New Research on Jewish IQ
A few friends of mine, Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, have a story up about them in The Economist today where they present their theory that the high I.Q. test scores of Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Central and Eastern European origin) are the product of natural selection over the past 1,000 years. The Economist does a decent job summarizing their views, but you can read the whole paper here (PDF). The New York Times is running a piece about this as well.
I post this here because of two points. First, this has been developing for a while. The new genetic science is going to open up a gold mine of opportunities. But science doesn't say something is right or wrong, people do, and those on the Left and Right have to grapple with the facts that are going to come rushing out at them in the next decade. Second, this story is about Jews, and their possibly hard-wired intellectual acuity. I don't need to tell anyone that the intersection of Jews + any topic is bound to seed and inflame bizarre new theories from some angles. We'll see....
30 Comments:
My main problem with this is that some of Judaism's greatest minds have been Sephardi Jews. Witness, Maimonides, Jacques Derrida, Judah Halevi, etc... I've always felt that Jewish achievement in the intellectual arena was due to Judaism's cultural emphasis on knowledge and scholarship; its one of the few civilizations that places the scholar on the same heroic plane as the warrior.
benjamin, you make a good point.
two responses:
1) i have asked henry about this, he thinks that the process he is describing did happen somewhat to the sephardic jews of spain, but expulsion and predominant absorption in the islamic milieu (where jews were slowly relegated to more menial tasks rather than merchants or administrators).
2) read raphael patai's the jewish mind and you will note that the jews of al-andalus (that is, muslim spain), tended to concentrate in certain disciplines, in particular religious philosophy and medicine, while muslims tended to dominate most other fields, including what we would today term the natural sciences and secular philosophy.
3) greg and henry's point is that the process is dynamic, and that 1,000 years, about 30-40 generations, is long enough for changes to occur within a population.
4) note that the sephardic-ashkenazi gap is rather a large issue in israel today, though many of the "sephardic" elements are actually mizrachi (sp?), yemeni and other assorted groups from the diaspora that did not have a strong relationship to sephard and was assimilated to that category because of the labelling by the ashkenazi elite of israel and the prestige of the sephardic community proper that had scattered from spain in former ottoman lands.
...absoprtion into the islamic milieu halted this process (or reveresed it).
finally, let me add that this research can be disproved in a matter of weeks, all we need to do is survey/test for presistant (or lack of) cognitive differences between siblings who are tay sachs carriers and those who are not.
As a biologist, I think that there may be genetically determined IQ differences between some human populations; but as a citizen I think that we must not try to find and comment them. Otherwise we are stepping on a minefield. If some ruling gang eliminates every member of an oppressed tribe who shows signs of intellect, and if this has continued for centuries, should we now try to prove that the gene pool of the tribe has changed so that its members are doomed to be stupid? Dividing humans into superior and inferior is morally unacceptable, dangerous and pointless! And few people know this better than Jews.
Maya
two points
but as a citizen I think that we must not try to find and comment them.
in a world where someone (gov, civil society, etc.) has perfect control, this might be feasible, but genetic sequencing is getting easier and easier. in the generality though i might agree that some boxes are better left unopened, i suspect that many the of issues that will face us from biological science in the near future will be because someone, somewhere, has opened the box, and we will have to figure out how to grapple with the implications.
Dividing humans into superior and inferior is morally unacceptable, dangerous and pointless!
but this is a non sequitur. assume that the paper above has a grain of true. does this imply that someone who is a tay sachs carrier is superior or inferior to someone who is not? that judgement is contingent upon your values. if it is true that tay sachs carriers have higher average IQs, and your value is IQs, they are superior, but if you value is finding a spouse within the ashkenazi jewish community than tay sachs carriers are inferior. ultimately, as i said,
1) the value judgements inferred are going to come from the people who are judging, the facts themselves do not make someone superior or inferior (we are all equal before the law, no matter our innate or acquired endowments).
2) henry and greg are not the only scientists who are heading in this direction, there are others who are treading into taboo topics on the sly, waiting for the wind to change or tenure to arrive. in other words, there are people opening these boxes. so the question is: a) are you willing to do something to prevent them? b) or should we instead try to grapple with the consequences of their choices for the rest of us?
Just as I can live with the knowledge that some men are stronger or more handsome than am I, I also realize that some will be smarter, and some dumber.
<< I think that there may be genetically determined IQ differences between some human populations; but as a citizen I think that we must not try to find and comment them.>>
This is standard liberal cant. Only truths that are acceptable can be told. This leads to suppression of the truth and, more importantly, repression against perceived violators. What other truths would this biologist ban?
rick writes: "This is standard liberal cant. … What other truths would this biologist ban?"
Now, now, Rick. No need for all this huffing and puffing.
Maya raised a perfectly valid concern. If you don't agree with her proposed solution to the problem, why not give us some alternatives for defusing the social tensions she fears?
That such tensions exist, and that they can have catastrophic consequences, is beyond dispute.
I suggest you read World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability by Yale law professor Amy Chua. Fascinating book.
As her title suggests, Professor Chua recommends curbing free markets and engaging in massive affirmative action programs in order to defuse ethnic tensions caused by one group achieving economic dominance over another.
What's your solution, Rick?
Maya said:
"I think that there may be genetically determined IQ differences between some human populations; but as a citizen I think that we must not try to find and comment them."
Wow, there's a mouthful. Maya, you've nailed it. But the problem is, however, that everybody can see what's going on, but everybody is doing backflips to avoid acknowledging it, so it becomes almost a charade. For instance, if you watch athletic events, particularly NBA basketball, it becomes pretty obvious pretty fast that black athletes excel and dominate. If you watch these events closely it can be discerned that black athletes excel in two things in particular that set them apart from whites: they can run faster and they can jump higher. But woe upon any white commentator who expresses that observation. Talk about a quick and dirty way to involutarily and ignobly end a career. Bang---->Zoom. Retired.
Meanwhile, black commentators simply say that black athletes excel because they work harder and want it more. Yeah, right. Like that explains it all.
It is obvious that the Mayas of the world have carried the day on this issue. Once it is formally accepted that, yes, blacks can run faster and jump higher than whites, it automatically, almost in an ipso facto fashion, leads to the question: "What other differences are there between the races?" Differences exactly like disparate IQ test results. And that's the real question behind it all that is really being avoided like the plague.
That intelligence is largely hereditary should be an uncontroversial position. However, when "The Bell Curve" came out and stated this explicitly you would think that someone had just farted in an elevator judging by the reactions to that book.
When science leads to a conclusion that has implications for a society then, of course, people will react strongly.
If Jews dominate in certain professions requiring intelligence there is likely a genetic factor related to intelligence. So what?
The answer to "so what" is that it means that human nature is not infinitely malleable. And that means that whole social programs based on the ability to "mold" a new man by changing his environment will fail.
This is a direct assault on the liberal/socialist belief in environmental supremacy, i.e. that the environment is solely responsible for people's capabilities and behavior.
It is also a direct assault on the "you can be anything you want to be if you try hard enough" nonsense that is taught to children. A fat short kid will never make it to the NBA (but he might make it to being a decent high school player).
Some people clearly are superior in some respects due to genetic factors and ignoring that fact will not make it go away.
Recognizing that genetics sets some limits to human capabilities will not damage society, but attempting to conceal this fact and setting forth social policies that conflict with it will do serious damage.
Genetics, environmental factors and sheer individual human persistence all play a part in a person's development. Ignoring, or denying, any of these factors is asking for big trouble.
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Interesting article and interesting comments.
I think each commenter has made a valid points.
Maya is a biologist, which is my secondary field of study and I can appreciate her position. However, I do not agree that some boxes ‘should’ be left unopened. It is the role of science to open every box and report the findings.
Without question, the human animal will try to open every box encountered, unlock every key and open every door. I believe it is innate behavior and part of the force of life, and part of being a human being. No, not everyone is inquisitive and indeed some will not want to open some boxes. Stem cell research debate is a great example of that.
What is done with the knowledge that we acquire or the discoveries that are and will be made is the question.
“This is a direct assault on the liberal/socialist belief in environmental supremacy, i.e. that the environment is solely responsible for people's capabilities and behavior.”
This is not a belief of all liberals. Nature versus nurture is a never ending debate with various parties assigning various weights to either factor. I don’t believe that the environment is the sole arbiter of ones capabilities and behaviors however these factors do play a role. I have no problem with some populations/groups/tribes may have a propensity for higher intelligence than others. I believe that it is indeed part of the evolutionary process.
What may separate us from the rest of the organisms on this planet is the ability to bridge the differences in ability and intelligence so that some parts of the human race do not live in sub-standard conditions due to those factors.
In a question: do we say that since group A has limited intelligence and capabilities, do we allow that to dictate their quality of life or do we attempt to find a system or culture of life that allows the lesser able of our society (or other societies) to achieve more than they could otherwise?
I guess this is where it gets divisive and political.
In a question: do we say that since group A has limited intelligence and capabilities, do we allow that to dictate their quality of life or do we attempt to find a system or culture of life that allows the lesser able of our society (or other societies) to achieve more than they could otherwise?
A free society does this, although that may not be the intent. If tomorrow the bottom 1% of the people (in terms of intelligence) were to disappear, society would be somewhat diminished. However, if the top 1% were to disappear then society would rapidly crumble.
It is the great minds that have made life long and pleasant and what we received from the Edisons, Pasteurs and Wright brothers of the world far exceeds anything that they received from us.
It is not that we extorted their wealth, it is that they could only trade what they produced for what we produced.
It is not their fault nor ours that what we produced by our limited abilities was so much less than what they created. We merely traded our best for their best and benefitted greatly from the exchange.
The worst off amongst us benefit from our efforts in the same way, without any government planning or intervention.
What some people seem to object to is that there is a great gap between the richest and the poorest members of society. What they don't see is that it is the gap that pulls the lowest up from what their efforts could produce in the absence of the efforts of the wealthy.
Society is not a zero-sum game, one man's gain is not another man's loss.
Redjalapeno writes: "In a question: do we say that since group A has limited intelligence and capabilities, do we allow that to dictate their quality of life or do we attempt to find a system or culture of life that allows the lesser able of our society (or other societies) to achieve more than they could otherwise?
I guess this is where it gets divisive and political."
Redjalapeno, I'm afraid that's all a bit abstract for me. I wonder if we could fill in some of the blanks.
Whom exactly do you consider to be more "able" and less "able?"
And how exactly do you recommend that the more "able" go about "allowing" the "lesser able" to "achieve more than they could otherwise?"
Concrete examples would greatly clarify your point.
Maya:
"As a biologist, I think that there may be genetically determined IQ differences between some human populations; but as a citizen I think that we must not try to find and comment them."
Rick:
"This is standard liberal cant"
Richard:
"What's your solution, Rick?"
Gene therapy?
But that solution does not obtain unless we open the box and take a look at the contents - something that will not happen if the topic is taboo.
razib -
I still have a few issues here; mainly that the Sephardic Jews (and the Mizrachim, if we want to draw a distinction between the two) have not shown themselves particularly different in terms of intellectual/cultural achievement from the Ashkenazi. The Iraqi Jews, for instance, who trace their origins to the Babylonian exile, and not to the Spanish exile, proved to be the most accomplished and successful ethnic group in Iraq before they were ethnically cleansed in the late 1940s. And this was precisely in those realms such as business and administration. The same was true in much of North Africa. (Derrida, for instance, is, I believe, Tunisian in origin.) It is true that such accomplishment is lower in some communities, but I think this can be put down to the level of persecution they suffered. The Yemenites, for instance, were suppressed fairly brutally for much of their history; now, in Israel, they've become quite prominent in the arts, especially music and theater. Even in the most traditional communities, the mizrachim have produced some extraordinary religious intellects (Ovadia Yosef, for instance, whatever one thinks of his politics, is an acknowledged Torah genius) My main point is that all of these communities share, whatever their genetic differences, the Jewish culture I spoke of which puts a high value on learning and knowledge; that is, on intelligence.
I believe some recent research has queried the size of the overall IQ gap between Caucasoids and Ashkenazim, finding that it is only 108 versus 100, not 115-120. But the Jews have hypertrophied verbal-ability IQ (125?) as a result of systematic selection for scholarly qualities such as parsing the Talmud. This would help explain their dominance in gift-of-the-gab and reasoning-required occupations-- such as the law, teaching, media and communications-- after their emancipation and absorption into the western world.
This is complemented by relatively poor visuo-spatial abilities, and it is true that there are few great Jewish painters, architects or engineers. The interest of all this-- pace the race-ostriches such as Maya-- is that the modern world may be becoming more visuo-spatial and less verbal, with pictographic skills required for success in cybernetics, software authorship, etc. Jews do not seem as prominent in IT as in earlier mass media industries.
wj phillips wrote on his Blogger.com profile:
"The author does not believe in disclosing personal information. It would make it too easy for the intellectually lazy and prejudiced to judge WJ Phillips on criteria other than the quality of the information and opinions here supplied. Neither does the author permit bad language, libel or ostentatious illiteracy in responses. Although the predetermined heading reads `About Me', it should not be assumed that this is the work of a single person."
wj phillips also wrote: "...pace the race-ostriches such as Maya..."
Dear Mr. Phillips:
Let me see if I've got this straight.
You refuse to post any personal information about yourself on the grounds that the "intellectually lazy" and "prejudiced" might be rude to you.
Then, under cover of anonymity, you immediately, in your very first post to this blog, hurl a personal insult at Maya, calling her a "race ostrich" -- this, after the managing editor of this blog (that would be me) already made his wish clear that those who disagree with Maya's opinion should do so with an informed and mature respect for the concerns she raised.
In short, you demand respect from others, but feel no obligation to show respect in return. Around here, we call that a double standard.
Adding injury to insult, you inform us that you are not even a real person whom one can address in a man-to-man fashion. Rather, you are an unknown entity -- a cyber-blob -- who may represent one person or a thousand.
Perhaps you are a whole dormitory-room full of resentful computer science majors who, having fearfully devoured all three volumes of Kevin MacDonald's magnum opus, now cling desperately to the hope that their programming and engineering skills might give them some ill-defined edge in the marketplace over the dreaded, Talmudically-honed Jewish intellect.
Mr. Phillips, you bring an ill smell to our blog. Begone, sir. You are banned.
Maya wrote: "As a biologist, I think that there may be genetically determined IQ differences between some human populations; but as a citizen I think that we must not try to find and comment them."
Rick responded: "This is standard liberal cant."
To which Richard Poe made this riposte: "Maya raised a perfectly valid concern. ... Professor Chua recommends curbing free markets and engaging in massive affirmative action programs in order to defuse ethnic tensions caused by one group achieving economic dominance over another. What's your solution, Rick?"
Upon which Tex wrote: "Gene therapy? But that solution does not obtain unless we open the box and take a look at the contents - something that will not happen if the topic is taboo."
Well, the topic is no longer taboo on the Internet and, so long as we can maintain a basic level of civility, it will not be taboo on this discussion thread.
As for gene therapy, this proposal raises troubling questions. In order to neutralize the genetic advantages that allow one group to dominate another, it would be necessary to give everyone the same IQ. But once everyone had the same IQ, they would continue competing for dominance in other areas, and their unequal gifts would arouse all the old resentments.
Eventually, you would have to engineer a new race of people, exactly equal in intelligence, beauty, physical strength and so on. I suspect that many women, imbued with feminist dogma, would demand that biological differences between the sexes be eradicated, so that human beings would become mono-sexual like the earthworm.
My question is, what's the point? If earthworms are destined to inherit the earth, why don't we all just jump off a cliff and leave the planet to the invertebrates? It would be quicker and cheaper.
some points
re: the psychometric evidence on ashkenazi jews vs. other groups.
i believe this is in some ways one of the weaker elements of greg & henry's thesis in reference to israel because the data is perplexing in israel, the mean IQ is 94, and the ashkenazi themselves have an IQ of only ~100, as opposed to ~110-115 in england and the USA. there is unlikely to be a great genetic difference between israel and anglo-american ashkenazi, so this is an issue, and most people i know simply reject the israeli psychometric data. i myself don't have a fixed opinion on it, though i suspect that the tests do not reflect the underlying cognitive capacity very well for whatever reason (yes, culture, environment, etc.).
on the issue of the sephardim...this is a qquestion many bring up. i asked henry specifically on this topic about the jewish prominence in islamic spain. he said that he thinks that some of the same processes that effected ashkenazi cognitive traits (that is, natural selection) kicked in with the sephardim in spain, but that the expulsion from spain to the islamic world and/or absorption into the christian milieu halted this. in the latter case the jews of spain who converted simply became christians (and produced individuals like theresa of avila), and became reabsorbed into the general european population. the sephardim of the muslim world, those who were expelled, often hybridized wth local jews. even the jews of morocco, the most authentic sephardim likely have some genetic input from the indigenous jews who pre-dated them in that land. so, the sephardim are a heterogenous people, and let's not even get to the various "oriental" jewish groups.
but, in terms of their performance, my impression is that in cognitively demanding fields which require rational-abstraction capacities they are not exceptional. i am not convinced that one needs a particular high IQ in the arts, for example, to succeed. the mean tested IQ of black americans is 85 but their influence on popular culture through comedy, acting and music is extremely powerful (and they have had a strong influence on the "american" musical cultural tradition along with the scotch-irish of the southern uplands). i would like to have more quantitative data though, if any could provide it i would curious, i am fascinated by the interaction between various jewish groups in israel, and personally i suspect that there is some hybrid vigor (specifically the 'walhund effect') at work in that nation because of the admixture between various groups.
a few points on the ashkenazi cognitive profile:
on verbally oriented tests, or tests with a strong verbal component, the ashkenazi score around ~115. on tests without a verbal component, they score around ~108, with other tests in the middle. this is not a trivial range, it is .5 standard deviations, assuming a normal distribution the difference between an IQ of 108 and 115 is a percentile of 70 and 85 (for the record, ashkenazi visuo-spatial IQ is about .5 stds below the european norm). make of it what you will (all this applies in particular for american ashkenazi for which there is a lot of data).
but in terms of ashkenazi representation in fields, i see no evidence that they are not well represented in mathematics. see their prominence in the elite putnmam mathematical competition. in IT my personal experience is that they are not as prominent as say, in law, but larry ellison the CEO of oracle and the poor-man's-bill-gates is ashkenazi, while steve balmer, CEO of microsoft, is half-jewish, to name two. and everyone knows of israel's productivity in software design (ie; the ZEND optimizer which will be running undernearth this weblog soon when it transitions to WORD PRESS was developed by an israeli company).
as for the specific concerns about the ethical moral relevance of this data:
1) i think reasonable people can disagree. the data is out there, what you do with it is up to you. i simply offer that i don't think we cane pretend it doesn't exist. i'm not one who judges moral worth in intelligence, either positively or negatively. high IQ changes your lot in life, but, it doesn't come without costs (see the sphingolipid diseases).
2) as for gene therapy, we'll see. please note that cybernetics might also offer up non-biological opportunities to "overclock" the human mind. i do think in the next few years we have to address the reality that a large portion of the human race, of the american population, might not be able to transition easily to the "information age." the type of people who work well with their hands, and were carpenters or roofers in the past, but are now being encouraged to go to college. a genuine appreciation for diversity (as opposed to genuflection toward political orthodoxies imposed by thinkers in the ivory towers of academe) i think behooves us to reflect on what really matters. in the israeli context, even if ashkenazi have a higher mean IQ as measured by tests which gauge logical-abstraction aptitudes, are the non-ashkenazi who die at the front lines in the IDF any less worthy than the physicists in the universities? i leave that up to you to judge....
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By God, I'll tell you one thing--I've got a couple grand for a reputable company that could therapeutically improve my syntax genes!
That, and just a skosh more hair, I'd be damn near perfect.
Mr. Poe asks:
"Whom exactly do you consider to be more "able" and less "able?"
More able: people with enough intelligence and personal drive to 'make it' in a capitalist system such as ours.
Less able: people that do not have the ability one way or another to 'make it' in a capitalist society and therefore just survive.
It is a relative statement at best as some people think that having to drink tap water as opposed to bottled water is surviving.
Also, since there are a million ways to get ahead in a captialist environment while being smart as rock, the whole idea of who is able and who is less able is quite grey.
"And how exactly do you recommend that the more "able" go about "allowing" the "lesser able" to "achieve more than they could otherwise?"
I do not have a concrete answer to that question. The answer is not a simple sweeping goverment policy or law, or any other institutional proclamation.
Finding ways to be civil towards one another regardless of how far apart we may be culturally, economically, intellectually, or on various other issues is not a concrete problem/solution. If it were, it would have been solved a long time ago.
In short, I am a believer in teaching a man to fish, but the water he fishes in must have something for him to catch, or it's pointless.
One of the few concrete things about the human animal is the ability to muck up anything that we involve ourselves in.
Bob Meyer says:
"A free society does this, although that may not be the intent. If tomorrow the bottom 1% of the people (in terms of intelligence) were to disappear, society would be somewhat diminished. However, if the top 1% were to disappear then society would rapidly crumble."
I agree that a free society does indeed elevate all rungs of the ladder by default, but is that elevation sustainable?
America, arguably the richest country on the planet, still has the homeless on every corner and poverty abounds. Is the elevation of these rungs simply that the homeless have better garbage to pick through and the poverty stricken have better hand-me-downs?
I disagree with the idea that society would rapidly crumble if we lost the top 1% of the intelligence group.
In a short abstract: records are made to be broken, and if we were to lose the top 1% of the intellectually superior, it would simply be a matter of time before that 1% were replaced and/or overcome with new individuals seeking the same intellectual ability and need. (as long as other basic needs are met)
I rely on nature in this instance, and the ability of organisms to evolve according to their surroundings and needs.
My point is simply that human animal will always seek answers to questions, and then question the answers.
What we do with the knowledge is the point at which the politcal and cultural differences come in to play.
Hope that clarifies to some degree although I must say that this topic is far from concrete. This is a great and far reaching topic that can branch in many directions.
ps: Rightminded: You may have felt you were slighted with the syntax gene, but you were more than compensated for by the humour gene. I use some of your jokes whenever possible.
Laughter is the best med...
Redjalapeno states to Rightminded,
"You may have felt you were slighted with the syntax gene, but you were more than compensated for by the humour gene. I use some of your jokes whenever possible.
Laughter is the best med..."
What a nice thing to say, and I am appreciative of those kind words.
However, remember, I am a smart... , well, I'll be kind to myself and say, "I am as God made me, and cannot help myself." You on the other hand have shown you can help yourself, so have mercy on the ones you come in contact with, when using those jokes, especially your gentle readers.
I close with a pepper farm gardening tip;
The toad has indeed no superior as a destroyer of noxious insects,
and he possesses no bad habits and is entirely inoffensive himself,
every owner of a garden should treat him with utmost hospitality.
- Celia Thaxter, An Island Garden, 1894
Redjalapeno writes: "In a question: do we say that since group A has limited intelligence and capabilities, do we allow that to dictate their quality of life or do we attempt to find a system or culture of life that allows the lesser able of our society (or other societies) to achieve more than they could otherwise?
To which I responded: "Whom exactly do you consider to be more `able' and less `able?' And how exactly do you recommend that the more `able' go about `allowing' the `lesser able' to `achieve more than they could otherwise?' Concrete examples would greatly clarify your point."
Redjalapeno replied: ... (?) ...
Well, come to think of it, I'm not really sure how Redjalapeno replied. His last post struck me as vague and self-contradictory to the point of meaninglessness.
Can anyone here explain to me what he said?
Maya does raise some serious questions. How can two ethnic groups with different intellectual capacities live together?
Peacefully, but with periodic paroxysms of violence and terror.
Frankly it is reflected in the entire history of Jews and non-
Jews. Peaceful for while, then when the discrepancy gets too big, it becomes intolerable and Jews are purged.
Herzl saw the only workable solution: giving different nations their own piece of dirt and letting hem develop that dirt by themselves and for themselves. Hence Israel.
Herzl (G-d bless him) felt that the right of national self development without diddling by other nations ("nations" in the Herzlian sense: peoples, ethnicities) was not reserved for Jews but for everyone.
The alternative: living as the Lebanese do, with periodic ethnic eruptions, or Malasia, or Singapore, in which every free speech must be channeled, controlled and locked down as tight as possible to prevent a racial explosion, are just not the kind of places I want to live. And I fear that there is no other way to keep a lid on social disparity in a multicultural country.
Mr. Poe writes with respect to Redalapeno's latest post,
"Can anyone here explain to me what he said?
Actually Mr. Poe, you of all people should know what he is doing based on your experience with some of my posts.
IT IS CALLED BABBLING!
Although, he made an extremely succinct point when he said I was a brilliant farceur!
I UNDERSTOOD THAT PERFECTLY!
I disagree with the idea that society would rapidly crumble if we lost the top 1% of the intelligence group.
If taxes are any measure then the top 1% directly produce over 1/3 of the wealth. Try pulling 3 trillion dollars out of the economy without it crumbling.
But the direct effects are miniscule compared to the misinvestment that would follow, and this would in turn be miniscule compared to the number of badly designed cars, stereos, computers, computer software not to mention the number of misdiagnosed diseases, the virtual end of profitable scientific research and the armies of unemployed looting and killing.
We would turn into Zimbabwe in a matter of months.
It is human creativity that makes life possible and the top 1% provide the overwhelming portion of those creations.
It is true that they would eventually be replaced, in a hundred years or so, but they would be inheriting a desert. It would be like restarting civilization around the year 1500.
Lol, I should've known.
Have fun Mr. Poe and Rightminded.
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