Jared Diamond’s bestselling book has rocked the scholarly world and public opinion with its seemingly well-documented claim to have discovered some ultimate causes of civilization’s rise, and proved it by surveying 13,000 years of history. Despite vast research and erudition, however, Diamond apparently has little understanding of what constitutes genuine history. His book is an interesting read, so long as the reader can see through the overarching error, long ago exposed by Mises and Collingwood, namely, attempting to understand history apart from human action. [FULL ARTICLE]
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/3392/the-diamond-fallacy/
The Diamond Fallacy
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{ 37 comments }
wonderful review.
it is interesting to see, as Callahan rightly points out, that the same basic types of errors continue to be made, in this case the positivistic methodology in history as well as over-generalisations.
it is also amazing to see how such a flawed book can become such a best-seller. I recall a tv show wherein Diamond was interviewed and the only thing they focused on was how his thesis supposedly refutes any racialist explanantion of the succes of a people. As if his book were the final and definitve argument against it. (note that I dont agree with a racialist explanantion for the differences in succes either (at least not solely and obviously not deterministically, without taking into account praxeological factors, although race and time preference in turn are probably related (on average)) What I want to point out is that du moment such a book comes out, it will be embraced by the ‘progressive community’ without its arguments ever being actually examined. In the realm of the ‘second-hand dealers in ideas’ such scrutiny is uncalled for, while the general public is led to believe that this means that the book must contain ‘the truth’. )
Diamond’s book is just more drivel from the Multi-Cult.
The multi-culturalists are unable to avoid an uncomfortable reality: Africa is poor while Hong Kong is rich, among numerous other examples. If race is just a social construct and cultures are merely different, how to account for the disparities in wealth and living standards?
The answer Diamond contrives is a tortured, economically ignorant analysis to prove that it’s all just a matter of geological and historical happenstance rather than hereditary intelligence and the society’s ethos.
“Diamond was interviewed and the only thing they focused on was how his thesis supposedly refutes any racialist explanantion of the succes of a people.”
Koen, this does not surprise me at all. It was the precise reason why the book was written. Diamond started with a conclusion (“race and culture are not factors in a society’s success”) and went cherry-picking through history to get the premises.
The Diamond thesis was central in the lectures given in the development econ class took, and later was the teaching assistant for, in college.
Interestingly, the professor also contended that it was instituions that were the guiding factor in economic development. He claimed that there was some sort of difference between “pre-history” and history. His institutional center approach is far more correct, but he basically failed to recognize that institutions exist prior to “modern” times.
From Theory and History
“In dealing with such ultimate data history refers to individuality. The characteristics of individual men, their ideas and judgments of value as well as the actions guided by those ideas and judgments, cannot be traced back to something of which they would be the derivatives. There is no answer to the question why Frederick II invaded Silesia except: because he was Frederick II.”
This is of course what Diamond, and his followers, do not understand.
Fascinating review. I agree that Diamond’s pointed out some very interesting things, but also agree with your criticisms of him. While reading that review, I was thinking again and again of Prof. Hoppe’s book Democracy: The God That Failed. Prof. Hoppe, unlike Diamond, does not assert some “universal laws of history”, but rather only “typical events”, or “what will happen, given X, ceteris paribus”. This approach realizes that countervening factors can come into play. A similar approach that Prof. Hoppe used would, in my view, completely repair Diamond’s errors.
Doug,
I think that there is definately some validity to Diamond’s observations about geography. It is certainly one factor that may help us explain historical events, and Diamond explains some instances quite well with it. However, when you fail to realize that such geography statements must be ceteris paribus type statements, talk about them as if absolute causal statements, and engage in selective history to make it appear such, then there is a problem.
Likewise, there may certainly be various racial differences in intelligence, which may also help to explain history. However, the same caution must be applied here: we cannot have a purely racial explanation, anymore than a purely geographical or cultural one.
Sincerely,
David J. Heinrich
I think that there is definately some validity to Diamond’s observations about geography. It is certainly one factor that may help us explain historical events, and Diamond explains some instances quite well with it.
I think you are exactly right. If your culture began in a fertile area with lots of ecological diversity and domesticatable animals, you’ve got a head start over a culture who starts in the Arctic. Just like if you are the son of wealthy businessman who can buy your way into college.
These certainly are influences, but not causes. I know lots of people (and civilizations) who had such advantages and yet ended up on the dumpheap.
Diamond’s stuff is fascinating as a study in the effects of disease, agriculture and climate on society expansion, but it does not constitute a grand unified theory of them. I find the “endemic diseases as an advantage” stuff particularly interesting.
I think the same criticism of Diamond’s history can be applied to Freudian psychology: it studies possible causes but not necessary causes. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Gene,
Great article, as usual. However, let me present the following….Burt Folsom (in his book on great American capitalists) said something like this (and I’m paraphrasing: “Many economists point to institutional factors to explain the outpouring of entrepreneurship in the U.S. relative to other countries. But this overlooks the unique abilities and innovations of men like Rockefeller, Schwab, etc.”
So how do you feel about this? If I say that the country with a low tax and regulatory burden will have “better” entrepreneurs, and that I don’t really care about the individual psychological or whatever reasons that so-and-so made a fortune in the steel industry, because even if he didn’t, somebody else would have two years later, am I as bad as Diamond?
Or would you say my analysis is fine, it’s just not “history”?
I haven’t read the Diamond book, but I do have a comment regarding the matter of “race”. From my understanding, assigning individuals to a particular race is fundamentally arbitrary. With the exception of identical twins, each human being is demonstrably different in his/her genetic make-up from every other individual. (And human beings as a species are demonstrably different in their genetic make-up from every other species.) Hence, since each human being is essentially genetically different, where to draw the line between the so-called races is arbitrary. As with many things, power politics or bias and prejudice take the place of rational, scientific discourse. Please note that I am not claiming that cultural differnces do not exist, only that differentiating individuals into “races” is inherently arbitrary.
I’ve always presumed the study of economics and the study of history to be the same thing.
In a perfect world with free-market liberty and civilized, privatized conflict resolution, I figure the study of “economics” would become obsolete and existing economists would shift their attentions to “historical accounts of past praxeology.”
Agreed Dennis. I just don’t see the relevance of that line of thought to this problem.
Bob,
I don’t think that entreprenuers would be better in any country based on government institutions. However, some institutions would likely help mold these people. Further, while individual accomplishment is the true motor of history, institutions could easily hold back entreprenuers of from ever making their impact.
RPM,
I don’t think that’s as bad as Diamond. I think what you’re trying to say is that minimal intervention in the free market fosters more innovation, productivity, etc. This is a far cry from saying that such is the only causal factor in the aforementioned benefits, and denying any other possible causal factors.
Dennis,
You bring up an interesting point. However, it is a matter of how far up the “phylogenetic tree” you go, so there are certainly some differences between various races. It’s just a question of where do darw the line? Why do we consider the Japanese and the Chinese “different races”, for example, despite the fact that the divergence occured only a very very short time ago?
What makes the determination of species much non-arbitrary and the determination of races arbitrary is this: While different races can produce reproductively viable offspring together, different species cannot. Also complicating the classification of different races is the fact that we are all the same species, and everyone (regardless of race) is capable of reproducign with everyone else. Clearly, species is a matter of black and white, but race is a matter of shades of gray. It is still of fascinating interest to the anthropologist and (to some extent) the evolutionary biologist. Clearly, had the races remained separated for many millenia, they would have become different species, incapable of inter-breeding.
Vanmind,
I don’t think that, absent a State, economists would go out of a job. Ok, many of them would: those who make a living advising the State on intervention. However, the understanding of economics is still important absent a State, both as a discipline in itself (for the purpose of achieving greater understanding) and for its usefulness in business.
Yeah, you’re probably right. My “perfect world” includes nothing other than example after example of transactions from which two parties derive mutual utility. I suppose, though, that some people would still feel “ripped off,” and would seek a better understanding of “economics” to protect their position during future transactions.
At issue is why, e.g., the Europeans crossed the Atlantic and conquered the Americas rather than vice versa. After all, both continents had abundant natural resources and populations. Two major differences happen to be race and culture. Diamond’s book is intended to foreclose any inquiry into race or culture as a factor in human development since, according to the anti-racists, race is just a social construct and, according to the multi-culturalists, all cultures are equal–they are just different, not worse or better.
However, the PC and multi-cult find themselves confronted with the reality that, in general, Europe became civilized while places like Africa et al. remained mired in animism and primitivism. If there is no such thing as race and all cultures are equal, how to explain the disparity? Diamond claims it is circumstances of geology and history which is probably true to a greater or lesser extent, but the disparities are so great despite the abundant and often identical or equivalent resources of different continents that something else is at work. Clearly ideas, not resources, are what create wealth. That is why Hong Kong is rich and Russia is poor.
But then we come to the problem of why certain societies adopt certain ideas. That’s a line of inquiry that has become practically criminal to follow.
Vanmind,
Well, aside from that, I still think that economics is useful for the business world in general, for understanding a company’s strength, for investing, for corporate strategy, for hiring and firing policies, for compensation policy, and so-on and so-forth.
Right you are, David. Such research into companies/industries is historical in nature, no?
Vanmind,
I don’t understand why you think that. The economists would be using economic theory to advise corporations on the best ways to set up various corporate structures, and what-not. That is, it would be forward-looking, not backward-looking. Although there would still be some backward-looking-ness, for the same reasons we have it today: we like to know about the past.
Sag. You are correct in that my comment on “race” is not especially pertinent to the Callahan criticism of Diamond’s book. I do agree with Callahan, and I am a strong supporter of the positions taken by Mises concerning the epistemological nature of the theoretical analysis of human action, i.e., praxeology and its subsidiary discipline economics, and historical studies of man. My comment regarding race was only an attempt to logically undermine what may very well be a significant offshoot of Diamond’s thesis. As others have pointed out above in their comments, his argument has been enthusiastically adopted by the politically correct, multi-culturalist, etc. crowd.
David. Thank you for your interesting comment. From it I am venturing a guess that your educational background includes the study of the biological sciences. I hope I didn’t imply that there are no differences between human beings; there clearly are. I am just trying to emphasize that the demarcation of the various “races” is ultimately arbitrary. Your shades-of-gray description is a good way to say it. Although I have not thought about the issue all that much, the use of race or some cultural, ethnic, or linguistic group as the basis for the study of man, leads to fallacious results, as these methods do not utilize methodological individualism.
“I am just trying to emphasize that the demarcation of the various “races” is ultimately arbitrary.”
I wonder how much you have actually read on this
particular subject? The recent book “Race” by
Sarich and Miele would be a good start.
I think Callahan’s critique of the book is excellent. As far as race is concerned, Diamond’s book was much more than an argument against history. I took a course on the Americas, and my professor made it a required reading for the class, and I had to read it. During my readings I was amazed at the ideological nature of the book. Now while some may disagree with me, I think race is a relevant topic, that does matter.
While classification of peoples into races may be arbitrary it does not at all do away with the reality of race. Not that one should judge someone based on their race, but it is a very taboo concept in todays Western Civilization. Diamond’s book is a clear example of how science – before it can be science, – is a social institution. It is greatly influenced and dependent on the structure of all other social institutions, and the ideas that pervade the ruling circles such as egalitarianism. Scientists don’t start life as scientists, but as social beings, immersed in a family, a state, and the ideological structures that pervade.
Well yeah David, you’re right. I was just suggesting that such forward-thinking can only ever be speculative at best–speculation that appears to be based on observations of earlier performance plus identifiable patterns of innovation vs. state intervention and suppositions about what those historical events might lead to in the future.
I’m splitting hairs, you might say. When I suggest that a perfect world might not need economists, I leave out all the other professions that also might not be necessary–including historians themselves (why study the past if your society has already achieved perfection?). Of course, all such “perfect world” fantasies are unachievable.
I didn’t need anything new to think about, but now I’ll have to think about the philosophy of history. Thanks!
Just one peeve:
An order of magnitude nearly always refers to a power of ten. The Caliphate wasn’t double the area of the Persian empire, let alone 10x.
I’d just like to add my name to the list of those who found Gene’s review an excellently written critique with important fundamental recognition even more generally applicable than merely to Diamond’s book. In it’s way, it is truly Misesian.
Mike Linksvayer:
Being, like you, an inveterate, compulsive nitpicker in such matters, I yet succeeded (albeit with great effort) in restraining myself from making the magnitudinous correction. It’s just a matter of getting older and wiser, my boy–it really is. Just when I was starting to become desensitized and to even enjoy “irregardless” (origin: USMC superemphatic),
popular media (and speech–in that very same causative order) have given us neologisms such as “multiple” in replacement of “several”
(origin: stupidity and ignorance, in which order I cannot determine).
The one we discuss, however, is not quite the same as an error. Rather, it is rooted and grows from the tendency exhibited in both high places and low toward resort to “figurative” speech. In science and in discourse proposing precision, “order of magnitude” retains its original meaning; in common parlance, however, and even in formal, non-scientific discourse, it takes on the hyperbolic function. In quite the same way (though in an inverse relationship), the meaning of “decimate” has come to be that of
near or virtual annihilation, thus losing not only its original meaning but its contextual significance as well. Far from being an indiscriminate and general slaughter, the original Roman practice was meant as an instructive and stern reminder.
Though the processes are entirely different (except insofar as the futility of counter-effort is concerned), I’d give you the same advice as that reportedly given her reluctant daughter by one of England’s queens: “just lay back and enjoy it.”
Unfortunately, this issue strays from the more important issues involved in Mr. Callahan’s excellent critique of the Diamond book, and, in a way, I do regret for bringing up the issue. But, I do not see how one cannot arrive at the conclusion “that the demarcation of the various ‘races’ is ultimately arbitrary” given the fact that each human being (with the exception of identical twins) is genetically different from every other human being. Differences in characteristics between humans certainly exist and in many cases are quite pronounced, but the classification, i.e, the establishment of the lines of demarcation, of individuals into specific races ultimately involves a degree of judgment and in this sense is arbitrary, as opposed to scientific. Maybe “judgemental” would have been a better term to use than “arbitrary.”
It appears from Callahan’s excellent article that Diamond did not acknowledge the basic truism that necessity is the mother of invention.
For long periods of time, Native Americans had plenty of land, game, etc. and no competition from more technologically-advanced cultures. They had no compelling reason or catalyst to transform their culture, worldview, or technology. Why bring race into the discussion?
There are 2 basic mistakes that people frequently make when comparing different cultures. Multiculturalists tend to make the mistake that all cultures are equal and that there are not advantages (disadvantages) to certain ways of looking at the world, organizing society, etc.
Critics of multiculturalism recognize the error described above, but often tend to compare different cultures in all-or-nothing terms. That is to say, they tend to believe that modern society is superior IN EVERY WAY to the more primitive cultures, when in fact there were elements of some of the traditional societies which were in fact superior to those same elements of our own society.
All of those interested in this fascinating area of study owe it to themselves to become familiar with the astonishing work of Dr. Weston Price. The following link provides an overview of Price’s work.
http://www.westonaprice.org/nutritiongreats/price.html
Gene Berman: Popular misuse of “decimate” bothers me less than that of “order of magnitude” because the incorrect understanding of the former seems more pervasive, I hear the latter more (we’re in a new paradigm where everything grows by orders of magnitude and there are no busts, aren’t we?), and the latter has its origins in math. Still, awareness of the similarities will help me take it easy. Thanks!
I agree with what Dennis and Saul have said above about race. I don’t want to start a pointless debate but to those who see race as a factor – here are two general pointers. 1) Surely your thesis is not that Africans and Native Americans are poor (partly) because…they are more racially incapable than Europeans or Asians of producing wealth? One of several problems with this idea is a definition of race (leaving aside the above mentioned demarcation problem) that coherently links up with (e.g.) intelligence. The latter in itself is difficult to define let alone measure. Keep in mind that each member of a race would have to be linked to this definition. For example we would have to explain what links a “stupid” white man more to Isaac Newton (from the standpoint of the race-intelligence nexus) than an “intelligent” black astrophysicist. If we then resort to statistical distributions of intelligence, then by definition we are no longer in the realm of theory. We may be able to say “blacks have a tendency” but we have no explanations for why this is so or whether this has anything whatever to do with their being black. Much more could be said but I think this suffices as a preliminary critique. BTW, to Doug: obviously you’ve had too many encounters with the “muticultural” crowd. However, it’s possible to disagree with the race explanation of history without being offended by it. 2) If we look just at the Europeans, the western Europeans have accomplished much more than the easterners. Is this partly because of race differences? Anglo-Saxon vs. Slav? I would suggest that the Enlightenment concept of “unintended consequences” or Hayek’s “spontaneous order” would be helpful here. Perhaps there was no plan, no intention. Maybe civilisation evolved by accident as an unintended consequence of a series of choices. Hannibal might have destroyed Rome, changing the course of history. The US gov’t and the Soviets might have blown everyone up in the Cuban missile crisis. Or Europe could have remained in the throes of religious fanaticism, condemning us to medievalism. Going back to Gene Callahan’s article, maybe we can point out what affected choices and how choices were made. But race seems quite a stretch to me as a conditioning factor for choice. Assuming we aren’t “polylogicists”, it would ultimately be a biological/scientific question fraught with the above and many other problems.
Michael Levin, before he fell down the
libertarian memory hole (partly warranted by his
support for the US’s Middle East wars), reviewed
Diamond decisively in American Renaissance nearly
seven years ago:
http://amren.com/987issue/987issue.html#article1
Humans are genetically more similar than any other ape. In fact humans only branched out from the original tribe a mere 2000 generations ago. Most of our differences have come about in a very short period of time where environmental factors have wiped out certain traits much like albinism in most animals. “Races” susceptible to sickle-cell anemia come from areas where malaria is a deadly problem. People with long digits can’t survive well in freezing conditions and black people have to take vitamin-D supplements if they can’t get enough natural sunlight. These and other changes have been developed in a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms. There is very little that separates us. We only think the differences are great because we’re sensitive to them. How many other species are we paying such close attention to details such as nostril width or eyelash length?
As I look at the rise, fall, and rise of technological superiority of europeans the thing that strikes me the most is how the bulk of advances in each respective period have occurred in such a short period of time. Diamond’s study is too coarse to explain hardly anything about what conditions give rise to such advancement, let alone political rule. Callahan rightly points out that Arabia for centuries held the technological lead, then curiously hit a brick wall. Why, or more importantly how, did europeans slingshot into what has seemed to be an unassailable lead? The answer lies in a system so complex (law, culture, society…) that any loose associations made between environment and outcome become utterly worthless.
Well anyway that’s how I see it
The “brick wall” the Arabian civilization hit was called the Mongol Invasions. Mr. Diamond contends that agrarian, sedentary communities tend to absorb or conquer nomadic communities, but this was only the case after the invention of the portable firearm. Before that, few farmers had the time to master the martial arts necessary to fully utilize the more efficient instruments of war in a competent way – say, the sword and the bow and arrow. Nomadic tribes, in comparison, needed to use those martial skills for game hunting and could easily use them for warfare, thus having an advantage over their sedentary opponents. Even the greek phalanx, the perfect battle formation for agrarian warriors of the bronze and iron age, was no match for the quick and dirty tactics of the eastern nomadic tribes.
It was with the invention of the handgun that agrarian peoples could achieve a level of parity and right after that, superiority to the highly skilled nomadic warriors. It is of little wonder that the military class of Japan (whose skills with sword and bow were achieved through years of hard practice) banned handguns altogether in that country after the 17th Century because they gave the common man (comparatively unskilled) a weapon to match the killing power of the Samurai. As it is, the situation where an agrarian, sedentary civilization absorbs or conquers a nomadic community is a rather modern development, not the norm in the whole of history.
I agree with Gene Callahan’s opinion that Mr. Diamond tends to generalize regarding this issue.
RPM (is that my old friend Bob Murphy, or a new poster named “Revolutions Per Minute”?) asks me:
“If I say that the country with a low tax and regulatory burden will have ‘better’ entrepreneurs, and that I don’t really care about the individual psychological or whatever reasons that so-and-so made a fortune in the steel industry, because even if he didn’t, somebody else would have two years later, am I as bad as Diamond?
“Or would you say my analysis is fine, it’s just not ‘history’?”
I say:
1) An historical explanation of the creation of, say, Silicon Valley, will consist in the *particular* circumstances that led to that phenomenon happening in that place at that time. A relative absence of governmental intrusions may be part of such an explanation, but never its entirety.
2) That “a country with a low tax and regulatory burden will have ‘better’ entrepreneurs” is a tendency or “demi-reg,” and not a universal law. E.g., a culture with a strong work ethic and a positive view of commercial activities may out-produce and out-innovate a culture without those traits, even if the entrepreneurs in the former culture must endure more state interference than those in the latter.
3) We arrive at our conclusion that, ceteris paribus, less interference produces a better business climate based, I think, on *economic* rather than *historical* considerations.
Does Diamond actually explicitly *deny* that
human action plays any role in human affairs?
To say that all human institutions, societies,
civilizations, etc., depend on the will for
their realization or instantiation or
preservation in no way implies that such things
depend *solely* on the will. (I trust few
people here really believe that human society is
simply a question of volition.) That is, there
may be other, will-independent (“natural”)
factors impacting or influencing human society.
Gene seems to acknowledge this point. So, unless Diamond explicitly denies a role for
human choice, why should Misesians qua Misesians
have a beef with him? I’m not saying there
aren’t a host of points where Diamond is in need
of criticism, only that I don’t see where
Austrian economics as such is the proper tool
for evaluating his claims. Perhaps he merely
downplays the unquestionably important role of
human action, but if his objective is to
highlight those will-independent factors that
influence society, why is that a problem?
Dan
“Race can no more substitute for genuine historical understanding than can geography. How could it possibly explain the concrete particularities of history, when the past presents us with Germans as different as Johann Goethe and Adolf Hitler, Jews as dissimilar as Karl Marx and Ludwig von Mises, Irishmen as far apart as James Joyce and Gerry Adams, Chinese as divergent as Lao Tsu and Mao Tse Tung, blacks like George Washington Carver and Idi Amin, and so on.”
Are we to believe that the extremes of a
distribution tell us anything about the
distribution itself?
Dan,
This is my last comment on this issue. Anyway, your above comments don’t really address the issues I discussed above. Neither does the Michael Levin article you referenced. Incidentally, I’m not really sure what “American Renaissance” stands for. However, if Levin’s plug for the race factor or the article above his by a certain “Gedahlia Braun” is any indication…I’d say it has something to do with racialism?
I’d invite you to read more. Specifically, the “great” writers of the past. Stay away from ideological contemporary writers. In fact, stay away from (contemporary) political questions. After a few years, once your mind is clear, return to the race issue.
One further pointer: there is a viewpoint totally outside of (neither the one nor the other nor somewhere in the middle) the “modern liberal multicultural” ideology and the “American Renaissance” or racialist one.
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