Thomas Sowell - Discrimination and Disparities

L arge disparities in the economic and other outcomes of individuals, groups and nations have produced reactions ranging from puzzlement to outrage. Attempts to explain the causes of these disparities have likewise produced a wide range of responses. At one end of a spectrum of explanations offered is the belief that those who have been less fortunate in their outcomes are genetically less capable. At the other end of the spectrum is the belief that those less fortunate are victims of other people who are more fortunate.

In between, there are many other explanations offered. But, whatever the particular explanation offered, there seems to be general agreement that the disparities found in the real world differ greatly from what might be expected by random chance. Yet the disparities in outcomes found in economic and other endeavors need not be due to either comparable disparities in innate capabilities or comparable disparities in the way people are treated by other people.

The disparities can also reflect the plain fact that success in many kinds of endeavors depends on prerequisites peculiar to each endeavorand a relatively small difference in meeting those prerequisites can mean a very large difference in outcomes.

The effect of prerequisites on probabilities is very straightforward. When there is some endeavor with five prerequisites for success, then by definition the chances of success in that endeavor depend on the chances of having all five of those prerequisites simultaneously. These prerequisites need not be rare in order to produce skewed distributions of outcomes. For example, if these prerequisites are all so common that chances are two out of three that any given person has any one of those five prerequisites, nevertheless the odds are against having all five of the prerequisites for success in that endeavor.

When the chances of having any one of the five prerequisites are two out of three, as in this example, the chance of having all five simultaneously is two-thirds multiplied by itself five times. That comes out to be 32/243 in this example,

What does this little exercise in arithmetic mean in the real world? One conclusion is that we should not expect success to be evenly or randomly distributed among individuals, groups, institutions or nations in endeavors with multiple prerequisiteswhich is to say, most meaningful endeavors. And if these are indeed prerequisites, then having four out of five prerequisites means nothing, as far as successful outcomes are concerned. In other words, people with most of the prerequisites for success may nevertheless be utter failures.

Whether a prerequisite that is missing is complex or simple, its absence can negate the effect of all the other prerequisites that are present. If you are illiterate, for example, all the other good qualities that you may have in abundance count for nothing in many, if not most, careers today. As late as 1950, more than 40 percent of the worlds adult population were still illiterate. That included more than half the adults in Asia and Africa.

If you are not prepared to undergo the extended toil and sacrifice that some particular endeavor may require, then despite having all the native potential for great success in that endeavor, and with all the doors of opportunity wide open, you can nevertheless become an utter failure.

Not all the prerequisites are necessarily within the sole control of the individual who has them or does not have them. Even extraordinary capacities in one or some of the prerequisites can mean nothing in the ultimate outcome.

Back in the early twentieth century, for example, Professor Lewis M. Terman of Stanford University launched a research project that followed 1,470 people with IQs of 140 and above for more than half a century. Data on the careers of men in this groupfrom an era when full-time careers for women were less commonshowed serious disparities even within this rare group, all of whom had IQs within the top one percent.