A bit of an about face for this meagre blog, but I am by no means absolute anti-Pinkerite.
In particular, I’m inclined to defend him from attacks from the Left, which is what I’m doing now. It seems that Nathan Robinson of Current Affairs has been having a go at him. I’ve found Robinson to be pretty annoying in the past, but I do agree with him that Pinker is much more annoying . The substantive issue I want to address in inequality, which Robinson discussed in an earlier piece, though I will return to some more general observations later.
Pinker claims that ‘equality is not a fundamental dimension of human well-being’; Robinson is unimpressed. Pinker starts with the levelling down objection: one way of making people equal is to reduce everyone to the level of the worst off. But pursuing inequality this way is terrible. So it’s not really inequality itself that’s bad, but the lowly condition of the worst off.
Pinker further contends that, since people are being lifted out of extreme poverty, the condition of the worst off is improving. Since this improvement, and not rising inequality, is what really matters, our present economic system is working well. Huzzah.
Robinson is incredulous, and in response he describes a simple feudal system. There’s a lord who owns a lot of land. The peasants, but not the lord, work the land. The lord takes the vast majority of what the land produces, leaving a pittance for the peasants. However, the land yields more year and year. Most of the increase goes to the lord, but year on year the returns for the peasant increase too, however little.
Surely this system is unjust, says Robinson. Yet it looks much like the global economic system Pinker praises. The condition of the lowest improves incrementally, and, though the gains for the richest are far greater, the incremental improvements at the bottom are all that really matter.
This criticism makes sense. What Robinson is urging we do, I take it, is properly to minimax. That is, he is (at least for arguments sake) conceding that it the condition of the lowest that should concern us. But against Pinker, he is claiming that mere improvement is insufficient: we should be maximising the minimum, making the worst as well off as we possibly can.
Fair enough. But Robinson’s simple feudalism is really simple. The lord can just give the peasants more of the fruits of their labours. Or give them the land they work. The uselessness of the lord, and the ease of improving the peasants’ lot is part of the story. The question is: how easy is it improve the lot of the least in the real world?
Superficially, we produce a lot of stuff, and much more of it could go to the least well-off without dragging anyone else down to the bottom. This remains true even when the amount being produced is steadily increasing. Well and good. But these observations from Robinson remain too superficial. When Pinker points out that wealth is not a finite resource, but rather grows, the import is surely this: redistributing the wealth available now is insufficient. We need to be able to sustain this level of production, and ideally more, while continuing to tip the distribution towards the bottom. This is… a delicate matter. A massive disruption in the distribution of wealth is apt to cause a massive disruption in the system of production, jeopardising the future wealth of all.
Now presumably Robinson has some thoughts about this. And there is clearly some responsibility on Pinker to argue that the current system, insofar as he endorses it, comes close to doing the most possible for the least. But in criticising Pinker here, Robinson really ought to do more to acknowledge and address these issues. Moreover, he ignores the subtexts in which Pinker’s position is defended.
Pinker is annoying because he’s conservative and congratulatory. And yet: the internet is cool, and the black death was not, as Robinson admits. We live in a world with one and not the other, and that is a stupendous achievement. We live in a world in which vast quantities of food, medical drugs, and labour-saving devices are produced. That is a stupendous achievement. Of all the economic systems humans have attempted, none have been so excellent. Of all the systems we could attempt, few would be so excellent: per Pinker’s observations on entropy, the possibilities of disorder overwhelm those of order. The conservatism and congratulation are well placed, because of the scale of the success Pinker documents, and its fragility.
The world we have made works really well, by the crucial standard of worlds that have been actual and not merely fanciful. Of course we want it to work better in many respects, but the attempt to make it do so should proceed from deep appreciation for, and understanding of, the ways in which it works well now, so enthusiastically discussed by Pinker. Hence the congratulatory tone. Without this, we are apt to veer into the wide realms of disorder. Often enough have incautious attempts to improve the world left it worse. Responsible change is cautious, considered, and informed by the best of what already is. Hence the conservatism.
On balance, I did come away from Robinson with a lower view of Pinker and a higher view of equality. I personally am not especially invested in economic liberalism as the solution to all ills: indeed, I rather like trolling the ASI. But I remain sceptical of the confidence of Robinson and his ilk that economic justice is waiting should the vested interests only be swept away. And however little it may help to turn to Pinker at times of personal suffering or specific injustice, there is a point to that Panglossian glint in his eye. The achievements of our civilization are precious, and we must take care both in preserving and extending them.
The Chartres Review 