My review of A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century is here. Again, I conclude on a quibbling note.
In short, almost every reference to “market” is pejorative. But one could easily argue that the market is an expensive, long-lasting trait and thus should be presumed to be adaptive. Unfortunately, WH seem to see no reason to investigate what positive functions it serves and what trade-offs might exist in attempting to do away with it or regulate it.
In general, although I found the sermons in WH interesting and worthwhile, I felt that the book suffered from a framework in which the individual engages in a lonely battle with the natural and social environment.
I realize I’m arguing against them, not you, but
“WH see something similar at work when we undertake medical interventions.
The quest for magic bullets, for simple answers that are universally applicable to all humans in all conditions, is misguided. If it were that easy, selection would almost certainly have found a way. (64)”
This theory, if true, would disprove things we know for sure are real. Splinting broken bones, vaccines and antibiotics, eyeglasses, hygiene.
I think that they would agree that, on net, these are beneficial. But they come with trade-offs.
They actually talk down casts in favor of living with pain and swelling, and doing short-term splinting. After relaying two stories of broken bones that healed this way (pp. 69-70), they say:
“A proximate approach to broken bones identifies the acute problem and arranges a quick fix of the problem. The bone is broken? Cast it! An ultimate approach considers what must have been the case when our ancestors on the savannah broke bones. Some of them died–of infection, of exposure, of being eaten by carnivores. Some didn’t, though, and those who didn’t would have used pain as their guide to what was possible, pushed their activity to that limit, and no further. Muting pain with medication interferes with the feedback system in our bodies, making it much harder for us to know what we should, or should not, do. Similarly, eradicating swelling in the wake of an injury means that you are much more likely to injure yourself again, in the same place. Swelling after an injury is uncomfortable and cumbersome, and often adaptive; it immobilizes a limb like a dynamic cast. If you let your body communicate with you–with pain, swelling, heat, more–you are far more likely to get back in the game, whatever the game is, sooner, and more safely.”
They seem to think that much of modern life is quick, short-term solutions to problems that leave people worse off in the long run. What Arnold discusses about sex and gender roles can be seen in this way. It is also the root of their talking down of markets. Markets, they seem to feel, deliberately lead us into temptation.
And in a sense, they are absolutely right. People want to eat. Markets give us cheap “hyperpalatable” food. People don’t want to exert themselves physically if they don’t have to. Markets give us cheap cars and malls and drive-thrus. The result is high blood pressure and heart disease and diabetes and a whole mess of general unhealthiness.
Part of their sermon is telling us to repent from sin that feels good in the moment but is ultimately bad for us. Markets make it harder for us to repent. Markets make it just too easy to sin.
Assuming they are completely right in their diagnosis, is there actually a cure for markets that isn’t worse than the disease? Aside from personal repentance, that is. E.g., bring your kids up without potato chips and with limited screen time?
Did they say anything about corrective lenses, which they both use?
Ok, it’s even worse if they are aware of that counterexample and get their facts wrong. If you break an arm, and try to manage it yourself with just pain and swelling, odds are that it heals crooked, maybe even incompletely and you permanently lose function. If you manage it with professional splinting or a cast, then you’re both more functional while it heals and you’re nearly guaranteed to get full function back when the cast is removed. Even more so if you need to use said arm for survival during the healing period.
I’m not sure their message is always wrong; they might be right about Doritos. It’s certainly not as universal as they claim. Sometimes the straightforward low-pain solution is also the one that has the best long term results.
I can’t help but see this as a continuation of a pattern whereby many right-communitarians conflate things they don’t like about modern technology or social norms with the market. In America, the state intervened less in markets in older times back when the culture was more like how they want it to be. Even if markets were suppressed, I think they’d be every bit as displeased with how technology affects human interaction. I think it’s often forgotten, also, that the alternative to markets now isn’t strong families and traditional culture; it’s a vast, impersonal state.
While it may be an accurate characterization of the WH view, I don’t think that’s a fair summary of the typical or historical right-wing case for state intervention.
It’s not that these people are against markets or private property, capitalism, the existence of very wealthy people, free enterprise, open competition and profit in general and from the level of fundamentals and core principles, which *is* an accurate description of a lot of leftist thought, where market activity and the acquisitive motive is almost always inherently oppressive and exploitative and presumptively suspect.
Indeed, on the right, most of that is perfectly fine and ought be given wide latitude to operate without intervention or undue encumbrance or negative social sanction in most ordinary commercial contexts.
But there are some special contexts when the very mechanisms and incentives that make markets work so well in those ordinary circumstances also allow flawed, weak humans to pain themselves into tragic corners.
Ironically perhaps, I think this is actually a theme of Arnold’s own writing when the topic concerns what’s happened to public discourse on social media, though he has never explicitly articulated it that way, or perhaps hasn’t quite grappled with the ‘market’-like nature of the processes whereby the current state of the affairs evolved into its dismal existence.
For example, drugs. It is simply a tragic fact that a large segment of the population of biological human creatures simply cannot maintain a well-adjusted life pattern if they become regular and habitual abuses of certain chemicals that have, for technologically-determined reasons, become incredibly cheap to produce and distribute. We can theorize about idealized spherical-cow-world human-ish agents, but in the real world, we are bundles of weaknesses and temptations that are very hard to regulate and self-regulate.
Without anything to stand in the way, at the most efficient levels of industrial scale production, we can provide most junkies of almost any typical illegal drug right up to the limit of their lethal dosage for mere pennies per month. This is simply a fact that is an aspect of the tragedy of the modern human condition.
The question becomes whether one is cool with typical market participants, processes, and incentives to operate in such contexts. Most of the right-wing or socially conservative “market skeptics” aren’t really skeptical of markets in general but would say that *in this special case* and others like it, no, they don’t want to live in that kind of society, which they think would be intolerably awful for users and non-users alike in all kinds of ways.
That is not necessarily to make a case for the drug war, just to explain that one might be perfectly pro-market in general but still think “morphine mint” ought not to be an option of ice cream flavor at the local grocery store.
I think that you and Arnold and Weinstein/Heying agree. WH just see lots more things that are similar to those cheap modern drugs than you or Arnold do.
That’s not exactly my position, but I think it’s closer to the typical thoughtful conservative / ‘right-wing’ take on markets than Mark Z’s account.
I would say there is a qualitative instead of merely quantitative difference between those who see exceptions to the generally favorable regard for free markets in the situation of classical vices and other special problematic cases, vs those who express a fundamental antipathy towards markets as a matter of general principle and only barely and begrudgingly tolerate them and, even then, only when heavily monitored, regulated, policed, and when their behaviors, efforts, and economic surpluses are channeled or quasi-commandeered towards being net contributors to other political ends.
So, it comes down to a question of in which direction does one make exceptions to which general rule, and a big difference between right and left is that the right makes exceptions against markets, while the left makes exceptions for them. Arnold’s review made it seem like WH are clearly on the ‘left’ in this regard, that is, a difference not just of degree, but in kind.
As for my own position, I think the ground that provides the framework for such analysis is shifting too fast to lend itself to a static approach.
Maybe new markets will come up with ‘sci-fi’-like solutions we can’t anticipate to the problems of other markets. Some human groups changed genetically to better tolerate some of the things WH complain about, (e.g., alcohol, carbs, caffeine) and who knows what the potential is for further advances in this regard now that we seem to be on the cusp of an era of radical breakthroughs in capability for genetic engineering. Maybe in the future we can neutralize addictions and such ‘corrected’ / ‘enhanced’ people can drink euphoric Mango Meth all day the same way that highly caffeine-tolerant people sip coffee, tea, and soda.
On the other hand, I am not optimistic about most countries avoiding an eventual convergence to a Chinese Social Credit system of panopticon and pervasive individualized surveillance. The technological capability already exists, and the various temptations of power and control are clearly irresistible in the long-term. Once we imagined that China would converge to us, but it seems more likely we will converge to them.
One possibility of such a system could be an almost personalized, hyper-centric ‘law’ and an individualized lenience with regard to personal behaviors and individual choices so long as one is able to handle it. The military already adopts something like this approach to physical fitness. If you’re fit, you can do and eat what you want. If you are unfit, then you lose your liberty, and they start putting you on a ‘plan’.
It could be that way for literally everything, with ‘state intervention’ meaning a *personalized* intervention, instead of collectivized and across-the-board one-size-fits-all regulation or prohibition. The guy who can’t handle gambling, well, he’s *personally* banned from gambling, but gambling can still exist as an entertainment for those without a problematic addiction. The obese woman is denied the ability to purchase carbs. The alcoholic can’t get beer, and so forth.
This makes the right to engage in any kind of activity more into a license revocable for cause, and while this kind of “License Raj for Life” probably strikes us around here as kind of horrific, it’s probably still better that some people get some freedom some of the time rather than have a universal prohibition.
Such social credit licenses are perhaps adequate substitutes for the kind of *social* interventions one would get from one’s family, friends, boss, community, priest, etc. when one started to go off the deep end, but which have seriously deteriorated as cultural institutions as sources of personal influence over the past few generations.
But even the potential of that scenario is perhaps a bit too optimistic, as it tends to run against the grain of how governments and bureaucracies usually handle such matters which is with universal dictates, mandates, or prohibitions, with few if any allowances for exceptions. At any rate, you would need a highly competent and trustworthy government and bureaucracy to implement such a system well and fairly, and we don’t have that (far from it) and have no stomach to do what would be necessary to get it back.
This makes the right to engage in any kind of activity more into a license revocable for cause
That is, of course, the mindset of the FDA when it comes to anything in the medical field. Scott Alexander has yelled against it and Alex Tabarrok has written much on how it has messed up the response to COVID.
That will presumably end up in the same state as bums buying beer for kids, except it’s chips and triple caramel lates.
Your criticism is absolutely right.
Recent and welcome contrarianism aside, WH are unfortunately more or less bog standard leftists/progressives of the pre-woke era, who see an evil faceless corporation behind every negative aspect of
social life.
They probably think Reagan and Thatcher were evil. Their dream is probably to go back to the halcyon days of FDR. They absolutely fail to see the connection between the old socialist administrative state and recent Wokeness (hint: both think life should be fully regulated by Progressive ‘Experts.’)
The question is what to do with these disillusioned leftist cast-offs. They tend to remain under the impression that the Leftism of one generation ago was the height of political thought, and that things only went off the rails the moment they started having second thoughts. We need them to wake up a little more than that.
WH would be more convincing if they engaged with readily-ascertained facts rather than cultural myths which circulate in their social circle. Two serious myths are packed into just one excerpt provided by Dr. Kling:
WH: “This is exactly what has happened among men for whom a lack of economic opportunity and underfunding of schools have led to elevated mortality, crime, and imprisonment. In the United States, a large fraction of black men have been forced into such a situation.”
“Forced?” In fact, a “large fraction of black men” in the United States have *put themselves* into crime, and *consequentially* they experience imprisonment and elevated mortality as well as “lack of economic opportunity” (actually, much crime is economic opportunity, but market-averse WH don’t want to count it. It is true that criminals underperform in the formal economy for obvious reasons). Also in fact, schools with more blacks get more funding (because US primary educational policy directs subsidies toward failures). Student race predicts academic achievement far better than school funding. The violent behavior and low academic achievement of many US blacks is not forced, but voluntary, or simply a consequence of innate personal characteristics.
WH: “Men who avoid these bad fates find themselves in high sexual demand and tend to play the field, leaving many black women to raise families without a committed partner.”
That’s nonsense. WH’s statements have the character of myth. Read some easily-obtained US Census and BJS reports which show how bogus WH’s claims are:
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/mens-fertility.html
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/pptmc.pdf
Black men are more likely to be fathers (~80% of all black men) than whites (~75%) and men with lower educational attainment are more likely to be fathers than those with high educational attainment. Does criminality prevent fatherhood? Not much: “The majority of prisoners reported having a minor child, a quarter of which were age 4 or younger. When interviewed during the 2004 survey, the majority of state (52%) and federal (63%) inmates reported having at
least one child under age 18 (appendix table 3).” (BJS)
It is a risible myth that sexually-demanding black women are all getting pregnant by a few law-abiding, well-educated black men who “play the field” while “a large fraction of black men” “forced” into “elevated mortality, crime, and imprisonment” (per WH) remain childless.
WH: “Many in the ruling class have long pretended that this pattern [the myths just described –ed.] derives from some imagined moral failing among black people, when instead it plainly emerges… in any population faced with similar conditions. (135)”
Before WH excoriate “the ruling class” for “pretending” and “imagining” stuff, they should stop imagining and pretending that their “pattern” describes the real world. Undoubtedly, black people, like people of other races, do exhibit some moral failings (for example, US blacks commit a grossly-disproportionate share of violent crimes), yet those cannot cause WH’s “pattern” because it does not exist.
Note that “men playing the field” is WH’s own charge of “immorality” (or perhaps WH consider themselves part of “the ruling class”). Such male behavior is certainly not the main cause of women “raising families without a committed partner.” Serious social scientists have known for decades that government subsidies to single mothers (and to some extent taxes on married couples) are the main driver of single-mother households.
Census fatherhood-report highlights:
Race–
About 1% of white, Asian and Hispanic men ages 15 to 19 are fathers, compared with about 3% of black men of the same age.
Among men ages 20 to 29, 21.2% of white men, 24.9% of black men, 12.4% of Asian men, and 29.4% of Hispanic men are fathers.
Educational Attainment–
About 14% of fathers do not have a high school diploma, and roughly 12% of fathers hold a graduate or professional degree.
Among men ages 40 to 50 years, men with a bachelor’s degree are less likely to have children than men with less than a high school diploma.
I think some of what WH say can be saved. With lots of black men in prison, there are just fewer black men around. Moreover, black females know that there are even fewer men who have never been in prison. So as a simple matter of supply and demand, they lower the price they charge for a relationship. They “lower their standards”. Black men, on the other hand, can raise their prices. E.g., “If you want to be with me, you have to have sex with me, even if I won’t use a condom.”
This leads to a lot of men becoming fathers who don’t want to be fathers in the “stick around for 18 years and help raise him” sense. Which just perpetuates the cycle.
Subsidies for single motherhood, of course, helped bring this about. But (assuming BBB doesn’t pass in its original form) there is less incentive now, as governments are supposed to require that all recipients to get a job.