Garrett Jones has a new book out: Hive Mind. He argues that “while individual IQ scores predict our independent success moderately well, a country’s average score is a remarkable bellwether of its general prosperity.” Makes sense. I might even call it obvious…
Of course there are other general factors that create differences in national prosperity – the biggest are valuable natural resources (oil in Saudi Arabia) and being currently or recently under a Communist* government. But average national IQ has the largest effect. I didn’t see much direct discussion of this, but this general trend was a lot less true at points in the past. The Communism ref is a hint: there used to be a lot of Communism, now there’s not – this makes the relative importance of IQ differences larger than it was in 1970. Generally, you could say that most of the world has signed on to roughly the same form of economic organization, just as statesmen everywhere wear suits, so that differences in national prosperity have more to do with differences in biological capital than they used to – just as differences in individual height are more driven by genetics today, in the US (where we are fat), than they were in England in 1800 (where the poor were hungry and five inches shorter). Not than biological difference were ever unimportant.
Jones talks about IQ – what it is, what it predicts. He knows his psychometrics, which is damned unusual for an economist. You would almost think that he’s spent a lot of time (sub rosa) conferring, conversing, and otherwise hobnobbing with devotees of the Dark Arts. He talks about how nice it would be if we could raise national IQs (then Indonesia could do what Germany does – and did) – but of course we don’t really know how, except with iodine supplementation.
He talks about the ways in which a higher national IQ pays off – more patience (low time preference), higher savings rates, more cooperation, more ability to form teams suited to complex tasks with little room for error, less incompetent government. I’d also mention differences in inventiveness, a higher fraction of people that exceed required thresholds for complex tasks, more people believing in and practicing basic maintenance (zero or crappy maintenance is the bane of the Third World), more effective deterrence of crime, fewer accidents, etc etc. If you’re ever watched a decent but dumb guy confidently fire a nail gun into the palm of his own hand, you will know what I mean.
…If you talked to a smart, fair-minded guy in 1900, one with wide experience, and asked which countries would do well if native ability were the main determinant of national success – I think he would have predicted something roughly like what we see today. It’s highly correlated with peoples that managed fairly high levels of sophistication since the Bronze Age.
If it’s all that obvious, why haven’t other economists come to similar conclusions? Because they didn’t like these conclusions, of course – because of professional risk – because they don’t have a reasonably detailed picture of the world – because they never bothered to learn anything about psychometrics. Look at the reaction of the economists to Lynn and Vanhanen’s work: puerile.
COMMENTS:
* I would think the main reason for economists not noticing the importance of IQ is that standard economic theory doesn’t have a hole in which to fit that peg. This goes for both neoclassical (“people are rational”) and behavioural (“people are irrational”). Human capital theory comes closest, but the standard model is blank slate.
* As I understand it, people like Bryan Caplan and Tyler Cowen do not propose to raise national prosperity in the sense of GDP per head. The principle of comparative advantage means that if, say, small, rich Switzerland and large, poor Bangladesh allow the free movement of goods, specialisation will make each country richer than it was previously. Well then, the Caplans and the Cowens argue, add free movement of people so that the two countries are effectively provinces of a single superstate, and there will be even more specialisation and an even greater rise in prosperity. What they don’t tell you is that the GDP per head of the combined superstate will be lower than the GDP per head of the smaller, richer province used to be and that the Swiss, while richer as individuals, will find themselves living in a poorer country – like white Africans living better than they would at home while surrounded by dire poverty. And if you don’t like that, you are a high IQ misanthrope. “Make more money and move to a nicer area.”
* Many people claim we need to give those societies more time to “catch up” to Western ones. I say they’ve had a lot of time. Not one has actually “caught up”.
* China is very corrupt but Japan seems low in corruption. I’d be interested in your views on why there is this difference.
* Genes. Japan is less corrupt that most East Asian nations but perhaps not quite Western-levels.
* As you’ve pointed out with New Mexico, and as the persistence of the American Nations demonstrates, “assimilation” is a myth. Immigrants bring their culture, performance, and politics with them, and they keep it:
Demography is Destiny, American Nations Edition
More Maps of the American Nations
Even the Ellis Island-era immigrants didn’t “assimilate”* at all, as their respective attributes are visible wherever they settled. North Jersey isn’t Minnesota.
*They picked up the language, they may have changed how they dress, they may have even changed nominal religions, or even the food, to some extent. But that’s about it.
* When I was a young kid I remember thinking: if economists are such experts, why don’t they use that knowledge to make actual money, instead of getting paid average wages? (Generally lots of thoughts along those lines that were more clearheaded at 13 than at 31, before the chaos and inundation…)
The vast majority of economists are worse than useless. Seriously, how can someone who’s whole thesis is the importance of a high-IQ society come to the conclusion that supports low-IQ immigration?
* When criticizing economists please take note of the fact that the average IQ of econ majors is 128 while that of psychology majors is 113.*
And economists know far more about psychology than psychologists about economics.
