth to ing is always a two-way street that the poor. allows well-organized bene½ciaries to mount a political campaign in response. If, as I believe, restitution and redistrib- Once the government halls are open ution are more often than not misguid- for business, anyone can apply for ed, even dangerous, strategies for social grants. Farmers can obtain their special reform, what alternatives exist? subsidies; small-business men can opt I can think of two underappreciated for theirs; corporate welfare can enrich lines of inquiry. The ½rst of these is the well-heeled stockholders; senior citi- use of charitable contributions to assist zens can cash in on a rich set of retire- the poor, even through faith-based ini- ment and medical bene½ts denied to tiatives without direct government sup-

Dædalus Winter 2002 47 Richard A. port. Smaller amounts of state-sponsored vexed these transitional issues, the intel- Epstein on inequality redistribution could give families lectual program is clear: remove barriers stronger incentives to take care of their to entry in the trades and professions. wayward members. In addition, any Removing these obstacles costs the gov- charitable dollar is likely to do more ernment nothing in direct expenditures. good than a government dollar because Indeed, it reduces administrative bloat voluntary contributors have at least and, through it, tax burdens. In addition, some incentive to monitor how their it increases the total level of production funds are spent. Finally, reducing gov- in society. In the midst of all the clamor ernment transfers is likely to increase for redistribution, we should not forget overall wealth, which in turn reduces the our initial point of departure: that ordi- demands on the welfare system. Evaluat- nary contracts produce gains from trade ed by its systematic returns, increased that are shared by all parties. The lower charitable spending is no panacea, but it the level of transactions costs, the higher has none of the drawbacks of coercive the velocity of exchanges that move government programs. resources from lower- to higher-valued The second line of action comes from uses. Open entry and freedom of con- a different quarter. The statute books are tract expand the opportunity set across littered with laws that impose indefensi- the board, and are prey to none of the ble barriers to entry into product and destructive consequences that mark labor markets. It is easy to ½nd all sorts resort to faction or theft. The nineteenth- of regulations that exclude individuals century program of trade and labor lib- from driving jitneys, braiding hair, or eralization makes as much sense in practicing law and medicine. Why is it today’s Internet age as it did in an era that Sears, Roebuck can sell lawn mow- dominated by iron and steel. ers but not legal services if it is prepared John F. Kennedy had it right when he to stand behind both? said that a rising tide lifts all boats. And The political forces behind the status that tide will only rise when we put aside quo are formidable. It may well be the our preoccupation with redress and case that entrenched interests will block redistribution–and agree instead to any quick and sudden shift in political unleash the productive capacities of all fortunes that would block the operation our citizens. of competitive markets. But however

48 Dædalus Winter 2002 Christopher Jencks

Does inequality matter?

The economic gap between rich and household incomes, does not collect poor has grown dramatically in the Unit- good data from the rich, but the Con- ed States over the past generation and is gressional Budget Of½ce (cbo) has now considerably wider than in any recently combined census data with tax other affluent nation. This increase in records to track income trends near the economic inequality has no recent top of the distribution. Figure 1 shows precedent, at least in America. The dis- that the share of after-tax income going tribution of family income was remark- to the top 1 percent of American house- ably stable from 1947 to 1980. We do not holds almost doubled between 1979 and have good data on family incomes before 1997. The top 1 percent included all 1947, but the wage gap between skilled households with after-tax incomes and unskilled workers narrowed dramat- above $246,000 in 1997. The estimated ically between 1910 and 1947, which purchasing power of the top 1 percent probably means that family incomes also rose by 157 percent between 1979 and became more equal. The last protracted 1997, while the median household’s pur- increase in economic inequality occur- chasing power rose only 10 percent.1 The red between 1870 and 1910. The gap between the rich and the rest of America has widened steadily since 1 Estimates of the absolute change in purchas- ing power should be treated with extreme cau- 1979. The Census Bureau, which is tion. The Consumer Price Index suggests, for America’s principal source of data on example, that the purchasing power of the bot- tom quintile did not change between 1979 and Christopher Jencks, Malcolm Wiener Professor of 1997, yet data on food expenditures suggest that the poorest quintile felt it had more discre- Social Policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard tionary income (see Bruce Hamilton, “Using University, has been a Fellow of the American Engel’s Law to Estimate cpi Bias,” American Academy since 1992. The author of several classic Economic Review 91 [June 2001]: 619–630) and works, including “Inequality: A Reassessment of direct measures of housing conditions and the Effect of Family and Schooling in America” other amenities suggest that the poorest quin- tile’s material standard of living rose (see Susan (1972), Jencks is currently completing a new study Mayer and Christopher Jencks, “Do Of½cial of inequality in America under the auspices of the Poverty Rates Provide Useful Information Sage Foundation. about Trends in Children’s Economic Wel- fare?” Levy Institute, Bard College, June 2001, © 2002 by Christopher Jencks available at ).

Dædalus Winter 2002 49 Christopher gap between the poorest ½fth of Ameri- he connection between moral obliga- Jencks T on can households and the median house- tions and empirical evidence is most inequality hold also widened between 1979 and obvious in the case of utilitarian morali- 1997, but the trend was far less dramatic. ty, which requires everyone to follow To liberals who feel that economic rules consistent with the greatest good inequality is unjust or socially destruc- of the greatest number. Utilitarian tive, its growth is evidence that America morality tells us, for example, that we has been headed in the wrong direction. should not litter even when there is no To conservatives who feel either that chance of being punished, because the riches are the best way of rewarding cost to others usually exceeds the bene½t those who contribute the most to pros- to ourselves. But a moral obligation to perity or that a generous welfare state follow rules that promote the greatest encourages idleness and folly among the good of the greatest number does not tell poor, the growth of inequality seems us which speci½c rules for distributing either innocuous or desirable. The goods and services produce that result. debate over inequality involves both If humanity lived entirely on manna moral and empirical claims, but because that dropped from heaven, and if each the empirical claims are hard to assess, additional pound of manna yielded a both sides tend to emphasize moral progressively smaller increase in the arguments. But treating inequality as a recipient’s well-being, rulemakers com- moral issue does not make the empirical mitted to the greatest good of the great- questions go away, because the most est number would seek to distribute common moral arguments for and manna equally, at least when recipients against inequality rest on claims about had equal needs. But economic goods its consequences. If these claims cannot and services do not drop from heaven. be supported with evidence, skeptics People have to produce these goods and will ½nd the moral arguments uncon- services in order to sell them to one vincing. If the claims about conse- another. How much people produce quences are actually wrong, the moral depends partly on how generously their arguments are also wrong. efforts are rewarded. Rulemakers there- fore have to make tradeoffs between the needs of consumers, which are relatively

Figure 1 Changes in the percent of Percent of Household Income household income going to Going to the Richest One Percent the richest 1 percent of 15 American households, 13.6 1979–1997. 12 11.4 Source: Congressional Budget 10.5 Office, Historical Effective Tax 9.6 10.3 Rates, 1979–1997, September Percent 10.1 10.0 10.1 9 2001, Table G-1c. 8.1 7.5 6 97959391898785838179 Year

50 Dædalus Winter 2002 equal, and the motives of producers, democracies. One simple way to Does inequality who usually produce more when extra describe income inequality in different matter? effort leads to higher rewards. countries is to compute what is called The most widely discussed alternative the “90/10 ratio.” To calculate this ratio to the utilitarian theory of justice is the we rank households from richest to theory proposed by John Rawls.2 Rawls poorest. Then we divide the income of claimed that when uncertainty is great the household at the ninetieth percentile and downside risks are high, people by the income of the household at the are–or should be–absolutely risk tenth percentile. (Comparing the nineti- averse. This assumption led Rawls to eth percentile to the tenth percentile is believe that if people did not know what better than, say, comparing the ninety- position they would occupy in a society ninth percentile to the ½rst percentile, they would want to organize the society because few countries collect reliable so as to maximize the well-being of the data on the incomes of either the very society’s least advantaged members. If rich or the very poor.) this claim is correct, utilitarian logic also The Luxembourg Income Study (lis), implies that society should maximize the which is the best current source of data well-being of the least advantaged. Even on economic inequality in different if most people are not as risk averse as countries, has calculated 90/10 ratios for Rawls claimed, they may be suf½ciently fourteen rich democracies in the mid- risk averse to feel that maximizing the 1990s. Table 1 shows the results.3 To position of the least advantaged should keep differences between these fourteen be given very high priority in a just soci- countries in perspective I have also ety. included data on two poorer and less But most thoughtful liberals, including democratic countries, Mexico and Rus- Rawls, also recognize that rewarding sia. If we set aside Mexico and Russia, people for producing more goods and the big English-speaking democracies services will often improve the absolute are the most unequal, the Scandinavian well-being of the least advantaged. Iden- democracies are the most equal, and tifying the best strategy for improving Western European democracies fall in the position of the least advantaged the middle. (Italy looks more unequal therefore requires complex empirical than the other continental democracies, calculations that turn out to be rather but the Italian data is somewhat sus- similar to the calculations required to pect.) Within the English-speaking achieve the greatest good of the greatest world the United States is the most un- number. The rest of this article assesses various empirical claims about how eco- nomic inequality affects both the mean 3 lis adjusts household incomes for size-relat- level of well-being and the position of ed differences in households’ economic needs using a scale in which, for example, a house- the least advantaged. hold of four needs twice as much as a house- hold of one, and a household of nine needs Some of the potential costs and bene- three times as much as a household of one. ½ts of inequality emerge when we con- This scale probably underestimates the addi- tional income needed to maintain a constant trast the United States with other rich level of material well-being and probably over- estimates the additional income needed to 2 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, maintain a constant level of subjective well- Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971). being when household size rises.

Dædalus Winter 2002 51 Christopher Table 1 many other Latin American countries. Jencks Income inequality and economic output in America’s unusually high level of on various countries during the 1990s inequality inequality is not attributable to its unusually diverse labor force. Years of Country Ratio of GDP Life (and year holdhold per capita expec- schooling are more equally distributed of the income at as a tancy at in the United States than in the Euro- ninetieth to the 90th to percent of birth the tenth 10th per- u.s. level (1995 pean countries for which we have com- percentile) centile a in 1998 b est.) c parable data (Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany). Adult test scores are more unequally distributed in the Unit- Scandinaviad 2.8 75 77.2 ed States than Europe, partly because Sweden (1995) 2.6 68 78.9 American immigrants score so poorly on Finland (1995) 2.7 68 76.6 tests given in English. But disparities in Norway (1995) 2.8 85 77.8 cognitive skills turn out to play a tiny Denmark (1992) 2.9 79 75.4 role in explaining cross-national differ- Western Europe 3.6 73 77.5 ences in the distribution of earnings. If Nether. (1994) 3.2 75 77.5 one compares American workers with Germany (1994) 3.2 71 76.6 the same test scores and the same Belgium (1996) 3.2 74 76.4 amount of schooling, the Americans’ France (1994) 3.5 66 78.4 wages vary more than the wages of all Switz. (1992) 3.6 84 78.5 Swedish, Dutch, or German workers.4 Italy (1995) 4.8 67 77.6 Almost everyone who studies the caus- Brit. Com. 4.3 73 77.7 es of economic inequality agrees that by Canada (1994) 4.0 78 78.2 far the most important reason for the Australia (1994) 4.3 75 78.0 differences between rich democracies is e U.K. (1995) 4.6 67 77.0 that their governments adopt different U.S. (1997) 5.6 100 75.7 economic policies. There is no agree- ment about which policies are crucial, but Middle-income LIS nations there is a fairly standard list of suspects. Russia (1995) 9.4 21 (?) 65.0 A number of rich countries have central- Mexico (1998) 11.6 25 na ized wage bargaining, which almost always compresses the distribution of a From (8/13/01). make unionization easy, which also b From U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Ab- tends to compress the wage distribution. stract of the United States, 2000, Government Printing Of½ce, Table 1365. GDP is converted to Some rich democracies transfer a lot of $U.S. using purchasing power parity. money to people who are retired, unem- c National Center for Health Statistics, Health, ployed, sick, or permanently disabled, United States, 2000, Government Printing Of½ce, 2000, Table 27. d All area averages are unweighted arithmetic 4 Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn, “Do Cog- means. nitive Test Scores Explain Higher U.S. Wage e England and Wales. Inequality?” Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2001; and Dan Devroye and Richard Freeman, “Does Inequali- equal of all. The 90/10 ratio in the Unit- ty in Skills Explain Inequality in Earnings ed States is twice that in Scandinavia. Across Advanced Countries?” Cambridge: But even the United States is nothing National Bureau of Economic Research, Febru- like as unequal as Russia, Mexico, or ary 2001.

52 Dædalus Winter 2002 while others are far less generous. The designed to measure what different cur- Does inequality United States is unusually unequal part- rencies actually buy in the countries matter? ly because it makes little effort to limit where they are used. Column 2 of Table 1 wage inequality: the minimum wage is shows gdp per capita for the fourteen low, and American law makes unioniza- rich democracies on which lis provides tion relatively dif½cult. In addition, the distributional data. At ½rst glance the United States transfers less money to data seem to support the conservative those who are not working than most case, because the most unequal country, other rich democracies. the United States, also has the highest The fact that the American govern- gdp per capita. That fact makes a strong ment makes so little effort to reduce impression on most Americans. But if economic inequality may seem surpris- you compare the other thirteen rich ing in a country where social equality is democracies in Table 1 you will ½nd no so important. American politicians pres- systematic relationship between in- ent themselves to the public as being equality and per capita gdp. Britain and just like everyone else, and once they Italy, for example, rank just below the step outside their of½ces, Americans all United States in terms of inequality, but wear jeans. The way Americans talk and their gdp per capita is lower than any the music they listen to are also affected other country but France. The fact that by egalitarian impulses. But while the egalitarian economic policies have no tenor of American culture may be demo- obvious correlation with per capita gdp cratic, Americans are also far more hos- within Europe or the Commonwealth tile to government than the citizens of makes a strong impression on egalitari- other rich democracies. Since egalitari- ans in those countries. It also suggests an economic policies require govern- that America’s high output per capita mental action, they win far less support may be traceable to something other in the United States than in most other than our tolerance for economic in- rich democracies. equality. Conservatives have argued for cen- Notice, too, that no rich democracy is turies that trying to limit economic as unequal as Mexico or Russia. Some inequality inevitably reduces both the think this is because the combination of incentive to work and the ef½ciency affluence and democracy always leads with which work is organized. As a countries to adopt somewhat egalitarian result, they think egalitarian societies economic policies. Others think the have fewer goods and services to distrib- causal arrow runs the other way, and ute than societies that allow the market that extreme inequality retards econom- to determine household incomes. One ic growth. This debate is unlikely to be simple way to test the claim is to ask settled soon, because it requires histori- whether countries that tolerate a high cal evidence that is hard to ½nd in poor level of inequality really do enjoy a high- countries. er standard of living. If inequality does not account for Measuring a country’s standard of liv- America’s high gdp per capita, what ing is not easy. The most widely used does? A ½rst step toward answering this measure is probably per capita Gross question is to decompose economic out- Domestic Product (gdp), converted to put into two components: the number American dollars using what is known of hours worked in different countries as “purchasing power parity”–a system (“effort”) and the value of the goods and

Dædalus Winter 2002 53 Christopher Table 2 Jencks Estimates of economic inequality, output, effort, & ef½ciency in seven rich democracies for 1998 on inequality U.S. U.K. Australia Canada France Germany Sweden

Inequality (1994–1997) line 1: 90/10 ratio 5.6 4.6 4.3 4.0 3.5 3.2 2.6 Output (1998) line 2: GDP per capita $32,184 $21,673 $24,192 $25,179 $21,132 $23,010 $21,799 Effort (1998) line 3: % of pop. employed 48.6 45.9 45.8 46.6 38.1 43.5 45.1 line 4: Hrs per worker per yr. 1864 1731 1860 1779 1567 1510 1629 Ef½ciency (1998) line 5: GDP per worker $60,106 $44,280 $47,558 $49,007 $55,714 $50,616 $44,000 line 6: GDP per hr. $32.25 $25.58 $25.57 $27.55 $35.55 $33.52 $27.01 line 7: GDP per “available” hr. $30.81 $23.95 $23.51 $25.26 $31.38 $30.38 $24.77

Source by line: Lines 1 and 2: see Table 1. Line 3: see Statistical Abstract 2000, Table 1376. Line 4: see Organiza- tion for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD Employment Outlook, Statistical Annex, 2001, 225. Line 5 = line 3/line 4. Line 6 = line 5/line 4. Line 7 = line 6 adjusted to include hours available from those not working but seeking work, assuming that they wanted to work the same number of hours as those actually employed.

services that workers produce per hour able” hours–the number of hours actu- (“ef½ciency”). Table 2 shows such statis- ally worked plus the estimated number tics for the United States and six other of hours that those looking for jobs in a rich democracies. Americans are more given week wanted to work. The last row likely to have paid jobs than people in of Table 2 shows the results of this calcu- the other six countries, but except in the lation. After this adjustment is made, the case of France the difference is fairly United States, France, and Germany small. American workers also seem to look about equally ef½cient. If we set the put in more hours per year than workers United States to one side, moreover, elsewhere, although data on hours there is again no obvious correlation worked is not collected in the same way between inequality and ef½ciency in the in all countries, so the numbers must be other six countries. treated gingerly. Still, the estimates of Another objection to the calculations output per hour suggest that while the in Table 2 is that they take no account of United States is considerably more ef½- cross-national differences in the stock of cient than Canada, Australia, Great physical and human capital. This is true, Britain, and Sweden, it is slightly less but since one major rationale for tolerat- ef½cient than France and Germany. ing a high level of inequality is that this One obvious objection to this compar- supposedly encourages capital accumu- ison is that unemployment is higher in lation and investment, holding Ameri- France and Germany than in the United ca’s advantages in these domains con- States. One way to correct for this waste stant would bias the results in favor of of human resources is to divide econom- equality. The calculations in Table 2 also ic output by what Table 2 labels “avail- ignore national differences in natural

54 Dædalus Winter 2002 resources, but such an adjustment er hours and more consumer goods, Does would almost surely make America look they mostly seem to opt for consumer inequality matter? worse, not better. Perhaps the most fun- goods rather than family time or leisure. damental objection of all is that statis- This is a legitimate choice, but it has tics on gdp take little account of differ- nothing to do with economic ef½ciency. ences in the quality of the services in Until fairly recently the United States different countries, since these differ- was so much richer than other countries ences are almost impossible to measure. that even the poor lived better in Ameri- If America’s service sector produces ca than elsewhere, leading conservatives more satis½ed customers than the serv- to argue that laissez-faire policies bene- ice sector in France or Germany, Table 2 ½ted everyone in the long run. Today, may understate the bene½ts of inequali- however, the American poor are no ty. longer the world’s most affluent. Tim If American managers had organized Smeeding, who directs the lis, and Lee the economy in an unusually ef½cient Rainwater, a Harvard sociologist, have way, so that American workers were compared the purchasing power of producing signi½cantly more (or better) households at the tenth percentile of the goods and services per hour than their income distribution in thirteen rich counterparts in other rich democracies, democracies covered by the lis. These it would be fairly easy to argue that they comparisons provide a pretty good indi- deserved their fabulous salaries. Table 2 cation of how the poor fare in different is obviously not the last word on this countries. Table 3, which is based on issue, but it does not suggest that Ameri- their work, shows that the American can workers are producing signi½cantly poor are better off than the poor in more per hour than their counterparts in Britain or Australia but marginally other rich countries. Comparisons that worse off than the poor in Sweden, adjust for the stock of physical and Canada, and Finland, and substantially human capital show the same thing.5 worse off than the poor in Western America’s high standard of living seems Europe. to depend as much on long hours as Conservatives often blame American clever management or clever workers. poverty on the existence of an “under- The fact that Americans spend so class” that rejects mainstream social much time working is rather surprising norms, does little paid work, and has for an affluent nation with a reputation children whom neither parent can sup- for hedonism. Workers in Germany, port. It is certainly true that poor Ameri- France, Japan, and Britain have cut their can households include fewer working hours substantially since 1980. Ameri- adults than affluent American house- cans cut their hours earlier in the twen- holds. This is true in every rich country tieth century but have not done so since for which we have data. But when Lars 1980. Americans tell pollsters that they Osberg, an economist at Dalhousie Uni- would like to work fewer hours, but versity, compared poor households in when they have a choice between short- the United States, Canada, Britain, Swe- den, France, and Germany, he found 5 Robert Hall and Charles Jones, “Why Do that the poor American households Some Countries Produce So Much More Out- worked far more hours per year than put per Worker than Others,” Quarterly Journal their counterparts in the other ½ve of Economics 114 (1999): 83–116.

Dædalus Winter 2002 55 Christopher Table 3 countries.6 This ½nding suggests that Jencks Purchasing power of households at the 10th what distinguishes the United States on and 90th percentiles of each nation’s distribu- inequality tion relative to households at the same per- from the other rich democracies is not centile in the United States in the same year, the idleness of the American poor but 1992–1997 the anger that idleness inspires in more affluent Americans, which helps explain Country Purchasing power as a percent of the stinginess of the American welfare (and year) the U.S. level in the same year state. 1oth 90th Average percentile percentile of all If Rawls is right, disinterested rulemak- percentiles ers in all societies should be trying to maximize the well-being of the least Scandinavia 112 57 77 advantaged. If you accept that claim, Sweden (1995) 103 49 67 Table 3 suggests that Western European Finland (1995) 105 53 73 countries are doing a better job than the Norway (1995) 128 68 88 United States and that Western Euro- Denmark (1995) 110 59 80 pean countries are more just. But if you Western Europe 119 73 88 are a utilitarian whose goal is to maxi- Neth. (1994) 110 64 76 mize the average level of well-being, the Germany (1994) 113 67 82 situation is not so clear. If you want to Belgium (1996) 121 73 80 compare the average level of well-being France (1994) 110 71 84 in countries with different distributions Switz. (1992) 141 89 116 of income, you need some way of com- Commonwealth 94 73 80 paring the value people at different Canada (1994) 105 80 92 points in the income distribution assign U.K. (1995) 85 68 72 to additional after-tax income. Table 3 Australia (1994) 87 71 76 suggests, for example, that poor Canadi- U.S. (1997) 100 100 100 ans have 5 percent more purchasing power than their American counter- parts, while affluent Americans have 25 Source: Columns 1 and 2 are from Timothy Smeeding percent more purchasing power than and Lee Rainwater, “Comparing Living Standards affluent Canadians. If your goal is to Across Countries: Real Incomes at the Top, the Bot- achieve “the greatest good of the great- tom, and the Middle” (paper prepared for a confer- ence on “What Has Happened to the Quality of Life est number,” you need some way of in America and Other Advanced Industrial Nations?” deciding whether the 25 percent advan- Levy Institute, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, tage of affluent Americans over affluent N.Y., June 2001). Local currencies were converted to Canadians should count for more or less dollars using their estimated purchasing power pari- ty. Area averages are unweighted arithmetic means. than the 5 percent advantage of poor Column 3 is calculated from the national means of Canadians over poor Americans. the logarithms of after-tax household income, using When employers want to reward all data provided by Rainwater. members of a hierarchical work group equally, they usually raise every mem- ber’s wage by the same percentage.

6 Lars Osberg, “Labour Supply and Inequality Trends in the U.S.A. and Elsewhere,” available at .

56 Dædalus Winter 2002 When social scientists measure econom- land in 1992 than Americans near the Does ic inequality, they too assume that top would have lost. Column 3 of Table 3 inequality matter? inequality has not changed if everyone’s generalizes this logic by comparing income has risen by the same percent- households at every point in each coun- age. Such practices suggest that many try’s income distribution to those at the people think a 1 percent increase in same point in other countries and aver- income is equally valuable to the rich aging the percentage differences.7 Aver- and the poor, even though a 1 percent aging across the entire income distribu- increase represents a much larger tion, Switzerland again does substantial- absolute increase for the rich. In what ly better than the United States in 1992, follows I will refer to the assumption but all the other rich democracies in that a 1 percent gain is equally valuable Table 3 do somewhat worse than the at all income levels as the “One Percent United States. Is Always The Same” rule, or the opiats rule for short. Up to this point I have been focusing The opiats rule implies that if my exclusively on what people can afford to income is $100,000 and I give $20,000 buy. While economic goods and services of it to the poor, my well-being falls by a are obviously important, many people ½fth. If I divide my $20,000 equally believe that inequality also affects between ten people with incomes of human welfare in ways that are inde- $10,000, ten people’s well-being will rise pendent of any given household’s pur- by a ½fth. The gains from this gift will chasing power. Even if my family in- thus exceed the losses by a factor of ten. come remains constant, the distribution The utilitarian case for governmental of income in my neighborhood or my redistribution almost always reflects this nation may influence my children’s edu- logic: taxing the rich won’t do them cational opportunities, my life expectan- much harm, and helping the poor will cy, my chance of being robbed, the prob- do them a lot of good. If you look at the ability that I will vote, and perhaps even actual relationship between income and my overall happiness. The remainder of outcomes like health and happiness, the this article tries to summarize what we opiats rule seldom describes the rela- know about such effects. tionship perfectly, but it comes far closer Educational opportunities: Increases in than a “One Dollar Is Always The Same” economic inequality have raised the rule, which is the only rule under which value of a college degree in the United income inequality does not affect health States. If all else had remained equal, or happiness. making a college degree more valuable If we apply the opiats rule to the should increase both teenagers’ interest tenth and ninetieth percentiles in Table in attending college and their parents’ 3, the percentage gains accruing to those willingness to pay for college. But the at the ninetieth percentile from living in growth of economic inequality in Amer- the United States almost always exceed ica has been accompanied by a change in the percentage gains accruing to those at the tenth percentile from living in West- ern Europe or Canada. Switzerland is a 7 Column 3 is calculated from the differences between national means for the logarithm of notable exception. Americans near the after-tax household income adjusted for house- bottom of the distribution would have hold size. Comparing medians in different gained far more from living in Switzer- countries yields almost the same results.

Dædalus Winter 2002 57 Christopher the way we ½nance public higher educa- Table 4 Jencks tion. Tax subsidies play a smaller role Percent of high-school graduates enrolling in a on 4-year college or some other form of postsec- inequality than they once did, and tuition plays a larger role. Since 1979 tuition at Ameri- ondary education within 20 months of gradua- tion, by income quartile: 1980–1982 and 1992 ca’s public colleges and universities has risen faster than most parents’ income. If American high-school graduates Income Entered a Entered some other quartile 4-year form of post- were as well informed and farsighted as college secondary education economic theory assumes, they would 1980 1992 Change 1980 1992 Change have realized that the monetary value of –82 –82 a college degree was rising even faster than tuition. College attendance would have risen both among children whose Lowest 29 28 –1 28 32 4 parents offered to pay the bills and Second 33 38 5 30 32 2 among children who cover their own Third 39 48 9 33 32 –1 costs, who would either have borrowed Highest 55 66 11 26 24 –2 more or worked longer hours to earn a All 39 45 6 29 30 1 degree. But while some students clearly Source: David Ellwood and Thomas Kane, “Who Is respond to changes in the long-term Getting a College Education? Family Background and payoff of a college degree, many do not. the Growing Gaps in Enrollment,” in Sheldon Indeed, the reason affluent parents offer Danziger and Jane Waldfogel, eds., Securing the Future to pay their children’s college expenses (New York: Russell Sage, 2000). rather than just giving their children cash is that parents fear that if the chil- and Thomas Kane at ucla. It shows dren got the cash they might spend it on changes between 1980–1982 and 1992 in something with more short-term payoff, the fraction of high-school graduates like a flashy car or a trip around the from different economic backgrounds world. If affluent parents are right in entering four-year colleges. Among stu- thinking that their seventeen-year-olds dents from the most affluent families, have short time horizons, the same is the proportion entering a four-year col- probably true for less affluent high- lege rose substantially. Among students school graduates whose parents cannot from middle-income families, whose pay their college expenses. Such students families often help with children’s col- are likely to be far more sensitive to lege expenses but seldom pay the whole changes in tuition than to a change in bill, attendance rose more modestly. Stu- the hypothetical lifetime value of a BA. dents from the poorest quartile were no Tuition is easily observed and has to be more likely to attend a four-year college paid now. The lifetime value of a BA is in 1992 than in 1980–1982. This pattern, always uncertain and cannot be realized in which enrollment rises more at the for a long time. Among students who top than at the bottom, is just what we pay their own bills, higher tuition could would expect if parents respond to easily reduce college attendance even changes in the long-term bene½ts of col- when the long-run returns of a college lege while students respond to changes degree are rising. in short-term costs. It is important to Table 4 is taken from work by two emphasize, however, that the poorest economists, David Ellwood at Harvard quartile’s chances of attending college

58 Dædalus Winter 2002 did not fall appreciably; they just failed to be important, because a school’s abili- Does to rise. The poorest quartile was worse ty to attract effective teachers turns out inequality matter? off only insofar as higher education con- to depend largely on its socioeconomic stitutes a “positional” good, whose value mix. Even when districts with a lot of depends not just on how much you have poor children pay better than nearby but how much others have. That re- districts, as they sometimes do, they sel- mains a contested issue. dom attract teachers who are good at If rising economic inequality ex- raising children’s test scores. Increasing plained the trends in Table 4, the corre- economic segregation is therefore likely lation between parental income and col- to reduce the chances that low-income lege attendance should have grown students will get good teachers. fastest in those states where economic Life expectancy: People live longer in inequality grew fastest. Susan Mayer, a rich countries than in poor countries, sociologist at the University of Chicago, but the relationship flattens out as na- has shown that that is exactly what hap- tional income rises. Indeed, the statistics pened during the 1970s and 1980s.8 in Table 1 show that life expectancy and Overall, growing economic inequality in gdp per capita are not strongly related a state raised college attendance, partly in rich democracies. In particular, life because it was accompanied by in- expectancy is lower in the United States creased spending on all levels of public than in almost any other rich democra- education. The positive effects of grow- cy. ing inequality on college attendance per- Within any given country people with sisted even when Mayer took account of higher incomes also live longer. This re- changes in the payoff of schooling in the lationship flattens out near the top of student’s home state. But in the states the income distribution, but the gap be- where inequality grew the most, the tween richer and poorer families does effect of parental income on educational not seem to narrow when everyone’s attainment also grew. standard of living rises. Despite both ris- Mayer has also shown that the ing incomes and the introduction of Me- increase in economic inequality between dicare and Medicaid, for example, the 1970 and 1990 led to greater economic effects of both income and education on segregation between neighborhoods.9 mortality increased in the United States When the rich got richer they evidently between 1960 and 1986.10 Class differ- moved to affluent suburbs where other ences in mortality also widened in Eng- rich people were also moving. Income land between 1930 and 1960, even disparities within neighborhoods hardly though the overall standard of living changed. Economic segregation is likely rose and the National Health Service

8 Susan E. Mayer, “How Did the Increase in 10 See Harriet Orcutt Duleep, “Measuring Economic Inequality between 1970 and 1990 Socioeconomic Mortality Differentials over Affect Children’s Educational Attainment?” Time,” Demography 26 (May 1989): 345–351, American Journal of Sociology, forthcoming. and G. Pappas, S. Queen, W. Hadden, and G. Fisher, “The Increasing Disparity in Mortality 9 Susan Mayer, “How the Growth in Income between Socioeconomic Groups in the United Inequality Increased Economic Segregation,” States, 1960 and 1986,” New England Journal of Irving Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Medicine 329 (1993): 103–109. Studies, University of Chicago, 2001, available at .

Dædalus Winter 2002 59 Christopher equalized access to medical care.11 Such sequent work showed that mortality was Jencks also lower in American states and metro- on facts suggest that the linkage between inequality income and health involves more than politan areas where incomes were more material deprivation. Otherwise, dou- equal. One explanation for this phenom- bling everyone’s purchasing power enon is the opiats rule. A 1 percent would narrow the gap between the top increase in income lowers the odds of and the bottom. dying before the age of sixty-½ve by One reason for the persistent correla- roughly the same amount, regardless of tion between income and health is that what your initial income is. This means poor health lowers people’s earning that adding $1,000 to the income of a power. In addition, big medical bills can million poor families while subtracting deplete a family’s savings, lowering its $1,000 from the incomes of a million ri- unearned income in later years. But cher families should lower overall mor- while poor health clearly affects income, tality. It follows that countries, states, studies that follow the same individuals or cities with the same mean income over time suggest that income, occupa- should have lower death rates when this tional position, and education also affect income is more equally distributed. But people’s health. One reason is that mem- if this were the only way in which in- bers of affluent households are more come inequality affected life expectancy, likely to follow the medical profession’s the difference between the United States advice. Affluent Americans now smoke and Sweden would be quite small. far less than poor Americans, for exam- Wilkinson and his followers believe ple. Affluent Americans also get a bit that inequality also lowers life expectan- more exercise than the poor and are less cy independent of its effect on any given likely to be overweight. But even when household’s income, because it changes we take these differences into account, the social context in which people live. much of the correlation between in- According to Wilkinson, inequality come and life expectancy remains unex- erodes the social bonds that make peo- plained. Experimental studies that mani- ple care about one another and accentu- pulate a monkey’s rank in the hierarchy ates feelings of relative deprivation (the of its troop suggest that rank affects social-science term for what people used health, and the same is pretty clearly to call envy). Other epidemiologists take true for humans. But we do not know what they call a “materialist” position, how much of the association between arguing that inequality kills because it income and health can be explained in affects public policy, altering the distri- this way. bution of education, health care, envi- In 1992 Richard Wilkinson wrote an ronmental protection, and other materi- influential article arguing that a more al resources. Either way, if we compare equal distribution of income improved people with the same income–say life expectancy in rich countries.12 Sub- $50,000 a year–those who live in places where incomes are more unequal should 11 See Elsie Pamuk, “Social Class Inequality in die younger. Mortality from 1921 to 1972 in England and Recent research has raised serious Wales,” Population Studies 39 (1985): 17–31. doubts about such claims. As data on more countries and more time periods 12 Wilkinson summarized his thinking on this have become available, the cross-nation- issue in Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality (London: Routledge, 1996). al correlation between economic in-

60 Dædalus Winter 2002 equality and life expectancy has fallen creased fastest. That ½nding was consis- Does perilously close to zero. If you look at tent with the Wilkinson hypothesis, inequality matter? Table 1 and simply contrast America although the effect could have been due with other rich democracies, the idea to chance. But when we extended our that inequality kills seems to make analysis back to 1970, the relationship sense. But if you compare the other rich was reversed. That relationship could democracies with one another, you ½nd also have been due to chance. no consistent association between in- When Clarkwest and I looked at equality and life expectancy. Incomes changes in economic inequality within are far more unequal in Canada, Aus- the rich democracies that participate in tralia, and Great Britain than in Scandi- the Luxembourg Income Study (lis), we navia, for example, but life expectancy is found that life expectancy had risen about the same in these two groups of everywhere, but it has risen less rapidly countries. in those countries where economic in- Recent work has also raised doubts equality was rising fastest.14 This was about the causal link between inequality consistent with the Wilkinson hypothe- and life expectancy in American states sis, and in this case the relationship was and cities. In America, both economic too large to blame on chance, at least inequality and life expectancy are corre- using conventional statistical standards. lated with the percentage of African Nonetheless, the relationship was weak. Americans in a state or city. Blacks die Economic inequality in the United younger than whites no matter where States rose by about a sixth between they live, so states with large black pop- 1979 and 1997.15 Life expectancy in the ulations have above-average mortality United States rose by three years during rates no matter how their residents’ this period. Had inequality not in- income is distributed. American whites creased, the lis data implied that life also die younger when they live in a state expectancy in the United States would or a metropolitan area with a large Afri- have risen by an additional 0.3 years. To can American population. Once one keep this number in perspective, it helps takes the effects of race into account, the to remember that Americans in the top 5 correlation between economic inequali- percent of the income distribution can ty and mortality tends to disappear.13 expect to live about nine years longer If we want to know whether egalitari- than those in the bottom 10 percent.16 an policies would improve people’s health, however, we need to ask whether 14 See Andrew Clarkwest, “Notes on Cross- changes in economic inequality at the National Analysis of the Relationship between national, state, or local level are associ- Mortality and Income Inequality,” Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, Harvard Uni- ated with changes in life expectancy. The versity, 2000, available at . When Andrew Clarkwest and I analyzed changes in economic inequality within 15 This estimate assumes that the apparent American states during the 1980s, we increase in inequality between 1992 and 1993 found that white mortality rates fell was a methodological artifact caused largely by changes in the Census Bureau’s data collection least in the states where inequality in- and coding procedures. 13 See also Angus Deaton and Darren Lubot- sky, “Mortality, Inequality, and Race in Ameri- 16 This calculation is based on an analysis of can Cities and States,” Cambridge: National the National Longitudinal Mortality Survey by Bureau of Economic Research, June 2000.

Dædalus Winter 2002 61 Christopher The apparent effect of even a fairly large Sweden’s would have a big effect on hap- Jencks on change in a nation’s income distribution piness. Just as with health, equalizing inequality pales by comparison. the distribution of income is only likely We also need to bear in mind that the to have large effects on happiness if it cross-national correlation between changes the social context in which peo- changes in economic inequality and ple live. If equality strengthens social changes in life expectancy may not be ties or reduces envy, for example, that causal. Countries that restrained the could reduce unhappiness signi½cantly. growth of economic inequality after Empirical evidence for a correlation 1980 were dominated by political parties between equality and happiness remains that felt either politically or morally thin. Michael Hagerty, a social psycholo- obligated to protect the interests of their gist at the University of California, Da- less affluent citizens. Such countries may vis, has shown that Americans are less have done all sorts of other things that likely to say they are happy when they made people live longer, like reducing live in cities where incomes are more the work week or ensuring that more unequal, but his analysis does not take people got the health care they needed. account of the correlation between eco- Happiness: The relationship between nomic inequality and racial mix. A team income and happiness is much like the of economists at Harvard and the Lon- relationship between income and health, don School of Economics has shown except that it is easier to tell whether that Europeans become less satis½ed someone has died than whether they are with their lot when their country’s in- unhappy. Almost every year since 1972 come distribution becomes more un- the General Social Survey (gss) has equal, but this effect is con½ned to asked national samples of American respondents who identify with the polit- adults the following question: ical Left.17 All this evidence is sugges- tive, but hardly de½nitive. Taken all together, how would you say Crime: Several studies have found that things are these days? Would you say that violent crime is higher in American met- you are very happy, pretty happy, or not ropolitan areas where the distribution of too happy? income is more unequal. But these stud- Those with higher incomes tend to say ies have not looked at whether increases they are happier than those with lower in inequality are associated with increases incomes. This relationship flattens out in crime. For the United States as a near the top of the distribution, but not whole, trends in economic inequality do enough to suggest that making the not match trends in violent crime at all American distribution of income like closely. Inequality hardly changed dur- ing the 1960s, when violent crime rose Angus Deaton, which shows that men in the highest income group have death rates compa- 17 See Michael Hagerty, “Social Comparisons rable to men twelve years younger in the low- of Income in One’s Community: Evidence est income group, and that women in the high- from National Surveys of Income and Happi- est income group have death rates comparable ness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology to women six years younger in the lowest 78 (2000): 764–771, and Alberto Alesina, income group. My use of Deaton’s results to Rafael Di Tella, and Robert MacCulloch, infer overall disparities in life expectancy “Inequality and Happiness: Are Europeans and requires several assumptions that are unlikely Americans Different?” Cambridge: National to be exactly correct. Bureau of Economic Research, April 2001.

62 Dædalus Winter 2002 sharply. Inequality rose in the early tion and politicians need to keep all Does inequality 1980s, when violent crime fell. Inequali- income groups happy. When people stop matter? ty rose more slowly in the late 1980s, voting, turnout almost always falls the when violent crime rose again. Inequali- most among the poorest and least edu- ty near the top of the distribution rose in cated. As the income gap between those the 1990s, while violent crime fell. None who vote and the population as a whole of this proves that changes in the distri- widens, politicians have less incentive to bution of income have no effect on push legislation that bene½ts the lower crime, but it does suggest that trends in half of the income distribution. Richard violent crime depend largely on other Freeman, an economist at Harvard, has influences. shown that class disparities in presiden- Political influence: Americans are less tial turnout increased between 1968 and likely to vote today than in the 1960s. 1972 and that the same thing happened The Left sometimes blames this decline between 1984 and 1988.19 I have not seen in turnout on the fact that almost all the any evidence on what has happened bene½ts of economic growth have been since 1988. going to a small minority. Parties of the American political campaigns have Left in most other countries have made also changed in ways that make it riskier sure that the bene½ts of growth were for politicians to upset the rich. Until the more equally distributed. In America, 1960s most political candidates relied the Democrats have barely discussed the largely on volunteers to staff their cam- problem. As a result, voters are said to paign of½ces and contact voters. Now have become convinced that neither they rely largely on paid staff and televi- party cares about their problems. sion advertising. This change reflects Nonetheless, growing economic the fact that politicians can raise more inequality cannot explain the decline in money today than in the past. Political turnout, because this decline occurred in contributions have probably risen be- the early 1970s, well before inequality cause government affects more aspects began to grow. Turnout has hardly of our lives, so both voters and corpora- changed since 1980.18 If growing in- tions are willing to spend more money equality has affected turnout, it must to influence government regulations and have done so by perpetuating a decline spending patterns. Whatever the expla- that occurred for other reasons. nation, people who can contribute The most obvious causal link between money now have more political weight, turnout and equality runs the other way. and people who can contribute time If everyone votes, the electorate is by have less. Politicians also know that the de½nition representative of the popula- 2000, Table 479). If one allows for the fact that citizens constitute a declining fraction of 18 About 62 percent of the voting-age popula- the voting-age population and the fact that tion cast ballots in the three presidential elec- more citizens are disenfranchised because tions conducted during the 1960s. Turnout fell they are–or have been–in prison, turnout to 55 percent in 1972, 54 percent in 1976, and 53 among eligible voters may actually have percent in 1980. Since 1980 presidential turn- increased slightly since 1980. out has averaged 52 percent, with no clear trend. Off-year congressional elections have 19 Richard Freeman, “What, Me Vote?” followed the same trajectory (U.S. Bureau of paper presented at the Workshop on Inequali- the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United ty and Social Policy, Kennedy School of Gov- States, 2000, Government Printing Of½ce, ernment, June 2001.

Dædalus Winter 2002 63 Christopher easiest way to raise the money they need political participation, but declining Jencks on is to court affluent contributors. When political participation among the less inequality the share of income going to the top 1 affluent may help explain why American percent rises, politicians have more in- politicians remained so passive when centive to raise money from this group. inequality began to grow after 1980. If politicians had to rely exclusively on My bottom line is that the social con- contributions of less than $100, they sequences of economic inequality are would also have to rely more on volun- sometimes negative, sometimes neutral, teers to do a lot of their campaign work. but seldom–as far as I can discover – positive.20 The case for inequality seems I began this inquiry by arguing that to rest entirely on the claim that it pro- America does less than almost any other motes ef½ciency, and the evidence for rich democracy to limit economic that claim is thin. All these judgments inequality. As a result, the rich can buy a are very tentative, however, and they are lot more in America than in other afflu- likely to change as more work is done. ent democracies, while the poor can buy Still, it is worthwhile to ask what they a little less. If you evaluate this situation would imply about the wisdom of trying by Rawlsian standards, America’s poli- to limit economic inequality if they cies are clearly inferior to those of most were, in fact, correct. rich European countries. If you evaluate Readers’ answers to that question the same situation using a utilitarian cal- should, I think, depend on four value culus, you are likely to conclude that judgments. First, readers need to decide most American consumers do better how much weight they assign to improv- than their counterparts in other large ing the lot of the least advantaged com- democracies. Much of this advantage is pared with improving the average level due to the fact that Americans spend of well-being. Second, they need to more time working than Europeans do, decide how much weight they assign to but that may not be the whole story. increasing material well-being compared I also looked at evidence on whether with increasing “family time” or economic inequality affects people’s “leisure.” Third, they need to decide lives independent of its effects on their how much weight they assign to equaliz- material standard of living. At least in ing opportunities for the young as the United States, the growth of inequal- against maximizing the welfare of ity appears to have made more people adults. Fourth, they need to decide how attend college but also made educational much value they assign to admitting opportunities more unequal. Growing more people from poor countries such as inequality may also have lowered life Mexico to the United States, since this expectancy, but the evidence for such an almost inevitably makes the distribution effect is weak and the effect, if there was of income more unequal. one, was probably small. There is some If you are a hard-core Rawlsian who evidence that changes in inequality af- thinks that society’s sole economic goal fect happiness in Europe, but not much evidence that this is the case in the Unit- 20 Mayer’s ½nding that inequality raises edu- ed States. If inequality affects violent cational attainment among the affluent is a crime, these effects are swamped by partial exception, since the increase among the affluent is larger than the decline among the other factors. There is no evidence that poor, making the net effect on educational changes in economic inequality affect attainment positive.

64 Dædalus Winter 2002 should be to improve the position of the why most rich societies are deeply divid- Does inequality least advantaged, European experience ed about the issue. Yet given the central- matter? suggests that limiting inequality can ity of redistribution in modern politics, bene½t the poor. If you are a hard-core it is remarkable how little effort rich utilitarian, European experience sug- societies have made to assemble the gests–though it certainly does not kinds of evidence they would need to prove–that limiting inequality lowers assess the costs and bene½ts of limiting consumption. But European experience inequality. Even societies that redistrib- also suggests that lowering inequality ute a far larger fraction of their gdp reduces consumption partly by encour- than the United States spend almost aging people to work fewer hours, which nothing on answering questions of this many Europeans see as a good thing. If kind. Answering such questions would you care more about equal opportunity require collecting better evidence, for children than about consumption which costs real money. It would also among adults, limiting economic require politicians to run the risk of inequality among parents probably being proven wrong. Nonetheless, moral reduces disparities in the opportunities sentiments uninformed by evidence open to their children. have done incalculable damage over the All things considered, the case for lim- past few centuries, and their malign iting inequality seems to me strong but influence shows no sign of abating. Rich not overwhelming. That is one reason democracies can do better if they try.

Dædalus Winter 2002 65 Sean Wilentz

America’s lost egalitarian tradition

Egalitarianism assumes many shapes much they do so anymore). Yet stagger- in contemporary America: equality of ing inequalities of wealth, in and of opportunity, equality of rights, racial themselves, pose no such threat in most equality, sexual equality, equal justice, Americans’ eyes.1 equal pay for equal work, and more. One This was not always true. egalitarian ideal is, however, conspicu- At the time of the nation’s founding, ously absent from most American public Thomas Jefferson, the slaveholding discussions: the ideal of equal wealth. democrat, famously decried the “num- Although complaints about economic berless instances of wretchedness” that inequality arise from the margins, the stemmed from gross inequalities of subject passes virtually unnoticed in our property. Jefferson recognized that “an political debates. Apparently, most equal division of property is impractica- Americans ½nd nothing unjust about ble.” Nevertheless, he observed (in a let- gross disparities of economic resources, ter to James Madison) that “enormous so long as every citizen is given a reason- inequality” produced “much misery to able chance to prosper. Discrimination, the bulk of mankind”–so much misery prejudice, extreme poverty, and other that “legislators cannot invent too many enormities may endanger the stability devices for subdividing property, only and prestige of the republic (although taking care to let their subdivisions go there is intense disagreement about how hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.” Sean Wilentz is Dayton-Stockon Professor of His- tory and director of the program in American 1 The best study to date of Americans’ atti- Studies at Princeton University. His scholarship, tudes toward wealth distribution is James L. Hutson, Securing the Fruits of Labor: The Ameri- which has concentrated on the history of the Unit- can Concept of Wealth Distribution, 1765–1900 ed States from the American Revolution to the (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, Civil War, has won numerous academic honors, 1998). Although I have differences with Hut- including the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the son’s interpretations, in this essay I have drawn American Historical Association for his most generously from the materials and analysis in his important book. I would also like to thank influential book, “Chants Democratic: New York Joyce Appleby for some cogent criticisms of an City and the Rise of the American Working Class, earlier draft of this essay. Readers interested in 1788–1850” (1984). citations for speci½c quotations may contact the author at [email protected].

66 Dædalus Winter 2002 Jefferson’s sometime friend and some- conceptual basics of the egalitarian tra- America’s lost time antagonist, the Massachusetts con- dition lasted for a century after the Rev- egalitarian servative John Adams, agreed, noting olution. Ironically, the so-called consen- tradition that concentrations of wealth in the sus school of American historians of the hands of the few ultimately bred tyranny 1940s and 1950s, focused as it was on the over the many. “The balance of power in nation’s historical commitment to indi- a society,” Adams wrote in 1776, “accom- vidualism and the sanctity of private panies the balance of property in land.” property, largely ignored the once-preva- Only by making “the acquisition of land lent commitment to economic equality. easy to every member of society . . . so So have most subsequent historians, that the multitude may be possessed of whether they have defended or attacked landed estates,” Adams believed, could the consensus idea. power be secured “on the side of equal As a result, we have misunderstood liberty and public virtue.” some of the fundamental themes of Similar formulations appeared American history from the Revolution throughout the infant republic, cutting through Reconstruction. And we have across lines of party, region, and ideolo- likewise misunderstood the complicated gy. Noah Webster, the staunch Connecti- political legacy of those themes, from cut Federalist, claimed in support of the the late nineteenth century down to our Federal Constitution in 1787 that “a gen- own time. eral and tolerably equal distribution of land- ed property is the whole basis of national free- The intellectual origins of America’s dom,” and “the very soul of a republic.” A egalitarian tradition lay in the eigh- year later, a Virginia Anti-Federalist teenth-century antimonarchical politics writing under the pseudonym “The that culminated in the Revolution. Impartial Examiner” attacked the pro- Forged in an overwhelmingly rural and posed Constitution precisely because, he antiaristocratic world, these politics contended, it would enable “a few men– contained two powerful and connected or one–more powerful than all others,” assumptions: ½rst, that human labor is to “obtain all authority, and by means of the creator of all wealth; and second, great wealth” to “perhaps totally subvert that social and economic disorders are the government, and erect a system of the consequence, and not the cause, of aristocratic or monarchic tyranny in its political disorder. These assumptions are room [that is, in its place].” There were, alien today, which makes it dif½cult for of course, exceptions, all along the polit- modern readers to discern the egalitari- ical and social spectrums–thinkers who an tradition, let alone to comprehend it. asserted that great economic inequalities The labor theory of value–the doc- between the few and the many were in- trine that all property is derived from evitable and even, some said, desirable. human labor–claimed an enormous In general, however, Americans of other- array of supporters in early national and wise clashing political beliefs agreed antebellum America. The concept lay with one New Jersey cleric that, in a at the core of John Locke’s theory of republic, “there should, as much as pos- property, as stated in the second of his sible, be . . . something like an equality of Two Treatises on Government. Followers of estate and property.” such different Enlightenment writers as Though not unchallenged, and though Volney, David Hume, and Adam Smith open to conflicting interpretations, the took the idea for granted. So did Ameri-

Dædalus Winter 2002 67 Sean can political agitators and public of½- and because ownership of the land was Wilentz on cials ranging from Sam Adams and John (compared to the Old World) widely dis- inequality Rutledge in (respectively) revolutionary tributed, it followed that free Americans Massachusetts and North Carolina to could uniquely avoid great disparities of Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun, and wealth. Likewise, it followed that most Abraham Lincoln. free and productive American house- A major reason for the labor theory’s holds would escape the inequities of past ubiquity was the ambiguity of its impli- civilizations and fully enjoy what their cations, which proved useful to the labor had justly obtained. Of course, all American colonists. Locke, for example, would not be perfectly equal. Some citi- formulated the labor theory in ways that zens, by dint of extraordinary hard labor permitted, indeed encouraged, the sub- or good fortune, would always obtain jugation of a variety of “nonproductive” more property than others, while the persons, be they nomadic hunters and lazy or unfortunate would obtain less. gatherers or dependent African slaves. But given the limits that nature placed American slaveholders naturally as- on what the land could produce, there sumed that the labor of their slaves did were limits on how far the wealthiest cit- not count as the slaves’ own property izen could rise above the poorest. A (although in the late eighteenth century, visionary ideal took hold of a nation many slaveholders, aroused by the egali- where liberty was secure, “so long as tarianism of the Revolution, had second Property . . . ,” meaning land, Ezra Stiles thoughts). Likewise, slaveholders and wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1786, “is so non-slaveholders discounted the labor of minutely partitioned and transfused other bound workers, as well as wives among the Inhabitants.” and children. And to the vast majority of settlers, the sojourning hunting and ½sh- To be sure, the available historical sta- ing economies of the Native Americans tistics on American inequality depict a plundered resources but produced noth- very different reality. On the eve of the ing. Yet to all free citizens, rights to Revolution, according to the ½ndings of property arose, as the Pennsylvania Jeffrey G. Williamson and Peter H. Lin- democrat George Logan observed in dert, the richest 1 percent of Americans 1791, “from the labor we have bestowed held over 10 percent of the nation-to- acquiring [it].” be’s wealth, while the richest 10 percent In the agrarian semicommercial econ- owned roughly half of that wealth.2 But omy of revolutionary America, the labor these ½gures need to be understood in theory of value thus had profoundly their larger context. Compared to later hierarchical as well as profoundly egali- periods in American history–and com- tarian implications. The tensions be- pared to Great Britain and Europe in the tween these implications created a 1770s–the degree of economic inequali- dialectic within the egalitarian tradition ty among nonslaves in Revolutionary that would rattle American politics for America was remarkably low. Moreover, decades to come. local studies of the colonial era strongly Still, for the free white men who set- suggest that American inequality wors- tled there, America seemed a kind of utopia. Because the vast preponderance 2 Jeffrey G. Williamson and Peter H. Lindert, of American wealth came from the land, American Inequality: A Macroeconomic History because American land was plentiful, (New York: Academic Press, 1980).

68 Dædalus Winter 2002 ened fairly dramatically in the mid- to promote equality. Gross inequality, it America’s lost eighteenth century–a worsening that followed, was unnatural, the product of egalitarian Americans blamed largely on what one laws and customs imposed on society by tradition historian has called the “Anglicization” government–speci½cally, in America, of colonial society during the two by hereditary monarchy and aristocracy. decades or so before 1776.3 To American patriots, observes one his- Although they did not live in the class- torian, commenting on Paine, “[t]he less utopia described by some patriots cause of . . . wretchedness,” was “politi- and astonished foreign visitors, Ameri- cal, not economic: the existence of cans could easily consider their world poverty”–the most glaring indication of the closest thing in the history of the economic inequality–implied that West to such a utopia, so long as they “something must be wrong in the sys- relegated slaves and Indians (as many, if tem of government.”4 not most, did) to special castes, outside society. (Even Thomas Paine, an outspo- To a degree not yet fully appreciated by ken antislavery man, could write in 1782 historians, this explosive mixture of the that “[t]here are not three millions of Lockean labor theory of value and anti- people in any part of the universe, who aristocratic politics propelled the Ameri- live so well, or have such a fund of abili- can radical and reformist movements of ty, as in America.”) And in this provi- the second half of the eighteenth centu- dential setting, Americans interpreted ry, including the movement for inde- rising inequality among freemen as a by- pendence.5 The idea that the British product of arti½cial political manipula- operated as parasites, feeding off the tions by the British and their American sacri½ces and labor of their productive allies, as well as of the persistence in the colonial subjects, cropped up all across New World of certain undesirable Old Revolutionary America, most famously World institutions. in Jefferson’s Summary View of the Rights Here, Americans’ views on labor and of British America in 1774: “America was equality conjoined with another concep- conquered, and her settlements made, tual distinction, common in eighteenth- and ½rmly established, at the expence century Anglo-American political [sic] of individuals and not of the British thought, between society and govern- public . . . ,” Jefferson wrote, “and for ment–a distinction that vaunted the themselves alone they have a right to former over the latter. In this view, social hold.” And the same antiaristocratic relations, including trade and com- producerism that helped ignite the Rev- merce, were wholly natural, and, espe- olution also led Americans to repudiate cially in America, they tended strongly what they considered the most egregious of their own traditional and inherited 3 See John M. Murrin, “Review Essay,” History political and legal arrangements, not and Theory (1972): 226–275; and Murrin, “‘A least the laws of entail and primogeni- Roof Without Walls’: The Dilemma of Ameri- can National Identity,” in Richard Beeman, Stephen Botein, and Edward C. Carter, eds., 4 Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary Amer- Beyond Confederation: Origins of the Constitution ica (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), and American National Identity (Chapel Hill: pub- 93. lished for the Institute of Early American Histo- ry and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the 5 The best work to date on these themes is University of North Carolina Press, 1987), Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American 333–348. Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1992).

Dædalus Winter 2002 69 Sean ture. By abolishing these practices, Jef- to the rich and well-born. The agrarian Wilentz on ferson boasted, Americans “laid the axe Republican John Taylor of Caroline inequality to the root of Pseudo-aristocracy.” charged that Hamilton’s credit system Like all modern revolutionaries, the rejected the basic truth that “a demo- American patriots came to blows quickly cratic republic is endangered by an after they won their revolution. Those immense disproportion of wealth” and battles, ½rst between supporters and said that Hamilton’s system would pro- opponents of the Federal Constitution, duce “tyrants and slaves–an aristocracy then between Federalists and Demo- enormously rich, and a peasantry cratic-Republicans, eventually produced, wretchedly poor.” Jefferson’s more mod- in the Hamiltonian ½nancial and com- erate friend and Republican ally, James mercial system of the 1790s, the single Madison, declared that, although some greatest threat to the egalitarian tradi- degree of inequality was inevitable, tion before the Civil War, apart from the Hamilton’s plans would severely exacer- institution of slavery itself. Unlike most bate the problem by extending special of the other American revolutionaries, favors to the elite and thereby enlarging Alexander Hamilton understood in- “the inequality of property, by an im- equality neither as some arti½cial politi- moderate, and especially an unmerited, cal imposition nor as something to be accumulation of riches.” Instead, Madi- feared arising in the future, but as an son favored a strong but restrained cen- ineluctable fact. Inequality, Hamilton tral government and “the silent opera- declared in 1788, “would exist as long as tion of laws which, without violating the liberty existed, and . . . would unavoid- rights of property, reduce extreme ably result from that very liberty itself.” wealth towards a state of mediocrity, His entire program of national debt and raise extreme indigence toward a assumption, a federal bank, and internal state of comfort.” taxation aimed to turn that fact toward With the demise of the Federalist national prosperity and greatness, by Party after 1815 the egalitarian economic attaching the loyalties (and the purses) ideals of the Revolution stood virtually of the monied “few” ½rmly to the federal unchallenged. Although they would sur- government, and then channeling their vive for another three generations, it power toward rousing America out of its would be in a curiously fractured way. semicommercial slumbers and develop- ing the new nation’s economic and mili- Deepening inequality accompanied tary capacities. the market revolution that transformed But Hamilton’s program did not win the American economy after 1815. In mass support, and with the Jeffersoni- 1860, the richest 1 percent of Americans ans’ so-called Revolution of 1800 and held nearly 30 percent of the nation’s the subsequent dismantling of Hamil- wealth, more than twice the percentage ton’s innovations, the egalitarian tradi- of the Revolutionary era. Whereas in tion forcefully reasserted itself. To Jeffer- 1774 the richest 10 percent owned 50 per- sonians–and, on certain issues, even cent of the nation’s wealth, by the out- some Federalists, like John Adams– break of the Civil War, the equivalent Hamilton’s proposals about banks, cur- portion of the population controlled rency, and debt amounted to a reversion nearly three-quarters of the nation’s to corrupt, arti½cial, monopolistic, wealth. The shift did not go unnoticed. quasi-aristocratic favoritism extended Between 1815 and 1860, a host of dissent-

70 Dædalus Winter 2002 ing movements–organized working- elaborated at length his constitutional America’s lost men, religious and secular communitari- reasons for blocking the charter, then egalitarian ans, Anti-Masons, radical abolitionists, launched into a powerful peroration: tradition and more–challenged the idea that It is to be regretted that the rich and pow- America’s basic economic and social erful too often bend the acts of govern- relations were sound. In more orthodox ment to their sel½sh purposes. Distinc- electoral politics, issues concerning eco- tions in society will always exist under nomic justice and inequality exploded every just government. Equality of talents, with a force that matched that of the of education, or of wealth can not be pro- 1790s. duced by human institutions. In the full Strikingly, however, mainstream polit- enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the ical antagonists, and even some radical fruits of superior industry, economy, and dissenters, embraced clashing versions virtue, every man is equally entitled to of the egalitarian tradition. protection by law; but when the laws The fullest restatements of the estab- undertake to make the rich richer and the lished antiaristocratic egalitarianism potent more powerful, the humble mem- appeared in the policies and pronounce- bers of society–the farmers, mechanics, ments of the Jacksonian Democratic and laborers–who have neither the time Party. Firm believers in the labor theory nor the means of securing like favors to of value–“Labor the Only True Source themselves, have a right to complain of of Wealth” was actually a Jacksonian the injustice of their government. There battle cry–the Democrats lambasted are no necessary evils in government. Its wealthy nonproductive drones as “aris- evils exist only in its abuses. If it would tocrats,” who held their power and lived con½ne itself to equal protection, and, as off the labor of others by the grace of Heaven does its rains, shower its favors charters and other privileges granted by alike on the high and the low, the rich and the federal and state governments. the poor, it would be an unquali½ed bless- “Monopoly” became the Jacksonians’ ing. In the act before me there seems to be catchword, the demiurge of evil inequal- a wide and unnecessary departure from ity. The Democrats’ great goal was to these principles. remove the aristocrats’ hands from the levers of economic power and restore It could have been written by a Demo- what they considered “natural” com- cratic-Republican in the 1790s. merce, by arousing the great democratic majority of the (newly enlarged) white Jackson’s chief opponents, known ½rst male electorate. as National Republicans and then as The central Democratic antimonopoly Whigs, viewed the president’s attacks on struggle was President Jackson’s war the bank (as well as on paper money and with the Second Bank of the United protective tariffs) with horror as assaults States, and the key Democratic docu- on commerce and property rights that ment of that struggle–Jackson’s mes- were bound to ruin the nation’s expand- sage vetoing the bank’s rechartering in ing market economy. Yet unlike Hamil- 1832–was a virtual manifesto of Demo- ton and the High Federalists of the cratic egalitarianism, containing all of 1790s, the National Republicans and the the old revolutionary- and Jeffersonian- Whigs of a generation later carefully era ideals and language virtually intact. presented their alternative developmen- Calling the bank a “monopoly,” Jackson tal programs in terms agreeable to the

Dædalus Winter 2002 71 Sean egalitarian tradition. workingmen.” Wilentz on Fundamental to the National Republi- Inequality, according to the National inequality cans’/Whigs’ reconciliation to egalitari- Republicans and Whigs, stemmed not anism was their success in seizing upon from imagined corrupt privilege but and exploiting ambiguities in the labor from individual moral differences and theory of value. Jeffersonians and Jack- from the Democrats’ arbitrary and disas- sonians tended to de½ne “labor” nar- trous class-based rhetoric and policies. rowly, to mean manual labor or (in the Drenched in the evangelical ethical case of Southern planters) direction of righteousness of the Second Great the productive agricultural manual labor Awakening, anti-Jacksonians blamed of slaves. Other occupations–whether poverty on bad individual choices and they involved living off accumulated for- on the refusal by some men to exert the tunes, trading commodities, or speculat- basic virtues of industry, economy, and ing–were far more suspect. Bankers, temperance. Government, they insisted, ½nanciers, and bondholders, in particu- had a duty to help the people effect their lar, struck Democrats as inherently para- individual self-improvement, by enact- sitic, quite apart from their monopolistic ing temperance reform and by building proclivities–moneyed men who pro- reformatories, asylums, and new-model duced nothing, but who made consider- prisons (all of which required public tax- able fortunes by living (as John Taylor, ation). And in order to widen economic among many others, had put it) “upon opportunities and promote equality, the labour of the other classes.” government needed to help accelerate By expanding the concept of labor to economic development by chartering include all gainfully employed persons, banks, funding internal improvements, however, the National Republicans and and undertaking other orderly innova- Whigs at once blurred class distinctions, tions that would, they claimed, bene½t upheld the labor theory of value, and all industrious citizens, not merely a presented themselves as the true friends privileged few. of the toiling masses. Invidious distinc- The great political emblem of this tions between producers and nonpro- egalitarian anti-Jacksonianism was the ducers, the National Republican manu- protective tariff. Jacksonians tended to facturer Tristam Burges declared in 1830, regard protectionism as but another only excited “hostile feelings among form of unnatural monopoly, granted by men, all equally engaged in one great government to select elite interests–a community and brotherhood of labor mechanism that transferred wealth from for mutual bene½t.” Lacking a formally hand to hand, enriched the few, impov- titled aristocracy, the United States was a erished the many, and established what land of unlimited opportunity, where, one New Hampshire Democrat called Edward Everett remarked, “the wheel of “the basest, most sordid, most groveling fortune is in constant operation, and the of aristocracies . . . a moneyed aristocracy.” poor in one generation furnish the rich But for National Republicans and Whigs, of the next.” And just as every working- tariff protection rati½ed the harmony of man was a capitalist in classless Ameri- interests between capital and labor and ca, so, the argument followed, every cap- laid a foundation for economic growth italist, like every planter, was a working- and military security that would in turn man; indeed, as one anonymous writer combat what the protectionist writer put it in 1833, in America, “all men are Daniel Raymond singled out as a great

72 Dædalus Winter 2002 evil: “a too unequal distribution of itarian tradition could claim closely America’s lost wealth.” matched electoral support nationwide. egalitarian While squaring themselves with labor, Thereafter, however, the Jacksonian-era tradition the Whigs turned the tables on the Jack- politics of inequality would unravel as sonians by also squaring themselves westward expansion forced Americans with political democracy. Having denied to confront the institution of slavery and Democratic charges of “aristocracy,” its implications for both moral and eco- they countercharged that a reborn nomic justice. monarchicalism, under the executive tyrant Jackson and his minions, was Charges that chattel slavery directly ruining the nation’s economy, running threatened the American egalitarian tra- roughshod over the Constitution, and dition dated back to the Revolutionary offering special favors to Jackson’s polit- era. The most radical voices agreed with ical cronies and supporters. Again, Jack- Thomas Paine that slaves, as human son’s war with the Bank of the United beings, were entitled to be free and enjoy States became the flashpoint. Supposed- “the fruits of their labors at their own ly, by disregarding both Congress and disposal.” Other critics, North and the Supreme Court during the bank South, blamed slavery for encouraging struggle, “King Andrew I” had usurped an aristocratic love of luxurious leisure authority, trampled on the people’s lib- and a despotic temperament among the erties, and funneled power and property slaveholders. Still others charged that to his own corrupt coterie. The basic slavery produced a backward economy, conflict was not between the nonpro- controlled by a small opulent elite that ducing few and the producing many, but discouraged the wide diffusion of prop- between despotic, patronage-glutted erty among nonslaves. Democratic rulers and the mass of the In the South, as the historian David people. By that logic, the Whigs were the Ramsay of South Carolina noted in 1789, true democrats, who offered laboring slavery had “led to the engrossing of Americans what the publicist Calvin land, in the hands of a few,” in marked Colton called “the democracy which contrast to the (by then) mostly free does them most good; which gives them North. It was only after the revival and food, clothing, and a comfortable home, vast expansion of southern slavery instead of promises.” thanks to the post-Revolution cotton And so, amid the market revolution, boom, however, that a coherent pro- the egalitarian tradition survived–but slavery argument emerged. Only then fractured, now, into two distinct ver- did clashes over slavery become truly sions. Americans continued to believe in politically dangerous. And when that the necessity of restraining gross dispar- happened, each side tapped into the ities of wealth. They continued to egalitarian tradition, promoting its own believe that productive men deserved to version while accusing the other of try- enjoy the full fruits of their labor. They ing to impose tyranny on the entire continued to believe that special inter- nation. ests in politics–either sel½sh aristocratic Political opposition to slavery reached monopolists or immoral monarchical maturity in the Republican Party of the demagogues–were chiefly responsible 1850s, an amalgam of Northern antislav- for deepening inequality. By the mid- ery Whigs (whose national party had 1840s, these two versions of the egal- collapsed) and dissident free-soil

Dædalus Winter 2002 73 Sean Democrats. Be½tting the party’s mixed which disparities of wealth would be Wilentz on origins, the Republicans’ antislavery limited. Lincoln, in his momentous inequality variant of the egalitarian tradition bor- debates with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, rowed elements from both Whig and stated plainly the Republican belief “[i]n Democratic thinking, as well as from the right to eat the bread, without the long-established antislavery arguments. leave of anybody else, which his own Like the Whigs, Republicans generally hand earns.” Slavery violated this funda- vaunted free labor as a harmony of inter- mental idea, Republicans claimed, both ests in which the humblest industrious by robbing slaves of their just rewards man enjoyed what, in 1860, the ex-Whig and by degrading the dignity of all labor Abraham Lincoln called “an equal by turning laborers into chattel, con- chance to get rich with everyone else.” strained by force. With these aristocratic Slavery, by contrast, suppressed what affronts to labor, slavery deepened gross Lincoln called “the true system” by economic inequalities between the haves enriching a small group of slaveholders and the have-nots–the latter including and by denying blacks the chance to slaves and most freemen. improve their condition. From the antislavery Democrats, the Pro-slavery spokesmen, concentrated Republicans absorbed a critique of the after 1854 in the southern wing of the slaveholders as an aristocracy, who, by Democratic Party, had a more dif½cult aggressive political action, warped time adapting the established egalitarian American society to advance their pecu- tradition to their cause. In promoting liar and oppressive institution at the slavery as a positive good, they often expense of ordinary Americans, slave found themselves explicitly repudiating and free. In 1839, the Ohio antislavery the natural rights legacies of John Locke Democrat Thomas Morris observed that and Thomas Jefferson. Some openly the moneyed aristocracy of the North, praised the virtues of aristocracy, though which he called the Money Power, had they made clear that they opposed forged a fresh alliance with the southern hereditary aristocracy. And any honest slaveholders, which he called the Slave defense of slavery required an admission Power, “both looking to the same that certain inequalities were inevitable object–to live on the unrequited labor and, indeed, decreed by God–that, as of others.” Whereas orthodox Jacksoni- Abel Upshur asserted, “one portion of ans described slaveholders as honorable mankind shall live upon the labor of producers, antislavery Democrats such another portion.” as Morris relegated the slaveholders to Yet despite their aristocratic preten- the category of aristocrats, at war with sions, slavery’s advocates, the most reac- ordinary men’s property and liberty. tionary American political force of the Thereafter, attacks on the aristocratic nineteenth century, turned to and Slave Power became a staple of political reworked the egalitarian tradition. It was antislavery appeals, culminating in the not (as Louis Hartz once argued) that Republican declarations of the 1850s. the slaveholders, deep down, remained Republican attacks on the slaveholder Lockean liberals. Rather, pro-slavery aristocracy went hand in hand with a writers adapted those pieces of the Lock- vindication of their own inclusive ver- ean and revolutionary legacies that suit- sion of the labor theory of value, and ed their purposes, in part to secure the with their defense of an America in support of southern white non-slave-

74 Dædalus Winter 2002 holders. Repeatedly they described their mission guaranteed white freemen’s America’s lost labor system as more egalitarian–for equality. Slavery furthermore promoted egalitarian whites–than the supposedly “free” a variation of what Northern Whigs and tradition labor of the North. Republicans liked to call an underlying George Fitzhugh, perhaps the greatest harmony of interests–between superior admirer of feudalism to emerge from the and inferior, in the organic connection pro-slavery ranks, dedicated much of his between white master and black slave, writing to attacking the economic injus- but also between white equals. So long tice and inequality of the North. Al- as the planters preserved (indeed, after though Yankees boasted of their adher- 1830, enlarged) the suffrage rights of ence to the labor theory of value, non-slaveholders, so long as the white Fitzhugh declared, in fact, “Labor makes majority of non-slaveholding yeoman values, and wit exploitates and accumulates were permitted to enjoy the full fruits of them.” Northern “freedom,” Fitzhugh their labor, so long as tax burdens proclaimed, amounted to forsaking all remained light, and so long as the non- sense of responsibility and permitting slaveholders raised no objections to slav- nonlaboring employers to earn their ery, there would be no exploitation of livelihoods off the sweat of their work- whites by whites. ers, while compelling the workers to Seen through this lens, even the slave- accept subsistence wages–on pain of holders’ familiar stance on states’ rights joblessness and starvation. Under slav- has its connection to the egalitarian tra- ery, however, the slaves, as valuable dition, as a variation on the idea that property, were assured of a decent living economic and social injustice was rooted standard, while southern whites suppos- in political tyranny. According to John C. edly lived in something far closer to eco- Calhoun, the ablest pro-slavery political nomic equality than northerners. The theorist, the framers had designed “a prominent South Carolina slaveocrat democratic federal republic” in which James H. Hammond, who like Fitzhugh the states “retained their separate exis- accepted the idea that slavery created an tence as independent and sovereign aristocracy, went on to describe that communities.” Unfortunately, the work aristocracy as a remarkably large and of the framers was flawed by their failure democratic one, consisting of every free- to provide the states with an explicit man: “Be he rich or poor, if he does not veto power over federal legislation, possess a single slave, he has been born thereby allowing pro-consolidation Fed- to all the natural advantages of the socie- eralists, beginning with Alexander ty in which he is placed, and all its hon- Hamilton and John Marshall, to advance ors lie open before him, inviting his what Calhoun called “the national genius and industry.” impulse.” And in the 1830s, the National Just as antislavery forces moved slave- Republicans/Whigs turned themselves holding planters from the category of into the numerical balance of power in “producers” to “nonproducers,” so the national politics and compelled the Jack- pro-slavery forces retained the idea, sonian parties, bit by bit, to abandon the older than the Constitution, that black South and the animating spirit of the slaves fell outside consideration as part Revolution. The federal government, of American society proper and formed Calhoun charged, had aggressively what Hammond called a “mudsill” class usurped power, and created “a great of inferior beings–a class whose sub- national consolidated democracy . . . as

Dædalus Winter 2002 75 Sean despotic as that of the Autocrat of Rus- Republicans and old-line Democrats Wilentz on sia, and as despotic as any absolute gov- considered acceptable under the egali- inequality ernment that ever existed.” The South’s tarian tradition (with its insistence on blessed slaveholders’ democracy was the inviolability of private property). under siege by a corrupt and hypocritical Worse, northern businessmen pointed northern democratic absolutism. out, redistribution would play havoc with the staple-based agriculture that As the controversies over dispensation was the foundation of southern prosper- of the western territories grew unavoid- ity and (not incidentally) a source of able, so the Jacksonian political align- northern pro½ts. Worse still, land redis- ments crumbled. Civil war proved tribution in the South might encourage unavoidable. And in the aftermath of increasingly restive northern workers to that war, the victorious Union made the undertake some similar sort of revolu- last notable effort in our history to vin- tion. dicate the old egalitarian tradition. There was, however, one area in which As the former Confederate secretary of radical and more moderate Republicans, the treasury Christopher G. Memminger as well as freed slaves, could agree: the noted soon after Appomattox, recon- imperative of black suffrage in the South struction turned entirely “upon the deci- as a means to promote economic equali- sion which shall be made upon the mode ty. And in this respect, Reconstruction of organizing the labor of the African was in line with the basic concepts of the race.” To Republicans, moderate and old egalitarian tradition. Without black radical, the only possible solution was to suffrage, George Julian observed, former organize the ex-slaves’ labor along the slaveholders would reassume political lines familiar in the North, by eradicat- power and make “the condition of the ing the slaveholding aristocracy and freedmen more intolerable than slavery ensuring that every freedman would itself.” But as long as the political receive the full harvest of his labor. monopoly of the slaveholders was bro- In the broadest terms, ex-slaves ken, enfranchised blacks would have the agreed. “[W]e . . . understand freedom,” power to prevent the reemergence of a mass meeting of blacks in Petersburg, aristocracy and inequality. Virginia, resolved in June of 1865, “to The guarantee of black voting, pro- mean industry and the enjoyment of the claimed the free black Republican Oscar legitimate fruits thereof.” J. Dunn of Louisiana, preserved the But reinventing the egalitarian tradi- essence of America’s revolutionary lega- tion in order to include the ex-slaves cy, which was to abolish all “hereditary proved to be an overwhelming task. distinctions” and bar the door from “the Radical Republicans, led by Thaddeus institution of aristocracy, nobility, and Stevens, believed that only comprehen- even monarchy.” If black suffrage would sive economic and political reform, not have the sudden cataclysmic effect including mass redistribution of rebel on the distribution of wealth that radical lands to the freedmen, would suf½ce– redistribution would have, it would at proposals that, not surprisingly, met least open up the strong possibility of with intense opposition in the white further change, and of greater economic South. equality, in the South. Black suffrage, In the North as well, calls to redistrib- lamented one ex-Confederate political ute southern land ran afoul of what most leader, was a revolution, “and nobody

76 Dædalus Winter 2002 can anticipate the action of revolutions.” political or entrepreneurial changes. America’s lost Indeed, economists effectively divorced egalitarian The slackening of Republican free- the corporate economy from politics tradition labor reformism amid the depression of altogether, and insisted that whereas the 1870s, and the ½nal abandonment of earlier monopolies had been the creation Reconstruction in 1877, marked a signal of political favoritism, the modern cor- defeat for the prewar Republican version poration–or what some experts called of the egalitarian tradition. As a resur- “cooperation”–arose strictly out of gent racism fed charges that the black- objective market forces. Economics, as a supported Reconstruction governments self-regulating sphere of its own, sup- were hopelessly corrupt, and as southern planted the old egalitarian versions of blacks became entangled in a sharecrop- political economy: “This,” wrote one of ping system that meant virtual debt the popularizers of the new economic peonage, the tradition that had beck- doctrine, Charles R. Flint, “is the differ- oned to a vibrant egalitarian free-labor ence between monopoly and coopera- South looked shaky. tion, between government favoritism Thereafter, the emergence of enor- and natural law.” mous new business corporations and By the 1920s, the terms on which trusts and the rise of an all-too-conspic- Americans understood economic uous American plutocracy battered inequality had changed utterly. Above existing egalitarian assumptions. Sud- all, the old association between inequali- denly, basic verities–that American ty and exclusive political privilege dis- abundance and republican government solved. Far from an unnatural distortion would guarantee workers the full fruits of the invisible hand, caused by political of their labor; that respect for competi- favoritism, gross inequality now turned tion, private property, and contacts out to be a perfectly natural result of would, in America, foster a rough equali- market forces. Government intervention ty–were dashed. A gigantic force un- in the internal operations of business, known to earlier generations–what one once considered the foundation of liberal critic would call “the devil of pri- monopoly and exploitation, became the vate monopoly”–was now in the saddle. means to promote economic equality. A revolution in economic thought, Restraint of government, meanwhile, begun in the 1860s and 1870s, both has- became the touchstone of the new eco- tened and justi½ed the emergence of the nomics and of conservative pro-business new economic order. The labor theory of dogma, based on the resurgent principle value, so fundamental both to formal that inequality was not only inevitable, it political economy and to popular think- was rational and just. Government regu- ing about economic justice before the lation, in this view, would only distort Civil War, proved irrelevant to under- the natural operations and just outcomes standing numerous vital aspects of the of the market by preventing talented and corporate economy, from the setting of fortunate Americans from accumulating prices to adjustments in the money sup- and possessing as much property as they ply. More important, economists who could. accepted the new order accepted the rise Still, this wrenching transition–what of huge corporations as perfectly natu- the great reformer of the new century ral–an inevitable outcome of techno- Robert M. La Follette would call the logical breakthroughs rather than of “vast revolution in economic condi-

Dædalus Winter 2002 77 Sean tions”–did not destroy the American ment. If American civil rights advocates Wilentz on egalitarian impulse. Instead, its charac- learned any lesson from the disastrous inequality ter was dramatically transformed, for decades after the demise of Reconstruc- now government became the instru- tion, it was that positive federal action– ment, and not the enemy, of equality. backed, if need be, by of½cial force–was The Populist movement of the 1890s, fundamental to securing civil rights for though it still spoke in the Jeffersonian- blacks. Amid the Second Reconstruc- tinged antimonopoly rhetoric of the old tion, that impulse became allied as never egalitarianism, proposed all sorts of gov- before with the larger impulse for eco- ernment interventions, from price regu- nomic equality, combining most fully lation to nationalization of the railroads. during the brief heyday of the Great Trade unionists and socialists, led by the Society. redoubtable Samuel Gompers and the radical Eugene V. Debs, in turn, de- Overall, the reinvented proactive egal- ployed the labor theory of value, as Karl itarianism of the Progressives, New Marx had, to criticize the exploitation of Dealers, and Great Society liberals was labor by capital and to justify union effective in reversing the trends of the organizing, collective bargaining, and nineteenth and early twentieth cen- (in Debs’s case) the creation of new turies, while at the same time the United forms of commonwealth and industrial States became the most powerful econo- democracy. my on earth. After 1940, economic Thereafter, the Progressives and later inequality abated, to the point where, by the New Dealers of the ½rst half of the 1980, the degree of economic inequality, twentieth century created the founda- measured statistically, was roughly the tions of a new government bureaucracy same as it had been in the 1770s. To that, while accepting modern capitalist Americans who came of age between enterprise, could intervene in the mar- 1940 and 1965, Progressive and New Deal ketplace and (with the new federal liberalism seemed, for better or worse, income tax and estate taxes) directly to have become the national creed. And redistribute wealth. to many leading historians during these Herbert Croly most famously decades, all of mainstream American described these efforts as using Hamil- political history appeared to be but a tonian means to reach Jeffersonian ends. variation on the basic values of liberal Later nonsocialist writers, including capitalism. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and John Ken- Yet the merging of modern egalitari- neth Galbraith, struggled to reinvent a anisms, racial and economic, in the modern liberal version of the egalitarian 1960s could not, ½nally, overcome some tradition, excoriating the hyper-individ- of the lingering ambiguities of the ualist voluntarism of the pre-Depression nineteenth-century egalitarian tradi- years and after (expressed most plainly tion–ambiguities seized upon by the by Herbert Hoover) as an apology for enemies of economic redistribution. plutocracy that would, eventually, pro- Above all, the old producerist prejudice duce economic catastrophe. against “nonproducing parasites” could, In the 1950s and 1960s, this reborn as ever, be directed against the bene½cia- economic egalitarianism became closely ries of federal reform and largesse as intertwined with the governmental well as against the privileged rich. This interventionism of the civil rights move- redirection became especially easy when

78 Dædalus Winter 2002 large portions of the public identi½ed conservatism, in attacks on the so-called America’s lost those bene½ciaries as “backward” “nanny state” that would force liberty- egalitarian blacks, “thoughtless” unmarried welfare loving Americans to obey all sorts of tradition mothers, and others who, by dint of arbitrary regulations, on everything ancestry or bad moral choices, sought to from gun registration to mandatory get more out of the system than they automobile insurance–supposedly for deserved. Much as the more egalitarian their own good. implications of the labor theory of value By the early 1990s, the moderating arose in the 1850s and 1860s, only to be trends of mid-century had reversed shunted aside in favor of more hierarchi- themselves once more, as inequality of cal thinking, so the revamped egalitari- wealth distribution returned to the lev- anism of a century later was vulnerable els of the 1920s. The remnants of the old to a revamped hierarchicalism that egalitarian, antiaristocratic language posited itself as the soul of democratic became keywords for the new conser- justice. vatism, intermingled with a reinvented Conservative reaction, held in check Hooverian “rugged individualism”– during the New Deal and its immediate George H. W. Bush’s “thousand points aftermath, began in earnest in the white of light”–that arrived in the guise of South’s “massive resistance” to the civil fearless libertarianism. rights movement in the late 1950s and Whereas nineteenth-century Ameri- early 1960s. Then, with the rise of the cans believed that the federal govern- Goldwater movement in 1964, laissez- ment would unjustly transfer wealth faire pro-corporate politics joined with from the middling classes to the wealthy, laissez-faire anti-civil-rights politics and the late-twentieth-century Right generated a ferocious power. Following charged, with great political success, the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, that the federal government was unjustly federal intervention–indeed, the federal transferring wealth from the wealthy government itself–became demonized and the middle class to the poor (espe- as at no time since southern secession, cially the minority poor). The imagery only now the demonization came from of parasitic nonproducers became all sections of the country. af½xed, in this new vocabulary, to the Reinforcing that demonization was bottom of the social ladder instead of the conservatives’ successful depiction the top. The true monarchs and aristo- of virtually all government action as an crats in Reaganite America became the interference with individual liberty. so-called welfare queens and arrogant, Here, again, old antiaristocratic themes elitist, bleeding-heart “brie-and-Chablis” became the foundation for a revamped liberals. Collective solutions to ordinary attack on the liberal state. In 1860, individual problems–through labor Andrew Jackson’s sympathetic biogra- unions, civil-rights groups, and other pher, James Parton, excoriated what he movements partly reliant on the called the “Paternal-Government party,” state–became stigmatized as the dis- the party of born conservatives that torting influence of entitled “special wished to mold the world according to interests.” Collective efforts by private its own arrogant visions while destroy- corporations, even those reliant on the ing individual freedom. That same line state, to secure their own interests of reasoning reappeared in the Reagan passed unnoticed–or won approval as era and after as a chief article of the new the natural operations of free enterprise.

Dædalus Winter 2002 79 Sean This conservative reaction put latter- But such conservative interpretations Wilentz on day egalitarians on the defensive, scram- have misread the old egalitarian tradi- inequality bling for some rede½nition of purpose. tion as surely as the liberal consensus After his own redistributive efforts in historians of the 1940s and 1950s ig- the area of health care came to naught, nored it. During the nation’s ½rst centu- President Bill Clinton was forced to ry most Americans held that, in a strong declare that “the era of big government republic, unlike a corrupt aristocracy, is over.” In place of the Great Society labor would be amply rewarded and the formulas, liberals, when not fending off gaps between the poor and the rich attacks on progressive taxation and would be minimized. To compare that other achievements of earlier decades, egalitarian vision with the striking looked for smaller programs and indirect inequalities of our own time is, to say redistribution (through tax credits) to the least, troubling. improve opportunities for middle-class The old egalitarianism, to be sure, and poor Americans. proved incapable of meeting the chal- From time to time, liberal of½cials and lenges of modern corporate capitalism. of½ce-seekers would rail against the An entirely new form of liberal egalitari- monopolistic corporate special inter- anism had to replace it–one that, a cen- ests–Big Oil, the pharmaceutical com- tury later, is besieged by post-Reagan panies–but with less consistency and conservatism, with its selective but per- conviction than their Progressive and suasive appropriation of old egalitarian New Deal predecessors. Outside the lib- themes. eral and left-wing margins, virtually no But if their thinking about political one seemed willing to make the case that economy has been rendered obsolete, even mild redistribution was essential to the old egalitarians’ basic legacy en- the health of our political system. And dures, not just in the rhetoric of the New the newly regnant conservatives began Right, but in the embattled idea that, if it reenvisaging the American past in their is to survive, a truly democratic govern- own image, as if Madison, Jefferson, ment of the people requires a fundamen- Jackson, and the generation that fol- tal equality and justice in the distribu- lowed cared a great deal about individual tion of its wealth. Those who would sal- liberty and nothing about economic vage and modernize this lost American equality. tradition had better be about their work.

80 Dædalus Winter 2002 James F. Crow

Unequal by nature: a geneticist’s perspective on human differences

In February of 2001, Craig Venter, presi- Still, we only have to look around to dent of Celera Genomics, commenting see an astonishing variety of individual on the near-completion of the human differences in sizes, shapes, and facial genome project, said that “we are all features. Equally clear are individual dif- essentially identical twins.” A news ferences in susceptibility to disease–and headline at the time made a similar in athletic, mathematical, and musical point: Are We All One Race? Modern Sci- abilities. Individual differences extend to ence Says So. In the article that followed, differences between group averages. the author quoted geneticist Kenneth Most of these average differences are Kidd: “Race is not biologically de½nable, inconspicuous, but some–such as skin we are far too similar.” color–stand out. Venter and Kidd are eminent scien- Why this curious discrepancy between tists, so these statements must be rea- the evidence of dna and what we can sonable. Based on an examination of our clearly see? If not dna, what are the dna, any two human beings are 99.9 causes of the differences we perceive percent identical. The genetic differ- between individuals and between groups ences between different groups of of human beings? human beings are similarly minute. Dna is a very long molecule, com- posed of two strands twisted around James F. Crow, a Fellow of the American Acade- each other to produce the famous double my of Arts and Sciences since 1966, is professor helix. There are forty-six such dna mol- emeritus of medical genetics at the University of ecules in a human cell, each (along with Wisconsin. Over a career that has spanned more some proteins) forming a chromosome. than ½fty years, he and his collaborators have The dna in a human chromosome, if studied a variety of traits in Drosophila, dissected stretched out, would be an inch or more the genetics of ddt resistance, measured the in length. How this is compacted into a effects of minor mutations on the overall ½tness of microscopic blob some 1/1000 inch long populations, described the behavior of mutations without getting hopelessly tangled is an that do not play the game by Mendel’s rules, stud- engineering marvel that is still a puzzle. ied the effects of nonrandom mating, and consid- The “business” part of the dna, the ered the question “What good is sex?” part that carries genetic information, is the sequence of nucleotides, or bases, in

Dædalus Winter 2002 81 James F. the molecule. There are four of these, that time. As a result, we share roughly Crow on commonly designated as A, G, T, and C. 90 percent of our dna with mice, dogs, inequality (I could tell you what these letters stand cattle, and elephants. for, but you wouldn’t understand this Coming closer to home, the dna of essay any better if I did, so I won’t.) human beings and chimpanzees is 98 to In the double helix, there are four 99 percent identical. The differences kinds of base pairs: AT, GC, TA, and CG. between us that we (and presumably the The speci½c pairing rules–A with T and chimps) regard as signi½cant depend on G with C–are dictated by the three- only 1 or 2 percent of our dna. dimensional structure of the bases. Much of human dna is very similar to In a chromosome, the base pairs are in even more remote ancestors: reptiles, in- a precise sequence, and the orderly vertebrates, and even plants. All living process of cell division assures the repro- things share many functions (e.g., respi- duction of this sequence with remark- ration) going back to a very distant past. ably few errors. Chromosomes occur in Most of our dna determines that we are pairs, one member of each pair from human, rather than determining how we each parent, and the dna sites in the are different from any other person. So it two corresponding chromosomes match is not so surprising that the dna of any up. We have twenty-three pairs of chro- two human beings is 99.9 percent identi- mosomes, or a total of forty-six, as previ- cal. ously mentioned, in each cell. These What produces variability between forty-six chromosomes contain about individual organisms–and makes possi- six billion base pairs. If we randomly ble evolutionary change–is errors in the choose a pair of bases from correspon- dna copying process. Sometimes, ding sites in two persons, 99.9 percent of because of this, one base is changed to the time they will be the same. This per- another–it mutates. Among the six bil- centage depends only slightly on lion base pairs each of us inherits from whether the two people are from the our parents, a substantial number–a same or from different continents, from hundred or more–are new mutations. the same or from different population How can we reconcile this large num- groups. ber with the extremely slow rate of evo- In order to make sense of how the lutionary change? The explanation is dna of human beings can be so similar, that only a tiny fraction of mutations despite all the important visible and persist over time. Some mutations sur- physiological differences among individ- vive as a matter of either luck or–if the uals and groups, it is helpful to recount mutation confers a biological advan- our evolutionary history. tage–natural selection. Even if advanta- All mammals, including ourselves, are geous, an individual mutation has little descended from an ancestral species that chance of surviving a long evolutionary lived about one hundred million years trip. The slow rate of evolutionary ago. In our mammalian ancestry an aver- change explains why we mammals are so age base has changed, say from an A to a similar in our dna. T, at the almost unbelievably slow rate of Molecular studies of dna have been about one change per billion years. This extremely fruitful in working out the means that only a small fraction of the evolutionary history of life. Much of bases, one hundred million divided by what we know about human ancestry one billion, or 1/10, have changed during comes from dna studies, supplemented

82 Dædalus Winter 2002 by a rather spotty fossil record. The dna very tiny proportion of our dna, we dif- Unequal evidence strongly supports the idea that fer by a large number of dna bases. by nature the human species originated in Africa, Some noteworthy evolutionary and that European and Asiatic popula- changes in human beings have occurred tions–indeed, all non-Africans–are relatively rapidly, despite the slow over- descended from a small number of all rate of change at the dna level. The migrants from Africa. The strongest evi- difference between the skin color of dence for this is that Africans are more Africans and Europeans probably variable in their dna than are other pop- evolved in less than ½fty thousand years, ulations. an adaptation to differences in climate. Analysis of dna allows us to measure Still more rapid were changes in genes with some precision the genetic distance that confer resistance to malaria in between different populations of human Africa and Mediterranean regions; it beings. By this criterion, Caucasians and only took between four and eight thou- Asians are relatively similar, whereas sand years for the new genes to evolve. Asians and Africans are somewhat more What genetic analysis reveals is that different. The differences between the some of the genetic changes that seem so groups are small–but they are real. signi½cant to us depended on a very tiny dna analysis has provided exciting fraction of our dna. new answers to old questions. But its But, as I said, this tiny fraction is still a ½ndings can also be misleading. Take the very large number of bases. No two case of men and women and sex chro- human beings are alike in the traits they mosomes. Females have two X chromo- possess. Some are tall, others are short; somes, while males have an X and a Y. some are stocky, others thin; some are The Y chromosome makes up perhaps 1 gifted musically, others tone deaf; some percent of the dna. But there is very lit- are athletic, others awkward; some are tle correspondence between the Y and outgoing, others introverted; some are the other chromosomes, including the X. intelligent, others stupid; some can In other words, the dna of a human write great poetry or music, most can- male differs as much from that of a not. And so on. female as either does from a chimpanzee To understand our differences, we of the same sex. What does this mean? need to consider not just dna, but its Simply that dna analysis, which has cellular products as well. This area of given us a revolutionary new under- study is new, but it is progressing rapid- standing of genetics and evolution, ly. The emphasis is changing from dna doesn’t give sensible answers to some sequences to genes. A gene is a stretch of contemporary questions that society is dna, usually several thousand base pairs interested in. long. The function of most genes is to produce proteins. The genome sequenc- Most of the differences that we notice ing project has revealed that we humans are caused by a very tiny fraction of our have thirty to forty thousand genes. But dna. Given six billion base pairs per since a gene often produces more than cell, a tiny fraction–1/1000 of six billion one kind of protein, sometimes produc- base-pairs–is still six million different ing different kinds for different body base pairs per cell. So there is plenty of parts, the number of kinds of protein is room for genetic differences among us. more like one hundred thousand. Although we differ from each other in a We share a number of genes with

Dædalus Winter 2002 83 James F. chimpanzees, genes that make us pri- and Europeans. But, for the most part, Crow on mates rather than elephants or worms. group differences are small and largely inequality Evolutionary scientists believe that overshadowed by individual differences. many of the differences that we observe Biologists think of races of animals as between ourselves and chimpanzees groups that started as one, but later split involve changes in the amount rather and became separated, usually by a geo- than in the nature of gene products. graphical barrier. As the two groups Human beings and chimpanzees share evolve independently, they gradually proteins that produce body hair and diverge genetically. The divergences will brains, but in chimpanzees these pro- occur more quickly if the separate envi- teins produce more hair and less brains. ronments differ, but they will occur in Why this should be so is still far from any case since different mutations will being fully understood. But this is a inevitably occur in the two populations, research area that is advancing very rap- and some of them will persist. This is idly, and there are good genetic leads to most apparent in island populations, be followed up. where each island is separate and there is Of course, not every human difference no migration between them. Each one has a genetic cause. Many are environ- has its own characteristic types. In much mental, or are the result of interactions of the animal world, however, and also between genes and environment. Even in the human species, complete isolation genetically identical twins develop into is very rare. The genetic uniformity of distinct individuals. geographical groups is constantly being The ability to learn a language is large- destroyed by migration between them. ly innate, built into the nervous system In particular, the major geographical of all normal people, as demonstrated so groups–African, European, and beautifully in the effortless way in which Asian–are mixed, and this is especially young children learn to speak. But the true in the United States, which is some- particular language any individual learns thing of a melting pot. obviously depends on the social setting. Because of this mixing, many anthro- Mozart was a great composer partly pologists argue, quite reasonably, that because of his genes and partly because there is no scienti½c justi½cation for of his training. Ramanujan had a great applying the word “race” to populations talent for mathematics, but without his of human beings. But the concept itself being exposed to a textbook–not a very is unambiguous, and I believe that the good one, by the way–he could never word has a clear meaning to most peo- have made his astounding discoveries. ple. The dif½culty is not with the con- Michael Jordan has a talent for basket- cept, but with the realization that major ball, but it would never have developed human races are not pure races. Unlike had he grown up among the Inuits. those anthropologists who deny the use- fulness of the term, I believe that the Just as there are great differences among word “race” can be meaningfully applied individuals, there are average differ- to groups that are partially mixed. ences, usually much smaller, between Different diseases are demonstrably groups. Italians and Swedes differ in hair characteristic of different racial and eth- color. Sometimes the differences are nic groups. Sickle cell anemia, for exam- more conspicuous, such as the contrast- ple, is far more prevalent among people ing skin color and hair shape of Africans of African descent than among Euro-

84 Dædalus Winter 2002 peans. Obesity is especially common in Asian Americans represent about 12 Unequal Pima Indians, the result of the sudden percent of the California population, yet by nature acquisition of a high-calorie diet to they represent 45 percent of the student which Europeans have had enough time body at the University of California at to adjust. Tay-Sachs disease is much Berkeley. Asians have only slightly high- more common in the Jewish population. er average sat scores than Caucasians, There are other examples, and new ones but the university’s policy of admitting are being discovered constantly. students with the highest sat scores has The evidence indicating that some dis- yielded a much larger proportion from eases disproportionately afflict speci½c the group with the higher mean. ethnic and racial groups does not ordi- Two populations may have a large narily provoke controversy. Far more overlap and differ only slightly in their contentious is the evidence that some means. Still, the most outstanding indi- skills and behavioral properties are dif- viduals will tend to come from the popu- ferentially distributed among different lation with the higher mean. The impli- racial groups. There is strong evidence cation, I think, is clear: whenever an that such racial differences are partly institution or society singles out individ- genetic, but the evidence is more indi- uals who are exceptional or outstanding rect and has not been convincing to in some way, racial differences will everyone. become more apparent. That fact may To any sports observer it is obvious be uncomfortable, but there is no way that among Olympic jumpers and around it. sprinters, African Americans are far The fact that racial differences exist more numerous than their frequency in does not, of course, explain their origin. the population would predict. The dis- The cause of the observed differences proportion is enormous. Yet we also may be genetic. But it may also be envi- know that there are many white people ronmental, the result of diet, or family who are better runners and jumpers structure, or schooling, or any number than the average black person. How can of other possible biological and social we explain this seeming inconsistency? factors. There is actually a simple explanation My conclusion, to repeat, is that that is well known to geneticists and whenever a society singles out individu- statisticians, but not widely understood als who are outstanding or unusual in by the general public or, for that matter, any way, the statistical contrast between by political leaders. Consider a quantita- means and extremes comes to the fore. I tive trait that is distributed according to think that recognizing this can eventual- the normal, bell-shaped curve. iq can ly only help politicians and social policy- serve as an example. About one person makers. in 750 has an iq of 148 or higher. In a population with an average of about 108 These are times of very rapid change in rather than 100, hardly a noticeable dif- our understanding of biological process- ference, about 5 times as many will be in es. The genome project is but one exam- this high range. In a population averag- ple. At the same time, we are getting ing 8 points lower, there will be about 6 much closer to a deep understanding of times fewer. A small difference of 8 the nervous system and of human be- points in the mean translates to several- havior. Medical knowledge improves, as fold differences in the extremes. does data collection and computer

Dædalus Winter 2002 85 James F. analysis. All of these tell us more about that in the past has depended on obser- Crow on individual and group differences. What vation and statistical analysis of often inequality will be the impact of this new knowledge vaguely de½ned traits. We shall be able, on societal issues? What are the political as individuals, to know a great deal implications of modern biology? about our own genetic makeup. We have seen that the dna sequence The magni½cent advances in molecu- similarities revealed by the genome proj- lar biology will bring new depths of ect, valuable as these are for answering understanding of human differences, many interesting and important ques- normal and pathological, and the extent tions, are misleading in regard to impor- to which these are genetic or environ- tant human differences. But this situa- mental–or, as usually will be the case, tion is rapidly changing. The current both. Whether society will accept this emphasis goes beyond simple dna knowledge willingly and use it wisely I sequences to identifying the individual don’t know. My hope is that gradual genes, their products, and their complex progress, starting with small beginnings, interactions. At the same time, not only can lead to rational individual behavior the kinds of gene products (usually pro- and thoughtful, humanitarian social teins) but their relative amounts are policies. being investigated by much sharper new tools. Genes differ greatly in their pro- It is important for society to do a better ductivity, including differences in activi- job than it now does in accepting differ- ty in different parts of the body. ences as a fact of life. New forms of sci- In the near future, biologists will be enti½c knowledge will point out more able to tell us much more than we now and more ways in which we are diverse. I know about the genetic and environ- hope that differences will be welcomed, mental causes of human differences. The rather than accepted grudgingly. Who most obvious and immediate human wants a world of identical people, even if bene½ts will be in medicine. We can they are Mozarts or Jordans? foresee the time when many–we can A good society ought to provide the hope most–of our individual suscepti- best kind of environment for each per- bilities to disease will be understood, so son and each population. We already do that the disease can be predicted in this in part. We give lessons to musically advance, allowing doctors to anticipate gifted children. We encourage athletes and tailor treatments for the particular and give them special training (and person. Small steps in this direction have sometimes dubious drugs). Students already been made. New treatments are elect courses according to their abilities under development. As a result of our and interests. We have special classes for genetic understanding, we also now bet- those with disabilities, and such classes ter understand how to manipulate the are becoming more speci½c as the causes environment in order to help prevent of the disabilities are understood. disease. We cannot, of course, tailor-make a At the same time, the study of gene special environment for every individ- products and their regulation is being ual, but we can continue to move in this extended to normal traits. We can expect direction. Finding a genetic basis for a that the molecular biology of the future, trait doesn’t mean that environment is perhaps the quite near future, will pro- unimportant. Indeed, more environ- vide precisely the kind of information mental influences on the human organ-

86 Dædalus Winter 2002 ism are constantly being discovered, What about physicians? There may Unequal often through genetic studies. well be social considerations, perhaps by nature A test of our democratic institutions temporary ones in our society, that will be the degree to which people can would make race more important than accept all our differences and ½nd ways test scores in selecting students for med- to ½t them into a smooth-working, hu- ical schools. manitarian society. And I argue that we To achieve political and social equality should strive not only for maximum per- it is not necessary to maintain a ½ction sonal satisfaction but for maximum con- that important human differences do tribution; each of us owes society the not exist. The great evolutionist Theo- fruits of our special gifts. I believe dosius Dobzhansky said it well: “People strongly that research into the genetic need not be identical twins to be equal and environmental causes of human dif- before God, before the law, and in their ferences should continue and be sup- rights to equality of opportunity.” ported. The newer procedures brought I have emphasized that people differ, about by molecular advances and com- and differ greatly. They differ not only in puters will greatly accelerate discover- shapes and sizes, but also in abilities and ies. talents. They also differ in tastes and I believe that knowledge, even preferences. As Shaw said, “Do not do unpleasant knowledge, is far preferable unto others as you would that they to ignorance. I hope that American soci- should do unto you. Their tastes may ety can be less fearful of learning the not be the same.” Society’s business, I truth about biological inequalities and think, is not to minimize individual dif- more courageous in using discoveries in ferences. We shouldn’t try to ½t people ways that are humanitarian and pro- into one mold. mote human welfare. While I expect that science will con- The question of equal opportunity tinue to provide us with further evi- versus equal outcomes becomes particu- dence of human variability, and while I larly vexing in those occupations and welcome such variability as a source of professions for which only a small frac- social enrichment, there are some kinds tion of a population can qualify. I have of human variability that we could well already mentioned the gross overrepre- do without. I refer to serious, painful, sentation of African Americans among debilitating diseases. Many of these are Olympic runners. This is closer to a true the result of an unlucky throw of the meritocracy than anything else I can genetic dice. Already there are ways of think of: a stopwatch is color-blind. In discovering, preventing, and treating this case, there seems to be no social some of them. More treatments are sure purpose in demanding equal racial rep- to come. I hope they will be accepted resentation. willingly and used responsibly. I for one In some important professions, such would be content if the genes for Tay- as physics and engineering, Asian Amer- Sachs disease and Duchenne muscular icans are overrepresented and African dystrophy were to become extinct, along Americans underrepresented. We pre- with the malaria parasite and aids sumably get better research because of virus. I hope the great humanitarian this. This may or may not outweigh the bene½ts that could come from genetic inequity of unequal group representa- research will not be held up by fears of tion. That is a social decision. possible future misuse.

Dædalus Winter 2002 87 James F. Let me leave the last word for Jim Crow on Watson, co-discoverer of the double inequality helix and a major ½gure in the genome project: If the next century witnesses failure, let it be because our science is not yet up to the job, not because we don’t have the cour- age to make less random the sometimes most unfair courses of human evolution.

88 Dædalus Winter 2002 Ernst Mayr

The biology of race and the concept of equality

There are words in our language that human; races occur in a large percentage seem to lead inevitably to controversy. of species of animals. You can read in This is surely true for the words “equali- every textbook on evolution that geo- ty” and “race.” And yet among well- graphic races of animals, when isolated informed people, there is little disagree- from other races of their species, may in ment as to what these words should due time become new species. The terms mean, in part because various advances “subspecies” and “geographic race” are in biological science have produced a used interchangeably in this taxonomic better understanding of the human con- literature. dition. This at once raises a question: are Let me begin with race. There is a there races in the human species? After widespread feeling that the word “race” all, the characteristics of most animal indicates something undesirable and races are strictly genetic, while human that it should be left out of all discus- races have been marked by nongenetic, sions. This leads to such statements as cultural attributes that have very much “there are no human races.” affected their overt characteristics. Per- Those who subscribe to this opinion formance in human activities is influ- are obviously ignorant of modern biolo- enced not only by the genotype but also gy. Races are not something speci½cally by culturally acquired attitudes. What would be ideal, therefore, would be to partition the phenotype of every human Ernst Mayr is Alexander Agassiz Professor of individual into genetic and cultural com- Zoology, Emeritus, at Harvard University. His ponents. work contributed to the synthesis of Mendelian Alas, so far we have not yet found any genetics and Darwinian evolution, and to the reliable technique to do this. What we development of the biological species concept. The can do is acknowledge that any recorded author of many books, including “Animal Species differences between human races are and Evolution” (1963) and “The Growth of Bio- probably composed of cultural as well as logical Thought” (1982), Mayr in 1999 received genetic elements. Indeed, the cause of the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Acad- many important group differences may emy of Sciences for his contributions to our under- turn out to be entirely cultural, without standing of biological evolution. Mayr has been a any genetic component at all. Fellow of the American Academy since 1953. Still, if I introduce you to an Eskimo

Dædalus Winter 2002 89 Ernst Mayr and a Kalahari Bushman I won’t have tion is subject to selection by the local on inequality much trouble convincing you that they environment. There is now a large litera- belong to different races. ture on the environmental factors that In a recent textbook of taxonomy, I may influence the geographic variation de½ned a “geographic race” or sub- of a species. For example, populations of species as “an aggregate of phenotypical- warm-blooded vertebrates (mammals ly similar populations of a species inhab- and birds) in the colder part of their geo- iting a geographic subdivision of the graphical range tend to larger size range of that species and differing taxo- (Bergmann’s rule). Darwin wondered nomically from other populations of whether these climatic factors were suf- that species.” A subspecies is a geo- ½cient to account for the differences graphic race that is suf½ciently different between geographic races in the human taxonomically to be worthy of a separate species. He ½nally concluded that sexual name. What is characteristic of a geo- selection, the preference of women for graphic race is, ½rst, that it is restricted certain types of men, might be another to a geographic subdivision of the range factor leading to differences between of a species, and second, that in spite of geographic races. certain diagnostic differences, it is part This kind of biological analysis is nec- of a larger species. essary but not suf½cient. By itself, biolo- No matter what the cause of the racial gy cannot explain the vehemence of the difference might be, the fact that species modern controversy over race. Histori- of organisms may have geographic races cally, the word “race” has had very dif- has been demonstrated so frequently ferent meanings for different people that it can no longer be denied. And the holding different political philosophies. geographic races of the human races– Furthermore, in the last two hundred established before the voyages of Euro- years there has been a change in the pean discovery and subsequent rise of a dominant philosophy of race. global economy–agree in most charac- In the eighteenth century, when Amer- teristics with the geographic races of ica’s Constitution was written, all our animals. Recognizing races is only recog- concepts were dominated by the think- nizing a biological fact. ing of the physical sciences. Classes of entities were conceived in terms of Pla- Still, the biological fact by itself does tonic essentialism. Each class (eidos) cor- not foreclose giving various answers to responded to a de½nite type that was the question, What is race? In particular, constant and invariant. Variation never adherence to different political and entered into discussions because it was moral philosophies, as we shall see, per- considered to be “accidental” and hence mits rather different answers. But I irrelevant. A different race was consid- believe it is useful at the outset to brack- ered a different type. A white European et the cultural factors and explore some was a different type from a black of the implications of a strictly biologi- African. This went so far that certain cal approach. authors considered the human races to The evolutionary literature explains be different species. why there are geographic races. Every It was the great, and far too little local population of a species has its own appreciated, achievement of Charles gene pool with its own mutations and Darwin to have replaced this typological errors of sampling. And every popula- approach by what we now call population

90 Dædalus Winter 2002 thinking. In this new thinking, the biolog- superior; put a Bushman and an Eskimo The biology ical uniqueness of every individual is on the Greenland ice and the Eskimo is of race recognized, and the inhabitants of a cer- by far superior. The Australian Aborig- tain geographic region are considered a ines were very successful in colonizing biopopulation. In such a biopopulation, Australia around sixty thousand years no two individuals are the same, and this ago and developed local races with their is true even for the six billion humans own culture. Yet they could not defend now on Earth. And, most important, themselves against European invaders. each biopopulation is highly variable, What happened to the human popula- and its individuals greatly differ from tion in this case of European coloniza- each other, thanks to the unique genetic tion is comparable to what happened to combinations that result from this vari- the biota of New Zealand–a case that ability. Darwin studied. When British animals Let me illustrate the implications of and plants were introduced into New individual differences by analyzing the Zealand, many native species were not outcome of the 2001 Boston marathon. able to cope with this new competition Kenyans are a population famous for and became extinct. In both cases, the producing long-distance runners. Three success of the European populations of Kenyans had entered the race, and it was plants, animals, and colonists may have predicted that they would end the race as been simply due to a constellation of numbers one, two, and three. However, favorable geographic factors. There is no to everybody’s great surprise, the winner evidence at all that it was due to some was a Korean, and, even more surpris- intrinsic genetic “superiority.” ingly, number two was an Ecuadorian When dealing with human races we from a population that had never been must think of them as the inhabitants of credited with long-distance running the geographic region in which they had abilities. It was a clear refutation of a originated. Presumably each human race typological–or essentialist–approach consists of individuals who, on average to thinking about race. and in certain ways, are demonstrably In a Darwinian population, there is superior to the average individual of great variation around a mean value. another race. Eskimos, for instance, are This variation has reality, while the superior in their adaptedness to cold. In mean value is simply an abstraction. the last four or ½ve Olympics there were One must treat each individual on the always six to eight contenders of African basis of his or her own unique abilities, descent among the ten ½nalists in the and not on the basis of the group’s mean sprinting races, surely not an accidental value. percentage. At the same time, nothing could be more meaningless than to evaluate races These considerations should teach us in terms of their putative “superiority.” how we should think about human Superiority where, when, and under races. A human race consists of the what circumstances? During the period descendants of a once-isolated geo- of the development of the human races, graphical population primarily adapted each one became adapted to the condi- for the environmental conditions of tion of its geographic location. Put a their original home country. But, as is Bushman and an Eskimo in the Kalahari illustrated by the success of Europeans Desert and the Bushman is very much and Africans and Asians in all parts of

Dædalus Winter 2002 91 Ernst Mayr the world, any race is capable of living It is generally unwise to assume that on inequality anywhere. Most importantly, a race is every apparent difference in traits always highly variable: any human race between populations of human beings will include a wide variety of extraordi- has a biological cause. In a recent apti- nary individuals who excel in very dif- tude test administered in California, stu- ferent human abilities. dents of Asian descent did conspicuous- When comparing one race with anoth- ly better than students of African er, we do ½nd genes that are on the descent. Researchers evaluating these whole speci½c for certain populations. results subsequently discovered that in Many individuals of Native American the year preceding the test, the Asian- descent have the Diego blood group fac- American students had spent a daily tors, and people of Jewish descent have a average of three hours on homework, propensity for Tay-Sachs disease. Some while the African-American students of these characteristics are virtually had done virtually no homework at all. diagnostic, but most are merely quanti- The test results by themselves cannot tative, like the description of the human tell us what percentage of the superior races in older anthropology textbooks performance by the Asian-American stu- describing skin color, hair, eye color, dents was due to their genetic endow- body size, etc. An ensemble of such ment and what percentage to the cultur- characteristics usually permits classify- al trait of being better prepared for the ing an individual in the relevant race. All test thanks to spending, on the whole, these characteristics are nevertheless far more time on homework than the highly variable, and it is virtually impos- African-American students did. sible to classify every individual de½ni- One can conclude from these observa- tively, especially in those areas where tions that although there are certain one geographic race merges into another genetic differences between races, there (as is true, for example, for the human is no genetic evidence whatsoever to jus- population of modern-day America). tify the uncomplimentary evaluation Curiously, when people make deroga- that members of one race have some- tory statements about members of other times made of members of other races. races, they often do not refer to biologi- There simply is no biological basis for cal traits at all, but rather to putative racism. character traits: members of a certain Indeed, what is far more important racial group are said to be lazy, dishon- than the differences between human est, unreliable, thievish, arrogant, etc. races is the enormous variation within There is no scienti½c evidence of a each racial group. We must always keep genetic basis for any such negative traits. in mind that no two human beings– There is also no scienti½c evidence even so-called identical twins–are in known to me that the genetic differences fact genetically identical. When encoun- we do discover among the human races tering a lying member of another race, have any influence at all on personality. nothing would be more illogical–and Most of the mentioned undesirable per- unjust–than to conclude that all mem- sonality traits, if they are at all correlated bers of that race are liars. Likewise, if with speci½c human populations, are one encountered a particularly warm- obviously cultural and therefore open to hearted member of a different race, it change through appropriate forms of would be equally foolish to conclude education. that all members of that race are equally

92 Dædalus Winter 2002 warmhearted. To avoid such mistakes, it Middlemarch, there was even a rank The biology is useful to apply the population think- order within each of these major classes. of race ing pioneered by Darwin. As a historian of science, I am inclined It also helps to adopt the motto “They to believe that the scienti½c revolution are like us.” This was my motto more of the eighteenth century helped to pro- than seventy years ago when I became mote new ways of thinking about equal- one of the ½rst outsiders to visit a native ity. From the perspective of Newtonian village in the interior of New Guinea. essentialism, all samples of a chemical Invariably, they are like us. Whenever I element are identical and, as modern lived with one of these relatively isolat- physics assumes, so are nuclear parti- ed populations of human beings for any cles. Equality of this sort is a universal length of time, it did not take me long to phenomenon. Perhaps it was only a discover the differences in the personali- small step from Newtonian essentialism ties of the individuals with whom I had to the moral proposition that all human to deal. The rule that no individuals are beings are essentially equal, and there- the same was as true for the Stone Age fore should have equal rights. natives of New Guinea as it is for a As is true of the word “race,” “equali- group of my Harvard colleagues. A lot of ty” has come to mean different things to our human dif½culties are due to people different people. I take it for granted forgetting the simple rule that no two that every good American accepts the people are the same. principle of civil equality. This means equal opportunity, equality before the So what, if anything, does biology, and law, and equality in social interactions. speci½cally the biological understanding To have elaborated this principle is one of race, have to teach us about the con- of the glorious achievements of the cept of equality? American Revolution. In the ½rst place, the biological facts Still, the principle cannot in many may help to remind us just how new the contexts be applied concretely, for the political concept of equality really is. kinds of biological reasons I have When we look at social species of ani- already discussed. No two human indi- mals, we discover that there is always a viduals are genetically the same. Para- rank order. There may be an alpha-male doxically, it is precisely because the or an alpha-female, and all other indi- human population is genetically and cul- viduals of the group fall somewhere turally so diverse that we need a princi- below them in the rank order. ple of civil equality. Anybody should be A similar rank-ordering has long able to enjoy the bene½ts of our liberal marked many human societies as well. society in spite of differences of religion, During the years I lived in a small village race, or socioeconomic status. Regard- of Papuans in the mountains of New less of whether the difference in per- Guinea, the local chief had three wives, formance between individuals, or two other high-ranking members of the vil- groups, has biological or purely cultural lage had one, and a number of “inferior” causes, it is our moral obligation to see tribesmen had no wives at all. Nine- to it that each individual and group has teenth-century British society distin- an equal opportunity. The great British guished clearly between aristocrats, gen- geneticist J. B. S. Haldane asked what we tlemen, and common workingmen. As can do to provide equal opportunities to George Eliot describes in the novel all members of our society, regardless of

Dædalus Winter 2002 93 Ernst Mayr any differences in ability. He said we European feudal societies of the four- on inequality simply have to provide more opportuni- teenth to the eighteenth century were ties, we must diversify our educational typical. curricula, and we must offer new incen- · Democracy, including the principle of tives. civil equality, emerged during the Enlightenment and became fully These reflections on the biology of race established through the American Rev- and the concept of equality suggest the olution and incorporated in the Con- following conclusions: stitution of the new American repub- · Every single human being is biological- lic. ly unique and differs in major charac- · When Thomas Jefferson proclaimed teristics even from close relatives. that “all men are created equal,” he · Geographical groups of humans, what failed to distinguish between the civil biologists call races, tend to differ from equality of individual human beings each other in mean differences and and their biological uniqueness. Even sometimes even in speci½c single though all of us are in principle equal genes. But when it comes to the capaci- before the law and ought to enjoy an ties that are required for the optimal equality of opportunity, we may be functioning of our society, I am sure very different in our preferences and that the performance of any individual aptitudes. And if this is ignored, it may in any racial group can be matched by well lead to discord. that of some individual in another · It is our obligation to overcome the racial group. This is what a population seeming conflict between a strict analysis reveals. upholding of civil equality and the vast · In small groups of primitive human biological and cultural differences beings, just as in all groups created by among individual human beings and social animals, there is a rank order, groups of individuals. The introduc- with certain individuals being domi- tion of new educational measures and nant. even legislation to overcome existing inequalities will be successful only if · In the large human societies that devel- oped after the origin of agriculture and based on a full understanding of the the rise of cities, new systems of rank- underlying biological and cultural fac- ing became established, of which the tors.

94 Dædalus Winter 2002 Martha C. Nussbaum

Sex, laws, and inequality: what India can teach the United States

In every house there is fear. night. Because her sleeping-car reserva- Let’s do away with that fear. tion had not yet been con½rmed, she Let’s build a women’s organization. contacted the train ticket examiner, who asked her to wait in the ladies’ waiting –“Mahila Samiti” (“A Women’s Organi- room. At around 5 p.m., two railway zation”), song sung all over India in of½cials came to con½rm her sleeping women’s groups berth; they also offered to show her to the station’s restaurant, where she could Hanuffa Khatoon, a citizen of get dinner before the departure. Ms. Bangladesh and also an elected of½cial of Khatoon followed a station-boy to the that nation’s Union Board, arrived at restaurant and ordered some food, but Howrah Station in Calcutta, India, on immediately began to vomit. She the afternoon of February 26, 1998, plan- returned to the ladies’ waiting room, ning to catch the Jodhpur Express that quite ill. The railway of½cials then offered to take her to the of½cial station hotel managed by the Railways Board. Martha C. Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distin- She insisted on checking their creden- guished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the tials ½rst, but when the of½cial on duty University of Chicago, is appointed in the philoso- at the ladies’ waiting room told her that phy department, Law School, and Divinity their credentials were in order, she School. She is an associate in the classics depart- agreed to go. In the hotel room she was ment, an af½liate of the Committee on Southern brutally gang raped for several hours by Asian Studies, and a member of the board of the a group of four station employees. Final- Center for Gender Studies. She has been a Fellow ly she escaped and returned to the plat- of the American Academy since 1988. Former form, bleeding and in a state of shock. president of the American Philosophical Associa- There she found another railway of½cial tion (Central Division), Nussbaum chaired the who pretended to assist her. He said he association’s Committee on the Status of Women would take her to his wife, who would as well as its Committee on International Cooper- take care of her until she could get ation. Her most recent books are “Women and another train in the morning. At the Human Development: The Capabilities wife’s alleged residence she was brutally Approach” (2000) and “Upheavals of Thought: gang raped again, and two of the em- The Intelligence of Emotions” (2001). ployees tried to suffocate her. Hearing

Dædalus Winter 2002 95 Martha C. her cries, the landlord called the police, voting slips, with her number on them, Nussbaum who ½nally rescued her.1 to be given to voters on election day.2 A on inequality What is signi½cant–and speci½cally gentle, soft-spoken woman, Poonam Indian–about this story, however, is not Devi has for two years been president of the sad fact of gang rape, familiar a woman’s collective, where she has throughout recorded history in all helped to arrange loans for all ½fteen nations. What is signi½cant is its members of her group. dénouement. What is most astonishing about Two years later, in an unprecedented Poonam Devi’s campaign, however, is judgment, Ms. Khatoon won a large not the fact of her candidacy–but the damage award from the Railways Board. fact that she is running against her hus- It was a landmark case in which the band, who is af½liated with the bjp Supreme Court of India declared rape to (Bharatiya Janata Party, the currently be a violation of the fundamental right dominant party nationwide, with a to live with human dignity, under both Hindu fundamentalist program). Origi- the Indian Constitution and the Uni- nally it was thought that this constituen- versal Declaration of Human Rights. cy would be among those reserved for “Rape,” wrote the Court, “is a crime not women in the current election, so only against the person of a woman, it is Poonam Devi’s husband groomed her a crime against the entire society. It for candidacy, assuming that he would destroys the entire psychology of a be unable to run. But when the electoral woman and pushes her into deep emo- plan was announced, the constituency tional crisis. Rape is therefore the most was not reserved for women, and the hated crime. It is a crime against basic husband could run. But Poonam Devi human rights and is violative of the vic- decided to run anyway, with support tim’s most cherished right, namely, right from her parents and brothers. Her hus- to life which includes right to live with band asked her to withdraw, but she human dignity. . . .” refused. He is angry. After all, he says, she is a weak and insigni½cant candidate It is a mid-April evening in Bihar, in next to him. He is educated, he owns northeastern India. A woman is sitting some land, he has been a teacher–and, with her brother in the backyard of her he points out, he is even unemployed, so mud hut in a poor area of this state, one he has lots of time for the council. A of the most corrupt and anarchic in the reporter from the national news media nation. Women have traditionally had asks Poonam Devi, “Why are you ½ght- little political power in Bihar, where, in ing against your husband?” She ques- some regions, the sex ratio is as low as tions right back: “Why can’t I ½ght the 75 women to 100 men–a ½gure indica- elections, husband or no husband? Why tive of the differential nutrition and can’t a woman and a man be candidates health care of girls, sex-selective abor- from the same family?” Her platform tion, and, probably, outright infanticide. focuses on unemployment, the old-age But Poonam Devi, mother of two girls, is pension, and the insecure economic a candidate for election to her panchayat, or local council, and she is arranging the 2 In Indian elections, voters receive slips with the symbol of each candidate, and they then deposit the slip of their choice in the box–a 1 Chairman, Railway Board v. Mrs. Chandrima procedure designed to make voting easy for Das air 2000, SC 988. illiterate voters.

96 Dædalus Winter 2002 position of single women and widows.3 boyfriend, husband, or date.4) Sex, laws, and The outcome of Poonam Devi’s candi- Nor is lack of political power a distant inequality dacy remains unclear. What is clear, dif½culty. Women in the United States however, is that the Seventy-Second and hold only 13.8 percent of its national leg- Seventy-Third Amendments to India’s islative seats–one of the lowest ½gures constitution, which establish a bold pro- among the developed nations, according gram of af½rmative action for women in to the Human Development Report 2001. the local panchayats, are bringing large And in no nation does the ½gure come numbers of women into politics all over very close to equality: Sweden and Den- India, with clear results for the salience mark take the lead, with 42.7 percent and of issues pertaining to the welfare of 37.4 percent, respectively; outside the women and children. Nordic countries, the highest ½gures are for the Netherlands at 32.9 percent and Inequality on the basis of sex is a stag- Germany at 30.4 percent; highest in the gering problem worldwide. India is developing world is South Africa at 27.9 hardly unique in this regard. Women in percent. all nations–including the United But women are also contesting age-old States–still suffer serious inequalities forms of subordination with increasing in at least some central areas of human success, creating innovative proposals life. for change in both custom and law. And Gang rape is hardly a problem indige- sometimes nations that are widely per- nous to Calcutta: it is the regular fare of ceived as lagging behind the “advanced u.s. courts. (A recent showing of Law democracies” of the United States and and Order reruns managed to ½ll an Europe can actually take the lead, with entire evening with programs on this bold measures like those that altered the one theme, most of them based on real lives of Hanuffa Khatoon and Poonam stories.) And it is just one especially ter- Devi. rible aspect of the general worldwide In this essay I shall look at the problem problem of violence against women, a of women’s inequality through the lens problem that seems to be particularly of today’s India, a nation with both grave in the United States. (According to enormous gender problems and rich a report recently published in the Journal political creativity. I shall begin by offer- of the American Medical Association, one- ing a thumbnail sketch of the situation ½fth of the Massachusetts high-school of women in India and of the Indian girls studied have suffered some type of constitutional tradition, which has been violence from a date, either assault or remarkably woman-friendly, and discuss sexual violence. A recent national study conceptions of equality and the role of concludes that 25 percent of adult law that offer rich resources for those women have experienced violence from seeking to advance women’s position in a romantic partner. The Justice Depart- society. I shall then return to the cases ment estimates that more than 1.5 mil- with which I began, showing how a rea- lion u.s. women experience physical or sonable conception of af½rmative action sexual violence each year from a and a reasonable openness to the norms

3 See Mukul Sharma, “Bihar: Making of a Pan- 4 Erica Goode, “Study Says 20% of Girls chayat Election,” Economic and Political Weekly, Reported Abuse by a Date,” New York Times, 1 12 May 2001. August 2000, A10.

Dædalus Winter 2002 97 Martha C. of the international community (both deny to any person “equality before the Nussbaum on rather lacking in current u.s. politics) law or the equal protection of the laws.” inequality have enabled India to progress. Article 15 prohibits state discrimination “on grounds only of religion, race, caste, It is extraordinarily dif½cult to sum up sex, place of birth or any of them.” Oth- succinctly the situation of women in er rights that are highly relevant to sex India, since there is probably no nation equality include Article 13 (invalidating in the world with greater internal diver- all laws inconsistent with the Funda- sity and plurality. In what follows I shall mental Rights); Article 16 (equality of be mentioning some of those differences opportunity in public employment); (of caste, religion, regional background, Article 19 (protecting freedom of speech wealth and class, and still others). All and expression, freedom of association, generalizations cover multiple differ- freedom of travel, freedom of residence, ences. and freedom to form labor unions); India celebrated the ½ftieth anniver- Article 21 (stating that no citizen shall be sary of its independence from Britain on deprived of life or liberty “except ac- August 15, 1997. It is the world’s largest cording to procedure established by democracy, with a population of 846.3 law”); Article 23 (prohibition of traf½c million. It is a constitutional parliamen- in human beings and forced labor); and tary democracy, with a written account Article 25 (freedom of conscience and of Fundamental Rights containing the religion). (Article 17 abolishes untoucha- abolition of untouchability and an elab- bility: “its practice in any form is forbid- orate set of equality and nondiscrimina- den.”) tion provisions. Its legal system is in The understanding of equality in the some respects similar to (and modeled Constitution is explicitly aimed at secur- on) that of the United States, combining ing substantive equality for previously a basically common-law tradition with subordinated groups. The framers care- the constraints of a written constitution fully distanced their conception from including the extensive list of Funda- the idea, already familiar in those days, mental Rights. Its Supreme Court, like that equality requires treating everyone ours, is the ultimate interpreter of these the same and not using race or sex as rights. grounds for any type of differential treat- India’s Constitution is in some ways ment–an understanding that has been very attuned to issues of sex equality, used in the United States to subvert which were prominently debated when af½rmative action. In India, by contrast, the Constitution was adopted in 1950. the Constitution’s so-called Directive The framers of the Constitution were Principles of State Policy (a nonenforce- very conscious of deeply entrenched able section of the Constitution) devotes inequalities, both those based on caste a great deal of attention to promoting and those based on sex, and they made economic equality, and the Fundamental the removal of them one of their central Rights are themselves speci½ed in a way goals. The text of the Constitution is in that makes room for af½rmative-action many ways exemplary in its treatment of programs designed to advance the mate- issues of gender and sex, particularly in rial situation of women and the lower the section dealing with Fundamental castes. Rights. Thus, Article 15 states that “Nothing in Article 14 says that the state shall not this article shall prevent the State from

98 Dædalus Winter 2002 making any special provision for women de½ned by laws passed in Parliament, Sex, laws, and and children,” and that “Nothing in this but they assign to religious bodies con- inequality article. . . shall prevent the State from siderable power in the areas of marriage, making any special provision for the divorce, child custody, and property. advancement of any socially and educa- There are some individual secular laws tionally backward classes of citizens or of property, marriage, and divorce, but for the Scheduled Castes and the Sched- they do not form a system, and, because uled Tribes.” Similar clauses appear in one is typically classi½ed into a religious Article 16 (equality of opportunity in system at birth, it is not so easy for indi- public employment) and in Article 19 viduals to disengage themselves, partic- (various other rights and liberties). Even ularly when property is jointly owned in before independence, quotas and other family consortia (as it often is) from af½rmative-action measures for de- which individuals may not extricate prived groups were an accepted part of their shares. These systems of personal the Indian scene, and they became even law have made it uniquely dif½cult to more salient at independence. In short, end discrimination based on caste and the framers understood the goal of sex.6 To explore these dif½culties, how- equality in terms of an end to systematic ever, would take us rather far from our hierarchy and discrimination based on primary topic. both caste and sex. Unlike the United States, India is an In light of this tradition it is not sur- extremely poor nation. It ranks 115th out prising that India has long been a center of the 162 nations of the world on the of thought and planning about sex equal- Human Development Index of the 2001 ity, or that, when the United Nations Human Development Report. The average Development Programme needed a life expectancy at birth is 62.9 (as op- major report on gender and governance, posed to 80.8 in Japan, 76.8 in the United it turned the writing of this report over States, and somewhere between these to its New Delhi of½ce.5 two numbers in Canada and most of There is one great structural differ- Europe7), and infant mortality is high, ence between the Indian legal system at 70 for 1,000 live births (although this and the Anglo-American systems to represents a great decline from 165 in which it is related: India has no uniform 1960). code of civil law (even within each Women do even worse than men in region). Criminal law is uniform for the basic nutrition and health. If equal nation as a whole and is administered by nutrition and health were present, it is the state. But with the exception of com- mercial law, which was uniformly codi- 6 See my discussion in Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (New ½ed for the nation as a whole by the York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), British and has remained so, civil law chap. 3. remains the province of the various reli- gious systems of law–Hindu, Muslim, 7 Ireland and Denmark are the only nations in Western Europe to have lower life expectancy Parsi, and Christian. These systems are than the United States, although most of the nations of Eastern Europe and the former Sovi- 5 This report will be published shortly; its et Union also have lower expectancy. Also authors include citizens of India, Sri Lanka, and ahead of the United States are Australia, New the United States. (I wrote the introduction and Zealand, Israel, Hong Kong, Cyprus, Singapore, the discussion of issues of sex equality within and Malta; Costa Rica and Barbados are close the family.) (76.2 and 76.6, respectively).

Dædalus Winter 2002 99 Martha C. estimated that the sex ratio would be tion compulsory, these laws have little Nussbaum on approximately 103 women to 100 men. relation to reality. Many regions utterly inequality India’s sex ratio has not been even 1:1 at lack schools of any kind, just as they fre- any time since measurements began in quently lack reliable electricity, medical the early twentieth century. From a high services, water, and decent roads; many of 97 women to 100 men in 1901, the local functionaries are corrupt, and so ratio dropped steadily, reaching a low of teachers in many regions take pay with- around 93:100 in 1971; after a slight rise, out ever even showing up in the region it declined again even further, reaching where they are supposed to be teaching. 92.7:100 in 1991. These are of½cial ½g- In some rural areas, female literacy is as ures. Things are probably much worse, low as 5 percent. The national govern- at least in some regions. A house-to- ment, though well-intentioned, has done house count by a good ngo in rural little to ½ll these gaps, although some Bihar arrived at a ratio of 75:100, and a adult education programs have been similar count in a region of Karnataka established in some of the poorer states, found 65:100. Some of these differences and many nongovernmental organiza- should be attributed to the differential tions run both adult education programs nutrition of boys and girls and to un- and after-work programs for working equal health care, but sex-selective abor- girls. tion and active infanticide are playing an Still, this does not seem to be a neces- increasing role. A recent study by the sary or unbreakable pattern, since some Indian Association of Women’s Studies otherwise poor regions have done estimates that 10,000 female fetuses are extremely well. Kerala has adult literacy aborted every year. Some regions tell a of 90 percent and near-universal literacy very different story: Kerala, for example, among adolescent boys and girls. This has more women than men. (This situa- remarkable record is the outcome of tion results from a combination of rela- more than a hundred years of concerted tively female-friendly traditions and public action. Recently a constitutional gender-friendly state governance.) But amendment was introduced that would clearly, on the whole, women face spe- make the right to education a justiciable cial obstacles in India. fundamental right in India.8 It may be In education, the male-female gap is hoped that the passage of this amend- even more striking: the adult literacy ment will goad government into acting rate for women is 44.5 percent, as against more aggressively on its good intentions. 67.8 percent for men. (In China, the ½g- ures are 75.5 percent for women and 91.2 Among the greatest obstacles to fully percent for men.) Such statistics are equal citizenship that women face, in all hard to interpret, since local govern- nations, is their unequal exposure to sex- ments tend to be boastful and since it is based violence.9 In India the problem of hard to establish a clear measure of liter- acy. Yet what is unambiguously clear is 8 Amendment 83, to be inserted in the Funda- that, despite the fact that education is a mental Rights section of the Constitution as Article 21a. See the full text of the amendment state responsibility, India has done very in From the Lawyers Collective 13 (April 1998): 10. badly in basic education across the board, and even worse in basic educa- 9 For data on the United States, and the failure of law to deal adequately with these problems, tion for women. Although all Indian see chap. 5 of my Sex and Social Justice (New states have laws making primary educa- York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

100 Dædalus Winter 2002 violence against women is compounded, women’s groups also address domestic Sex, laws, and often, by the low age of marriage and the violence directly, and politicians such as inequality lack of economic options for a woman Poonam Devi ½ght to make life a bit fair- with little or no education. The marriage er for widows and single women, two of girls as young as four or six, although groups that suffer greatly from discrimi- long since illegal, is a common reality, nation and vulnerability to violence. especially in some regions where it is Rape, however–in India as in so many traditional. Laws against it are not other nations–has been badly dealt with enforced, and it shapes a girl’s life from under the law for many years, and the birth, often discouraging her family number of rapes appears to be on the from educating her. rise. It is easy to ½nd cases in which Within marriage, at all ages, domestic acquittal was secured on the grounds violence is so pervasive that three states that the woman was of low caste, or have adopted alcohol prohibition laws in “immodest,” even when there is ample response to women’s lobbying in an evidence of forcible rape in the particu- effort to reduce such violence. Police do lar instance. Rape is also used as a not aggressively investigate domestic weapon against women crusading for abuse, and virtually no women’s shel- political change. In 1993 Bhanwari Devi, ters exist. Rape within marriage is not a member of the state of Rajasthan’s even illegal. Thus, women who wish to Sathin movement for women’s welfare, protect themselves against marital vio- was campaigning against child marriage lence have few options. If they are not when she was gang-raped by men from a equipped for employment outside the community that supports the practice of home, they have virtually no exit op- child marriage. Because the men were tions; many women endure lives of influential community leaders, police abuse because they know that prostitu- refused to register the case until it was tion is their only alternative. too late to perform the necessary med- The problem of domestic violence is ical examination; a lower court in Jaipur being addressed, above all, through edu- acquitted all the accused. Although cation, credit, and economic options. Bhanwari appealed this judgment and Hundreds of nongovernmental organi- the Rajasthan High Court agreed in 1996 zations, from the large Self-Employed to hear her appeal, arguments in the case Women’s Association (sewa), with over have not yet been heard. ½fty thousand members, to the small vil- In general, delays in the criminal jus- lage-based women’s collective led by tice system often create a lapse of ten Poonam Devi, have been educating girls years between rape and court date, mak- and women outside the formal state ing it very dif½cult for women to pursue structure, lending them money, and their cases, even when they want to. teaching them employment-related Often they don’t want to, because a skills so that they can do something on woman’s sexual history is still admitted their own if they decide to leave a bad as evidence, and assumptions about the marriage. Education, credit, and the woman’s behavior and dress continue to reform of antiquated property laws to influence the resolution of rape trials. give women land rights in their own Defendants can usually win a continu- names are probably the three most sig- ance on the flimsiest of pretexts, and ni½cant strategies against domestic vio- their strategy typically is to delay and lence. At the same time, most local delay until the woman gives up the pros-

Dædalus Winter 2002 101 Martha C. ecution. A friend of mine who is a pro- Recently, however, the Supreme Court, Nussbaum on fessor of philosophy and women’s stud- at least, has shown greater sensitivity to inequality ies at University of Lucknow urged a for- the issue of sexual violence. Hanuffa mer student to pursue her rape com- Khatoon’s case shows a determination plaint and promised to join her in court to confront the problem head-on, using whenever the case surfaced–until, after the resources of the constitutional tradi- ½ve years, the woman had remarried, tion, which has already held that the and didn’t want to think about her rape right to life guaranteed in Article 21 any longer. includes a right to life with human digni- One case that spurred awareness of ty. (The landmark case was one defend- women’s grievances in this area was the ing the rights of the homeless.) In an 1979 case of Mathura, a sixteen-year-old earlier case not centrally dealing with tribal woman who was raped by two rape, the Court had already opined that policemen within a police compound. rape is a constitutional issue, and they The lower court acquitted the policemen quoted from that case at the outset of on the grounds that Mathura had eloped their opinion in Hanuffa Khatoon’s case, with her boyfriend and hence was declaring that rape is a “crime against “habituated to sexual intercourse”; they the entire society” because it “destroys thus reasoned that she could not be an the entire psychology of a woman.” It is unconsenting victim–therefore she was therefore a “crime against basic human not, technically, raped. The High Court rights” and a violation of the right to life overturned the decision, holding that with dignity guaranteed under Article 21. mere passive surrender under threat can- This judgment the justices then applied not be counted as consent to inter- to Ms. Khatoon’s gang rape by the rail- course. The Supreme Court, however, way employees. The justices argued, reinstated the lower court decision. moreover, that the fundamental right to This judgment triggered widespread life with dignity belongs not only to citi- public protest and publicity; rape and zens of India, but to all “persons” (like rape law were discussed widely and the Bangladeshi visitor Ms. Khatoon) openly for the ½rst time. Four Delhi Uni- within the territory of India. versity law professors wrote a petition to Then, in a most interesting discussion, the Supreme Court calling for a rehear- the courts pointed out that the Funda- ing of the case. The petition, unfortu- mental Rights are closely modeled on nately, was dismissed. It did, however, the list of rights in the un’s Universal energize the women’s movement to Declaration of Human Rights. They demand legal change. More important, a mention particularly the declaration’s law commission was set up by the gov- emphasis on equal human dignity (Arti- ernment to consider changes in rape law. cle 1); the right to life, liberty, and secu- One signi½cant result was a shift in the rity of person (Article 3); the prohibition burden of proof in custodial rape cases, of “cruel, inhuman or degrading treat- as well as a set of mandatory minimum ment” (Article 5); the guarantee of sentences for rape. Other feminist de- nondiscrimination and the equal protec- mands, such as the demand that a tion of the laws (Article 7); and the pro- woman’s prior sexual history should not hibition of arbitrary detention (Article be deemed relevant evidence, were not 9). They argue that the purpose of the included in the version of the new legis- section on Fundamental Rights in the lation that was passed in 1982. Indian Constitution was to enact the

102 Dædalus Winter 2002 Universal Declaration and “to safeguard India. In another signi½cant judgment Sex, laws, and the basic human rights from the vicissi- concerning sexual harassment, the inequality tudes of political controversy. . . .” This Supreme Court ruled that the guidelines being so, the meaning of the word “life” on harassment in the Convention on the in the Indian Constitution can be fur- Elimination of All Forms of Discrimina- ther interpreted with reference to the tion Against Women (cedaw) are bind- declaration. They note that earlier ing on the nation through its rati½cation Supreme Court decisions have already of that treaty.12 In this way the universal given “life” a broad construction, human rights guaranteed in treaties may including the idea of life with human enter a nation without violation of its dignity. Since gang rape is obviously democratic sovereignty and after due inconsistent with human dignity, and deliberation by the body that has been the rape was committed by government entrusted with the interpretation of fun- employees, the judgment of the Calcutta damental rights. High Court awarding Ms. Khatoon dam- In short, when a nation understands ages from the Railways Board was itself to be a member of the world com- upheld. munity, committed to taking its treaty This creative judgment shows how a obligations seriously, creative legal legal tradition can be fruitfully mined to change may ensue. Unfortunately, the give women redress against violence. United States is currently reverting to Thus far, it has a function similar to that old isolationist habits, giving the of the u.s. Violence Against Women impression that it does not need to con- Act, passed by Congress in 1994, which sult with any other nation and that it is offered victims of sex crimes a federal powerful enough to show disdain for the avenue of redress, given the evident world community. unevenness and unreliability of the criminal justice system in the states.10 The surprising candidacy of Poonam (Of course, our Supreme Court, moving Devi also is the fruit of creative constitu- in the opposite direction from its Indian tional thinking. At the time of India’s counterpart, has declared the 1994 Vio- founding, in keeping with the generally lence Against Women Act unconstitu- substantive understanding of equality in tional on the grounds that it allegedly its Constitution, various schemes of exceeds the power of Congress.11) But af½rmative action on behalf of tradi- the Indian Supreme Court’s judgment tionally subordinated groups were con- shows something more: it shows that a templated. The Constitution created a national legal tradition may deepen and system of representation meant to strengthen its fundamental rights reflect the proportion of every caste and through incorporation of the rights tribe in the total population of each guaranteed in the international docu- state. The system works by a complex ments it has rati½ed. scheme of rotations: in successive elec- This move has been made before in tions, only members of certain groups may run for of½ce, although all citizens 10 On this issue see Stephen J. Schulhofer, Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the 12 Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1997, 6 SCC Failure of Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni- 241. Compare the invocation of CEDAW as versity Press, 1998). binding on the nation in a nationality case in Botswana: Attorney General v. Unity Dow, 1992 11 U.S. v. Morrison, 120 S. Ct. 1740 (2000). LRC (Cons) 623 (July 2, 1992).

Dædalus Winter 2002 103 Martha C. may vote. Despite controversy and many arguing that they would compromise the Nussbaum on complaints, the system seems to have struggle for women’s full equality. At inequality worked reasonably well, effectively independence, accordingly, reservations enfranchising a variety of previously dis- for women were rejected, although, as advantaged groups and promoting their noted above, af½rmative action on the economic and social well-being. There is basis of sex won general support in the little doubt that it would have been dif½- Constitution. In 1971, the government cult to achieve progress against the appointed a Committee on the Status of deeply entrenched realities of caste Women in India to study the progress without such af½rmative legal measures. that had been made by women since On the other hand, legitimate objec- independence. In its famous 1974 report tions can be made to the system. First of Towards Equality, the committee deliv- all, no reserved seats have ever been cre- ered a scathing critique of the political ated or even seriously championed for process, arguing that the political posi- Muslims, arguably as vulnerable a tion of women in India had, if anything, minority as the Scheduled Castes and worsened since 1950, and that women Tribes. Second, the practice of reserva- were neither able to claim their legal tion has led over time to a situation in rights nor, in many cases, even aware of which castes at the very bottom of the them. The majority of the committee social ladder do considerably better than continued to oppose reserved seats as a those just above them. Thus, more remedy, but a minority report signed by recently, as a result of the 1980 report of some especially prominent feminist the Mandal Commission, reservations leaders argued that this remedy was nec- for obcs (Other Backward Castes) were essary for the resumption of social and added to the list. (Estimates of the pro- political progress for women. portion of India’s population that A generation later, the representation belongs to obc groups range from 25 of women in central and state govern- percent to 37 percent, and many of these ment continues to be very low: 6–7 per- people are economically advantaged. cent in the Lok Sabha (the analogue of Thus it can now be argued that the sys- the House of Commons), one of the low- tem of reservations no longer protects est parliamentary ½gures in the world. the most vulnerable and otherwise Political parties have talked about unrepresented groups.) As a result of the reserving a certain proportion of their system of representation, a politics of own candidacies for women, but have caste has to some extent displaced a poli- done nothing about it. At the same time, tics of national issues, and recent gov- women’s voter turnout has signi½cantly ernmental instability at both regional increased and is now at 55 percent, only and national levels can be partially slightly less than the national average. In attributed to the proliferation of caste- this situation, it is not surprising that the based parties. Despite these problems, idea of reserved legislative seats for however, the quota system seems to women has attracted new political and most Indians to be a source of more constitutional attention, in connection good than harm, and there is no serious with a push for greater local self-rule. demand for its abolition. Arguing, like John Stuart Mill, that Reserved seats for women have been participation in local politics teaches cit- discussed since before independence. izens how to appreciate the common Early feminists opposed reservations, good, national legislators successfully

104 Dædalus Winter 2002 amended the Constitution in 1992 to been possible without the Amendments. Sex, laws, and give formal legal status to the system of In addition, the system has increased inequality panchayats, or local village councils, an demands for female education: mothers aspect of governance central to Gandhi’s can now urge their daughters to go to vision of India but never fully imple- school in order to prepare themselves for mented. The Amendments established a role in politics. They report that this a 33 percent quota for women in the gives them more power in the family to panchayats and set up a system of rota- decide which children shall go to tion that is similar to that by which reser- school.13 vations for lower castes have already More recently, proposals to introduce been implemented at the national level. reservations for women at the national Initially, advocates for women were level have encountered tremendous split about the merits of this system. opposition–largely from lower-caste Many feared that the women who would parties, who fear that the new quotas be selected would simply be tools of would result in fewer lower-caste legisla- male interests. But nearly ten years of tors, since they believe that educated experience with the plan has shown that, women will be the most likely to be on balance, its merits outweigh its draw- elected. They propose a subquota in the backs. Certainly in some cases women general women’s quota for lower-caste do initially function as proxies for the women, but so far proponents of the powerful men in their families. Poonam Amendment have rejected this proposal. Devi was initially groomed for of½ce by Certainly such a quota for lower-caste her husband, who believed that he women would exacerbate some of the would be unable to run for the seat. But problems already produced by caste- even such women learn political skills in based reserved seats at the national the process. Poonam Devi became so level. A possible outcome of the current interested in politics that she is now run- debate is that parties will agree to ning for of½ce against the wishes of her reserve a certain proportion of their tick- husband. Whether she wins or loses, she ets for female candidates (as they do in is gaining valuable experience; if she France and quite a few other countries). loses, in due course she will be able to run for a reserved seat. It is ironic–and telling–that similarly Moreover, the new system’s extension creative proposals are non-starters in the of political power to poor and illiterate United States. Even though the United women has been dramatic. Studies show States has one of the lowest proportions that a majority of women who serve in of women in the national legislature the panchayats are illiterate or barely lit- within the developed world, we are not erate. Moreover, approximately 40 per- looking around with genuine curiosity to cent of female representatives come see what other nations have done about from families with income below the poverty line. Women report many obsta- 13 On all these matters, see Nirmala Buch, cles to their effective participation, From Oppression to Assertion: A Study of including harassment and the threat of Panchayats and Women in Madhya Pradesh, violence. Nonetheless, a number of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (New Delhi: Centre for Women’s Development Studies, 1999); I am women are evidently learning political also grateful to Zoya Hasan and to Niraja Gopal skills and participating in decision- Jayal for allowing me to read unpublished making in a way that would not have works on this topic, and for discussion.

Dædalus Winter 2002 105 Martha C. this problem. ple voting and proportional representa- Nussbaum on This is not to say that the Indian solu- tion, which have been used successfully inequality tion ½ts the u.s. situation. Very likely by some municipalities for years to it does not. Quotas for women in the enfranchise underrepresented groups, panchayats are a solution well adapted to should also be considered. In general, we the situation of the rural poor in India, should attend to the issue, debate it where illiteracy and lack of employment without phobic reactions (such as the outside the home pose daunting obsta- term “af½rmative action” so often cles to women’s political participation. evokes), and learn from other nations. In the United States, by contrast, many Both of these issues show us one large more women already work–and no real fact: the world is moving on, with or equivalent of India’s panchayats exits. without u.s. participation, to ½nd cre- Still, Indian politicians and jurists are ative solutions to pressing problems of thinking–as ours have too often refused human inequality. Usually u.s. citizens to think–creatively. We should more don’t know anything much about these vigorously confront the problem of vio- developments, and some of our politi- lence against women and the problem of cians encourage disdain for what is hap- the underrepresentation of women in pening elsewhere. We need to learn new politics by considering a wide range of habits of curiosity and respect if we are remedies–½rst on the list being cam- to be productive members of an increas- paign ½nance reform, which has at least ingly interdependent global community. received a hearing. But systems of multi-

106 Dædalus Winter 2002 Robert W.Fogel & Chulhee Lee

Who gets health care?

Around the world, as in the United Some investigators believe that the States, concern is growing about who disparities are actually increasing. They gets health care.1 Individuals from dif- suggest that the shift in the health-care ferent socioeconomic backgrounds face system in advanced industrial countries distressingly different prospects of living from the principle of universal access to a healthy life. As numerous studies con- a more market-oriented system may be ½rm, the disparities in various measures one cause of the growing disparities they of health between the privileged and the observe; rising income inequality is deprived remain wide, even in rich another potential culprit. countries, despite the long-term tenden- Policymakers worldwide meanwhile cy toward a healthier society. speak of more ef½ciently delivering “essential” health care, but nobody is certain what this means in practice. Robert W. Fogel, a Fellow of the American Acad- What counts as “essential” in health emy since 1972, is the Charles R. Walgreen Distin- care? What is the optimal mix of private guished Service Professor of American Institutions and government components of health- and director of the Center for Population Eco- care services? nomics at the University of Chicago Graduate It is these questions that we wish to School of Business, and is also a member of the explore in more detail. After reviewing department of economics and of the Committee the economic and epidemiological liter- on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. ature on disparities in health and health- In 1993 he was awarded the Nobel Memorial care systems, we will tackle directly the Prize in Economic Science “for having renewed question of how to de½ne “essential” research in economic history.” health care–and then explore the policy Chulhee Lee is an assistant professor of economics implications of our analysis. in the School of Economics at Seoul National University. His current research examines labor 1 We have bene½ted from the insightful sug- market behavior and the economic status of older gestions of Bernard Harris and David Meltzer. Parts of the research for this paper were sup- persons, interactions between socioeconomic sta- ported by a grant from the National Institute of tus and health over the life cycle, and the changing Aging. A more fully documented version of this relationship between the organization of work essay is available as a National Bureau of Eco- and income inequality. nomic Research (nber) Working Paper at . © 2002 by Robert W. Fogel

Dædalus Winter 2002 107 Robert W. n the United States, substantial socio- ment of cavities by socioeconomic group Fogel & I Chulhee Lee economic differences in illness and increased from 1983 to 1994. on death rates have been documented by Over the last decade, a number of inequality many researchers. These disparities not studies have produced evidence that the only vary widely by level of education extent of income inequality in a society but, as reported in 1993 in a paper pub- is negatively associated with the health lished in The New England Journal of Medi- status of citizens, based on cross-sec- cine, the disparities increased between tional comparisons between and within 1960 and 1986 for both men and countries.3 These apparent empirical women.2 ½ndings have provoked a debate over Growing inequalities in well-being precisely how income inequality may and access to health care have been affect individual health status. Some reported for other nations, too. In researchers have focused on the psycho- Britain, recent studies by Russel Ecob logical stresses that may result from a and George Davey Smith, and also stud- perception of relative deprivation, or ies by Vani K. Borooah, have provided alienation from a highly unequal social extensive evidence of socioeconomic order.4 This hypothesis is bolstered by disparities in the prevalence of illness, research showing that more egalitarian the probability of long-term limiting ill- societies exhibit more cohesion, less vio- ness, perinatal deaths, low birth weight, lence, lower homicide rates, more trust, and stillbirth risk. In Denmark, Finn lower hostility scores, and more involve- Tüchsen and Lars A. Endahl found that ment in community life. Still other re- illness and death due to cardiovascular searchers have focused instead on mate- disease was promoted by inequalities in rial conditions, arguing that income income. Moreover, this disparity rapidly inequality leaves the poor exposed to increased between the early 1980s and disease, while the state lowers its invest- 1990s. In Rome, according to another ment in education, housing, income, and recent study published in the Journal of public and private sanitation.5 Epidemiology and Community Health, At the same time, doubts have been socioeconomic differences in death rates raised about the validity of the empirical rose during the early 1990s. In China, as relationship between income inequality Yuanli Liu, William C. Hsiao, and Karen Eggleston have shown, the gap in the 3 R. G. Wilkinson, “Income Distribution and levels of health between urban and rural Life-Expectancy,” British Medical Journal 304 residents also widened in the same peri- (6820) (18 January 1992): 165–168; I. Kawachi and B. P. Kennedy, “The Relationship of od, despite rapid economic growth. Dis- Income Inequality to Mortality: Does the parities have also increased in the treat- Choice of Indicator Matter?” Social Science & ment of less serious medical conditions. Medicine 45 (7) (October 1997): 1121–1127. Thus, while overall oral health improved 4 R. G. Wilkinson, Unhealthy Societies (London: in Norway, the disparities in the treat- Routledge, 1996); Wilkinson, Mind the Gap: Hierarchies, Health, and Human Evolution (Lon- don: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2000). 2 Gregory Pappas, Susan Queen, Wilbur Had- 5 John W. Lynch, George Davey-Smith, George den, and Gail Fisher, “The Increasing Disparity A. Kaplan, and James S. House, “Income in Mortality between Socioeconomic Groups in Inequality and Mortality: Importance to Health the United States, 1960 and 1986,” The New Eng- of Individual Income, Psychological Environ- land Journal of Medicine 329 (2) (8 July 1993): ment, or Material Conditions,” British Medical 103–109. Journal 320 (7243) (29 April 2000): 1200–1204.

108 Dædalus Winter 2002 and health.6 In a recent working paper that, even among those with health Who gets health care? on “Health, Inequality, and Economic insurance, lower socioeconomic posi- Development,” Angus Deaton argues tion is associated with receiving fewer that the evidence that income inequality mammograms, childhood and influenza affects individual health is not as strong immunizations, and diabetic eye exami- as commonly assumed. According to nations, later enrollment in prenatal him, previous studies based on interna- care, and lower quality of ambulatory tional comparisons lack adequate data and hospital care. on health for some countries, and com- In Britain, too, doctors serving poor parable data for others. The link populations reported signi½cantly lower between income inequality and health rates of utilization of more advanced that is observed in cross-sectional u.s. technologies such as angiography and data becomes insigni½cant once various revascularization in coronary artery sur- effects of population composition, espe- gery.7 In eight developing countries, cially the effect of race, are considered. including Burkina Faso, Guatemala, Deaton argues that it is the level of a Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Paraguay, country’s income, rather than the degree South Africa, Thailand, and Zambia, of inequality, that is crucial. researchers found that richer groups Income inequality and levels of were more likely to obtain care when national income may not be the only fac- sick, to be seen by a doctor, and to tors that help to explain disparities in receive medicines when ill than poorer health: many researchers blame the ris- groups.8 An interesting exception to ing inequality in access to health care for these usual patterns of health-care dis- the trend toward a greater inequality in parities is New Zealand, where the poor health. Jon Gabel, writing for Health were found to receive either an appropri- Affairs in 1999, noted that the coverage of ate or a slightly excessive level of servic- job-based health insurance in the United es given their estimated health needs. States declined between 1977 and 1998, This may be explained by the effects of a particularly among low-skilled, marginal continued restructuring of the New workers, because of the decline in real Zealand public-health system, which wages among low-skilled workers, a 2.6- focuses on providing decent minimum fold real increase in the cost of health care. insurance, and a 3.5-fold nominal in- Some investigators believe that dispar- crease in the cost of health insurance. A ities in health delivery are increasing. survey published in May of 2000 in The Since the demand for health care has a Journal of the American Medical Association relatively large income elasticity entitled “Inequality in Quality: Address- (de½ned as the percentage increase in ing the Socioeconomic, Racial, and Eth- health expenditures brought about by a nic Disparities in Health Care” suggests 1 percent increase in income), a widening

7 Julia Hippisley-Cox, “Inequality in Access to 6 K. Fiscella and P. Franks, “Poverty or Income Coronary Angiography and Revascularisation: Inequality as a Predictor of Mortality,” British The Association of Deprivation and Location Medical Journal 314 (7096) (14 June 1997): 1724– of Primary Care Services,” British Journal of 1728; H. Gravelle, “How Much of the Relation General Practice 50 (455) (June 2000): 449–454. between Population Mortality and Unequal Distribution of Income is a Statistical Arte- 8 M. Makinen et al., “Inequalities in Health fact?” British Medical Journal 316 (7128) (31 Janu- Care Use and Expenditures,” Bulletin of the ary 1998): 382–385. World Health Organization 78 (1) (2000): 55–65.

Dædalus Winter 2002 109 Robert W. of the income gap between rich and poor to all persons, de½ned mostly by criteria Fogel & would produce an even greater disparity of effectiveness, cost and social accept- Chulhee Lee on in expenditure on health care. Addition- ability.”10 Cost has become a controlling inequality ally, a rise in income inequality in a issue since the health-care systems locality may undermine primary health- established in most oecd countries care provisions, especially for its poorer after World War II, which sought to residents.9 Finally–and paradoxically– guarantee complete health care for all advances in medical technologies may through government-run health or help to produce more disparities in insurance systems, have become too health and well-being. Because affluent expensive and now threaten the ½scal and educated people tend to take care of stability of governments. As incomes themselves and know how to utilize the have risen, the public demand for health health-care system, according to the re- services has increased much more rapid- cent study “Understanding Health Dis- ly than income (because of the high parities across Education Groups,” by income elasticity of the demand for Dana Goldman and Darius Lakdawalla, health care), making the cost of operat- reductions in the price of health care or ing such systems unsustainable. expansions in the overall demand for The new systems of “essential care,” health inputs may disproportionately now in the course of construction in bene½t the well-educated. oecd countries, recognize the necessity of explicitly establishing priorities As this review of the literature on among health interventions (rather than health reveals, economists and epidemi- unlimited coverage). As a result, it has ologists are primarily focused on empiri- become necessary to ration health-care cal issues: establishing the facts on dif- services even more stringently than ferences in health and health care by before. In order to guarantee that the socioeconomic status, and measuring health of the poor is not neglected under the impact of inequality on health out- these circumstances, the who proposes comes. Discussions of such normative three principles: health-care services issues as what proportion of national should be prepaid (i.e., taxes for health resources ought to be devoted to health care should be collected throughout the care, or how these resources ought to be working life, even though the need for distributed within the population, are services is relatively low during young left largely to legislatures and to various adult and middle ages); those who are speci½c-interest organizations and think healthy should subsidize those who are tanks. sick (which means that taxes should not International organizations such as the be adjusted to reflect differential health World Health Organization (who) and risks, as policy rates often are under pri- the Organization for Economic Cooper- vate insurance); and the rich should sub- ation and Development (oecd) have sidize the poor (which means both that called on all countries to guarantee the rich should pay higher health taxes delivery of “high-quality essential care than the poor, and that the quality of

9 Leiyu Shi, Barbara Star½eld, Bruce Kennedy, 10 World Health Organization, The World and Ichiro Kawachi, “Income Inequality, Pri- Health Report 2000: Health Systems: Improving mary Care, and Health Indicators,” Journal of Performance (Geneva: World Health Organiza- Family Practice 48 (4) (April 1999): 275–284. tion, 2000), xiii.

110 Dædalus Winter 2002 service in government-run programs Kingdom $1,193. Annual per capita Who gets should be no better or more comprehen- expenditures on health care in the Unit- health care? sive for privileged groups). ed States–$3,724–are more than three This recommended standard explicitly times the British ½gure and more than recognizes that privately funded health 1.5 times the German ½gure. The spend- programs and private insurance will ing on health care of the typical Ameri- need to provide a major part of a na- can in ten days exceeds the average tion’s health services. Since persons in annual expenditures of people living in the upper half of income distributions countries with more than three-½fths of tend to spend more on health services the world’s population. than poorer people do, the distribution The fact that Europeans spend so of health services is bound to be un- much less on health care than Ameri- equal. In fact, all oecd countries cur- cans has led some critics to argue that rently have mixed private and govern- the American system is wasteful. This mental systems, ranging from about 85 contention is often buttressed by the percent of total expenditures made by fact that American disability-adjusted the government in Great Britain to life expectancy (the average number of about 45 percent in the United States. It years expected before the onset of dis- is likely that the reforms now in prog- abilities) at birth is less than that of ress will generally increase the private France, Spain, Italy, the United King- share of health-care services. dom, and Germany. If all those extra There is no clear agreement currently dollars spent by Americans are not buy- on the optimal mix of private and gov- ing better health and longer lives, what ernment components of health-care are they buying? services. There is not much of a litera- It is not yet possible to provide an ade- ture on this question, nor is there a con- quate answer to that question. It is often sensus on the criteria that should be assumed that the increase in longevity invoked to resolve the issue. Moreover, over the past two or three decades is due conditions vary so much from country primarily to the increased amount and to country that the optimal mix cannot quality of health-care services. There is be the same for all countries. no doubt that medical interventions In very poor countries, where the need have saved many lives, especially in such for health-care services is great, the areas as infectious diseases, cancer, and average annual level of per capita expen- heart disease. However, we cannot yet ditures from both private and govern- say how much of the six or so years of ment sources is shockingly low. In such increase in life expectancy since 1970 is countries as Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, due to medical interventions and how and Nepal, annual per capita expendi- much is due to better levels of educa- tures range between $20 and $56 (using tion, improvements in housing, and international dollars, which adjust other factors that contribute to the exchange rates for the domestic pur- increase in life expectancy. chasing power of a country’s currency). Some recent ½ndings suggest that In India, the ½gure is $84, and in China it most of the huge increase in life is $74. By contrast, the ½gures for the expectancy since 1900 is due to the large ½ve largest countries of Western Europe investment in public-health programs are: France $2,135, Germany $2,365, Italy between 1880 and World War II that $1,824, Spain $1,211, and the United cleaned up the water and milk supplies,

Dædalus Winter 2002 111 Robert W. developed modern waste-disposal sys- dence of a connection between birth size Fogel & tems, reduced air pollution, and im- and later coronary heart disease has Chulhee Lee on proved nutritional status. Of course, been found in England, Wales, Sweden, inequality these public-health programs were made India, and Finland. The volume of stud- possible by advances in medical knowl- ies con½rming the impact of insults dur- edge. But the research behind these pub- ing developmental ages on health in lic-health advances represents a relative- later life has increased substantially ly small part of what is included in the since 1994. category of “health expenditures.” In the One of the strongest recent con½rma- United States, for example, medical tions of the impact of early life events on research (not including R&D of drug longevity is a study reporting a statisti- companies and providers of medical cally signi½cant relationship between equipment and supplies) adds up to just longevity after age ½fty and the week of 1.7 percent of u.s. national health birth for cohorts born between 1863 and expenditures. 1918. In the northern hemisphere, aver- Since deaths due to infectious diseases age length of life is shortest for those are now a small proportion of total born in the second quarter of the year deaths, it might seem that environmen- and longest for those born in the fourth tal improvements that were so impor- quarter. In Australia, a relationship tant in reducing health risks before 1950 between birth month and longevity have been exhausted. Such a conclusion exists, but the peak and trough are the is premature. A series of recent studies mirror image of that in the northern has reported a connection between hemisphere.14 This result, which is exposure to stress (biological and social) apparently related to seasonal variations in early life, including insults in utero and in nutritional status, has also been found during infancy, with the onset of chronic in the Union Army data for cohorts born diseases at middle and late ages, and between 1820 and 1850.15 Consequently, with life expectancy.11 The strongest evi- we cannot rule out the proposition that dence for such links that has emerged one of the biggest factors influencing the thus far is with respect to hypertension, prevalence rates of chronic diseases coronary heart disease, and type II dia- among the elderly in 2001 (and which betes.12 A review of the research dealing accounts for a huge slice of national with the relationship between birth medical expenditures) was their expo- weight and hypertension showed a ten- sure to environmental insults half a cen- dency for middle-aged blood pressure to tury, or more, ago. increase as birth weight declined.13 Evi-

11 D. J. P. Barker, Mothers, Babies, and Health in tematic Review of the Literature,” Journal of Later Life, 2d ed. (Edinburgh and New York: Hypertension 14 (8) (August 1996): 935–941. Churchill Livingstone, 1998). 14 Gabriele Doblhammer and James W. Vau- 12 Nevin S. Scrimshaw, “More Evidence that pel, “Life Span Depends on Month of Birth,” Foetal Nutrition Contributes to Chronic Dis- Science 98 (5) (27 February 2001): 2934–2939. ease in Later Life,” British Medical Journal 315 15 Tayatat Kanjanapipatkul, “The Effect of (7112) (4 October 1997): 825–826. Month of Birth on Life Span of Union Veter- ans,” typescript, Center for Population Eco- 13 Catherine M. Law and Alistair W. Shiell, “Is nomics, University of Chicago, 2001. Blood Pressure Inversely Related to Birth Weight? The Strength of Evidence from a Sys-

112 Dædalus Winter 2002 These new scienti½c ½ndings are ia, and acute gastrointestinal and respi- Who gets directly relevant to the problem of how ratory infections; the widespread provi- health care? to de½ne “essential” health care and sion of vaccines to prevent measles, how to divide the national budget for tetanus, and diphtheria; and improved health (regardless of how it is ½nanced) nutrition in order to revitalize immune among competing needs. It may well be systems, reduce perinatal deaths, lower that a very large increase in expendi- death rates from a wide range of infec- tures on antenatal care and pediatric tious diseases, and improve the func- care in infancy and early childhood is tioning of the central nervous system. the most effective way to improve health The Commission on Macroeconomics over the entire life cycle, by delaying the and Health (cmh) of the World Health onset of chronic diseases, alleviating Organization has estimated that 87 per- their severity if they do occur, and cent of deaths among children under age increasing longevity. ½ve, 71 percent of deaths between ages Whatever the virtues of such a strate- ½ve and twenty-nine, and 47 percent of gy, it raises the issue of intergenerational deaths between ages thirty and sixty- bias. This strategy gives a preference to nine can be avoided by making use of the unborn and the very young over the available drugs and vaccines, by the immediate needs of the elderly. It is a delivery of vital nutrients, and by pub- kind of double blow to the elderly, who lic-health programs aimed at producing are now suffering from the early onset of safe water supplies and improved sanita- chronic conditions and premature dis- tion and health education. cmh esti- ability because of environmental insults mates that donations from private and they incurred in utero and during early public sources in oecd countries, childhood. Yet under a strategy that amounting to just 0.14 percent of their emphasizes antenatal and early child- combined gdp, will be enough to real- hood care, in order to make new genera- ize these opportunities rapidly. tions better off throughout their life De½ning “essential care” for the Unit- cycles, the elderly of today will be asked ed States is more problematic, because to restrain their demand for relief. the technologies needed for rapid and It is much easier to de½ne “essential dramatic improvements in health and care” in the impoverished nations of the longevity are still on the drawing board, world because their alternatives are so in contrast to poor countries where the stark. They are still suffering from dead- problem is how effectively to deliver ly killers and cripplers, virtually elimi- food and existing drugs and vaccines. To nated from oecd nations, that can be clarify the issue of “essential care” in a vanquished at quite modest costs com- country where per capita expenditures pared to the expensive procedures rou- on health exceed those of poor nations tinely used to deal with more modest by 50 to 150 times, it is necessary to con- complaints in rich countries. As the sider exactly what it is that our luxurious who reported in 2001, the prospects of (even by European standards) expendi- the poorest billion in the Third World tures are buying. can be “radically improved by targeting Saving lives, as important as it is, and a relatively small set of diseases and con- as effective at it as modern medicine has ditions.” become, is not the main activity of Urgent needs include the distribution physicians and other health profession- of drugs to combat tuberculosis, malar- als. As we have already indicated, it is

Dædalus Winter 2002 113 Robert W. likely that past public-health reforms, And so the United States has some Fogel & improvements in nutrition and other liv- 6,000 hospitals, while Britain’s National Chulhee Lee on ing standards, and the democratization Health Service has only 430 very large inequality of education have done much more to hospitals (beds per capita are similar in increase longevity than has clinical med- both countries). Every substantial subur- icine. The main thing that physicians do ban community in the United States is to make life more bearable: to relieve demands its own facility with a wide pain, to reduce the severity of chronic range of services. In America today, not conditions, to postpone disabilities or just research hospitals but many com- even overcome some of them, to mend munity hospitals have on staff physi- broken limbs, to prescribe drugs, and to cians who specialize in heart bypass sur- reduce anxiety, overcome depression, gery and other high-tech procedures. and instruct individuals on how to take Since Americans like to save a buck as care of themselves. much as Europeans, they are willing to Europeans are much more willing than join hmos, but hmos have found that to Americans to stint on “unnecessary” be competitive they have to offer numer- services, on procedures that are “option- ous options on copayments, access to al” rather than “vital,” on conveniences physicians outside of the primary net- rather than necessities, on small rather work, and self-referral to specialists. than large reductions in risk. Rather Americans also demand the option to than insisting on wide choice, they will change health plans if they are dissatis- settle for limited choice or no choice at ½ed. Such options cost money, among all (take it or leave it). Consider the issue other things because they increase the of queuing, one of the principal devices cost of administration, even if they do employed by public-health systems in not improve health outcomes. Europe to keep demand from exceeding The American passion for such indi- politically negotiated budgets. Ameri- vidually tailored health services may be cans are unwilling to wait two years or attributed to the country’s wide-open more for a hernia operation, as is now spaces, evangelical religion, and long- the case in Britain, but demand that such standing hostility to government. But it a service be available quickly, in a few also reflects income. The average Ameri- weeks in most cases. Americans chafe at can, after all, is 50 percent richer than another favorite European device to con- the average British person. Hence, it is trol costs: rationing. They do not want not strange that they are willing to con- to be told that they are too old or too ½t sume services that are too expensive for or not ½t enough to be eligible for some poorer people. Americans are no more course of treatment. Nor are they willing self-indulgent in their purchases of to have their access to specialists sharply health care than they are in their pur- curtailed, and so the ratio of specialists chases of appliances or cars. to primary-care physicians is much And so, what is viewed as “essential” higher in the United States than else- health care in the United States includes where. They also resist hasty impersonal services that in other cultures would be examinations and denial of access to regarded as wasteful luxuries. inpatient hospital care. And the rich This situation puts into fresh perspec- insist on being allowed to spend as much tive the common lament that 15 percent on health care as they desire, even if of Americans are “uncovered” by health some of these expenditures are wasteful. insurance. “Uncovered” does not mean

114 Dædalus Winter 2002 that they are untreated. The uninsured urgent needs and designing an effective Who gets see doctors almost as frequently as the way of ministering to those speci½c health care? insured. Nor is it clear that the effective- needs. This goal will not be met merely ness of their care is always less than by equalizing the annual number of vis- those who have insurance. The unin- its to doctors (since the rich often waste sured are treated in public clinics and in medical services) or the annual expendi- emergency rooms, which (although they tures on drugs (since the rich often over- lack the conveniences of insured care medicate). Focusing on the speci½c and may have long queues) provide needs of the poor may not save money, competent services, both standard and but it will ensure that whatever is spent high-tech.16 is properly targeted. Although access to health care mat- In this spirit, the number-one priority ters, insurance does not guarantee ade- ought to be an expansion of prenatal quate access. Moreover, while some of and postnatal care targeted particularly the uninsured in the u.s. system are in at young single mothers. The priority is poorer health than the insured, others suggested by the new evidence that are in prime ages, have relatively good proper nutrition, including supplements health, and prefer to self-insure. An of such key nutrients as folate and iron, important but poorly addressed issue is can reduce perinatal deaths and birth how different attitudes toward risk defects, including damage to the central influence the insured and the uninsured nervous system. It is also necessary to in deciding when and where to seek counsel pregnant women on the dangers health care. This issue is important to the fetus from smoking and consump- when considering solutions to those tion of alcohol, on the bene½ts from who are underserved in health care, proper diets, regular and early examina- since underservice of the poor also tions, and exposing the fetus to a stimu- exists in countries with universal health lating environment (music and conver- insurance. If the poor and the young are sation). A focus on young, single moth- willing to accept higher health risks than ers makes sense not only because they are the rich and the elderly, merely are among the most needy, but also extending entitlements may not be ade- because there is now persuasive evi- quate. An aggressive outreach program, dence that insults in utero that reduce targeted at those who fail to take advan- birth weight and length, as well as inad- tage of entitlements, may be required. equate weight gains in infancy, greatly increase health risks throughout the life Our analysis has a variety of policy cycle. implications, both for health care in the A second priority is improved health United States and also for the world as a education and mentoring to enable whole. poorly educated people, both young and We believe that the most effective way old, to identify their health problems, to to improve the u.s. health system for be able to follow instructions for health the poor is by identifying their most care, to properly use medication, and to become involved in social networks con- ducive to good health. It not enough to 16 Marc L. Berk and Claudia L. Schur, “Access to Care: How Much Difference Does Medicare wait for such individuals to seek out Make?” Health Affairs 17 (30) (May–June available service. Outreach programs 1998): 169–180. need to be developed to identify the

Dædalus Winter 2002 115 Robert W. needy individuals. Hence, support settings. Fogel & should be extended to organizations Readers may be surprised that we have Chulhee Lee on already experienced in outreach, such as not emphasized the extension of health- inequality the Girls Clubs of America and commu- insurance policies to the 15 percent of nity churches, so that they can include the population not currently insured. health screening and counseling among The flap in the United States over insur- their services. Systems for monitoring ance has more to do with taxation than the effectiveness of such community with health services. Keep in mind that organizations also need to be estab- the poor are already entitled to health lished. care under Medicaid, and that the near Another priority is the reintroduction poor often receive free health care into public schools, particularly those in through county or city hospitals and poor neighborhoods, from nursery emergency rooms. What they do not do school through the twelfth grade, of is pay taxes for those services. Most pro- periodic health-screening programs, posals for health insurance imply the using nurses and physicians on a con- taxation of their wages for services they tract basis. Personnel should also be already receive. Such insurance may employed to ensure that parents under- relieve the pressure on the public purse, stand the nature of their children’s prob- but it will not guarantee better health lems and to direct the parents to public- care. We believe that health screening in health facilities that can provide appro- schools and community clinics has a bet- priate services. ter chance at success than unexercised A fourth initiative is the establishment theoretical entitlements. of public-health clinics in underserved Last but not least, any consideration of poor neighborhoods that can supple- how to improve health care must take ment the emergency rooms of regular into account the world as a whole, since hospitals, which are a frequent source of a great many diseases are more easily routine health-care services for the poor transmitted than ever across national and near poor. Convenient access is a frontiers. key issue, because even individuals with We believe that America has an obliga- insurance, such as those on Medicaid, tion to increase its contribution to the may fail to take advantage of available international campaign to bring vaccines facilities if they are inconvenient. Time and other products to children and is a cost to the poor as well as the rich, adults whose lives can be saved, if there and lack of convenient facilities may is the international will to do so. The cause individuals to accept higher health lack of access to such products in the risks than they would otherwise choose. poorest ½fty or so countries is the most The mission of community clinics glaring instance of inequality in the should include health education in addi- global health system and a lingering tion to treatment. Community clinics threat to the health of those in rich need to be regularly monitored to ensure countries. their effectiveness. Basements of The large advances in life expectancy churches and space in public schools in China and other emerging economies after normal teaching hours can be good show that it is not necessary to wait for locations for community clinics, both industrialization to be completed before because they help to stretch available making major advances in health and funds and because they provide familiar longevity. Modern methods of sanita-

116 Dædalus Winter 2002 tion and other public-health programs infection are still relatively low in India Who gets can be introduced at modest cost. Clean- and China, there is a risk of a rapid esca- health care? ing up the water supply, improving the lation in the spread of the infection. distribution of basic nutrients, draining Public campaigns to inform the popula- swamps and otherwise disrupting vec- tions of these countries of the threat of tors of disease, and making improve- this disease, of means of reducing the ments in waste disposal can be achieved odds of infection, and of available treat- quickly and cheaply, as has been demon- ment for those already infected are strated by China, Indonesia, and Malay- urgently needed. sia. oecd nations can help speed up the The oecd and other international process in countries still lagging behind agencies can provide both money and by training public-health of½cials and skilled personnel to confront aids and helping to supply food supplements, other deadly infectious diseases, and to antibiotics, and other vital drugs and help provide vaccines and other drug vaccines to needy nations. therapies to those who need them. One A particularly urgent issue is posed by important way to help is by increasing the worldwide pandemic of hiv/aids. the money spent in oecd nations on Although death rates from aids have understanding diseases that afflict the recently declined in the United States poor countries of the world. It is not and other oecd nations, aids is rav- only morality but also self-interest that aging Africa. Of the three million indi- argues for these measures. There is viduals worldwide who died of aids in always a risk that epidemics in the Third 2000, more than two million lived in World may spread to oecd nations. sub-Saharan Africa. Although rates of

Dædalus Winter 2002 117 Ian Shapiro

Why the poor don’t soak the rich

To ask why there is so much inequality This is one thesis that history has in modern-day democracies is to ask a roundly refuted. Although there have loaded question.1 Why should we expect been redistributive eras in capitalist there to be less? democracies since the advent of a uni- Such an expectation was nevertheless versal franchise, there has been no sys- widely shared in the nineteenth century, tematic relationship between democracy both among conservatives who feared and downward redistribution–not even the economic implications of democracy a detectable relationship between the and among socialists who welcomed expansions of the franchise and episodes democracy precisely because of its of downward redistribution.2 apparent economic implications. The Indeed, expanding the franchise has Left and Right agreed: if majority rule sometimes been accompanied by regres- and universal suffrage were introduced sive redistribution. In the United States, into a society marked by massive in- economic inequality rose sharply be- equality, then most voters, being rela- tween the early 1970s and the mid-1990s, tively poor, would inevitably favor tax- despite the passage of the Voting Rights ing the rich and transferring the pro- Act of 1965 and the lowering of the vot- ceeds downward. I will call this the redis- ing age to eighteen in 1971. Similarly, in tributive thesis. the post-communist world, the advent

Ian Shapiro, the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor 1 An expanded version of this essay, including extensive discussion of the literature on which of Political Science at Yale, became a Fellow of it is based, can be found at . theorist of democracy and justice, he is the author most recently of “Democratic Justice” (1999). He 2 Inequality in the United States remained comparatively stable throughout the nineteenth has also written widely on the methodology of the century and only began to drop in the 1930s; social sciences, especially the “rational choice” yet during this period a number of voting model of human behavior championed by many reforms expanding the franchise were enacted. economists and political scientists. As a Carnegie See Jeffrey G. Williamson and Peter H. Lindert, Scholar, he is currently conducting research on American Inequality: A Macroeconomic History (New York: Academic Press, 1980), 62–63; and democracy and distribution in the United States. Michael Levin, The Spectre of Democracy (Hamp- shire, U.K.: Macmillan, 1992), 3–9.

118 Dædalus Winter 2002 of democracy has been accompanied by Paradoxically, however, something clos- Why the poor don’t the ostentatious growth of inequality. er to the opposite may often be the case. soak the rich No doubt these developments owe at Why this discrepancy? An important least as much to the introduction of cap- part of the answer, I think, lies in expos- italism as they do to democracy. Still, if ing a number of dubious assumptions the redistributive thesis is of interest, it about human psychology. Those who must surely predict that a representative adhere to the redistributive thesis, be democracy will reverse–or at least they Marxist, liberal, or conservative, retard–the regressive implications of usually assume that people in general market capitalism. Yet in practice, de- keep themselves well informed about mocracies often seem willing to tolerate their place in the distribution of income growing inequality. and wealth, that the poor and middle There are several ways that social sci- classes compare themselves to the entists have tried to explain this appar- wealthy when thinking about what is ent anomaly. A number of them have feasible or just, and that those toward pointed to the logic of democracy, the the bottom of the income distribution logic of capitalism, and the ways in are like coiled springs–were it not for which they interact. Such analysts argue various external forces that are pressing that the propensity to demand down- them down, they would leap into action ward redistribution would be realized and demand a greater share of the eco- were it not for unexpected dynamics nomic pie. unleashed by the institutions of democ- Every one of these assumptions is racy and capitalism and their interac- questionable–and every one of them tion. deserves to be questioned. My purpose here is not to criticize this kind of institutional account, but rather Aspirations do not form in vacuums. to raise doubts about some assumptions People must be able to picture realisti- behind it. No doubt part of the intuitive cally the goods for which they will plausibility of the redistributive thesis is strive. If the gap between where a per- that it seems supported by a number of son is and where he or she might hope to common assumptions about human be is too great, certain goods are likely to psychology. If individuals in general seem out of reach–and hence outside were rational in the pursuit of self-inter- the range of realistic aspirations. There est, or rational in their pursuit of class thus arises the possibility of an empathy interests, then we would expect most gulf, a situation in which people who are people in a democracy to support down- situated in one stratum of society may ward redistribution–if not to the point ½nd it literally impossible to imagine the of perfect economic equality, then at goods pursued by those in another. least to something a lot closer to it than When levels of inequality are extreme- what we now have. ly high, such an empathy gulf might The expectation that democracies will actually dampen redistributive demands redistribute downward is often motivat- from the very poor. An extreme example ed by the observation of poverty amid will make this point. In modern-day opulence. It seems reasonable to antici- Cape Town, it is common for domestic pate that the greater the manifest opu- cleaners who live in squatters’ camps to lence of the few, the stronger will be the work for ten dollars a day cleaning half- redistributive pressure from below. million dollar houses, where the cars in

Dædalus Winter 2002 119 Ian Shapiro the garages cost many multiples of their social order for their plight rather than on inequality expected lifetime earnings. It may just be the wealthy, who seem unimaginably far impossible for the cleaners to picture away. This may fuel characteristic types themselves ever owning such a car, let of conflict among different groups and alone the houses in which their owners classes toward the lower end of the live. You can see yourself stepping socioeconomic spectrum, but it is unaided over a puddle or a stream, per- unlikely to have much effect on the over- haps even swimming a river, but not all distribution of income and wealth. swimming the Atlantic ocean. The existence of empathy gulfs com- By the same token, those who are very plements other possibilities that have rich may ½nd it impossible to picture been suggested to explain why voters themselves ever becoming poor. To the would not make the kinds of egalitarian degree that willingness to tolerate down- demands predicted by the redistributive ward redistribution is part of the worry thesis. An older sociology literature that “there but for the grace of God go I,” the runs from Max Weber to Frank Parkin worry has to be credible. If you are rich suggests that in market systems most and the gap between you and the poor people think there is less inequality than you see around you is so vast that no there actually is, and that their relative calamity you can imagine befalling you position is better than it actually is. will put you into their circumstances, There is also an economics literature then any prudential reasons you might that seeks to explain people’s apparently have for improving their lot disappear. irrational beliefs about the prospects for Presumably this is one reason why most their own upward mobility, and there is people can tune out panhandlers and empirical research in social psychology street people and acquiesce in the de- that supports the notion that in formally monization of the underclass. The egalitarian systems people opt for indi- mighty may fall into destitution in Zola’s vidual advancement rather than collec- novels–but no one who reads Zola in tive action to improve their circum- modern-day America really expects that stances. such things could happen to them. In the United States, at least, although The more extreme the income people might be egalitarian in many inequality, the greater the psychic dis- facets of social life, they tend to accept tance between the have-nots and the economic outcomes as legitimate unless haves. Beyond certain thresholds that they seem to be both procedurally and would have to be determined empirical- substantively unfair. But this seldom ly, inequality may be expected to spawn happens, because the market is widely empathy gulfs that dampen demands for believed to be a fair distributive instru- change from below and reinforce the ment. Jennifer Hochschild’s 1995 study, complacency of those who are rich. If Facing up to the American Dream: Race, the conditions for revolutionary social Class, and the Soul of the Nation, revealed a change are absent, and if a democratic remarkably widespread endorsement of order is seen as fundamentally legiti- the idea that “skill rather than need mate, then the very existence of a vast should determine wages,” and that gulf between rich and poor may very “America should promote equal oppor- well reinforce the inegalitarian status tunity for all” rather than “equal out- quo. People will be more likely to blame comes.” Overwhelming majorities from others who are close to themselves in the different occupational, racial, and politi-

120 Dædalus Winter 2002 cal groups endorsed this ideology. it still seems to follow that workers pur- Why the poor don’t To be sure, not everyone believes in suing the interests they do share will, soak the rich the justness of capitalism or the Ameri- sooner or later, support a redistribution can Dream. Hochschild herself notes of wealth–this, after all, was a part of that a subset of the population is what Karl Marx expected to happen estranged from it. Because desolation under capitalism. To explain why this and apathy are unlikely to coexist with does not happen, we should attend to a ambition and determination for success, variety of other factors. it seems clear that differently situated For example, one reason workers poor people have different beliefs and might not press for redistribution stems aspirations. It may be that those who from backward-looking framing effects, a could organize for redistributive politics phrase meant to capture the reactive are insuf½ciently disaffected to do so, character of much human behavior. while those who are suf½ciently disaf- After all, the query “Are you better off fected are incapable of organizing. than you were four years ago?” directs attention to the past–with the implica- Like empathy gulfs, what some psy- tion that the alternative to the present is chologists call framing effects also shape not progress, but backsliding. Once a what people see as pertinent political marginal advance has occurred, there is alternatives. Here the concern is not always the possibility of losing it. with the goods people might in princi- People who are surprised that there ple, or on reflection, imagine themselves are not more demands for downward deciding to pursue, but rather with what redistribution tend to work on the they actually focus on when making a assumption that those near the bottom particular decision. of the economic distribution think they In 1984, Ronald Reagan ran for reelec- have nothing to lose. This may be true tion by asking a pointed question: “Are for a handful of people, but certainly not you better off than you were four years for most–and de½nitely not for most ago?” This directed people to think modern-day workers. In many circum- about a bundle of goods represented by stances, voters may decide that things their disposable income, and to ask could well get worse–particularly if whether their stock of it had increased. things have been worse in the recent This is a self-referential comparison: it past. requires no attention to what others What may be called inward-looking have. framing effects also shape the decisions Research shows that people often that people routinely make. Rallying think largely in self-referential terms. grassroots supporters for the Million Moreover, when they do compare them- Man March in October of 1995, Louis selves to others, it is generally to people Farrakhan insisted that the time had who are situated like themselves. Work- come for the dispossessed in the black ers do not compare themselves to their community to draw on their own re- bosses in assessing their circumstances. sources and bootstrap themselves out of They do not compare themselves to the poverty. His message was unequivocal: rich, but rather to workers like them- forget the inequality out there and focus selves. on yourself. When people internalize Yet even if most workers understand ideologies of this kind, they will not their own interest in such narrow terms, demand redistribution through public

Dædalus Winter 2002 121 Ian Shapiro institutions. Instead, they will blame them in the social order in at least three on inequality themselves for their circumstances and ways: they might be thought to threaten accept that they should look inward violence, they might be believed to be when trying to improve them. Inward- the cause of tax burdens to fund welfare looking framing effects are likely signi½- demands, and the possibility of unem- cant in accounting for the dearth of ployment might conjure up the possibili- redistributive demands in the United ty of plunging into their ranks. States, given the power of bootstrapping Fear of the marauding rabble of dis- ideologies here. Whether the inward- possessed poor has existed for centuries. looking focus is on the self or on a com- Rather than disappearing in capitalist paratively dispossessed group, it is signi- democracies like the United States, this ½cantly not on the larger society and its fear seems to have taken on a petit bour- distribution of goods and opportunities. geois form. Among those in the middle Even individuals who are fully aware class and especially the lower middle of the real dimensions of economic class the fear takes the form of an antipa- inequality sometimes decide that they thy toward those who are below them. have other priorities that are more There is even a tendency for those in the important than trying to redress per- upper reaches of the lower class to dis- ceived economic injustice. Some people tance themselves from the lower reach- may be more concerned about their sta- es, identifying instead with middle-class tus or dignity than about income and norms. wealth. In contemporary South Africa, At the same time, a good deal of elec- for instance, the abolition of second- toral politics in a modern democracy class citizenship since the democratic revolves around reinforcing stereotyped transition in 1994 has produced a tangi- images of the underclass in ways that ble new noneconomic good: the dignity foment tensions between working-class that comes with the act of voting. In and upper-middle-class Americans. such circumstances, the mere right to Much of the trench warfare around af½r- vote may well dampen popular concern mative action, for instance, is about pro- with the continuing existence of eco- motions in the police department, the nomic inequality. post of½ce, and the ½re department. It Even in the United States, economic has little impact on people who live in issues must vie for attention with con- Scarsdale or on the structure of income cerns about status and recognition. Part distribution. This is why political com- of the appeal of ethnic and other forms mentator Michael Lind can write of a of identity politics in countries like ours white upper middle class, whose mem- comes from the persistence of status bers support racial preferences and mul- inequalities. By focusing on issues of sta- ticulturalism from which they are largely tus and dignity, social movements some- immune, that they “live right and think times draw attention away from more left” by looking askance at lower-mid- purely economic concerns. dle-class opposition to their preferred Downward-looking framing effects draw policies. Though Lind perhaps exagger- attention away from redistribution in ates when he argues that af½rmative still another way: by directing attention action is the result of a divide-and-con- to those less fortunate in the social quer conspiracy, he is surely right about order. The existence of the very poor its effects: keeping America’s middle can seem frightening to those just above and lower classes squabbling among

122 Dædalus Winter 2002 themselves feeds racism and destroys classes. What better way to get the poor Why the poor don’t what otherwise might be natural politi- to think that the law is not the instru- soak the rich cal alliances in a campaign for redistrib- ment of the rich than to have it so visibly utive change. enforced against a member of the nobili- Downward-looking framing effects ty? are sustained by demonizing those at or Anecdotal distractions need not be near the bottom of the social order. directed only at the rich: lurid stories Hatred of welfare stems from the per- about “welfare queens” driving Cadil- ception that most recipients are unde- lacs draw attention away from the law- serving. Media portrayals of the very abiding behavior of most welfare recipi- poor as disproportionately black and ents. Horatio Alger stories work in the lazy reinforce this perception–as does same way, as Ronald Reagan well under- the act of criminalizing the poor. The stood (“What I want to see above all is vast numbers of poor people who cur- that this country remains a country rently are housed in American prisons where someone can always get rich”). constitute a manifestly demonized When politicians visibly single out indi- group–even though the overwhelming viduals who have moved from welfare to majority of these prisoners have in fact work or otherwise triumphed over committed no violent crime.3 adversity, they exhibit their understand- Finally, perceptions of political alter- ing of the power of anecdotal distrac- natives are often shaped by anecdotal tions. The man in the street does not ask distractions. In Albion’s Fatal Tree, histori- questions about random sampling or an Douglas Hay tells the story of an selecting on the dependent variable. eighteenth-century criminal law that operated almost exclusively in the inter- I have discussed so far the psychologi- ests of propertied elites, but by means cal implications of empathy gulfs and of of which even noblemen were occasion- various kinds of framing effects. In addi- ally subjected to extreme forms of pun- tion, sheer geographical distance–physi- ishment–even the death penalty–for cal gulfs–may also attenuate redistribu- relatively minor offenses against proper- tive demands. One might think of this as ty. Hay argues that such token but spec- another kind of framing effect: out of tacular punishments meted out to aris- sight, out of mind. But it is both more tocrats were meant to instill awe for the and less than this. legal order that protected the propertied Physical gulfs can be more than fram- ing effects in that segregation of the 3 For data on the explosive growth of incarcer- have-nots from the haves in capitalist ation in the United States (which has trans- democracies is real and increasing. The formed the United States from a country that starkest illustration of this in the United incarcerated around one hundred per one hun- States is the middle-class dash from dred thousand between World War II and 1970 to one that incarcerated over four hundred per cities to suburbs that took off a genera- one hundred thousand by the mid-1990s), see tion ago and is now culminating in John Irwin and James Austin, It’s About Time: enclave living. As recently as 1960, gated America’s Imprisonment Binge (Belmont, Calif.: communities numbered in the hundreds Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1997), 1–3. Almost three- and were for the elderly and the super- quarters of those incarcerated have not com- mitted violent offenses of any kind; convictions rich. By 1997, there were as many as for drug possession or traf½cking account for twenty thousand gated communities in the great majority of the increase. Ibid., 19–61. the country, consisting of more than

Dædalus Winter 2002 123 Ian Shapiro three million housing units, at least a empathy gulfs already discussed. on inequality third of which were middle-class, and a Yet physical gulfs amount to less than growing number of which were work- a framing effect, in the television age, ing-class in composition. These num- in that “out of sight” is not–strictly bers greatly understate the reality of speaking–“out of mind.” The paradox is enclave living, since many country that despite the geographic reality of towns (often functional suburbs) can physical segmentation, the have-nots are for all practical purposes be inaccessible not ignorant of what the haves have. to inner-city residents. Tocqueville said that the poor knuckle The net effect is the rise of what Dou- under in aristocracies because they are glas Rae has called a “segmented democ- ignorant of comfort: “they despair of racy.”4 Freedom of movement lives getting it and they do not know enough cheek by jowl with effective segregation about it to want it.” The implied sugges- by race and class. In America today, this tion is that, were it available, such segregation is in many respects as oner- knowledge would become the engine of ous as it was in South Africa under apart- redistributive demands. Yet despite the heid. Movement by poor black and fact that people are bombarded with brown people from the inner cities into images of how the other half (or, more middle- and upper-class neighborhoods accurately, the other 2 percent) lives, is not a practical option, given the reali- these images produce scant interest in ties of transportation and local policing economic equity. Knowledge by ac- practices. quaintance is more important, it seems, Spatial segregation also means that the than knowledge by television. This is middle and upper classes restrict their consistent with the research suggesting urban life to business districts and day- that what people learn through the light hours, a trend that is greatly media is not a substitute for everyday enhanced by the flexibility to work from proximity in shaping their aspirations. home afforded by the Internet. And It also suggests that a perverse dynam- those who live in refurbished parts of ic may be at work as well. If de jure segre- inner cities have enclaves of their own. gation, such as the Group Areas Act that Their daily paths from guarded apart- launched South Africa’s residential seg- ment buildings to work, gyms, and regation in 1950, or the Jim Crow laws upscale restaurants enables them to that prevailed in the southern United minimize their contact with anyone who States until the 1960s, eventually pro- is disturbingly different from them- vokes collective resistance, then simply selves. In this way, the physical gulfs of a removing the legal prohibitions may segmented democracy reinforce the well destroy the will to act collectively– leaving de facto segregation unchanged. As long as they are free and equal under 4 Douglas Rae, “Democratic Liberty and Tyrannies of Place,” in Ian Shapiro and Casiano the law, individuals will generally aspire Hacker-Cordón, eds., Democracy’s Edges (New toward individual economic mobility– York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), even if the odds of success are negligible. 165–192. See also Thomas J. Sugrue, “The The contemporary United States pro- Structures of Urban Poverty: The Reorganiza- vides anecdotal evidence in support of tion of Space and Work in Three Periods of American History,” in Michael Katz, ed., The this contention, and so does post- Underclass Debate (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton apartheid South Africa. University Press, 1993).

124 Dædalus Winter 2002 his last point may recall Karl Marx’s ½scal crises, after which contradictions Why the T poor don’t famous critique of the ways in which a will inexorably surface, leading ½nally to soak the rich democratic constitution formally com- two-class polarization. mitted to the rights of man and citizen In fact, a more complex class dynamic may distort perceptions of injustice, and might be stable for reasons that are quite so blunt demands for social change. For distinct from any of the considerations Marx, democracy was an engine of false about reference groups, knowledge, consciousness. But Marx suffered from beliefs, framing effects, and empathy his own form of false consciousness. His and physical gulfs that I have already version of the redistributive thesis de- adduced. Even in a world of fully in- pended on a crude picture of a society formed self-interested rational actors, it increasingly polarized into two separate is far from clear that a middle-class and highly unequal classes: a tiny ruling voter, though relatively disadvantaged class, and a vast working class whose compared to the rich, would support a members were barely scraping by. A few policy of economic redistribution. from the middle classes might join the Take the case of South Africa today. At ruling class, but most others, he argued, the moment, there is not signi½cant would fall down into the proletariat as pressure for downward redistribution capitalism advanced. from the grassroots of the ruling African Part of Marx’s failure here was con- National Congress Party in South ceptual. His theory of exploitation Africa–in part because of the extreme moves illicitly between the claim that character of the economic inequality the relative immiseration of the prole- that currently prevails. An increase in tariat will increase (which follows ana- taxes for even the top 20 percent of the lytically from his theory of exploitation) population would entail an increase in to the claim that their absolute immiser- taxes for much of the black working ation will also increase (which does not class–so they have self-interested rea- follow). The rate of Marxian exploita- sons to oppose it. Even if they did sup- tion can increase while wages remain port redistribution, it would scarcely be constant or even rise. Another part of to those at the bottom of the economic Marx’s failure was empirical. In all capi- order in a country where at least a third talist democracies, a relatively affluent of the black population is unemployed. middle class, far from disappearing, has This con½rms the importance of look- flourished, in part by including many ing seriously into the counterintuitive people Marx would have classi½ed as possibility that the more unequal the workers: they must sell their labor- distribution, the harder it may be to power to others in order to survive, yet mobilize lower-middle- and working- they live considerably above mere sub- class support for redistribution down- sistence. Such people are unlikely to ward–certainly for redistribution to respond to Marx’s famous battle cry those at the bottom. that they have “nothing to lose but their In one attempt to model the implica- chains.” tions of this type of social situation, Marxian political economists have Fredrich Breyer and Heinrich W. sometimes claimed that this is a tran- Ursprung have shown formally that sient state of affairs: working-class dis- above-average income earners are in a content is bought off through welfare position to bribe the small segment of states that will eventually succumb to voters whose incomes fall between the

Dædalus Winter 2002 125 Ian Shapiro median and the mean to resist the temp- duce inequality at a faster rate than the on 5 inequality tation of con½scatory taxation. In political process can attenuate it. If so, a another article, James M. Snyder and de½nitive evaluation of the redistribu- Gerald H. Kramer have argued that a tive thesis may prove elusive. majority of middle- and upper-income The past thirty years have been a peri- taxpayers might support a relatively pro- od of unusually regressive redistribution gressive income tax–but only if it in the United States. This suggests that reduced their tax burden at the expense we should look to historically contingent of the poor.6 The more wealth a tiny factors to account for it in addition to minority has, the easier it is to co-opt considering the ongoing obstacles to middle-class voters through marginal progressive redistribution that I have tax cuts, middle-class tax bene½ts such described. Among those mentioned as home interest mortgage deductions, here, two candidates are the advent of and subsidies for their children’s higher segmented democracy and the massive education. The members of this middle increase in the rate of incarceration for group may well be more concerned nonviolent crimes. Other dynamics I about what they stand to lose from an have mentioned may also have been aggressive system of progressive taxa- involved, such as the paradoxical ways in tion than attracted to the uncertain be- which massive inequality may make ne½ts of allying with those below them downward redistribution more dif½cult in order to soak the rich. once certain thresholds have been passed. Perhaps these developments are As I have noted briefly in relation to causally implicated in the upward redis- the United States, and as others have tribution we have seen in the United detailed more systematically in connec- States in recent decades; perhaps they tion with other countries, distributive are consequences of it. politics have moved in different direc- In any event, other factors have been tions at different times in different dem- involved as well. One such is doubtless ocratic systems. Some of the factors Buckley v. Valeo. This 1976 Supreme Court adduced here apply generally, but some decision ushered in an era of limitless do not. spending in political campaigns, loading This can scarcely be surprising. The the dice more heavily than before in psychology of citizens is but one of a favor of those with money. Particularly host of factors that influence the evolv- in an inquiry that aspires to be sensitive ing structure of inequality in capitalist to the consequences of incomplete infor- democracies. It may also be that democ- mation, cognitive limitations, and fram- racies do redistribute downward some- ing effects, some attention to how and times, but that capitalist economies pro- why issues are put in front of people is in order. 5 Friedrich Breyer and Heinrich W. Ursprung, Another likely cause of the recent “Are the Rich Too Rich to be Expropriated?: dearth of demands for downward redis- Economic Power and Feasibility of Constitu- tribution derives from the changing tional Limits to Redistribution,” Public Choice 94 (1/2) (1998): 135–156. beliefs of the elite. In the era from the New Deal through the Great Society, 6 James M. Snyder and Gerald H. Kramer, “Fairness, Self-interest, and the Politics of the many American political and economic Progressive Income Tax,” Journal of Public Eco- elites embraced a Keynesian worldview. nomics 36 (1988): 197–230. Among its implications was the belief

126 Dædalus Winter 2002 that capitalism could conceivably fall that a single explanation can be given Why the poor don’t apart, and that spending by government for why the redistributive thesis fails. It soak the rich to stimulate demand at the bottom of seems likely to me that the possibilities the economy was needed to stave off of redistributive politics are differently this possibility. That fear is much less limited in different circumstances, in prevalent among elites today. There is, which case the search for a general moreover, no longer a threatening alter- explanation will be chimerical. native system on offer from the Soviet A ½nal point concerns my proclivity in Union, eliminating a very good ulterior this essay to reach for South African motive for the haves to worry about the examples to illuminate distributive poli- have-nots. The potential of these devel- tics in the United States. As a white opments to reinforce empathy gulfs and South African who is now a citizen of downward-looking framing effects is the United States, I have long been fasci- obvious. nated by the ways in which Americans These observations suggest that we view political events in my former are unlikely to be able to formulate any homeland. In the 1970s and 1980s, South simple theory about how the politics of Africa was widely depicted as the redistribution work out in a modern-day embodiment of political evil by Ameri- democracy. Rather, particular episodes can liberals, socialists, and even many will call for historically grounded expla- conservatives, and it became a focus of nations. This is not to say that adding to intense protest. Campaigns for divest- our understanding of the general dy- ment and, eventually, for sanctions were namics addressed here is a waste of successful in much of the Western time. These dynamics alert us to distrib- world. In the United States, campus utive psychologies and subjective logics demonstrations and other public pres- that can play themselves out in demo- sure forced universities and pension cratic politics, even if they must be trig- funds to divest their South African hold- gered by historically speci½c events and ings. Corporations found doing business institutional dynamics. in South Africa to be increasingly costly, This raises, and settles, a second issue. and in 1986 even a recalcitrant Reagan Although many of the considerations administration was unable to muster identi½ed here are mutually comple- enough support to sustain its veto of mentary, some live in tension with one bipartisan sanctions legislation in Con- another. Most obviously, the appeal to gress. The anti-apartheid movement res- the widespread belief in the American onated across a broad swath of opinion Dream and the possibility of upward as a locus for judgments about regimes mobility stand in stark contrast to my discussion of empathy gulfs in account- ing for the failure of the redistributive 7 Jonathan Kozol quotes a teacher in the South Bronx: “Many of the ambitions of children . . . thesis. Perhaps this tension can be are locked in at a level that suburban kids resolved by exploring the possibility would scorn. It’s as if the very possibilities of that even when the poor expect to get life have been scaled back. Boys who are doing rich, they understand this possibility in well in school will tell me, ‘I would like to be a a modest way that is compatible with sanitation man.’ I have to guard my words and 7 not say anything to indicate my sense of disap- the persistence of empathy gulfs. Then pointment. In this neighborhood, a sanitation again, perhaps the tension cannot be job is something to be longed for.” Kozol, resolved. There is no reason to suppose Amazing Grace (New York: Crown, 1995), 125.

Dædalus Winter 2002 127 Ian Shapiro that should be seen as beyond the pale. on inequality This is perplexing, because on most measures of human-rights abuses and political killings, South Africa probably did not rank among the top twenty most repressive regimes in the world during this period. It suggests that, whatever the American reaction tells us about apartheid, it is also revealing of Amer- ica’s own political culture. Perhaps the shrill and self-righteous character of much of the American anti-apartheid movement had a good deal to do with a reluctance to peer into the mirror and face an uncomfortably similar reality at home.

128 Dædalus Winter 2002 Poem by Frank Bidart

Young Marx

That man’s own life is an object for him. That animals build nests, build dwellings, whereas man contemplates himself in the world that he has created: That you cannot ½nd yourself in your labor because it does not belong to your essential being:

That estranged from labor the laborer is self-estranged, alien to himself:

That your nature is to labor:

That feeling himself fleetingly unbound only when eating, drinking, procreating, in his dwelling and dressing-up, man erects means into sole and ultimate ends:

That where he makes what he makes, he is not: That when he makes, he is not:

Thus the ground of our self-estrangement.

–Marx in 1844, before the solutions that he proposed betrayed him by entering history, before, like Jesus, too many sins were committed in his name.

Frank Bidart, a Fellow of the American Academy since 1992, is the author most recently of “Desire,” a ½nalist for the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In April of 2002 he will publish a chapbook of poems about making, “Music Like Dirt” (Sarabande Books). He is also currently at work on an edition of Robert Lowell’s collected poems.

Dædalus Winter 2002 129

Fiction by Bharati Mukherjee

A wedding

In the mind’s eye, a one-way procession moon and dims the man-made light to of flickering oil lamps sways along the faintness deeper than the stars’. In such muddy shanko between rice paddies and darkness perspective disappears. It is a flooded ponds, and ½nally disappears two-dimensional world impossible to into a distant wall of impenetrable jun- penetrate. But for the intimacy of shared gle. Banks of fog rise from warmer discomfort, it is dif½cult even to esti- waters, mingle with smoke from the mate the space separating each traveler. cooking ½res, and press in a dense sooty The narrow, raised trail stretches ten collar, a permeable gray wall that parts, miles from Mishtigunj town to the jun- then seals, igniting a winter chorus of gle’s edge. In a palanquin borne by four retching coughs and loud spitting. servants sit a rich man’s three daughters, Tuberculosis is everywhere. The air, the the youngest dressed in her bridal sari, water, the soil are septic. Thirty-½ve her little hands painted with red lac dye, years is a long life. Smog obscures the her hair oiled and set. Her arms are heavy with dowry gold; bangles ring tiny Bharati Mukherjee, a Fellow of the American arms from wrist to shoulder. Childish Academy since 1993, is a professor of English at voices chant a song, hands clap, gold the University of California, Berkeley. A citizen of bracelets tinkle. I cannot imagine the the United States born and raised in Calcutta, loneliness of this child. A Bengali girl’s India, Mukherjee has published a number of happiest night is about to become her short stories and novels that concern her Indian lifetime imprisonment. It seems all the heritage and also the immigrant experience. The sorrow of history, all that is unjust in winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award society and cruel in religion has settled for ½ction, for “The Middleman and Other Sto- on her. Even constructing it from the ries” (1988), Mukherjee has also written several merest scraps of family memory ½lls me non½ction works, including (with her husband with rage and bitterness. Clark Blaise) “Days and Nights in Calcutta” The bride-to-be whispers the “Tush (1977), a pioneering examination of postcolonial Tusli Brata,” a hymn to the sacredness of identity. The story in this issue of Dædalus is an marriage, a petition for a kind and gener- excerpt from the ½rst chapter of her newest work, ous husband: “Desirable Daughters,” to be published by Hype- What do I hope for in worshipping you? rion in March of 2002. That my father’s wisdom be endless, © 2002 by Bharati Mukherjee

Dædalus Winter 2002 131 Fiction by My mother’s kindness bottomless. years old and headed deep into the forest Bharati May my husband be as powerful as a king of Mukherjee to marry a tree. gods. I have had the time, the motivation, May my future son-in-law light up the royal and even the passion to undertake this court. history. When my friends, my child, or Bestow on me a brother who is learned and my sisters ask me why, I say I am explor- intellectual, ing the making of a consciousness. Your A son as handsome as the best-looking courtier, consciousness? they tease, and I tell And a daughter who is beauteous. them, No. Yours. Let my hair-part glow red with vermilion pow- der, as a wife’s should. On this night, flesh-and-blood On my wrists and arms, let bangles glitter and emerges from the unretrievable past. I jangle. have Jai Krishna’s photo, I know the Load down my clothes-rack with the ½nest saris, name of Jai Krishna’s father, but they Fill my kitchen with scoured-shiny utensils, have always been ghosts. But Tara Lata is Reward my wifely virtue with a rice-½lled gran- not, nor will her father be, after the ary. events of this special day. And so my his- These are the boons that this young virgin begs tory begins with a family wedding on the of thee. coldest, darkest night in the Bengali In a second, larger palki borne by four month of Paush–December/January– men sit the family priest and the father in a district of the Bengal Presidency of the bride. Younger uncles and cousins that lies east of Calcutta–now Kol- follow in a vigilant ½le. Two more kata–and south of Dacca–now Dhaka guards, sharp-bladed daos drawn, bring –as the English year of 1879 is about to up the rear. Two servants walk ahead of shed its ½nal two digits, although the the eight litter-bearers, holding naphtha Hindu year of 1285 still has four months lamps. No one has seen such brilliant to run and the Muslim year of 1297 has European light, too strong to stare into, barely begun. purer white than the moon. It is a town In those years, Bengal was the seat of light, a rich man’s light, a light that British power, Calcutta its capital, its knows English intervention. If bandits cultural and economic center. The city is are crouching in the gullies they will endowed with the instruments of West- know to strike this reckless Hindu who ern knowledge, the museums, the col- announces his wealth with light and by leges, the newspapers, and the Asiatic arming his servants. What treasures lie Society. The old Bengal Presidency inside, how much gold and jewels, what included all of today’s Bangladesh, the target ripe for kidnapping? The nearest current Indian state of West Bengal, and town, where such a wealthy man must parts of Assam, Bihar, and Orissa. A re- have come from, lies behind him. Only constituted Bengal Presidency today the jungle lies ahead. Even the woodcut- would have over 330 million people and ters desert it at night, relinquishing it to be the world’s third most populous goondahs and marauders, snakes and country. China, India, Bengal. There are tigers. more of me than there are of you, al- The bride is named Tara Lata, a name though I am both. we almost share. The name of the father The eastern regions of Bengal, even is Jai Krishna Gangooly. Tara Lata is ½ve before the flight of Hindus during the

132 Dædalus Winter 2002 subcontinent’s partition in 1947, and its none of the eager con½dence of his class- A wedding reincarnation as Bangladesh in 1972, mates. He is a young man of twenty-one always contained a Muslim majority, who looks forty; his thick, dark eye- though largely controlled by a sizeable brows form an unbroken bar, and his and wealthy Hindu minority. The com- shadow of a mustache–an inversion of munities speak the same language – prevailing style that favored elaborately Muslims, if the truth be known, more curled and wax-tipped mustaches – tenaciously than Hindus. But for the reveals a young man more eloquent with outer signs of the faith–the beards and a disapproving frown than with his skullcaps of the Muslims, the different words. dietary restrictions, the caste observanc- For ten years I kept the graduation photo of es, the vermilion powder on the hair- Bisbwapriya Chatterjee, my husband–Indian parting of married Hindu women–there Institute of Technology, Kharagpur–on our is little, fundamentally, to distinguish nightstand. Last icon before falling asleep, ½rst them. The communities suffer, as Freud worshipful image of the morning. The countries, put it, from the narcissism of small dif- the apartments, the houses all changed, but the ference. portrait remained. He had that eagerness, and a The Hindu Bengalis were the ½rst Indi- con½dent smile that promised substantial earn- ans to master the English language and ings. It lured my father into marriage negotia- to learn their master’s ways, the ½rst to tions, and it earned my not unenthusiastic flatter him by emulation, and the ½rst to acceptance of him as husband. A very pre- earn his distrust by unbidden demon- dictable, very successful marriage negotiation. strations of wit and industry. Because Had Jai Krishna been a native Calcut- they were a minority in their desh, their tan, or had he come from Dacca, Ben- homeland, dependent on mastering or gal’s second city, he might never have manipulating British power and Muslim suffered the anxiety of the small-town psychology, the Hindus of east Bengal provincial elevated into urbanity. In my felt themselves superior even to the Hin- mother-language we call the powerful dus of the capital city of Calcutta. Gen- middle class “bhadra lok,” the gentle- tlemen like Jai Krishna Gangopadhaya, a folk, the “civilized” fold, for whom the pleader in the Dacca High Court, whose English fashioned the pejorative term surname the colonial authorities light- “babu,” with its hint of fawning insin- ened to Gangooly, and who, on this par- cerity and slavishly acquired Western ticular winter night, squats with a priest attitudes. The rest of the population are in a palki that reminds him of wagons “chhoto lok,” literally, the little people. for transporting remanded prisoners, Jai Krishna Gangooly lacked the reflex- was situated to take full advantage of ive self-con½dence of the bhadra lok. In fast-changing and improving times. He his heart, he was a provincial from Mish- spoke mellifluous English and one high tigunj, third son of a village doctor court judge had even recommended him whose practice included the indigent for a scholarship to Oxford. Had he and Muslims. He felt he’d been lifted played by the rules, he should have been from his provincial origins because of a great success, a prince, and a power. his father’s contacts in the Calcutta Jai Krishna’s graduation portrait from Medical College. He was not comfort- the second class of India’s ½rst law able in the lawyer’s black robes and school (Calcutta University, 1859) dis- powdered wig. plays the expected Victorian gravitas and And so, the story of the three great-

Dædalus Winter 2002 133 Fiction by granddaughters of Jai Krishna Gangooly Now nearing forty, he was in full flight Bharati Mukherjee starts on the day of a wedding, a few from his younger self, joining a debate hours before the palki ride where fates that was to split bhadra lok society have already been decided, in the deco- between progressives and traditionalists rated ancestral house of the Gangoolys for over a century. on the river in Mishtigunj town. The A Dacca barrister, Keshub Mitter, decorations signify a biye-bari, a wed- teased him for behaving more like a ding house. Beggars have already once-rich Muslim nawab wedded to a camped in the alleys adjacent to the fanciful past and visions of lost glory canopy under which giant copper vats of than an educated, middle-class Hindu milk, stirred by professional cooks, have lawyer. Everyone knew that the Indian been boiling and thickening for sweet- past was a rubbish heap of shameful meats, and where other vats, woks, and superstitions. Keshub Mitter’s insult cauldrons receive the chunks of giant would have been unforgivable if it hilsa ½sh netted fresh from the river and hadn’t been delivered deftly, with a hold the rice pilao, lamb curry, spiced smile and a Bengali lawyer’s wit and lentils, and deep-fried and sauce-steeped charm. My dear Gangooly, English is but vegetables, a feast for a thousand invited a stepping-stone to the deeper re½ne- guests and the small city of self-invited ment of German and French. Where men, women, and children camped out- does our Bangla language lead you? A side the gates. big frog in a small, stagnant pond. Let us The astrologers have spoken; the leave the sweet euphony of Bangla to our horoscopes have been compared. The poets, and the salvation-enhancement of match between Jai Krishna’s youngest Sanskrit to our priests. Packet boats daughter and a thirteen-year-old youth, delivered Berlin and Paris papers to the another Kulin Brahmin from an upright Dacca High Court, along with the vener- and pious family from a nearby village, ated Times. has been blessed. The prewedding reli- The cases Jai Krishna pleaded in court gious rites have been meticulously per- often cast him as the apostle of enlight- formed, and the prewedding stree-achar, enment and upholder of law against out- married women’s rituals, boisterously moded custom, or the adjudicator of observed. To protect the husband-to-be outrages unde½ned and unimaginable from poisonous snakebite, married under British law. The majesty of law women relatives and Brahmin women was in conflict with Jai Krishna’s search neighbors have propitiated Goddess for an uncorrupted, un-British, un-Mus- Manasha with prescribed offerings. All lim, fully Hindu consciousness. He of this has been undertaken at a moment removed his wife and children from cos- in the evolution of Jai Krishna from stu- mopolitan Dacca and installed them in dent of Darwin and Bentham and Comte Mishtigunj. He sought a purer life for and practitioner of icy logic to reader of himself, English pleader by day, Sanskrit the Upanishads and believer in Vedic scholar by night. He regretted the lack of wisdom. He had become a seeker of a rigorous Brahminical upbringing, the truth, not a synthesizer of cultures. He years spent in Calcutta learning the found himself starting arguments with superior ways of arrogant Englishmen pleaders and barristers, those who actu- and English laws, ingesting English con- ally favored morning toast with mar- tempt for his background and ridicule malade, English suits, and leather shoes. for babus like him. He had grown up in a

134 Dædalus Winter 2002 secularized home with frequent Muslim ried and would soon be moving to their A wedding visitors and the occasional wayward husbands’ houses and living as wives, Englishman. In consideration of non- then as mothers. They were placid and Hindu guests, his father had made cer- obedient daughters who would make tain that his mother’s brass deities and loving and obedient wives. Tara Lata, his stone lingams stayed con½ned in the favorite, would be no exception. closed-off worship-room. In the wintry bright hour just before twilight blackens Mishtigunj, the deco- On the morning of Tara Lata’s wed- rated bajra from the Lahiri family ½nally ding, female relatives waited along the sailed into view. The bride’s female rela- riverbank for the arrival of the groom tives stood at the stone bathing-steps and his all-male wedding party. The leading from the steep bank down to the groom was Satindranath Lahiri, ½fth son river as servants prepared to help the of Surendranath Lahiri, of the landown- groom’s party of two hundred disem- ing Lahiri family; in his own right, a bark. Women began the oo-loo ulula- healthy youth, whose astrological signs tion, the almost instrumental, pitched- pointed to continued wealth and many voice welcome. Two of Jai Krishna’s sons. Back in Dacca, Jai Krishna had younger brothers supervised the defended the ancient Hindu practices, unrolling of mats on the swampy path the caste consciousness, the star charts, that connected the private dock and Jai the observance of auspicious days, the Krishna’s two-storied brick house. giving of dowry, the intact integrity of The bajra anchored, but none on his community’s rituals. His colleague, board rushed to the deck railings to be Keshub Mitter, to be known two ceremoniously greeted by the welcom- decades later as Sir Keshub, and his ing party of the bride’s relatives. The physician, Dr. Ashim Lal Roy, both bridegroom’s father and uncles had a prominent members of the most pro- servant deliver a cruel message in an gressive, most Westernized segment of insulting tone to the bride’s father. They Bengali society, the Brahmo Sarnaj, had would not disembark on Jai Krishna’s attempted to dissuade him. The two property for Jai Krishna and his entire men had cited example after example of clan were carriers of a curse, and that astrologically arranged marriages, full of curse, thanks to Jai Krishna’s home- astral promise, turning disastrous. The destroying, misfortune-showering only worthwhile dowry, they’d pro- daughter, had been visited on their sin- claimed, is an educated bride. Child- less son instead of on Jai Krishna’s flesh- marriage is barbarous. How could horo- and-blood. They demanded that Jai scopes influence lives, especially ob- Krishna meet them in the sheltered scure lives, in dusty villages like Mishti- cabin of the bajra. gunj? Jai Krishna knew these men to be Jai Krishna ordered the wedding musi- eaters of beef and drinkers of gin. cians to stop their shenai playing and “I consider myself a student of mod- dhol beating. His women relatives, ern science,” Jai Krishna had explained, shocked at the tone in which the servant “and because I am a student of modern repeated his master’s message to Jai science, I cannot reject any theory until I Krishna babu, the renowned Dacca test it.” And so far, the tests had all turn- lawyer, had given up their conch shell ed out positive. His two older daughters, blowing and their ululating on their seven and nine, were successfully mar- own. For several minutes, Jai Krishna

Dædalus Winter 2002 135 Fiction by stood still on the bathing-steps, trying to Others added their hostile counsel. Bharati Mukherjee conceal at ½rst his bewilderment, then “Hang a rope around her neck!” “May his fury, that the man who was to have she have the good sense to drown her- full patriarchal authority over his be- self!” loved daughter had called her names. “How did . . .” Jai Krishna couldn’t ½n- Then he heard a bullying voice from ish his question. He could guess the inside the cabin yell instructions to the answer from the pain-stiffened expres- boatmen to pull up anchor. sion on the corpse’s young face. “They’re bargaining for more dowry,” “Snakebite,” a man in the groom’s muttered one of Jai Krishna’s brothers. party screamed at him. “No beggar is as greedy as that Lahiri “When we were transferring from car- bastard!” spat another brother. riage to bajra,” another, kinder, man Two boatmen played at reeling in explained. ropes and readying the bajra to sail back. “You had no light? No lamps and “Wait!” Jai Krishna shouted. “What- torches?” Jai Krishna demanded, the ever the problem, I’m sure we can work implications of that fatal snakebite for it out!” He raced down the gangplank his daughter suddenly foremost in his and boarded the bajra. mind. He imagined little Tara Lata, Members of the bridegroom’s party, wrapped in a bridal sari of scarlet silk strangers to Jai Krishna, ringed him on embroidered with heavy gold thread, deck. Their faces were twisted in hate or weighted down with gold jewelry, sitting grief. on display on a divan laden with dowry “Tell me, I beg of you,” Jai Krishna gifts in a room in the women’s quarters. pleaded, “please tell me what pain we She’d be nervous, dreading the immi- have inadvertently inflicted.” He stood, nent inspection of the groom’s party. hands pressed together in a gesture of The groom’s folks were bound by cus- humility, among the hostile men entitled tom to be even more critical of her to his hospitality. “What discourtesy appearance and her dowry than were the have we committed? How may I right neighborhood women. They’d make whatever is currently wrong?” loud remarks about her being too skinny, Surendranath Lahiri stepped out of the too dark, too ½dgety. They’d complain cabin, as if on cue. Hammocked in his about the dowry furniture, speculating outstretched arms lay the limp body of a viciously that it was not built of best- lifeless boy. quality Burma teak. They’d scoff at the “What. . .” Startled, Jai Krishna took a weight, quality, and size of the silver step back. The bridegroom’s relatives dowry utensils that ½lled a deep, wooden closed in on him, cutting him off from chest. The poor child had no idea that his own people, who remained, mute, already she had been transformed from aghast, on the riverbank. envied bride about to be married to a “Your happiness-wrecking daughter is suitable husband into the second-worst responsible.” Surendranath affected the thing in her society. She was now not dazed calm of a man beyond grief and quite a widow, which for a Bengali outrage. “May she die as horrible a Hindu woman would be the most death.” cursed state, but a woman who brings “Better a barren womb than a womb her family misfortune and death. She that produces such a luckless female!” was a person to be avoided. In a commu- someone shouted behind Jai Krishna. nity intolerant of unmarried women, his

136 Dædalus Winter 2002 Tara Lata had become an unmarriage- bridegroom by a goddess enraged at A wedding able woman. having been de½led by a menstruating Around him elegantly dressed men devotee. The snakebite had occurred to were screaming. “There must have been remind Jai Krishna and Surendranath augurs and signs!” “You didn’t disclose how precarious social order and fatherly what you must have known, Jai Krishna self-con½dence are. He had thought babu!” “You fancy city men, you have himself smugly in command of the wed- no respect for Hindu traditions. Some ding night’s arrangements. rite must have been omitted!” Finally Surendranath Lahiti, still hold- He heard a reference to Manasha, the ing the body of his son in his arms, goddess who causes or prevents snake- spoke. “You will arrange posthaste for bites. “The goddess must not have been the dowry cash and the dowry gifts to be suf½ciently appeased,” someone brought on board, Jai Krishna babu. accused. “You Westernized types think What you do with your wretched girl, you are stronger than our Hindu dei- the killer of my son, I make your busi- ties!” Admonition swelled into vengeful ness.” judgment. And that was the moment when Jai Jai Krishna assured them all rites had Krishna Gangooly felt his wounded con- been faithfully observed. sciousness began to heal. The stars had “Why should we believe you when it is been repositioned. The pleader knew well known that all lawyers prevari- Surendranath’s claim to the dowry was cate?” untenable, nakedly greedy. But the re- “You have my word,” Jai Krishna said. born Hindu knew the working of fate An elderly man in the groom’s party was more complicated than English law came forward, pulling his embroidered and cared nothing about life and death, shawl of ½ne wool tightly around his even of innocent children. His daugh- shoulders. “When the stree-achar rites ter’s true fate, the fate behind the horo- were performed, some woman must scope, had now been revealed: a life- have been unclean. You can deceive time’s virginity, a life without a husband judges, but you cannot fool goddesses.” to worship as god’s proxy on earth, and “The goddess exacts payment in mys- thus, the despairing life of a woman terious ways.” Others took this up as a doomed to be reincarnated. refrain. “The marriage did not take place,” he Jai Krishna Gangooly, the ½ery- said, his voice lawyerly, loud, authorita- tongued pleader, had not thought of tive. “Therefore, there is no question of Manasha or any village goddess for that dowry giving.” matter, not even Shitala, the goddess “His son is dead! The boy has been associated with smallpox, in decades. murdered!” He’d defended Hindu tradition, with all Jai Krishna turned his back on the its inflexibility and excess, against the avaricious man who would have been scorn of progressive colleagues like Tara Lata’s father-in-law if fate hadn’t Keshub Mitter as much out of his intervened. “I will see my daughter mar- lawyerly love of debate as conviction or ried to a crocodile, to a tree, before you religious faith. Now he wondered about get a single pice! I give dowry only to the lessons embedded in Hindu myths one who does not demand it. There will and folktales. The snake had not been be a wedding tonight, the auspicious charged to kill the thirteen-year-old hour will be honored.”

Dædalus Winter 2002 137 Fiction by And with that, Jai Krishna Gangooly, Bharati Mukherjee who would soon reclaim the ancestral name of Gangopadhaya and embark on a second lifetime of wondrous adventure, walked down the gangway to the dock. The women on the riverbank, uncertain of what had happened on board the bajra, began their ululation once more. The shenai players led the procession back to the wedding house. When the procession reached the walled com- pound, Jai Krishna himself threw open the front gates and welcomed in the assembled beggars and gawkers. At nightfall, the naphtha lamps were lit, the bride and her sisters were gathered up and placed inside a palanquin, and the marriage party set out, on foot and in palanquins and sedan chairs, to ½nd a tree suitable as a bridegroom.

138 Dædalus Winter 2002 words in our biographies, and both I and the other panelists had described our- selves as experts on “intelligence.” While individuals from many back- Howard Gardner grounds describe themselves as interest- ed in intelligence, for those of us trained on the in psychology, “intelligence” has a quite speci½c history and connotation. For three faces nearly a century, the word has largely of been owned by psychometricians. These intelligence individuals devise, administer, and score short-answer tests of intelligence that require subjects to perform tasks associ- ated with school: de½ne words, select antonyms, remember passages, supply general information, manipulate geo- metric shapes, and the like. Those who consistently do well on measures of in- Once, at a Renaissance Weekend, I telligence (often called iq tests) are con- found myself on a panel with a u.s. sen- sidered smart–and indeed, so long as ator, a congressman, and a policy wonk. they remain in school, they are likely to As a cognitive psychologist with an in- have that characterization con½rmed. terest in education, I was nonplussed to A surrounding web of assertions often be surrounded by this distinguished but accompanies this seemingly objective (to me) exotic company. About halfway information. As stated sharply in the through the hour, the mystery was ab- best-selling book The Bell Curve, individ- ruptly solved. One of the panelists used uals are thought to be born with a cer- the word “intelligence” and another im- tain intellectual potential; it is dif½cult mediately responded by citing the fail- to change that potential; and psychome- ures of the cia during the last quarter- tricians can tell us from an early age century. As was later con½rmed, the pan- how smart we are. Authors Richard els had been constituted by noting key Herrnstein and Charles Murray go on to trace various social ills to those with low intelligence levels and to hint that iq Howard Gardner, the John H. and Elisabeth A. scores may be related to race. The latter Hobbs Professor in Cognition and Education at claims led to the sales and the furor sur- the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is rounding the book. best known in educational circles for his theory of During the last two decades, the psy- multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that chometric hegemony over intelligence there exists but a single human intelligence that has been increasingly challenged. Com- can be assessed by standard psychometric instru- puter specialists have begun to develop ments. His most recent books are “The Disciplined theories and applications of arti½cial Mind” (2000); “Intelligence Reframed” (2000); intelligence; some of their systems are and (with Mihaly Csikszentmihaly and William general problem-solvers, while others Damon) “Good Work” (2001). Gardner has been have well-delineated expertise. Neuro- a Fellow of the American Academy since 1995. scientists and geneticists have focused

© 2002 by Howard Gardner

Dædalus Winter 2002 139 Note by on the evolutionary origins and the neu- but the sheer intelligence of his interpreta- Howard Gardner ral representations of various mental tions. faculties. And within the ½eld of psy- When invoking the ½rst meaning of chology, alternative perspectives have intelligence, we attempt a general charac- been introduced as well: Daniel Gole- terization of human (or nonhuman) capaci- man has written extensively and persua- ties. We might, for example, speak of sively about emotional intelligence; human intelligence as the capacity to Robert Sternberg has added practical solve complex problems, or to anticipate and creative intelligence to the more the future, or to analyze patterns, or to familiar notion of analytic intelligence. synthesize disparate pieces of informa- And over the past twenty years I have tion. A major disciplinary tradition, developed a pluralistic “theory of multi- begun with Charles Darwin’s studies of ple intelligences.” the “descent of man” and continuing According to my theory, it is mislead- with Jean Piaget’s investigation of chil- ing to think of humans as possessing but dren’s minds, seeks to capture what is a single intellectual capacity, which unique and generic about intelligence. almost always amounts to an amalgam The second meaning of intelligence is of linguistic and logical-mathematical the one that has been most widely em- skills. Rather, examined from an evolu- ployed by psychologists. Those in the tionary perspective, it makes more sense psychometric tradition–whether uni- to conceptualize human beings as having tarians or pluralists–assume that intelli- several relatively autonomous mental gence is a trait, like height or extrover- faculties, including musical intelligence, sion. Individuals can be usefully com- spatial intelligence, bodily kinesthetic pared with one another on the extent to intelligence, and naturalist intelligence. I which they exhibit this trait or ensemble also propose two forms of personal intel- of traits. I term this tack the examination ligence, interpersonal and intrapersonal: of individual differences on a trait of interest. these latter are close to what Goleman Much of my own work on multiple intel- means by emotional intelligence. ligences has entailed descriptions of the When I was developing this pluralistic differing pro½les of intelligence across theory, I still thought that intelligence individuals. was a singular concept. It has taken me The third meaning of intelligence has until now to realize the importance of been the least explored, though it may be distinguishing between three distinct the most intriguing. As suggested in the meanings of intelligence, which are cap- Brendel example, the focus here falls on tured in the following sentences: the manner in which a task is executed. We 1 In view of the close resemblance often speak in this way: we talk about between chimpanzee and human genetic whether a decision was wise or ill- material, it has become challenging to advised, whether the manner in which delineate the de½ning characteristics of the decision was reached was clever or human intelligence. foolish, whether a leadership transition 2 On most dimensions of interest, Susan was handled intelligently or ineptly, simply displays more intelligence than whether a new concept was introduced John. intelligently into a lecture, and so forth. What distinguishes this third connota- 3 What distinguishes Alfred Brendel’s tion of intelligence? We cannot charac- piano playing is not his technique per se, terize an act or decision as intelligent

140 Dædalus Winter 2002 without some sense of the goal or pur- critic believing that she is engaged in the The three faces of pose at issue, the choices involved in a same kind of endeavor as a school psy- intelligence genre, and the particular value system of chologist. the participants. Alfred Brendel’s play- The second dividend concerns ing may not be technically more accu- research. There is little question that rate on some objective index. Rather, in scholars and researchers will continue to view of his own goals, the choices avail- examine the nature of intelligence. We able in piano performance, and the val- can expect to read about new tests of ues of the listener, one can validly speak intelligence, new forms of arti½cially of his interpretations as intelligent or intelligent machinery, and even about wanting in intelligence. Moreover, I genes for intelligence. Some researchers could dislike Brendel’s interpretations will be quite clear about what they mean and still concur that they were intelli- in using the term “intelligence,” but we gent, if you could convince me of what can expect there to be considerable con- he was trying to achieve and why it fusion as well, unless scholars take care made sense in his terms. Or I could con- to indicate which aspect of intelligence vince you that Glenn Gould’s perform- they are studying and how (or whether) ance of the same piece was intelligent, it relates to the other ones. whether or not you personally liked it. Finally, and most important for me, There do not exist example-independent are implications for education. When an criteria for what constitutes a wise or educator speaks about intelligence in the foolish decision, planning process, lead- ½rst sense, she is referring to a capacity ership transition, introduction of a topic that can be assumed to exist in all hu- in a class, and so on. Yet armed with man beings. Perhaps it is manifest more information about goals, genres, and val- quickly or dramatically in one person ues, we can make assessments about than in another, but ultimately we are whether these tasks have been per- dealing with part of the human birth- formed intelligently–even as we can right and so no special measures are agree to disagree about the conclusions needed. In contrast, intelligence in the reached. “individual difference” sense involves How does the third sense of intelli- judgment about the potentials of indi- gence relate to multiple intelligences? I viduals and how each might be taught in speculate that different tasks call on dif- the most effective manner. If (following ferent intelligences or combinations of Herrnstein and Murray) one assumes intelligences. To perform music intelli- that Sally has little intellectual potential gently involves a different set of intelli- in general, or (following the theory of gences than preparing a meal, planning a multiple intelligences) little potential for course, or resolving a quarrel. the development of spatial intelligence, So, one might ask, what is achieved by one is faced with clear-cut educational this exercise in the “semantics of intelli- choices. These can range from giving up gence”? Let me suggest three possible to working much harder to searching for dividends. The ½rst is indeed lexical. It is alternative ways to deliver instruction, useful and important to distinguish the be the topic geometry, ancient history, three distinct de½nitions of intelligence; or classical music. otherwise we risk speaking past one And what of doing something intelli- another, with a Piagetian needlessly gently or stupidly? The greatest educa- clashing with a psychometrician, or a tional progress could be achieved here.

Dædalus Winter 2002 141 Note by All too often, we ignore goals, genres, or Frank Wilczek values, or we assume that they are so apparent that we do not bother to high- light them. Yet judgments about whether an exercise–a paper, a project, an essay Frank Wilczek response on an examination–has been done intelligently or stupidly are often on the dif½cult for students to fathom. And since these evaluations are not well world’s understood, few if any lessons can be numerical drawn from them. Laying out the criteria recipe by which judgments of quality are made may not suf½ce in itself to improve qual- ity, but in the absence of such clari½- cation, we have little reason to expect our students to go about their work intelligently.

Twentieth-century physics began around 600 b.c. when Pythagoras of Samos pro- claimed an awesome vision. By studying the notes sounded by plucked strings, Pythagoras discovered that the human perception of harmony is connected to numerical ratios. He examined strings made of the same material, having the same thickness, and under the same tension, but of different lengths. Under these conditions, he found that the notes sound harmonious precisely when the ratio of the lengths of string can be expressed in small whole numbers. For example, the length ratio

Frank Wilczek, Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at MIT, is known, among other things, for the discovery of asymptotic freedom, the develop- ment of quantum chromodynamics, the invention of axions, and the discovery and exploitation of new forms of quantum statistics (anyons). When only twenty-one years old and a graduate student at Princeton University, he and David Gross de½ned the properties of gluons, which hold atom- ic nuclei together. He has been a Fellow of the American Academy since 1993.

142 Dædalus Winter 2002 2:1 sounds a musical octave, 3:2 a musi- only to unravel completely. The world’s numerical cal ½fth, and 4:3 a musical fourth. Students today still learn about recipe The vision inspired by this discovery Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion. is summed up in the maxim “All Things But before formulating these celebrated are Number.” This became the credo of laws, this great speculative thinker had the Pythagorean Brotherhood, a mixed- announced another law–we can call it sex society that combined elements of Kepler’s zeroth law–of which we hear an archaic religious cult and a modern much less, for the very good reason that scienti½c academy. it is entirely wrong. Yet it was his discov- The Brotherhood was responsible for ery of the zeroth law that ½red Kepler’s many ½ne discoveries, all of which it enthusiasm for planetary astronomy, in attributed to Pythagoras. Perhaps the particular for the Copernican system, most celebrated and profound is the and launched his extraordinary career. Pythagorean Theorem. This theorem Kepler’s zeroth law concerns the relative remains a staple of introductory geome- size of the orbits of different planets. To try courses. It is also the point of depar- formulate it, we must imagine that the ture for the Riemann-Einstein theories planets are carried about on concentric of curved space and gravity. spheres around the Sun. His law states Unfortunately, this very theorem that the successive planetary spheres are undermined the Brotherhood’s credo. of such proportions that they can be Using the Pythagorean Theorem, it is inscribed within and circumscribed not hard to prove that the ratio of the about the ½ve Platonic solids. These ½ve hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle remarkable solids–tetrahedron, cube, to either of its two shorter sides cannot octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahe- be expressed in whole numbers. A mem- dron–have faces that are congruent ber of the Brotherhood who revealed equilateral polygons. The Pythagoreans this dreadful secret drowned shortly studied them, Plato employed them afterwards, in suspicious circumstances. in the speculative cosmology of the Today, when we say Ö2 is irrational, our Timaeus, and Euclid climaxed his Ele- language still reflects these ancient anxi- ments with the ½rst known proof that eties. only ½ve such regular polyhedra exist. Still, the Pythagorean vision, broadly Kepler was enraptured by his discov- understood–and stripped of cultic, if ery. He imagined that the spheres emit- not entirely of mystical, trappings– ted music as they rotated, and he even remained for centuries a touchstone for speculated on the tunes. (This is the pioneers of mathematical science. Those source of the phrase “music of the working within this tradition did not spheres.”) It was a beautiful realization insist on whole numbers, but continued of the Pythagorean ideal. Purely concep- to postulate that the deep structure of tual, yet sensually appealing, the zeroth the physical world could be captured in law seemed a production worthy of a purely conceptual constructions. Con- mathematically sophisticated Creator. siderations of symmetry and abstract To his great credit as an honest man geometry were allowed to supplement and–though the concept is anachronis- simple numerics. tic–as a scientist, Kepler did not wallow In the work of the German astronomer in mystic rapture, but actively strove to Johannes Kepler (1570–1630), this pro- see whether his law accurately matched gram reached a remarkable apotheosis– reality. He discovered that it does not. In

Dædalus Winter 2002 143 Note by wrestling with the precise observations -22 Frank Sun, and the size is a factor 10 small- Wilczek of Tycho Brahe, Kepler was forced to er; but the leitmotif of Bohr’s model is give up circular in favor of elliptical unmistakably “Things are Number.” orbits. He couldn’t salvage the ideas that Through Bohr’s model, Kepler’s idea ½rst inspired him. that the orbits that occur in nature are After this, the Pythagorean vision precisely those that embody a conceptu- went into a long, deep eclipse. In New- al ideal emerged from its embers, reborn ton’s classical synthesis of motion and like a phoenix, after three hundred gravitation, there is no sense in which years’ quiescence. If anything, Bohr’s structure is governed by numerical or model conforms more closely to the conceptual constructs. All is dynamics. Pythagorean ideal than Kepler’s, since Newton’s laws inform us, given the posi- its preferred orbits are de½ned by whole tions, velocities, and masses of a system numbers rather than geometric con- of gravitating bodies at one time, how structions. Einstein responded with they will move in the future. They do not great empathy and enthusiasm, referring ½x a unique size or structure for the solar to Bohr’s work as “the highest form of system. Indeed, recent discoveries of musicality in the sphere of thought.” planetary systems around distant stars Later work by Heisenberg and have revealed quite different patterns. Schrödinger, which de½ned modern The great developments of nineteenth- quantum mechanics, superseded Bohr’s century physics, epitomized in Max- model. This account of subatomic mat- well’s equations of electrodynamics, ter is less tangible than Bohr’s, but ulti- brought many new phenomena with the mately much richer. In the Heisenberg- scope of physics, but they did not alter Schrödinger theory, electrons are no this situation essentially. There is noth- longer particles moving in space, ele- ing in the equations of classical physics ments of reality that at a given time are that can ½x a de½nite scale of size, “just there and not anywhere else.” whether for planetary systems, atoms, Rather, they de½ne oscillatory, space- or anything else. The world-system of ½lling wave patterns always “here, there, classical physics is divided between ini- and everywhere.” Electron waves are tial conditions that can be assigned arbi- attracted to a positively charged nucleus trarily, and dynamical equations. In and can form localized standing wave those equations, neither whole numbers patterns around it. The mathematics nor any other purely conceptual ele- describing the vibratory patterns that ments play a distinguished role. de½ne the states of atoms in quantum Quantum mechanics changed every- mechanics is identical to that which thing. describes the resonance of musical Emblematic of the new physics, and instruments. The stable states of atoms decisive historically, was Niels Bohr’s correspond to pure tones. I think it’s fair atomic model of 1913. Though it applies to say that the musicality Einstein in a vastly different domain, Bohr’s praised in Bohr’s model is, if anything, model of the hydrogen atom bears an heightened in its progeny (though Ein- uncanny resemblance to Kepler’s system stein himself, notoriously, withheld his of planetary spheres. The binding force approval from the new quantum is electrical rather than gravitational, the mechanics). players are electrons orbiting around The big difference between nature’s protons rather than planets orbiting the instruments and those of human con-

144 Dædalus Winter 2002 struction is that her designs depend not masses or their other properties; these The world’s numerical on craftsmanship re½ned by experience, were simply taken from experiment. recipe but rather on the ruthlessly precise ap- That pragmatic approach was extremely plication of simple rules. Now if you fruitful and to this day provides the browse through a textbook on atomic working basis for practical applications quantum mechanics, or look at atomic of physics in chemistry, materials sci- vibration patterns using modern visuali- ence, and biology. But it failed to pro- zation tools, “simple” might not be the vide a theory that was in our sense sim- word that leaps to mind. But it has a pre- ple, and so it left the ultimate ambitions cise, objective meaning in this context. of a Pythagorean physics unful½lled. A theory is simpler the fewer noncon- Starting in the early 1930s, with elec- ceptual elements, which must be taken trons under control, the frontier of fun- from observation, enter into its con- damental physics moved inward, to the struction. In this sense, Kepler’s zeroth nuclei. This is not the occasion to re- law provided a simpler (as it turns out, count the complex history of the heroic too simple) theory of the solar system constructions and ingenious deductions than Newton’s, because in Newton’s that at last, after ½fty years of strenuous theory the relative sizes of planetary international effort, fully exposed the orbits must be taken from observation, secrets of this inaccessible domain. For- whereas in Kepler’s they are determined tunately, the answer is easier to describe, conceptually. and it advances and consummates our From this perspective, modern atomic theme. theory is extraordinarily simple. The The theory that governs atomic nuclei Schrödinger equation, which governs is quantum chromodynamics, or qcd. electrons in atoms, contains just two As its name hints, qcd is ½rmly based nonconceptual quantities. These are the on quantum mechanics. Its mathemati- mass of the electron and the so-called cal basis is a direct generalization of ½ne-structure constant, denoted a, that qed, incorporating a more intricate speci½es the overall strength of the elec- structure supporting enhanced symme- tromagnetic interaction. By solving this try. Metaphorically, qcd stands to qed one equation, ½nding the vibrations it as an icosahedron stands to a triangle. supports, we make a concept-world that The basic players in qcd are quarks and reproduces a tremendous wealth of real- gluons. For constructing an accurate world data, notably the accurately meas- model of ordinary matter just two kinds ured spectral lines of atoms that encode of quarks, called up and down or simply their inner structure. The marvelous u and d, need to be considered. (There theory of electrons and their interac- are four other kinds, at least, but they tions with light is called quantum elec- are highly unstable and not important trodynamics, or qed. for ordinary matter.) Protons, neutrons, In the initial modeling of atoms, the p mesons, and a vast zoo of very short- focus was on their accessible, outlying lived particles called resonances are con- parts, the electron clouds. The nuclei of structed from these building blocks. The atoms, which contain most of their mass particles and resonances observed in and all of their positive charge, were the real word match the resonant wave treated as so many tiny (but very heavy!) patterns of quarks and gluons in the black boxes, buried in the core. There concept-world of qcd, much as states was no theory for the values of nuclear of atoms match the resonant wave pat-

Dædalus Winter 2002 145 Note by terns of electrons. You can predict their and qcd cook up a concept-world of Frank Wilczek masses and properties directly by solv- mathematical objects whose behavior ing the equations. matches, with remarkable accuracy, the A peculiar feature of qcd, and a major behavior of real-world matter. These reason why it was hard to discover, is objects are vibratory wave patterns. Sta- that the quarks and gluons are never ble elements of reality–protons, atomic found in isolation, but always in com- nuclei, atoms–correspond, not just plex associations. qcd actually predicts metaphorically but with mathematical this “con½nement” property, but that’s precision, to pure tones. Kepler would be not easy to prove. pleased. Considering how much it accounts for, This tale continues in several direc- qcd is an amazingly simple theory, in tions. Given two more ingredients, New- our objective sense. Its equations con- ton’s constant gn and Fermi’s constant tain just three nonconceptual ingredi- gf, which parametrize the strength of ents: the masses of the u and d quarks gravity and of the weak interaction, a and the strong coupling constant s, respectively, we can expand our concept- analogous to the ½ne structure constant world beyond ordinary matter to de- of qed, which speci½es how powerfully scribe virtually all of astrophysics. There quarks couple to gluons. The gluons are is a brilliant series of ideas involving uni- automatically massless. ½ed ½eld theories and supersymmetry Actually even three is an overestimate. that might allow us to get by with just The quark-gluon coupling varies with ½ve ingredients. (Once you’re down to distance, so we can trade it in for a unit so few, each further reduction marks an of distance. In other words, mutant epoch.) These ideas will be tested deci- a qcds with different values of s gener- sively in coming years, especially as the ate concept-worlds that behave identi- Large Hadron Collider (lhc) at cern, cally, but use different-sized metersticks. near Geneva, swings into operation Also, the masses of the u and d quarks around 2007. turn out not to be very important, quan- On the other hand, if we attempt to do titatively. Most of the mass of strongly justice to the properties of many exotic, interacting particles is due to the pure short-lived particles discovered at high- energy of the moving quarks and gluons energy accelerators, things get much they contain, according to the converse more complicated and unsatisfactory. of Einstein’s equation, m = E/c2. The We have to add pinches of many new in- masses of the u and d quarks are much gredients to our recipe, until it may seem smaller than the masses of the protons that rather than deriving a wealth of and other particles that contain them. insight from a small investment of facts, Putting all this together, we arrive at a we are doing just the opposite. That’s the most remarkable conclusion. To the state of our knowledge of fundamental extent that we are willing to use the pro- physics today–simultaneously tri- ton itself as a meterstick, and ignore the umphant, exciting, and a mess. small corrections due to the u and d The last word I leave to Einstein: quark masses, qcd becomes a theory I would like to state a theorem which at with no nonconceptual elements whatsoever. present can not be based upon anything Let me summarize. Starting with pre- more than upon a faith in the simplicity, cisely four numerical ingredients, which i.e., intelligibility, of nature: there are no must be taken from experiment, qed

146 Dædalus Winter 2002 arbitrary constants . . . that is to say, nature is so constituted that it is possible logical- ly to lay down such strongly determined laws that within these laws only rationally completely determined constants occur David G. Nathan (not constants, therefore, whose numeri- cal value could be changed without on clinical destroying the theory). research & the future of medicine

Biomedical inquiry as it is practiced in America today is an amalgam of three different kinds of research: basic research, population research, and clini- cal research. While all three are of criti- cal importance, it is clinical research that underpins our national medical efforts. Only clinical researchers are able to apply the knowledge of the cell and organ systems developed by basic researchers, and the population data gathered by epidemiologists and biosta- tisticians, to patients, making this knowledge and data relevant to medical practice by “translating” it into novel

David G. Nathan has been a Fellow of the Ameri- can Academy since 1983. The Robert A. Strana- han Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Har- vard Medical School and president emeritus of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, he was also physician in chief at the Children’s Hospital in Boston from 1985 to 1995. A recipient of the National Medal of Science for his research on blood disorders, he is also well known for his men- torship of young physicians during the formative years of their research careers.

Dædalus Winter 2002 147 Note by diagnostics and therapeutics. might have gone undetected. David G. Nathan Unlike basic researchers, who work Gleevec is not an isolated success with model systems in laboratories, clin- story, and I am convinced that we can do ical researchers work with patients in even better in the future. But in order to hospitals. It is clinical researchers, many quicken the pace of progress, we need to of whom are also laboratory workers, address some of the persistent problems who conduct research on human sub- faced by clinical researchers. jects, applying new technologies to the One problem is disciplinary: there has analysis of the mechanisms of human been a towering increase in the budget disease and evaluating the effectiveness of the National Institutes of Health of new therapies. It is clinical research- (nih) in recent years. The number of ers, working with population scientists, ph.d.’s applying for nih research grants who conduct trials of new drugs and epi- has risen pari passu, but the number of demiological studies. They also evaluate m.d. applicants has increased very slow- the quality of health services and the ly. These changes jeopardize the tradi- outcomes of medical procedures. tional composition of clinical research Without basic research, of course, teams. At the moment the principal there would be no new medical advances investigators holding clinical research to test in practice. But without clinical grants from the nih are evenly divided research, all the knowledge acquired between those holding m.d. and ph.d. through basic research would remain degrees. Though new advances will sequestered in books and journals. require effective clinical research in all A case in point is Gleevec, the new areas, particularly great strides must be trade name for sti571, a drug produced made in the translational component of by Novartis. It is an inhibitor of certain clinical research. By translational, I mean signal transduction molecules called research that uses the ½ndings of basic tyrosine kinases. In creating Gleevec, the science and applies that new knowledge chemists at Novartis depended not only in the clinic–in patients with the very on the basic research produced in uni- diseases that are being studied in the lab- versities, but also on the clinical research oratory. Most translational investigators done in a hospital. Basic scientists isolat- should hold the m.d. degree, because ed the new chemical sti571. But it was a safe application of new therapeutic in- clinical investigator who ½rst applied the terventions requires the oversight of a new chemical in laboratory studies of trained physician. the white cells in chronic myelogenous The prospect of a shortage of clinical leukemia. He found that the leukemic researchers with m.d.’s could be ex- cells stopped proliferating in vitro when plained by several factors, including the the drug was present. He then launched effects of the managed care revolution in a clinical trial that was remarkably suc- medicine. Managed care has minimized cessful. In twenty-½ve patients, the dis- reimbursement of academic hospitals ease disappeared with almost no toxici- and clinical departments. The dwindling ty. Gleevec is the ½rst “smart” chemo- resources of academic health centers therapeutic agent: it works like an anti- have deprived physician-investigators of biotic and blocks a speci½c pathway that the cushion formerly offered by their is not required by normal cells. But with- institutions to protect them from the out the efforts of a clinical researcher, vicissitudes of nih funding, relieve them the therapeutic use of the new chemical of administrative burdens, and provide

148 Dædalus Winter 2002 them with data managers, research toward the solution of important med- Clinical research & nurses, information scientists, and core ical problems. Every team needs a the future of laboratories. Furthermore, aspiring leader, and perhaps the leaders should medicine physician-investigators must invest in at receive most of the recognition, but least twelve years of training at low each of the contributing skills must be salaries and with staggering tuition rewarded, because the project cannot debts. succeed unless all of the participants, The era of molecular medicine has each of whom brings a unique skill to brought vast new scienti½c power to the the project, are ½rmly motivated. medical researcher. However, the accru- No matter what system of funding and al of that power requires far more scien- academic evaluation we may adopt, we ti½c experience and methodological clinical researchers and academic health skills than was the case two or more centers must constantly remind our- decades ago. Acquiring the necessary selves that the ½nal arbiter of our value laboratory skills demands nearly the full is the public. Throughout the postwar time of the young physician-faculty period, we have been blessed with re- member; at the same time, the complex- markably strong public and political ities of modern clinical medicine have support in the United States. But there grown apace. A translational investiga- are signs that this support may be weak- tor must be highly skilled in both ½elds, ening–and that clinical researchers are an increasingly dif½cult task. Forced to partially responsible for the change. choose, and often feeling undervalued, Clinical research can inspire popular underpaid, debt-ridden, and priced out fear, especially if media reports suggest a of the housing market, a growing num- callous disregard for individual patients. ber of promising young translational We encourage criticism if we fail to con- clinical researchers are dropping out in duct clinical trials within strict ethical order to pursue more secure and, they guidelines and with clear and unam- hope, more lucrative medical practices biguous informed consent. Consider, for that fully exploit the clinical skills they example, the recent gene therapy trials have developed over a very long period at the University of Pennsylvania. Be- of training. cause these trials resulted in a patient’s Given the stress on young clinical death, they provoked a public outcry investigators and facing an era in which and reinforced the calls from critics for academic health centers struggle to ½nd far more stringent external control if the the ½nancial wherewithal to help them, public is to be properly protected. we need to rethink our research support Our relationships with the pharma- policies. We simply cannot fund every ceutical industry can also leave us open worthy individual. Instead we should to criticism. We depend on drug compa- rethink our academic planning and eval- nies not only for the development of uation process. We need to establish new drugs, but also for certain kinds of teams of basic, population, and clinical ½nancial support. The terms of that sup- researchers, urge collaborations among port must be very carefully de½ned. the disciplines, de½ne the contributions Grants from pharmaceutical companies of a team, and then dissect the individ- cannot be seen as endorsements by aca- ual contributions of the team members. demic investigators for the products of This would encourage cost savings and the grant-making companies. Academic productive collaborations directed investigators must be free to publish

Dædalus Winter 2002 149 Note by results, whether they are supportive or of that research. It is important for pub- David G. Nathan critical of a speci½c drug. Universities licly supported academic health centers and their af½liated academic health cen- to do excellent basic and clinical re- ters must be scrupulously careful to pro- search and to patent useful inventions tect the intellectual independence of that arise from the research effort. Stan- their investigators. This can be dif½cult, dard patent and licensing arrangements particularly when companies not only enable pharmaceutical and biotechnical support the speci½c research but also companies to produce the drugs and make large unrestricted gifts to the uni- screening techniques necessary for versity or hospital. developing new medical therapeutics Recent events at the University of and diagnostics. It is perfectly reason- Toronto drive this point home. At one of able for the research institutions and the university’s af½liated institutions, their inventive investigators to pro½t The Hospital for Sick Children, a faculty from important basic discoveries. But member came under attack for express- institutions and funding agencies must ing doubts about a drug produced by a develop thoughtful and rational guide- relatively small company that had also lines in this contentious arena. I ½rmly given a major gift to the hospital. Angry believe that a central guideline should be colleagues harassed the investigator on a complete prohibition of any researcher the job. The hospital and university did receiving consulting fees or stock options little to support her, and the case contin- from a company that produces a product ues to fester. The reputations of both the if that investigator’s research involves university and the hospital have been studying the product in his or her pa- damaged. In another case involving the tients. It is not right for a physician to University of Toronto, it has been al- turn a research patient into a source of leged that the university withdrew an personal pro½t. offer to hire a well-known British psy- Despite all the problems I have chopharmacologist immediately after he described, clinical researchers still hold had publicly criticized the safety of a the future of medicine in their hands. If drug produced by a major pharmaceuti- they work hard and honorably enough cal company that was also a major bene- they will, in the next two or three de- factor of the university. cades, successfully lower the defenses of These cases ½nd their way regularly persistent diseases. That is a remarkable into the media and understandably pro- prospect–one that should inspire young voke dismay. The ½nancial stake of physicians to join the clinical research researchers in their own research can teams that are committed to winning shake public con½dence in the integrity these victories.

150 Dædalus Winter 2002 teen volumes, edited by Edwin Seligman and Alvin Johnson, published in 1931– 1935. Then came the seventeen-volume International Encyclopedia of the Social Sci- Neil J. Smelser ences, edited by David Sills, published in 1968. on compiling Measured by number of words, the new encyclopedia is about double the a new length of its 1968 predecessor. The coed- encyclopedia itors in chief are Paul B. Baltes of the Max Planck Institute for Human Devel- opment (Berlin) and I. Of the dozens of academics and others we consulted about the feasibility of a new encyclope- dia for these sciences, not one voiced a negative opinion. Encyclopedias in various forms go back several hundred years and by now In late 2001, a new International Encyclo- are generally regarded as a respected pedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences mode of representing and codifying was published by Elsevier Science. Al- knowledge. Often they have embodied most six years in the making, the twen- some kind of “integrative impulse”–to ty-four volumes are meant to cover all symbolize civilizational progress, to relevant disciplines under the heading express the unity of positive knowledge, “social and behavioral sciences.” By to legitimize new areas of scienti½c convention, the more than four thou- inquiry, or to foster interdisciplinary sand entries are presented in alphabeti- research. More recently, encyclopedias cal order, beginning with “Aboriginal have evolved into “self-contained refer- Rights” and ending with “Zooarchaeol- ence works” meant to present knowl- gy.” edge via brief topical essays and to point This is the third rendition of such an readers to related knowledge inside and encyclopedia. The ½rst consisted of ½f- outside their pages. Baltes and I justi½ed the need for a new encyclopedia by pointing to the Neil J. Smelser plays a leading role in determining astonishing growth and specialization of the direction of research in the social and behav- the social and behavioral sciences in the ioral sciences in America. From 1958 to 1994 he past third of a century–we needed a taught in the department of sociology of the Uni- new encyclopedia, we argued, because versity of California, Berkeley; from 1994 until the older ones were hopelessly outdated. 2001, he was director of the Center for Advanced We nevertheless knew how formida- Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, Cali- ble a task it would be. We attacked the fornia. He currently is chair of the Division of problem in three ways. First, we had Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education of thirty-nine separate sections and rough- the National Research Council, and also serves on ly ½fty section editors, in contrast to the the council of the American Academy, where he 1968 encyclopedia, which had seven has been a Fellow since 1968. associate editors. Second, we included not only the obvious disciplines–

Dædalus Winter 2002 151 Note by anthropology, economics, political sci- in the publication of reference works. Neil J. Smelser ence, psychology, and sociology–but There has been an explosion in the num- also many other ½elds and traditions of ber of encyclopedias. Amazon.com lists inquiry that incorporate some social and six thousand of them for sale, and behavioral science research. (I will say Barnesandnoble.com nine thousand. more on this point later.) Third, we tried Most of these works, like the ½elds of to make the encyclopedia as internation- knowledge they incorporate, are narrow- al as possible, recruiting, in the end, 55 ly focused. They tend to cover sub½elds percent of our authors from North of ½elds (clinical psychology within psy- America, 35 percent from Europe, and 10 chology, higher education within educa- percent from other areas of the world. tion). One ½nds such improbable titles Readers will ultimately decide whether as the Encyclopedia of Canadian Music and or not the work is truly comprehensive, the Panic Encyclopedia. We believe that but we proudly regard the encyclopedia the integrative impulse still has value, as a unique asset for students beginning but in another generation it may no an inquiry, for specialists wishing to gain longer be possible, or desirable, to com- knowledge of ½elds other than their pile a new encyclopedia of the social sci- own, and for generally educated readers ences. wishing to improve their understanding Encyclopedias are, after all, printed of the social and behavioral sciences. compendia of knowledge. A de½ning At a certain moment, however, it fact about a printed book is that it can- becomes necessary to ask even more not be updated to incorporate new basic questions about the capacity to knowledge without considerable effort comprehend and present the whole of and cost. Encyclopedias are a species of the social and behavioral sciences in one printed books intended to be “state-of- publication. We observe not only growth the-art” representations of some range and fragmentation in these sciences, but of knowledge. This understanding is also a crisscrossing of research tradi- valid only on condition that the art is not tions, an interdisciplinary pursuit of forever outrunning itself. However, in understanding, and new applications of our own view, the state of the art is forev- knowledge in many areas. Can all this be er outrunning itself. We do not know the tracked, recorded, assembled, and coor- precise half-life of printed encyclopedias dinated? Can it be conveyed coherently these days, but we do know that it is con- and usefully by adhering to the conven- tinuously shrinking. tions of alphabetical presentation and Furthermore, the computer and the cross-referencing? Internet have given us the capacity to Baltes and I believed it could be done, update easily. We are already witnessing but we knew the risks involved. For one some encyclopedias that are exclusively thing, we were attempting to encompass online, with individual entries and the social and behavioral sciences. The groups of entries capable of being two previous encyclopedias had accentu- replaced continuously and at low cost. ated the social, but we chose to include Our publishers recognized this by pub- parts of evolutionary science, genetics, lishing, simultaneously, a hard-copy ver- and neuroscience, in addition to psy- sion (which many libraries and biblio- chology. philic readers still prefer) and a Web ver- We also seemed to be swimming sion, which will be updated two years against the tide of contemporary trends hence. This strategy must be regarded as

152 Dædalus Winter 2002 transitional, however, and if the ency- First, we could not ignore disciplines. Compiling a new clopedia survives as a form in the future, They still have a certain logic behind encyclopedia it will surely be in an electronic mode. them, and they are the bedrock organiz- Still, compiling an encyclopedia does ing principle in most colleges and uni- force one to reflect on how to organize versities, de½ning the training and iden- the current state of knowledge. Our tities of professionals and the shape of predecessors divided their world into labor markets. We developed sections academic disciplines and chose an asso- and recruited section editors for thirteen ciate editor for each discipline. This may disciplines, including the “mainstream” or may not have been the correct ap- ones listed above and other ½elds that proach even in their times, but it was we judged to have a very strong behav- clear from the start that we could not ioral and social science component (for proceed in this way. The social and example, history, law, and education). behavioral sciences have become To extend coverage, we also identi½ed messier, and many areas of inquiry eleven areas we called “intersecting”– resist ready categorization. ½elds not “in” the behavioral and social One reason for this messiness is that sciences, but including some research the development of knowledge in our that could be so described. Examples are day is fundamentally uncontrolled. Sci- behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, entists and scholars are free to go where health, environmental sciences, and area their curiosity takes them. Knowledge and international studies. We freely also grows in response to the rise of new acknowledge some arbitrariness in social problems and issues, often as drawing an exact or even consistent line de½ned by national governments and between “disciplinary” and “intersect- other institutions able to fund research. ing,” but we used the device anyway, as a In recent decades, we have witnessed a way of incorporating as many relevant spectacular growth in hybrid ½elds research traditions as we could. (such as behavioral economics and eco- To these intersecting topics, we added nomic sociology); the rise of interdisci- ½ve ½elds that could be best described as plinary, problem-centered lines of “applications” of the social and behav- inquiry (for example into the causes of ioral sciences (for example, media stud- poverty); and the pursuit of parallel sub- ies, urban studies, and public policy). stantive lines of inquiry in different dis- We also took note of a number of ciplines (thus organizational studies areas of work that run through, however conducted by both economists and soci- unevenly, all of the behavioral and social ologists). sciences. Three of these are method- Given this wealth of new develop- ological; we appointed section editors ments, Baltes and I came to feel at for statistics, mathematics, and comput- moments that we were dealing with the er sciences, and also included articles on ½rst principle of Greek mythology: in the logic of inquiry and research design. the beginning there was chaos. Other overarching topics were institu- How could we create a conceptual tions and infrastructure, ethics of re- architecture that would acknowledge search and applications, history of the the chaos, yet simultaneously introduce behavioral and social sciences, and biog- some order? Space forbids a full ac- raphies; we appointed section editors count, but it is possible to sketch our for each of these topics as well. main strategies, arrived at after exten- That is how we got to our total of sive reflection. thirty-nine section editors, to whom Dædalus Winter 2002 153 Note by we assigned a variable number of indi- Gerald Early vidual entries for the encyclopedia. We are con½dent that this way of casting our conceptual net allowed us to catch most of the ½sh swimming in the social and Gerald Early behavioral science waters. In the end, our conceptual efforts at on Miles Davis, comprehensive coverage, whatever their value, disappear from view, rendered Vince Lombardi, invisible by the encyclopedic principle of & the crisis listing entries alphabetically, even of masculinity though we explain our logic in our intro- duction. in mid-century In some ways the virtual encyclopedias America of the future will be easier to use than the multivolume compilations we cur- rently have. But time will tell whether the integrative impulse behind these great encyclopedias will survive as well. Miles Davis achieved fame as a jazz musician and cultural icon in the 1950s and 1960s–the era of the civil rights movement and the ½rst stirrings of the women’s movement, and the era, too, of Playboy bunnies and the ½rst national pro-football stars. Against this backdrop Davis appeared as a bona ½de leader of men in a ½eld of endeavor dominated, like pro football, by men: modern jazz.

Gerald Early, author of “The Culture of Bruis- ing: Essays on Prize½ghting, Literature, and Modern American Culture,” winner of the 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award, and “Tuxedo Junction: Essays on American Culture,” winner of the 1988 Whiting Foundation Writer’s Award, is Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters and head of the African and Afro-American Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis. A Fellow of the American Academy since 1997, he is currently working on a history of Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville, and the “Sammy Davis Jr. Reader,” a compilation of interviews with and articles about the famous entertainer.

154 Dædalus Winter 2002 Many preach that jazz is democratic in United States. It happened a few months Miles Davis & Vince its aesthetic, with the players adjusting before Davis recorded Kind of Blue, when Lombardi to each other’s inclinations and habits to the cbs network televised the 1958 nfl create a whole that is both individual championship game between the Balti- and collective. Yet the existence of a more Colts and the New York Giants, leader who hires the group and essen- considered by many the greatest football tially de½nes its artistic mission implies game ever played. In the years that fol- a certain authoritarianism. (Small group lowed, professional football experienced jazz, in that respect, seems less demo- a heady growth in a way that profession- cratic than the workings of a classical al baseball did not; indeed, baseball was chamber group that, ostensibly, has no virtually stagnant as football shot ahead. leader.) And it was in these years that a gap- From the start, Miles Davis had a toothed Italian Catholic coach, Vince vision about music, whether he originat- Lombardi, emerged as a national sports ed it himself or borrowed it from the tal- hero–and a man even more famous ented people around him, and this vi- than Miles Davis. An assistant coach for sion, which he ½lled with the energy of the Giants in 1958, Lombardi became his own person and character, made him head coach for the Green Bay Packers a leader. More than a musician, Davis the following year. By the middle 1960s, became a ½gure to conjure with. He was he was in some sense the most visible a musical genius who was also one part emblem of pro football and its guiding amoral picaro, one part pimp, and one values. part African American tough guy. Like Miles Davis, Vince Lombardi On stage, he was famous for playing exempli½ed a certain kind of mascu- with his back to the audience, a gesture linity and a certain style of leadership of de½ant artistry, and the antithesis of among men. Davis fascinated the public Louis Armstrong’s ingratiating smile. because he seemed to know the secret of He began the 1950s by recording a series how to be cool. Lombardi fascinated the of artfully restrained chamber jazz mas- public because he seemed to know a dif- terpieces later released under the title ferent kind of secret: how to instill a will Birth of the Cool. And by the time he to win in thirty-½ve men, and make ended the decade with the preternatu- these men give everything of themselves rally poised sextet he featured on Kind of on a football ½eld on any autumn Sun- Blue, recorded in the spring of 1959, day in order to win something that, after Davis had come to exemplify a certain all, in the big scheme of things, did not kind of masculinity, as well as a certain mean much. (In some sense, what in style of leadership among men. athletics does? What in art does?) It is a noteworthy coincidence that Lombardi was old-fashioned. He Davis came to public consciousness as a molded his men with clichés about masculine symbol playing serious and pride, honor, character, and what he sometimes challenging music at roughly called “mental toughness,” or, put the time when professional football another way, a holy singleness of pur- became a major spectator sport in the pose: the will to prevail over an adver- United States. sary. And as was true with any successful Indeed, historians can date precisely football coach, he was also an authori- when professional football became, sud- tarian and a workaholic. denly, the most popular sport in the It was during the heyday of Miles

Dædalus Winter 2002 155 Note by Davis and Vince Lombardi that America in Hyannisport.) Richard M. Nixon, our Gerald Early suffered a crisis of con½dence in its middle-aged, fairly neurotic, paranoid understanding of the masculine ideal. president of the late 1960s, loved profes- The crisis was ubiquitous and left no sional football and often planned mili- area of the culture untouched. It was evi- tary strategy for the Vietnam War while dent, for example, among black Ameri- watching nfl games. Like Lombardi, cans. The conflict between Malcolm X Nixon understood–and the Watergate and Martin Luther King Jr. was one scandal is a perfect perversion of it– symptom of the crisis. And what were that “winning isn’t everything; it’s the the heavyweight championship ½ghts only thing.” between Floyd Patterson and Sonny I spoke of a crisis of black male leader- Liston in 1962 and 1963 if not a dramatic ship, and I believe this crisis reflected, in representation of this larger crisis in part, a larger crisis in male identity in the black masculinity? A number of key 1950s and 1960s, and this crisis in male black writers of the period, from Amiri identity during these years reflected a Baraka to Eldridge Cleaver, from John A. general crisis in liberalism as a conflicted Williams to Claude Brown, focused on ideology of white male privilege in a the problem of the black male and his democratic, so-called egalitarian society masculinity. And while black national- that neurotically mixed rights and ists, from the Nation of Islam to the rev- taboos with perverse passion. olutionaries of the late 1960s, all authori- Lombardi represented one type of tarians, did not get their ideas of pride, male desire for dominance in a demo- honor, character, and unwavering single- cratic framework, largely centered on ness of purpose from Lombardi and pro- white ethnic, blue-collar virtues of mas- fessional football (they rather thought culinity as strength, stoicism, and loyal- they were getting them from Castro, Ho ty: a deliberate reinscription of the dem- Chi Minh, or the ancestors), the reach ocratic male heroism of World War II. and glamour of professional football in Meanwhile, the rise of Hugh Hefner’s the 1950s and 1960s strengthened these Playboy magazine, which was started ideas and certainly gave them a currency four years before the big 1958 Giants- in popular culture they may not other- Colts game that made professional foot- wise have had, and thus, I think, intensi- ball a glamour sport, represented some- ½ed the crisis. thing distinctly different: a consumer- Malcolm X’s speeches on black unity, oriented, professional male of leisure black male courage, and racial pride and style, usually a wasp, with clothes, sounded very similar to Lombardi’s pep cars, and some veneer of cultivated taste, talks about taking pride in being a Green who easily took women as both sport Bay Packer and the need for teamwork, and an expression of his power as a maximum effort, and sacri½ce. John F. charismatic being. It was this Playboy Kennedy, our young, seemingly healthy impulse that gave us the popular male and virile president of the early 1960s, fantasy ½gure of the 1960s that com- liked professional football and the bined heroism, schoolboy pride, and toughness it represented for a nation on decadence: James Bond, the literary cre- the verge of a new frontier. (There are ation of English writer Ian Fleming. those romantic pictures of him playing Bond was unquestionably masculine, the Kennedy brand of rough-and-tumble and he clearly bowed to authority and touch football at the family compound had a British public-school morality of

156 Dædalus Winter 2002 purpose and honor that Lombardi est at all in answering that particular Miles Davis & Vince would have liked; but he wasn’t quite a question. In his stage manner, he Lombardi Lombardi-type of man in other respects, ridiculed the very idea of pleasing peo- and his missions seemed nothing more, ple, refusing to pander to his predomi- on a psychological level, than the de- nantly white audience, even as he took struction of grandiose authoritarian under his wing white musicians like the male ½gures: Gold½nger, Dr. No, saxophonist and arranger Gerry Mulli- Blofeld, Hugo Drax, Mr. Big. gan and the pianist Bill Evans. Davis There were other competing mascu- resembled the football coach in one way line ideas as well: the white hipsters or only: like Lombardi, he was a leader of Beats of the 1950s were essentially the men. reincarnation of the myth of Peter Pan, He was, after all, a bandleader, who had who was forever a boy, who hated to create a unity, an organization, from authority and adulthood as symbolized the disparate elements and personalities by Captain Hook, who always lived of his bands. He selected the venues completely in the moment of whatever where his men were to play, he decided sensation he was experiencing, without what they would play and how they past or future, totally self-absorbed, would play it, he hired and ½red them, remembering nothing except that he and he paid them. The men in the band hated mothers while having an occa- could remain individuals (this was sional need for a girl to play the role of essential for their future as jazz musi- one. Variations of this Peter Pan ideal cians); they could write music for the were represented by the two most popu- band; but the band must be unmistak- lar athletes of this era: Muhammad Ali ably understood by the public to be and Joe Namath. Ali was the brash, brag- Miles Davis’s and to be dominated by ging, boy-wonder ½ghter who feminized his aesthetic vision of jazz as a practice himself by calling himself “pretty” and and as a theory. who combined the boyish antics of One hallmark of jazz for Miles Davis Dizzy Dean with the rhetoric of the was the act of willing a certain persona black male redemption politics of Elijah into existence. For Davis, it was an act of Muhammad and Marcus Garvey. imposing himself on the public’s con- Namath was the playboy quarterback sciousness through his music, and for Lombardi despised as a person who any black man to do this in a way that drank champagne and wore pantyhose the public, both black and white, would in a commercial. Both seemed to bow to take seriously made him a leader, espe- authoritarian rule, their sports depend- cially in the 1950s and 1960s, whether he ing on the rule of an older male teacher wanted to be one or not. The fact that over a younger male student, while Columbia Records, the company that openly defying it. signed Davis in 1955, was willing to sell Lombardi, who raged at his men’s fail- him to the public as a particular type of ures while he exalted in their successes artistic black male visionary was impor- (not always giving them the credit they tant as well. were due) and cried–literally–over Miles Davis was deeply affected by the their illnesses and defeats, was some- Playboy ethos of the 1950s and 1960s. He thing like the Great White Father of the achieved a great deal of his identity as a 1960s. How can he be pleased? public man of charismatic appeal Miles Davis, for one, evinced no inter- through his conspicuous consumption:

Dædalus Winter 2002 157 Note by he had tailored clothes, expensive cars, consumed by an unstoppable youth ½xa- Gerald Early and beautiful women. In this respect, he tion, defying authority by refusing to differed little from his contemporary, acknowledge the glorious past of jazz, he Sammy Davis Jr., who publicly, even became a preening object of authoritari- mythically, indulged the same appetites an veneration for women (like Bond or a in much the same way. This was all part pimp) while also becoming the leader of of being theatrically hip. But Miles Davis the Lost Boys–in this case, the young was different in that he was not a “light fusion jazz players. (J. M. Barrie, telling- music” entertainer or a purveyor of ly, originally entitled his play about the philistine popular music and dance, like boy who wouldn’t grow up The Great Sammy Davis Jr. Miles Davis was a White Father.) craftsman, a virtuoso, a man publicly From the perspective of a Vince Lom- proclaimed as possessing genius. He rev- bardi type, Davis betrayed his calling as a eled in this sense of himself as a master. jazz musician by betraying the moral He had something of the appeal of the tenets of manhood itself. In becoming heavyweight boxer Floyd Patterson to an object of consumption, Davis simply middle-class, establishment blacks (but consumed himself or allowed himself to he was less earnest and more de½ant); be consumed. For it is the law of life of he had something of the appeal of the the Lombardi types that one either eats cool to the young, much like a rock star or gets eaten, as Captain Hook’s con- might have today; and he had something stant effort to escape the crocodile and of the appeal of the temperamentally destroy Peter Pan illustrates. artistic to the pseudo-intellectual and But Lombardi’s is only one perspec- the middlebrow public. tive. And while it has unquestioned The question of the worth of Davis’s virtues, it was seen at the time by many music after 1969 when he “went electric” as simplistic and restrictive. Its worship and courted rock fans as listeners is, I of authority, order, and the soil of tradi- think, in great measure tied to one’s esti- tion had the seeds of a fascist urge. mation of his virtues as a leader of men. Lombardi–devout Catholic that he After all, where did he lead them? A was–assumed a certainty about male Lombardi-type view of the situation life and maleness that is comforting, would suggest that Davis betrayed jazz sometimes even mythically striking, but as a profession because he betrayed its ultimately false. honor, pride, character, its quality of And there are, after all, other ways of “mental toughness.” According to this being a man and other ways of seeing the view, by recording ampli½ed and rock- issue of how men should be led, and flavored music, as he did from Bitches Davis was never a man much taken with Brew on, he no longer asked for maxi- a Lombardi view of life. As Lombardi mum effort, for sacri½ce, for excellence. became increasingly conservative in the In this view, Davis stopped trying. In- 1960s in light of the disordered, contrary stead of struggling to prevail over his times, Davis became more interested in environment, he succumbed to it. liberating himself. To people who think this way, Davis, I think Miles Davis, unlike Lombardi, in effect, became Peter Pan. His was the understood well what it means to live worst kind of perversion of the mascu- with uncertainty. Davis’s electric music line ideal because he was middle-aged raised a question that had no easy an- when he started playing at rock venues: swer: What is jazz? After all, jazz has

158 Dædalus Winter 2002 been so many things–from Hal Kemp to drawn to the street life, the hustler’s Miles Davis & Vince Jelly Roll Morton, from Ornette Cole- élan. (After all, he met Charlie Parker Lombardi man to Najee. Who can be certain what and entered the bebop world of drug it is? addiction when he was still a teenager.) Davis wanted to take risks, but he also His hustling, as much as anything, drove wanted to make money, and he wanted a good deal of the music he decided to to be fashionable, and he wanted to play after 1970. I think it is fair to say enjoy life in its sensual fullness, and he that he had a McHeath ½xation, intensi- wanted to be an example of some sort of ½ed by his own middle-class upbringing. pride and integrity in an age when the (Some blacks are of two minds about charismatic appeal of male pride and being middle class: it is a mark of racial black pride coincided. These things are achievement and a sign of cowardly not mutually exclusive, but they can acquiescence.) produce enormous disjunctions, enor- Miles Davis, in the end, may not have mous confusion about what one wants. been a better man than Vince Lombardi. What seems amazing to me about Davis He may not have had a better idea of is that he struggled so ½ercely, for so manhood. But the idea of manhood he long, with these disjunctions and, in- had was no worse than Lombardi’s. And deed, tried to use the tensions of them to if we don’t pose the complexities Davis create music that, whatever its artistic represented as a man in light of the com- merits, brilliantly dramatized the dilem- plexities of the times he lived in when ma of his own desires and aims. masculinity in various guises was being It is nevertheless true that by the mid- simultaneously con½rmed and undone, 1970s, Davis had succumbed to his own we run the risk of never understanding fantastic, Peter Pan-like ideas about the man and never appreciating what he masculinity, particularly in his treat- wanted to do. ment of women. He had always been

Dædalus Winter 2002 159 The original seal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (reproduced on page 1) was designed in 1780. In 1954, a new seal (below) was introduced. In this version, the sun is rendered without a smiling face and Minerva is more fully garbed.

Inside back cover: The record of an event observed at the Large Electron-Positron Collider in Geneva in 1991. © 1991 by cern. The colored lines ema- nating from the center indicate the tracks of strongly interacting particles, which group into three distinct ‘jets’–manifestations of underlying quark, antiquark, and gluon. The number of such three-jet events and the ‘antenna pattern’ of the radiation can be predicted in detail using the equations of quantum chromodynamics. See Frank Wilczek on The world’s numerical recipe, pages 142–147.

Dædalus coming up in Dædalus: Dædalus

on intellectual Richard Posner, Carla Hesse, Arnold Relman & Marcia Angell, Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences property Daniel Kevles, Lawrence Lessig, Adrian Johns, James Boyle, Rebecca Eisenberg & Richard Nelson, Roger Chartier, Arthur Winter 2002 Goldhammer, and classic texts by Diderot and Condorcet; plus a poem by Paul Muldoon, a story by Frederick Busch, and notes Winter 2002: on inequality by Wendy Doniger, Roald Hoffmann, W. G. Runciman, and Leo Breiman comment Ira Katznelson Evil & politics 7

on education Diane Ravitch, with comments by Howard Gardner, Theodore on inequality James K. Galbraith A perfect crime: global inequality 11 after the Sizer, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Deborah Meier, Patricia Graham, Orlando Patterson Beyond compassion 26 culture wars Thomas Bender, Joyce Appleby, Robert Boyers, Catharine Stimpson, and Andrew Delbanco; plus Antonio Gramsci, Jeffrey Richard A. Epstein Against redress 39 Mirel, and Joel Cohen & David Bloom Christopher Jencks Does inequality matter? 49 Sean Wilentz America’s lost egalitarian tradition 66

on beauty Susan Sontag, Arthur C. Danto, Denis Donoghue, Dave Hickey, James F. Crow Unequal by nature: a geneticist’s perspective 81 Alexander Nehamas, Robert Campbell, David Carrier, Ernst Mayr The biology of race 89 Margo Jefferson, Kathy L. Peiss, Nancy Etcoff, and Martha C. Nussbaum Sex, laws & inequality: India’s experience 95 Gary William Flake Robert W. Fogel & Chulhee Lee Who gets health care 107 on international Stanley Hoffmann, Martha C. Nussbaum, Jean Bethke Ian Shapiro Why the poor don’t soak the rich 118 justice Elshtain, Stephen Krasner & Jack Goldsmith, Gary Bass, David Rieff, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Charles R. Beitz, Jonathan Schell, Carl Kaysen, and Anthony Lewis poetry Frank Bidart Young Marx 129

½ction Bharati Mukherjee A wedding 131 on time Thomas Gold, Michael Rosbash, Danielle Allen, Mary Douglas, Anthony Grafton, J. Hillis Miller, David S. Landes, Michael notes Howard Gardner on intelligence 139 Gazzaniga, D. Graham Burnett, and Richard K. Fenn Frank Wilczek on the world’s numerical recipe 142 David G.Nathan on clinical research & the future of medicine 147 Neil J. Smelser on a new encyclopedia 151 Gerald Early on Miles Davis &Vince Lombardi 154 U.S. $9.95/Canada $12.95