Are extreme events necessary for improving equality?

[DrBanneker]

Looking at everything going on and how much visibility the police issues now have, I was reminded of two books who tackled inequality, one on a global scale and the other in Afro-American history. The first,

is by Walter Scheidel, a history professor at Stanford. I haven't read it though it is on my to do list but the synopsis is that he analyzed inequality (Gini coefficient) using direct and indirect data through most of history but particularly from the Middle Ages on. What he found is that to have a strong, sustained reduction in inequality you needed one of four events:

large scale plague (the Black Death)
complete state collapse (think Rome, Chinese dynasties)
full mobilization warfare (Napoleonic Wars, WWI, WWII)
large scale revolution (not the American style, more the French or communist type)

Other things such as laws, movements, etc. didn't really reduce inequality much. The modern economy and industrialization increased overall wealth and standing for all income classes but they didn't decrease overall inequality that much. In fact, between these events, peacetime usually displayed an inevitable increase in inequality as elites consolidated and gamed the system. The only time there was a massive, sustained reverse was one of the four above since it general involves widescale asset destruction and labor shortage allowing common people to relative improve their lot through higher wages. One of his grim conclusions is the great prosperity and economic equality from the 1950s-1980s may have been a knock-on effect of WWII destroying much of the wealth of the old elite and people being allowed to have a more equal society until the elite once again began gaming the system.

The second book focused on American Blacks

This is by two Harvard profs I think and I read it about 10 years back. Its main thesis was that throughout American history, Black progress has been extremely uneven with great gains followed by the erosion of those gains due to reactionary politics, economic policies, or both. One of the things they said inspired the study was that mapping the large economic and political gains for Black Americans on the timeline of American history showed that the largest gains tended to correspond to large wars. Mostly the Civil War, World War I (started the Great Migration) and World War II (continued the migration, more employment and Civil Rights laws). Once those gains were made each time though, forces worked to erode and push things back until the next big juncture.

Remembering their book, I think it implies since there can't really be any large scale wars in the offing due to the frightening possibility of how they will be thought, their ideas suggest that only a huge disruption that affects our labor value (think collapse of immigration or some large scale need for labor etc.) would cause a huge change in things.

These two books from two different perspectives seem to show that long-term, gaming the system for equality may not be easy. COVID 19 is causing a huge rupture and allowing us to make (how long-term it will be seen) gains in visibility.

Do you agree with these theses and if not, what kind of juncture do you think will truly improve racial equality in the US?

 

[mc_brew]

i believe in an 'all of the above' appproach... violence, political, education, business, everything... we won't win equality by traveling down just one path, but many paths.... hopefully war can be avoided though...

 

[88m3]

how extreme are we talking about an equality for who? All?

 

[DrBanneker]

how extreme are we talking about an equality for who? All?

Based on the authors the dislocations are probably relative extreme, once in 100 year type. I would prefer equality for all but our boat has to get raised an extra bit to level stuff out.

 

[Mook]

Excellent. I came to the conclusion a while ago. Looked through history and saw that the poor have never won. They always lost. Most revolutionaries also come from the middle class. Cant remember a revolutionary that was straight up poor. Also saw that old ideas dont die out, they lose wars and get replaced.

 

[---]

Based on the authors the dislocations are probably relative extreme, once in 100-year type. I would prefer equality for all but our boat has to get raised an extra bit to level stuff out.

That theory more or less sounds like the 4th turning theory! But they are about on an 80 cycle!

 

[---]

Going to tackle that first book. I was looking for something as the next book on the list is another novel!

 

[Red Shield]

Dap and Rep breh. That 1st book certainly sounds interesting.Think I will get The Great Leveler. :ohh:

But from what the thesis is, I'm not surprised at all. But I guess any system will hit a point where the elite are sucking up a vast percentage of the gains. Then something comes along whether it's a black swan event or not, that changes things. Probably also knocks the current elite at the time off too. The elite don't change their path to avoid the fall, because they want to either keep their shyt or don't think they will be affected. Even though they have the most to lose.

The Unsteady March probably has some info I haven't seen.. but I've learned plenty over the last decade about our time in the usa.
Any perceived black advancement will be met by an immediate whitelash. Because black folk are meant to be the permanent underclass of this country. Hell that's the glue that holds this whole american identity thing together.


Man when you learn more and more about our history here, shyt is maddening. Hell some of the posters here posting info about the things we've lost. How hard we fought for every inch and then get pushed back feet. I'm not hopeful about us being able to really game the system for any real long term concrete change.

That theory more or less sounds like the 4th turning theory! But they are about on an 80 cycle!

Sure does outside of having one extra gen.

 

[ColdSlither]

Man when you learn more and more about our history here, shyt is maddening. Hell some of the posters here posting info about the things we've lost. How hard we fought for every inch and then get pushed back feet. I'm not hopeful about us being able to really game the system for any real long term concrete change.

There's a phrase for it. I forgot what it is. But even if you look at workers rights, the new deal and social security. These are things that were fought for. Blood was spilled to get there. There's a cycle though. There are extreme events that cause change. Then you have the next few generations who enjoy the fruits of those extreme events. Those generations end up saying, "Well things are going good. We don't need to keep on doing these things to make sure things continue to be good." Example, baby boomers who are the main ones who benefited from the new deal. They had everything handed to them. Who repealed The Glass–Steagall legislation? Any changes that are made, it will always be a constant fight to keep laws, rules and regulations in place to keep people in check. We can never relax. We can never get too caught up in what our sports team is doing or when the next MCU movie is coming out. We can never get too comfortable and trust that people are going to do the right thing.

 

[mastermind]

There's a phrase for it. I forgot what it is. But even if you look at workers rights, the new deal and social security. These are things that were fought for. Blood was spilled to get there. There's a cycle though. There are extreme events that cause change. Then you have the next few generations who enjoy the fruits of those extreme events. Those generations end up saying, "Well things are going good. We don't need to keep on doing these things to make sure things continue to be good." Example, baby boomers who are the main ones who benefited from the new deal. They had everything handed to them. Who repealed The Glass–Steagall legislation? Any changes that are made, it will always be a constant fight to keep laws, rules and regulations in place to keep people in check. We can never relax. We can never get too caught up in what our sports team is doing or when the next MCU movie is coming out. We can never get too comfortable and trust that people are going to do the right thing.

active participation in government is the way, but world history has always taught us violence is the answer.

 

[DrBanneker]

That theory more or less sounds like the 4th turning theory! But they are about on an 80 cycle!

Sure does outside of having one extra gen.

I never heard of this and just looked it up. Interesting, it does sound similar. It also sounds a lot like those Kondratiev waves in economics.

 

[duckbutta]

yes

 

[Regular_P]

Of course. That's why I keep saying the recent BLM protests aren't going to change anything the way they've been going.

It's also easier for smaller societies. This country is so big and spread out that it's almost impossible to get significant change done. If we split up into 6-8 different, smaller countries, we'd have a chance to get what we want much sooner.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Unless they have a real objective systematic way of looking at it, I have trouble seeing how they prove that thesis without just cherry picking shyt however you want. I'd agree with the idea that "crisis creates opportunity", but besides that I ain't see it.


The first book seems to be crediting all the massive increase in equality in the European social democracies with World War II. But I have some Finnish friends and they talk about growing up poor as fukk in the 1970s, not even having indoor toilets and shyt. So if they're crediting WW2 for advancement that came mostly in the last 50 years....that's some wild stretching of the evidence there. Sweden advanced similarly and they were neutral during WW2, never invaded.

Or take the New Deal in the USA. That was done in response to The Great Depression, not WW2, it was completely in place before WW2 even started. So he's crediting all the advances of the New Deal to the fact that we sent a bunch of soldiers off to war (a war that hardly even touched our shores), and not the massive change in the very role of government that was already in place?



Same with the second book. They're crediting WW2 for the Civil Rights Movement. I mean, you could make some loose relationship about Black soldiers fighting for the country making them more empowered or some shyt, but claiming that it wouldn't have happened at all without the war? That's a pretty tough argument to make, especially since all the main gains were a good 10-20 years after the war ended and once again, it was a war that DIDN'T even happen on our own land.

And didn't the British Empire ban slavery 30 years before the USA without a war? Didn't slavery end in the North without a war? Didn't apartheid end in South Africa without a war?

Wait, and wasn't the Red Summer of 1919 and the burning of Black Wall Street in the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 and all the other huge anti-Black riots that destroyed Black wealth immediately AFTER World War I, and heavily driven by returning White soldiers? So that would be the literal opposite of the thesis...




Even nation seems to have a major catastrophe of some sort a couple times a century at least. Some of these guys seem to be just attributing everything that happens after that catastrophe to the catastrophe, even if it takes 10 20 30 40 50 years to happen. Like I said, unless they have some very strong, objective system for proving that, it really sounds like some cherry-picked shyt.

(And they'd also have to account for all the shyt that went in the exact opposite direction.)

 

[DrBanneker]

Unless they have a real objective systematic way of looking at it, I have trouble seeing how they prove that thesis without just cherry picking shyt however you want. I'd agree with the idea that "crisis creates opportunity", but besides that I ain't see it.


The first book seems to be crediting all the massive increase in equality in the European social democracies with World War II. But I have some Finnish friends and they talk about growing up poor as fukk in the 1970s, not even having indoor toilets and shyt. So if they're crediting WW2 for advancement that came mostly in the last 50 years....that's some wild stretching of the evidence there. Sweden advanced similarly and they were neutral during WW2, never invaded.

Or take the New Deal in the USA. That was done in response to The Great Depression, not WW2, it was completely in place before WW2 even started. So he's crediting all the advances of the New Deal to the fact that we sent a bunch of soldiers off to war (a war that hardly even touched our shores), and not the massive change in the very role of government that was already in place?



Same with the second book. They're crediting WW2 for the Civil Rights Movement. I mean, you could make some loose relationship about Black soldiers fighting for the country making them more empowered or some shyt, but claiming that it wouldn't have happened at all without the war? That's a pretty tough argument to make, especially since all the main gains were a good 10-20 years after the war ended and once again, it was a war that DIDN'T even happen on our own land.

And didn't the British Empire ban slavery 30 years before the USA without a war? Didn't slavery end in the North without a war? Didn't apartheid end in South Africa without a war?

Wait, and wasn't the Red Summer of 1919 and the burning of Black Wall Street in the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 and all the other huge anti-Black riots that destroyed Black wealth immediately AFTER World War I, and heavily driven by returning White soldiers? So that would be the literal opposite of the thesis...




Even nation seems to have a major catastrophe of some sort a couple times a century at least. Some of these guys seem to be just attributing everything that happens after that catastrophe to the catastrophe, even if it takes 10 20 30 40 50 years to happen. Like I said, unless they have some very strong, objective system for proving that, it really sounds like some cherry-picked shyt.

(And they'd also have to account for all the shyt that went in the exact opposite direction.)

I get you. The first book heavily relies on Gini coefficients from what I am told so setback events that have a big societal impact but no economic impact on the wealth distribution aren't really measured.

For the second, it was USA focused so what happened with the UK and other places isn't covered. I don't think they say the wars make everything better or cause immediate improvement but that the upward trajectories start with wars and peak during peacetime. After WWI it took a decade or so for the Great Migration to really pick up steam, same for Civil Rights. I forgot how they treated the New Deal, I had the book from a library, so I would have to find another copy to check it out.