It is now the year 2525. Equality has finally been attained. Yes, it took quite a while to attain this goal. Why? This is because as we approached it, as we became closer and closer to this ideal, as people became more and more identical, there were fewer and fewer people of genius to do the heavy lifting. And those few who still remained were not at all as smart as the top of the IQ (a thousand pardons more mentioning this concept) distribution used to be earlier in the day. We thus approached intellectual equity asymptotically (a thousand pardons for mentioning this word; it is now beyond the intellectual capacity of most people), not all at once, as, say, the cure for polio was attained by Jonas Salk, an intellectually gifted scientist.
But let us not complain about the path to egalitarianism. Let us, instead, exult in the fact that we now have finally attained this glorious state of affairs. There are no more mental institutions, since no one is as stupid or mentally troubled as to deserve placement therein. True, there are no more Mozarts or Bachs either. Hey, if you are going to cut off one tail of the distribution to attain equality, you have got to delete the other tail, too. Otherwise the human race will either improve, mentally, or atrophy, which was no part of our equality goal.
Similarly, there are no more jails, no homeless people, and for the same reason: the average person never fit into either category, either, in the bad old days of inequality. On the other hand, there are no more Einsteins, YoYoMas, Usain Bolts (they really ought to give that guy a speeding ticket) or others of that ilk who have risen head and shoulders over everyone else in their respective specializations. Nor are there any more “beautiful people.” We all look pretty average.
Does this mean that we are all exactly as good as everyone else in all fields of endeavor? No. It only implies that ceteris paribus we all have the same exact potential to be cellists of the same rank as each other. But no one will ever attain the ability of a Yo Yo Ma. We all have the potential to do 20 seconds for the 100 meter dash (assuming this to be the present speech of the average person on the planet) but none of us will ever do 9.35 seconds (did Bolt really do that? It seems unbelievable, inhuman).
However, these are only potentials. If person A spends his time practicing as a chef, and B devotes equal time to computers, then each will be better, more efficient, than the other in his own calling. So we can still benefit to at least a small degree from specialization and the division of labor.
However, henceforth, mankind will not be able to make the splendid strides in science, technology, medicine, etc., that it did under bad old inequality.
What about the income and wealth distribution. Will it be zero? Not at all, Yes, it will be severely truncated, but will still exist. Luck can still play a part. Not everyone can win the lottery. Computer nerds and lawyers will still earn more than those who push a broom or ask if you want fries with that, but the divergence cannot be too extreme, for remember, those following the latter occupations have the same potential in the former ones as do their present occupants. If the gap becomes too large, the latter workers will enter the realms of the former.
Shall we be happier with this new state of egalitarian affairs? Decisive new breakthroughs in medicine, rocketry, psychology, economics, will be a thing of the past in our brave new world. We will probably never cure cancer nor rejoice in human occupation of the Moon or Mars. Space travel? No way, Jose. Life expectancy will remain as it is, if it does not fall back a bit. Living to 200 in our 20 year old bodies? It will never happen. Living forever? Fugghedaboudit.
There is yet another fly in the ointment; an unintended consequence. Average intelligence has decreased, not only its standard deviation (more pardons). Why has this come to pass? With the variance of intelligence having fallen to zero, no one knows any more than anyone else. No one is in as much of a position to teach anything to anyone else. Hence, the collapse of average intellectual ability.
This originally appeared on Real Clear Markets and was reprinted with the author’s permission.
