You know the Conservative mantra that the problem with the poor is that they're lazy, won't work, have too many kids too soon, no family values, etc. etc.? So the answer is to cut off all those lavish benefits and quit coddling them?
Turns out the poor are using a time-tested strategy for survival. Or as the lead from an editorial at New Scientist puts it:
FROM feckless fathers and teenaged mothers to so-called feral kids, the media seems to take a voyeuristic pleasure in documenting the lives of the "underclass". Whether they are inclined to condemn or sympathise, commentators regularly ask how society got to be this way. There is seldom agreement, but one explanation you are unlikely to hear is that this kind of "delinquent" behaviour is a sensible response to the circumstances of a life constrained by poverty. Yet that is exactly what some evolutionary biologists are now proposing.
emphasis added
Captioned "Why biology should inform social policy" the editorial makes a simple point. No program to deal with any social problem you care to name is going to be truly effective if it does not take into account the way the world actually works. Good intentions or hidebound prejudices are not enough; effective policies need to be based on reality to work.
There has been a tremendous amount of science done on human behavior in the last few decades - yet our political battles are still being fought over social policies based on arguments way out of date. It's like trying to craft an energy-climate bill while obsessing over how to control phlogiston emissions. To quote from the editorial again...
Evolutionary theory predicts that if you are a mammal growing up in a harsh, unpredictable environment where you are susceptible to disease and might die young, then you should follow a "fast" reproductive strategy - grow up quickly, and have offspring early and close together so you can ensure leaving some viable progeny before you become ill or die. For a range of animal species there is evidence that this does happen. Now research suggests that humans are no exception.
This is not going to sit well with those who love to moralize about the sins of lesser beings - and who believe it's every person for themselves so hands off their stuff. It's also not going to sit well with those regard the theory of evolution as the work of the Devil.
And for those who've been pushing racing to the top, parenting classes, etc. that by itself is not going to be effective either. Even those with the best of intentions are doing nothing more than treating the symptoms and not the disease - so long as they don't understand what's really driving the problems in the first place.
Once you are in a situation where the expected healthy lifetime is short whatever you do, then there is less incentive to look after yourself. Investing a lot in your health in a bad environment is like spending a fortune on maintaining a car in a place where most cars get stolen anyway, says Nettle. It makes more sense to live in the moment and put your energies into reproduction now.
Evolutionary theory can explain these behavioural responses to poverty, but it doesn't make them desirable. So what is the answer? What can be done to help people escape from the slippery slope of poor health, poor education and deprivation?
The answer that science is providing boils down to something that is going to make the Right go ballistic and the Left quail in terror. It's backed up by a huge body of evidence that continues to grow. And it's getting almost no attention from the politicians because it doesn't even get into the debate. The Right shouts down anyone who even begins to wander near it, and the Left is too cowed to even think about it and what it means, let alone fight for it.
Before I spell it out, I suggest if this has gotten your interest, go read the full New Scientist editorial. If that's not enough to convince you and if you want more (a lot more) information to back it up, go get a copy of The Spirit Level.
For those of you who want it spelled out now, the critical element underlying problems like teen pregnancy, crime, poor health, drug abuse, and a whole host of other ills is the way humans seem to be shaped by evolution to respond to their perceived position in their society. Studies from around the world in developed countries theoretically able to meet the needs of their citizens above and beyond mere survival show the same pattern. It shows up even when comparing countries of differing levels of relative material wealth. It can be seen in America when you compare each of the 50 states against each other. It's a simple observation backed up by a lot of data, and it has manifold consequences. It's this:
The greater the amount of inequality in a society, the greater the gap between the haves and the have nots, then the worse the social problems are for everyone in that society - NOT just the people at the bottom.
Humans respond to perceived social status in many ways based on biological, social, and evolutionary principles - and the greater the difference between top and bottom in a society, the greater the stress on all the people within it. New Scientist refers to The Spirit Level, which lays this all out in exhaustive detail, chapter by chapter.
Still, reducing poverty alone probably isn't the answer. In their book The Spirit Level (Allen Lane, 2009), epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, of the universities of Nottingham and York, UK, respectively, emphasise the degree of income inequality in a society rather than poverty per se as being a major factor in issues such as death and disease rates, teenage motherhood and levels of violence. They show that nations such as the US and UK, which have the greatest inequality in income levels of all developed nations, also have the lowest life expectancy among those nations, the highest levels of teenage motherhood (see diagrams) and a range of social problems.
The effects are felt right across society, not just among poor people. "Inequality seems to change the quality of social relations in society," says Wilkinson, "and people become more influenced by status competition." Anxiety about status leads to high levels of stress, which in turn leads to health problems, he says. In unequal societies trust drops away, community life weakens and society becomes more punitive because of fear up and down the social hierarchy.
emphasis added. Sound like any place you know?
There's more than one answer to the problem - once the problem is recognized and admitted.
There are two quite different ways that societies can be made more equal, Wilkinson says. Some countries, like Sweden, do it by redistribution, with high taxes and welfare benefits. In others, earnings are less unequal in the first place. Japan is one such country, and it has one of the highest average life expectancies and lowest levels of social problems among developed nations. Other important factors, says Wilkinson, are strong unions and economic democracy.
So, while we're heading for a rancorous summer in the lead up to the fall elections, consider this.
The Right has no possibility of providing ANY effective answers to the problems facing this country and the world. None. Zero. Nada. For them inequality isn't a bug - it's a feature. The policies they believe in make things worse for everyone. What's happened to this country ever since Ronald Reagan started us down the slippery slope should be plenty of evidence for that all by itself. Repeat: The policies they believe in make things worse for everyone - and that's why we're developing an underclass where nobody can get ahead.
As for the Left, good intentions and bandaids on festering wounds aren't going to do the trick either - but we now have a solid base of knowledge on which to build policies which could and should prove far more effective than anything we've yet tried - and we're running out of time to get it right. All we need is the courage of our convictions AND the willingness to use what we've learned.
UPDATE: For those who'd like to see the evidence for these observations, Wilkinson and Pickett have much of their material available at this website.
On a related note, there's an excellent resource website that lays out the case for government. It's a wonderful antidote for the
"anti-government agenda of slashing taxes, cutting social programs, and rolling back regulations. “Smaller government” has been the conservative mantra – except of course for the ever-growing expenditures for defense and national security."