Inequality: A Reassessment
Howe, Neil
the rationalist myth that "human problems" are soluble merely by applying adequate amounts of money and manpower along lines developed by various social planners. That this lesson has been,...
...But Keyfitz then asks whether in truth it might just as well be the reverse, whether--above a certain minimal income needed for survival--"the purpose of social differences is to give people an incentive to work hard and thus raise incomes...
...Simple...
...The Changing Structure of Collective Bargaining...
...on the production and protection of natural resources...
...In fact, as we all know, the GNP is nothing-but the estimated total of millions of individual transactions...
...have virtnally no impact on effectiveness...
...Comparatively high earnings may be needed to draw (and keep) people with these characteristics into jobs in which they are most useful...
...We take a pair of scissors and exorcize the passages in which Jencks delves into his own opinions and recommendations, and we save the rest as a well-executed and important work of research...
...John Faverweather, Nationalism or Continentalism: Canadians React to U.S...
...vidual transaction, and Jencks, by leading us into the labyrinthine intracacies of the mythical GNP, only diverts our attention from how our economy actually functions...
...The New Product Safe O' Law...
...Increased expenditures in schooling (for facilities, teachers, etc...
...9 Eminently readable...
...Hereditary I.Q, years of schooling, and "family environment," have a surprisingly small effect on how much money an individual will earn or what status he will hold...
...Jencks half-recognizes as much, but in his argument, wholly forgets it...
...Once Jencks presents the issue in these terms, that is to say, once the revenue itself is removed from the process by which it is earned, we can quibble about all sorts of utopian programs for distributing it...
...drive...
...Please be patient while we try to survive the wage-price controls...
...Wayne H. Valis Inequality: A Reassessment opinions, and so helps the reader sift by Christopher J e n c k s Basic Books $12.50 It has now been nearly a year since the release of Christopher Jencks' Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America (first reviewed with Deschooling Society in The Alternative , February 1973), and the flurry of debate which arose over the book when it first appeared at last shows signs of subsiding...
...Actually (and many readers have found this ironic), Reassessmen~s statistics are a resounding testimonial to the fulfillment of the American dream...
...Interview, Kemw/h E. Bouldin~, Love, Fear and the Economist...
...16, 1973) writes in reply that there may well be more to "luck" than what meets the social scientist's eye: " 'Luck'," observes van den Haag, "is but a residual category: that which has not been satisfactorily explained...
...to the economic level of an agrarian village...
...The second suggests that wiping out all social distinctions (and hope of such distinctions) would return us--who knows...
...Jencks seems to have no acquaintance with a fundamental rule of capitalist economics: allotting more resources to those who are most effective in producing resources yields still more resources for everyone else...
...David Swit...
...So far the facts still stand--surprisingly uncontroverted in months of debate...
...Those who have followed the first path, trying to reach income and status equality by achieving "equal opportunity," bave failed, and Jencks' analysis ably shows why they failed: neither they nor he nor anyone knows what causes competence or "success...
...Thank you...
...Although one could apply these criticisms to other areas of the book, it again should be emphasized that in the final analysis Diffusion of Power is a valuable addition to the literature of public policy studies...
...Most of Jencks' data on the effectiveness of public schooling is a face value interprotation of the giant !967 EEOS ~"Cole man"} Study, and advocates of "equal opportunity," to their extreme discomfort, have not yet found a comparable study on which they might base a refutation...
...Jencks can then go on to advocate greater equality as an effort not to deny an individual the rewards of good work, but to "neutralize the effects of l u c k " No one would consent to the former, but who would object to eliminating the whims of economic insecurity...
...boldness...
...The Diners Club informed Mr...
...They attest too to the strength of the principles of a capitalist economy by showing that an individual's monetary income cannot be predicted or planned for in advance no matter how much we know about his background...
...Alas, and gooddamn...
...Indeed, capitalist incentives usually have a way of sneaking in the back door of socialist economies, and recent studies have shown that inequality in European socialist nations is generally no smaller than in capitalist nations...
...Nathan Keyfitz, responding to Jencks (Public Interest, Spring, 1973) translates this rule into a more complicated axiom of human nature...
...24 The Alternative October 1973 much difference one way or the other, Jencks tells us that "success" is largely a matter of luck or chance, and that perhaps "success" has more to do with luck than Any sort of on-the-job competence...
...In sum, the problems with Jencks' egalitarian society have yet to be solved...
...And with everyone's incentive to assume risk cut roughly i n half (Jencks suggests that incomes be equalized by 50 percent above and below the median income), who could predict the economic consequences, on investment...
...He reasons that there are two ways of achieving this: tl) to bestow upon every citizen an equal level of competence, so that everyone will have an equivalent "earning-power" in our laissez-faire economy, or (2) to "change the rules of the game," and directly reduce the rewards of competence and/or "success" and the cost~ of incompetence and/or "fai]ure...
...Jencks assumes, he writes, that "much of our GNP serves to mark social differences...
...Finally, this same criticism can be levelled at Rostow's enthusiasm for the Johnson and Kennedy domestic records...
...The centralized planning of a socialist economy, in theory at least, can provide for all of this...
...decisiveness...
...Moran to recall that great American's autumnal days in the editorial offices of the Sun, a wistful Mr...
...The disparity among achievement scores at a single school is almost as great as the disparity among scores at all schools...
...For economists and laymen...
...For almost a generation now, the popularized folklore of educators and social scientists has led us to believe we know what generally determines the "success" or "failure" of the average American citizen...
...The mechanics of a capitalist economy operate at the level of the indiThe American Salad Our agents at the Baltimore Sun report that a solicitation from the Diners Club of America was received recently at the Sun offices, addressed to Mr...
...Though sometimes reason may condemn them, feeling clothes them in an aura of glory...
...They may disappoint, on the one hand, the hopes of social environmentalists, our modern day standard-bearers of that old and quite American enthusiasm for making us all more democratic and equal by giving each child a better upbringing and a better education...
...These abilities--imagination...
...In recent months, as raging argument has quieted to a murmur, it appears that the controversy may well be settled for good...
...Under an equalized income, who would bother with risk...
...On the other hand, Jencks' thoroughgoing egalitarianism, which informs all of his recommendations that individual income be equalized by governmental decree, is naive and simplistic...
...His syllogism runs as follows: (a) every individual's happiness is of equal value, (b) according to Bentham, society should provide the greatest good to the greatest number, (c) according to the law of diminishing returns, increasing increments of income are less valuable to those with high incomes than to those with low incomes, (d) therefore, the smaller the disparity between incomes, the greater the total satisfaction, and the better the society...
...Experts in fields as diverse as psychology and economics have awarded a near-unanimous "thumbs-up" to the first question, spreading an eerie hush over our community of educators, and a "thumbsdown" to the second question, forcing radical social critiques to disown Jencks in droves...
...social class determinism" theories of the Old Left, and he has offered a passing challenge to the nascent "geneticist" school (of Herrnstein, Jensen, Shockley, and others...
...It is intelligent, well-written, full of useful information, and persuasive, and I know of no other recent work that does as much to provide perspective on such a wide variety of topics...
...Mencken...
...So it is not surprising that the Diners Club's thoughtful solicitation was received instead by Mr...
...An egalitarian economy, however, changes the "rules of the game" so drastically that we would certainly have to change human nature first~and Jencks, who shows us how little we know about the everyday task of giving a child a good education--certainly can't hold out much hope here...
...Fortunately, Jencks' critics have refused to be taken by such sophistry...
...How should his "value" be measured...
...Why does Jencks prefer Bentham's dicturn over the more prestigious political theories of an Aristotle or a Locke...
...David Schwartzman, A ttention, Monopolis'ts: Senator Hart is Watching...
...They are far more fundamental than the problems of a socialist society...
...In short, Jencks' statistics show that a person's economic or social standing relative to society at large are two, very long steps removed from whatever schooling he may have had...
...But on the other hand, they indicate that we have in fact achieved a society with an extraordinary amount of social mobility, a society in which anyone has the opportunity to succeed by virtue of his talent, experience, wisdom, "drive," or any one of a host of hidden virtues...
...The Alternative October 1973 25...
...but they rang true in his day, as Kennedy acted upon them: 'Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.' " Suffice it to note that most realist political analysts have applauded the Nixon Doctrine precisely because it repudiates such grandiose sentiments...
...Behind the GNP are countless jobs performed, prices haggled over and agreed upon, and dearly treasured dollars handed from one party to another...
...When our agents asked Mr...
...Moran mused nostalgically: "He was the biggest smart aleck I ha.ve ever met...
...Unfortunately, Mr...
...We could take the matter one step further: even if "success" were totally dependent on blind chance, .our society and economy might still be in sore need of those hardy fellows willing to gamble for the highest, stakes--for example, the corporation that will spend years in the wilderness looking for minerals and return either bankrupt or millions of dollars richer...
...Jencks' statistics alone, which seem to wreck educators' hopes and social planners' dreams that social inequality can he significantly reduced by a massive reallocation of our nation's resources to ensure "equal opportunity," have aroused much frenzy over the past year but have yet to be seriously challenged...
...Mencken's mailing address has been changed, for he passed away some seventeen years ago...
...Eli Gin=berg, Manpower Training: Boon not Boondoggle...
...Deals in depth with the entire gamut of economic issues...
...Recipients do their best to jack the price up, purchasers to push it down...
...Jencks conjures up an army of hopeless vagaries...
...Once the idea of luck is introduced, of course, the stage is set...
...Two brothers from the same family who start out in the same schools, Jencks shows, later in life will have incomes and statuses whose average standard deviation (inequality) will be almost as large as for two men randomly chosen from the general population...
...prudence...
...Other factors--income or status of parents, cognitive aptitude scores, school grades, quality of schools attended--have practically no effect...
...Interview, John Kenneth Galbraith, Conversation With an Inconvenient Economist...
...Critics of almost every ideological persuasion have shown his plans to be unworkable...
...But beyond this point, Jencks' conclusions turn from sense to nonsense and the further Jencks wanders from his own area of expertise, statistics and education, the more puzzling his ideas become...
...Jencks somehow assumes, first of all, that our society's one, overriding purpose is to bring about a drastic reduction in economic inequality...
...The July/August issue of Challenge FREE with your subscription Henry Roso vskv, Japan ~ Economic Future: Carolyn Shaw Bell, Social Security: Unfair to Those Who Pay lt: Unfair to Those Who Receive it: Jack N. Behrman, The Futili O, of International Moneta O' Reform: Edgar L. Feige and Douglas K. Pearce, The Wage-Price Control Experiment-Did it Work...
...Written by the leading economists of our time...
...What The Alternative October 1973 23 is his "happiness...
...The turbulence and inflammation of domestic life during the sixties is ascribed to a vague "dynamics of American society and the pathology it had permitted to develop in the heart of the great cities...
...His sympathy for JFK even leads him to note: "These words from his Inaugural Address may seem excessively rhetorical in safer, more ambivalent times...
...Of President Kennedy's inability to achieve a substantial legislative program, Rostow offers in defense De Gaulle's observation: "Leaders of m e n . . , are remembered less for the usefulness of what they achieved than for the sweep of their endeavors...
...C. Lowell ttarriss, Property Taxation: What~ Good and What~ Bad: Murray Weidenhaum, Arms For a Time of Peace...
...discretion?--may be scarce...
...Mencken that it knew how much he traveled and "under the circumstances membership would be extremely beneficial...
...Jencks and his associates, who set out to test our preconceptions--in terms of income and occupational status --end up by proving us wrong and show that what we think influences "success" has little or no influence at all...
...He defends his basic premise--the more equality the better --with such an improbable argument that the reader can be glad he spends only a couple of pages on it...
...and second, were Jencks' conclusions and political recommendations justifiable on the basis of his data?---or could they be justified even disregarding his data...
...The law of diminishing returns does not apply to education (as Jencks himself admits)--those with more education place greater vahm on additional learning than those with less education---so why should the law apply to monetary income...
...The September/October issue brings you this wide range of authoritative articles Bennett Harrison, The Once and Future City...
...Ernest van den Haag (National Review, Feb...
...their optimal combination may be scarcer still...
...Does "value" mean value to the individual, to the society, or to the civilization...
...Even assuming that van den Haag is wrong and that earnings are dependent largely on "luck" (i.e., acts of God, pure and simple, from cancer at one extreme to winning lottery tickets at the other), surely the moral imperative to equalize is weaker than our wish to reward what little, extant human virtue remains...
...He concludes, quite rightly, that equalizing the resources spent per pupil in the United States, even meticulously equalizing the facilities and teacher/student ratios in each school and forcing everyone to attend school for exactly the same number of years, will do almost nothing to reduce general, social and economic inequality...
...Moreover, Jencks demonstrates that the cognitive skills taught by schools not only have little effect on individual "success," but that no public school is much more or less effective at teaching these skills than any other public school...
...So much for egalitarianism's theoretical groundwork...
...talent...
...At its height the debate centered on two major questions: first, was Jencks' data accurate and valid...
...initiative...
...persistence...
...One great fallacy of Jencks' egalitarianism, a fallacy that certainly no economist could overlook, is his assumption that all incoming revenue (in effect, the GNP, what our society earns by what it produces) is a single, vast reservoir of resources, ready to be sliced up in whatever way seems equitable...
...We await some genius who can figure out a way, in an egalitarian society, for (1) motivating people to perform tasks efficiently and well, (2) providing incentives for assuming risks, and (3) allocating individual or organizational talent...
...Happily, Jencks is candid about separating the facts from his valuable wheat from quite worthless and misleading chaff...
...That this lesson has been, or is being, learned is a "consummation devoutly to be wished...
...9 The only general economics magazine in the United States...
...Jencks reassures us that we are free from the bends of any identifiable, generation-to-generation caste structure...
...Jencks' proposals are frightening to contemplate...
...resources are thereby allocated to where they are most needed, and individuals are encouraged to produce what is most needed, tn short, the GNP is not fixed, T~or is it a lump sum, waiting to be divided...
...Investment: ,lack Barhash...
...Who is to say that equal slices are all that less fair than unequal slices...
...Joe Moran, editor of the obituaries for the Sun...
...Because much of what we think causes "success" actually doesn't make Challeng e THE MAGAZINE OF ECONOMIC AFFAIRS EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Carolyn Shaw Bell Barbara R. Bergmann Kenneth E. Boulding Alan Greenspan Robert Heilbrooer Walter W. Heller Albert O. Hirscbman Hendrik Houthakker Robert Lekachman Wassiiy Leontief Arthur M. Okun Robert V. Roosa Paul A. Samuelson Robert M. Solow George J. Stigler Henry C. Wallich Editor : Myron E. Sharpe Neither a technical journal nor a business magazine, but a forum for a wide range of opinion on economic policy...
...according to innate intelligence, family background, and "objective" aptitude tests...
...Neil Howe NOTICE Due to a nationwide paper shortage, the November issue of The Alternative may be late in arriving at your address...
...So now that we have had a year to mull it over, what do we do with Jencks' Reassessment...
...on technological and organizational innovation...
...Perhaps unintentionally, Jencks has destroyed the...
...Mar.~hal/ I. Goldman, Growth and Environmental Problems of Noncapitalist Nations: Louis O. Kelso and Patricia Hetter, Corporate Social Re.~ponsibili O" Without Corporate Suicide...
...The first suggests that wiping out social distinctions would mean we could use our income for more "useful" purposes...
...Most likely 'luck' here refers in part to a set of abilities, as yet unknown, or unmeasured, which may cause some to earn more income than others...
...Why is everyone's "happiness" of equal value...
...Again, Jencks is clouding our better judgment...
...So Jencks opts for the second alternative, which of course means the end of a capitalist society as we know it...
...His statistics confirm--despite confused and confusing rhetoric--that American immigrants did not leave the Old World in vain after all...
...Incomes, he suggests, are to be made more equal for specific occupations by legislative fiat (the standard socialist approach), or by positive and negative income taxes, steeply graduated on either side of the average income level, or by mandatory "employment insurance" which would allow minor income discrepancies, in true Orwellian fashion...
Vol. 7 • October 1973 • No. 1
