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Interesting, however, when we get to the argument concerning IQ and productivity, the author conveniently ignores access to capital. You could potentially have

Interesting, however, when we get to the argument concerning IQ and productivity, the author conveniently ignores access to capital. You could potentially have a high IQ but living in a particular locale (say a rural 3rd world village) and due to lack of access to capital, you don't have the ability to be productive. Unfortunately, don't have the time to come up with the best example, but imagine a high IQ web developer working in rural Kansas off a satellite internet connection. They are most likely not going to be as productive as someone working off a fiber connection in a major city. They don't have enough money to run fiber to their house, so this lack of capital is a detriment to their productivity score.

notahacker 16y ago
If you add in an international dimension, the argument that wealth is a product more of IQ than economic systems is laughable[1]. Measures of productivity are subject to debate, but it's beyond dispute that median IQ American's ability to earn more than most Chinese people on the smart side of the bell curve has less to do with intelligence than chance, connections or "power" [1]Even Richard Lynn would agree with me there, if only to explain away the gaps...
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  You are arguing against a straw man. The author did not claim that inter-country wealth/income is a product of IQ rather than economic systems. In fact, he has already disputed this claim - in another post, he shows that Swedish Americans are considerably richer than Swedes, and attributes this to the economic system: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy-in-one-picture.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy-in-o... He is merely disputing a claim made by David Brooks and Malcolm Gladwell of "no correlation between accumulating large wealth and high IQ."
  - notahacker 16y ago
    I was arguing against the author's quite explicit and unequivocal statement the left is wrong about the market allocating income mainly based on chance, connections or "power". In fact, earnings are strongly linked with intelligence. Unless he wishes to extend his argument to demonstrate how Swedish Americans have significantly higher IQs than native Swedes, I'm going to have to insist that "the left" is right and he is wrong about the role of chance, connections and power versus innate intelligence when it comes to distribution of incomes on a macro scale. Economic systems don't exist in isolation.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      Again: he is referring to intra-country variation, you are referring to inter-country variation. From his post: "Denying the link between productivity and earnings is very important for the modern left, as their entire source of outrage is based on the view that the capitalist system "exploits" the poor. More likely, because of the modern welfare state and because of the growing importance of human capital, more resources are transferred from the productive rich to the poor than vice-versa." If he were making international comparisons, these two sentences would make absolutely no sense. The modern welfare state does not redistributed from richer Americans to poorer Swedish. He is clearly describing only intra-country variation.
      - notahacker 16y ago
        (Old debate, but still) I would argue that claiming to refute left wing "exploitation" arguments by focusing purely on intra-country variation, as if the US economy lived in a bubble isolated from the rest of the world, is attacking a straw man. The "modern left" is far more concerned that American capitalists are "exploiting" highly productive cheap foreign labour, to the detriment of US-based jobs in many sectors. After all It's the people that don't have jobs that are the major welfare beneficiaries and don't have any capital to invest in China. Regardless of whether this is ultimately a good thing (even those without access to capital to invest in multinational ventures get cheaper consumer goods...), the fact that on a macro scale cost of labour is related at least as much to geography than productivity is pretty fundamental to left wing arguments that the rich are having it too easy and many US citizens without access to capital wouldn't be able to afford to eat without welfare and some protectionism.
  - wazoox 16y ago
    He failed to demonstrate how higher income is unequivocally better, though. Compared to a more homogenous society, for instance.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

notahacker 16y ago

If you add in an international dimension, the argument that wealth is a product more of IQ than economic systems is laughable[1]. Measures of productivity are subject to debate, but it's beyond dispute that median IQ American's ability to earn more than most Chinese people on the smart side of the bell curve has less to do with intelligence than chance, connections or "power" [1]Even Richard Lynn would agree with me there, if only to explain away the gaps...

yummyfajitas 16y ago
You are arguing against a straw man. The author did not claim that inter-country wealth/income is a product of IQ rather than economic systems. In fact, he has already disputed this claim - in another post, he shows that Swedish Americans are considerably richer than Swedes, and attributes this to the economic system: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy-in-one-picture.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy-in-o... He is merely disputing a claim made by David Brooks and Malcolm Gladwell of "no correlation between accumulating large wealth and high IQ."
- notahacker 16y ago
  I was arguing against the author's quite explicit and unequivocal statement the left is wrong about the market allocating income mainly based on chance, connections or "power". In fact, earnings are strongly linked with intelligence. Unless he wishes to extend his argument to demonstrate how Swedish Americans have significantly higher IQs than native Swedes, I'm going to have to insist that "the left" is right and he is wrong about the role of chance, connections and power versus innate intelligence when it comes to distribution of incomes on a macro scale. Economic systems don't exist in isolation.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Again: he is referring to intra-country variation, you are referring to inter-country variation. From his post: "Denying the link between productivity and earnings is very important for the modern left, as their entire source of outrage is based on the view that the capitalist system "exploits" the poor. More likely, because of the modern welfare state and because of the growing importance of human capital, more resources are transferred from the productive rich to the poor than vice-versa." If he were making international comparisons, these two sentences would make absolutely no sense. The modern welfare state does not redistributed from richer Americans to poorer Swedish. He is clearly describing only intra-country variation.
    - notahacker 16y ago
      (Old debate, but still) I would argue that claiming to refute left wing "exploitation" arguments by focusing purely on intra-country variation, as if the US economy lived in a bubble isolated from the rest of the world, is attacking a straw man. The "modern left" is far more concerned that American capitalists are "exploiting" highly productive cheap foreign labour, to the detriment of US-based jobs in many sectors. After all It's the people that don't have jobs that are the major welfare beneficiaries and don't have any capital to invest in China. Regardless of whether this is ultimately a good thing (even those without access to capital to invest in multinational ventures get cheaper consumer goods...), the fact that on a macro scale cost of labour is related at least as much to geography than productivity is pretty fundamental to left wing arguments that the rich are having it too easy and many US citizens without access to capital wouldn't be able to afford to eat without welfare and some protectionism.
- wazoox 16y ago
  He failed to demonstrate how higher income is unequivocally better, though. Compared to a more homogenous society, for instance.
deleted 16y ago
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