The bigger problem I have, which the other piece from samzdat touched on, iirc, is that this materially minded approach strikes out no matter which side you come at it from. But then again, if you don't have basic necessities, nothing else really has a chance to matter. Stated another way: The freedom to consider ones position and have the time and freedom to complain about it indicates relative levels of wealth of historic proportions - a perspective lost to the microwave mentality of modernity.
The samzdat piece is more rhetorically reserved than Greif's--they're stylistically very different. But I of course disagree with your sweeping dismissal of materially-oriented arguments. There are important differences between poverty and what you're calling absolute poverty (which I don't think exists).
Well obviously to begin with I'm talking about poverty in absolute, material terms. The basic necessities for human life. Food, clothing, shelter. None of which is available without some measure of human action. If all humans ceased to work, food and clothing stocks would rapidly deplete, food and clothing from said stocks would not disperse except to locals, and shelter would degrade at various speeds until eventually most humans are dead and the world looks like "The Earth Without Humans". What alternative process has ever made ample food, clothing, and shelter available to people doing literally nothing?
What you call absolute poverty would be raw, unbridled animal existence. This is an inappropriate application of poverty. Wealth and poverty cannot be used to describe any natural state of existence because they are always relative terms. Applying the idea of poverty to some natural existence is a rhetorical and political move, not a logical one.
There are no misers among animals. If we think of nature-state homo sapiens as being in poverty, then we must also think of all other animals as being in poverty; but this makes no sense. The accumulation of wealth, to which we contrast poverty, applies only to beings who may perceive value in terms of future transactions. This is always how it's been used. I'm not sure if you're appealing to some philosopher or idea with your use of the term, but I think it's wildly inaccurate and primarily rhetorical.
Since poverty is the original state, obviously at some point in history absolute poverty preceded IQ gains.
Well, as per my above statement, no it didn't. And it's pointless to pursue an argument that argues which came first.
I don't see how, once the accumulation of wealth begins in developed civilizations, it doesn't have an impact on disparities in social station, intellect, and education. You want to say that IQ is the primary causal factor in where wealth accumulates. I'm saying that the location of wealth largely conditions what we perceive as lineages of low IQs.
Welfare and desegregation are good, but that hasn't changed the economic situation of many schools, especially schools in the south where African Americans are clustered. As far as educational centers for blacks in the north, many of them are in poor urban areas, which blacks moved into and occupied.
Ever since Reconstruction, impoverished economic and social conditions have followed blacks everywhere they went. You'll probably say that this is because of lower IQ. I would say that it's because of the perpetual resistance of white America toward black assimilation. They're trying, and in many cases they're doing; but in many other cases it's a Sisyphian struggle.
Discounting biology as "negligible" (maybe he doesn't, I'm just taking your word for it) when the bast science and statistics we have available states that it explains at least half the variance in all behavior is absolutely "simply wrong", unless he has some counter evidence on the effects of genetics or lack thereof.
He doesn't say that, I was just trying to circumvent some unrelated comment that rms made in hopes of preventing a derailment (lot of good that did).
I didn't mean to imply that biology is negligible when looking at social conditions and behavior. I meant that it was negligible for Greif's argument at hand, which doesn't need to concern itself with the ins and outs of inheritability. Of course biology will still have an impact on individuals in Greif's imaginary society; but that doesn't factor into his proposal, and it doesn't really need to.
Greif is being confrontational and heavily rhetorical in that essay. He's not bothering to substantiate many claims, and he also waxes poetic at moments it seems that being more philosophically grounded would benefit his argument. First and foremost, it's a thought experiment. Secondly, it's a revaluation of what individualism can mean. Thirdly, it's a thought-provoking alternative to wealth distribution that doesn't follow the standard guidelines of communist redistribution. I think it's simply a way to reimagine how we think about income.
Me? You keep changing your point with every post. Arguing with you is like trying to teach baseball to a bumblebee.
