A Critique Of Jordan Peterson (Part 1): The Problem Of Wealth Distribution In Societies
Jordan Peterson is a treasure trove of philosophical insight, but there are three specific points that he continually makes that may need further scrutinizing, if they are to yield the fruits Dr. Peterson no doubt aspires for them. These are:
1) Wealth Aggregates To A Centralized Few
2) The Political Spectrum Is Primarily One Dimensional
3) Truth Value Is Attached To Evolutionary Results
This article will deal only with the first. Subsequent articles will deal with the others.
Wealth Aggregates To A Centralized Few
Peterson: So one of the problems that societies have to wrestle with constantly is the proclivity of produced goods to be held in the hands of a minority of people. It doesn't matter what the domain of productivity is, it could be money, and that's the one that people concentrate on with the one percent, but if you look at youtube views, one percent of youtube channels have fifty percent of the views. Same thing. And it's one percent of the recording artists that sell fifty percent of the records, and so forth. So you get this tremendous concentration of productive power and productive content in the hands of small numbers of people, it's like a natural law... The problem with that is that it can get so extreme that it destabilizes your whole society.
Jordan Peterson is referring to the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, which is indeed a Natural Law.
Though Dr. Peterson correctly identifies Pareto Distribution as a characteristic of anything having to do with human production, it is more than just a law of the distribution of human production.
The 80/20 Pareto Distribution can be found governing things as varied as the distribution of the size of streams in river networks to the distribution of the number of sexual partners individuals have per year.
20% of producers will always produce 80% of the product, 20% in any market will always make 80% of the money, 20% of streams branching from a river will always contain 80% of the water, and 20% of sexually active people will always sleep with 80% of the sexual partners every year.
Any attempt to combat this is an attempt to combat a Natural Law. It is futile.
The Problem Is Thus:
Peterson: The problem with that is that it can get so extreme that it destabilizes your whole society.
Dr. Peterson assumes Pareto Distribution can "get out of hand," so that all products eventually become centralized into the hands of a few, and the rest of us starve.
Yet this is obviously not a problem with Youtube views. As the top Youtubers hog all of the viewers, there doesn't seem to be any risk that the rest of us are going to be left with no views on any of our videos...
Nor is this a problem for recording artists. As the top record sellers sell more records, there doesn't seem to be any risk that the rest of the recording artists are going to be unable to sell any records...
Nor is this a concern with sexual partnership. As 20% of the population sleeps with 80% of the annual sexual partners, the rest of us are not worried that "this is going to get so extreme that it will destabilize our society."
We are not worried that those highly sexually active individuals in the top 1% of sexual partnership are going to hog all of the sexual partners and eventually create a sexual partner shortage for the rest of us so severe that it destabilizes society...
So why does Dr. Peterson identify the 80/20 rule as "a problem that needs to be solved" when it comes to money?
Of Markets And Monopoly Boards
It may be that Dr. Peterson has overlooked a vital aspect of Pareto Distribution. He rightly points out that it is associated with production, but it is also associated with Scale-Free Networks. And this turns out to be an important detail.
The Pareto Distribution is so correlated with Scale-Free Networks that it is one of their defining characteristics.
The problem seems to be that Dr. Peterson erroneously conflates the clustering found in Small-World Networks, with the Pareto Distribution found in Scale-Free Networks. For instance:
Peterson: You've all played monopoly I presume. At the beginning, everybody has the same amount of money and property, the same amount of wealth... So what happens is that as you continue to play Monopoly, more and more people stack up at zero, and fewer and fewer people have more and more money. When the game is over, everyone has nothing, except one person, and they have all of it.
It is true that this is the result of playing the Monopoly board game, but notice that the end result is not a Pareto Distribution.
If the distribution at the end is that 1% owns 100% of the wealth, then whatever happened, it was not the result of a Pareto Distribution.
The Monopoly Board Game is not a Scale-Free Network, and therefore does not follow the Pareto Distribution.
Monopoly is a closed, Small-World Network, that results in the clustering that Dr. Peterson is associating with money and markets in general.
Swinging At Phantoms With Bats
Implicit in Dr. Peterson's concern about wealth distribution in societies is an assumption of the type of scarcity one finds in a closed, fixed resource, network. If there is only a certain amount of wealth in existence, and no new wealth is created, and no new players can join, then we are playing a zero-sum game in a Small-World Network, and concerns of clustered wealth to the detriment of the rest are justified.
But this is not the case.
The Pareto Distribution arrises in Scale-Free Networks as a constant. The ratio does not wildly fluctuate, and certainly does not accelerate towards 100/1 in which one (or few) cluster all wealth, and everyone else has nothing.
The Pareto Distribution does not devolve over time into a different type of distribution.
As long as markets remain scale-free, (meaning nodes are able to be added and removed, new wealth is able to be created and old wealth destroyed, and the market is able to both grow and shrink) then we should expect the ratio of wealth distribution to always and forever remain at 80/20, just as we expect the distribution of youtube views and records sold and annual sexual partners to remain at 80/20 also.
This is not a problem that societies must wrestle with.
This is not a problem that desperately needs to be solved.
In fact, the only part that needs demands addressing are the ludicrous attempts to "solve" it by those who (wrongly) see it as a problem.
Ironically, the only instances we know about of the type of dangerous wealth clustering Peterson fears, are those instances in which the decentralized scale-free market was altered into a centralized, closed network in which wealth clustered into the hands of the "Master Node" known as The State and the Political Class that operated it, and everyone else was left with zero and depended on whatever The State had leftover to distribute manually.
- KG
(photo credit to reddit user Lorpo314)
As much as I admire Dr. Jordan Peterson I actually agree with you on this issue. Jesus makes it clear that market forces must be “sovereign” over the economy. Those that attempt to take charge of an economy will end up being ruined by market forces. In the Parable of the Ten Minas, the “king” in the story represents market forces that includes inflation making stored money worthless over time, meritocracy, and the Pareto principle. Those that refused “him” being in charge were killed by him. Centrally controlled economies are doomed to failure. We attempt to control markets at our own peril.
The Parable of the Ten Minas http://biblehub.com/niv/luke/19.htm
Luke 19:11-26
11While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. 12He said: “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. 13So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.a ‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’
14“But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’
15“He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.
16“The first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned ten more.’
17“ ‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’
18“The second came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned five more.’
19“His master answered, ‘You take charge of five cities.’
20“Then another servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. 21I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.’
22“His master replied, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? 23Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?’
24“Then he said to those standing by, ‘Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’
25“ ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘he already has ten!’
26“He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 27But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’ ”
Well said @kierkeguardian. Peterson is not an economist, nor is he particularly well versed in economic theory.
He is, however, extremely well versed in how our minds work. I have been attempting to utilise that information in some deep dive analysis into the human condition myself, and have found a number of conditions that he expresses which categorically imply centralised systems must be avoided at all costs for society to behave optimally.
My theory is if someone can present a comprehensive theory on this using root cause analysis, a formal model can be presented to provide a distributed societal system. There is one I am working from (voluntaryism) appears to be fundamentally sound from a logical perspective.
Our economic system is based on lack in order to give value. Play that game out over time you increase the lack to the many while increasing value to the few - results don't lie. As long as we see poverty increasing and the 1% getting richer that is the economic game you are playing and it's 100% designed to collapse in cycles and we are due for one bigger and longer then 1930's - not going to be pretty.
You can't fix one system without fixing all systems as they are all interdependent on each other to function as they do and non of them are resulting what they claim to result.
Justice implies a problem is solved while our justice systems do not result problems being solved. Justice systems are designed to result a win/lose - for one side to lose is to admit there still is a problem not solved. If a justice system truly resulted justice we'd experience a just society. The only people believing we live in a just society are the one's benefiting from all social problems, victims of social injustice will never say we live in a just society. Increased crime, increased poverty, increased physical and mental health problems are a sign we do not live in a just society. The 1% are getting richer using this unjust justice system and the majority supporting such a system are nothing more then slaves voting for their own slavery. The 1% are not to blame they are just the winners of the game we all agree to play similar to the game of survivor - everyone agree's to play the game knowing they are voted out with only one winner.
Medical system is not designed to result good health else it would be focused on causes creating illness. Jordan Peterson suffers from depression, a mental illness. That does imply his mind is not sound, he is not in his right mind if his mentality is ill. He is amazing at complaining about problems but he clearly sucks at giving solid advice on how to solve problems. when you know problem solving you know how to solve all problems as the rules in problem solving apply to all problems. First stage in problem solving is look at ROOT causes - this is where Peterson fails. Odd how Peterson claims to be against trangender ideology but fails to offer medical advice on how to solve it. He refuses to make the claim people suffering from transgenderism suffer from a mental illness - why? Because he can't offer solutions - why? Because he is ignoring root causes creating the problem. Our medical system ignores root causes because how we work and consume is the root causes of illness. Industry is not focused on social well being, it profits off destroying. If our medial system truly was focused on solving health problem it would stop just about all forms of industry as we know it today. Money over people - it's more important to profit then it is to result good health. We'd cause an economic collapse if we stopped all industries that are causing today's health problems. Sadly Industry designed to destroy for problem is a game designed to collapse either way. When things are so wrong we put labels on them "to big to fail" it's like saving a failing game that is 100% designed to fail - it's pure insanity to save something designed to fail, it's a pattern of perpetual failure while claiming failure is a good thing while expecting success.Successful failures? Putting a square peg in a round hole will cause one to experience a depression. Example we design cars to break down not last so there is a need to make more cars and increase jobs in the production and servicing. If we actually designed cars to last which we do know how to do - how many jobs would be lost? Experts will say it's impossible to do it any other way yet anything is possible you just won't find those answers if you aren't looking for them. To solve the impossible you have to be open to the possibilities. never listen to people who say it's impossible as they can't see possibilities. Always listen to the crazy people offering possibilities to the impossible because they do see a way to get it done.
Religious systems are controlling our believe systems which controls our behaviors. It's a system 100% designed to influence death - the carrot offered is "heaven". Turns out all forms of death have a human footprint, so to get to heaven you have to be pretty darn evil to harm enough that it ends the lives of others - that will sound crazy to those unable to solve today's challenges but seriously look at every form of death and see it's root causes - you'll find a human footprint to even natural disasters. Religions do not offer a value for life, it's 100% dependent on influencing zero value for life but you won't see it if you are stuck in it. YOu'll fight to the death in support of your religious beliefs - while you are FIGHTING TO CREATE DEATH.
Education systems are not teaching you how to think rather it's teaching what to think. Jordan Peterson is a good example - he claims we should question everything yet when I've challenged him with some good questions he left the room pretty darn fast refusing to answer questions he is not willing to face yet - why? He contradicts his own advice and he is teaching this level of contradiction to kids and he wonders why they are behaving so badly.
Government systems are 100% focused on profits over people, it's lacking responsibility and accountability but it's a perfect reflection of society. Society is lacking responsibility and accountability always blaming leaders while they can't do what they want leaders to do.
In short if we want to solve today's problems you have to look at the root causes creating the problems. It's all about our man made systems and every one of them has a zero value for life - as long as we have a rule that says everyone dies these systems are causing every form of death so we perpetuate the belief "everyone dies". If you never entertain the possibility that maybe the human body is designed to live eternally you'll never explore true solutions. I don't know if that possibility is true, I just did my research on causes and notice every form of death has a human footprint which has me asking the question if our human footprint valued life, did not cause death to anyone how would we die? How would our world change if we valued life?
Now just like jobs are created to hold today's systems in place, if we had complete redesign of all man made systems we'd create new jobs to sustain those systems - what does that look like? What does a system that results true justice look like? Imagine a system that actually solves problems? If we designed an economic system that didn't profit off harm - what would that look like? As a programmer - the study of systems I see a possibility where we work less and earn more. Einstein said "Every human is a genius but if you measure how well a fish climbs trees it will always believe it's stupid. Today's systems are all designed to force people to think they are fish who must climb trees - that will cause depression. New systems should support the genius in us all - even your enemy is a genius you MUST support. Only a true genius can recognize the genius in all others. So you can't claim to be a genius until you see the genius in all others.