Towards a “Maintenance Society”

Watching the Bell Curve play out

Do you remember The Bell Curve? It was a significant 1994 book by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein that was “controversial” for all the wrong reasons. The controversy was driven by fact that the authors – using very sound social science – statistically linked measurable success in almost every area of contemporary life with intelligence as measured by IQ, and then proceeded to show that IQ was significantly genetically driven rather than environmentally driven. This was by no means a slam-dunk argument, but it contained many really useful and interesting tidbits.

The most media-friendly controversy was the lack of shyness on the part of the authors in discussing the impact of IQ and race as part of the larger discussion around IQ and genetics. The authors seemed to imply that American blacks were doomed to a lower IQ and hence a lower chance at success, just by virtue of genetics. (For what it is worth, Thomas Sowell, among others, has pointed out that the IQ scores of immigrant groups – including Jews, Italian and Irish – were as low or lower early into their assimilation than blacks are today. This would hint that there is more nuance to the nature-nurture IQ debate than The Bell Curve’s authors allow).

But the most meaningful and important part of this book was the conclusions towards which it led the authors. As well as providing cautionary fuel for specific policy issues (such as not subsidizing high birthrates among low-IQ women through Welfare programs) it foresaw a larger threat that I think we are seeing emerge as reality.

If intelligence and success are linked, and if intelligence is genetic, and if people of given intelligence seek out mates of similar intelligence, then a society which becomes physically, geographically and socially mobile will see a massive “self-sifting” in which the population becomes more and more stratified by intelligence. And hence by success. And hence by wealth. We will create a new aristocracy based, ironically enough, on “merit.” Meritocracy will congeal into aristocracy.

In prior ages, technological and geographical restrictions forced people into communities that were largely geographically based. If one is born, grows, marries and dies in the same town or village, then the pool of mates is pretty much the rest of the town. There is more “forcing” of integration between the brighter and not so bright. In today’s socially leveled and mobile world, pretty much anybody can move to where people of the same intelligence level are.

The result is a growing stratification and segregation based on intelligence and capability that we must learn to deal with. It’s not that the rich are getting richer. It’s that the smart are getting richer, and marrying other rich, smart people. The not-so-smart are pretty much staying where they are. This phenomenon leads to observable increases in wage gaps, and, in my opinion, helps explain the emergence of hip-hop/rap and NASCAR.

But how does one deal with this? One of the predictions of Murray and Herrnstein was that we would see the emergence of a “maintenance society” in which a permanent wealthy quadrant of society more or less takes care of the lowest quadrant. Oddly enough, one could argue that liberalism is better positioned to deal with this reality than is conservatism. The natural elitism of liberalism is largely based on the reality that they tend to be pretty smart folks, and are aware of that fact. They see it as their duty to tell the less well endowed what they should be doing, while supporting them at the same time. What is the welfare state that emerged from the Great Society if not the initial stage of a maintenance society? Conservatives prefer to believe in the dynamism of human life and the ability of all to succeed if they try hard enough. But what if that changes? What if large swaths of Americans are simply not as capable of succeeding? What does one do with them?

This will require some new thinking to sort out. Can we maintain a vibrant a realistic democracy in this mode? Did we manage to break the bonds of caste and class simply to recreate them in a different guise? Is American individualism still a valid template for viewing society? Tough questions all, and many more stacked up behind them.

The good news is that the lower quadrant doesn’t tend to vote. That should keep us out of too much trouble in the short run. But in the long run we all need to come to grips with the likely reality that our society will become more and more bifurcated between the brainiacs and the regular joes.

I hope we can keep it the America that we built.

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