Global Inequality as a Consequence of Human Diversity: A New Theory Tested by Empirical Evidence

214 Pages·2014·3.013 MB·English

by  Tatu Vanhanen

Global Inequality
As a Consequence of Human Diversity
A New Theory Tested by Empirical Evidence
TATU VANHANEN
Ulster Institute for Social Research
Published 2014 by
Ulster Institute for Social Research
London NW10 5TH
UK
1SBN 9780957391383
Copyright © 2014 Tatu Vanhanen
All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
This book is dedicated to colleagues and other researchers who have
attempted to explore the impact of human nature on global inequality
in human conditions.
iii
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Part I: Theories of Global Inequality and Variables
Chapter 1 1
SomePrevious Studies on Global Inequality
1. Studies on Global Inequality 1
2. Some Measures of Global Inequality 10
Chapter 2 27
Theoretical Explanations
1. Contemporary Theoretical Explanations 28
2. Human Diversity as the Ultimate Explanatory
Factor 42
Chapter 3 57
Variables
1. National IQ 58
2. Six Measures of Global Inequality 60
3. Statistical Data on Variables for 178 Countries 65
4. Index of Global Inequality (IGI) 73
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Global Inequality
Part II: The Hypothesis Tested by Empirical Evidence
Chapter 4 85
Test of the Hypotheses: The Six Components of IGI
1. Intercorrelations of Variables 86
2. The Hypothesis Tested by the Six Components
of IGI 88
Chapter 5 117
The Index of Global Inequality (IGI)
1. The Results of Regression Analysis for Single
Countries 118
2. Extreme Outliers (residuals ±20.0 or higher) 127
3. Large Deviations (residuals from ±12.0 to
±19.9) 131
4. Moderate Deviations (residuals from ±8.0 to
±11.9) 140
5. Summary 148
Chapter 6 153
The New Phenotypic Worldview
1. Contradictory Worldviews 154
2. A Theory on the Impact of Human Diversity on
Global Inequality 158
3. The Hypothesis Tested by Empirical Evidence 162
4. Conclusion 166
Abbreviations 172
References 173
NameIndex 185
Subject Index 195
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Contents
Tables
Table 3.1 The values of national IQ and of the six
measures of global inequality for 178
countries. 66
Table 3.2 The percentage values of the two original
and fourtransformed components of IGI
and their arithmetic means (IGI) in the
group of 178countries. 75
Table 4.1 The intercorrelations of IGI and its six
components in the group of 178 countries. 87
Table 4.2 National IQ correlated with the six components
of IGI and with the Index of Global Inequality
in thegroup of 178 countries. 88
Table 5.1 The results of regression analysis of IGI on
national IQ (the mean of 2006 and 2012
national IQs)for 178 countries. 120
Table 5.2 The correlations between national IQ and IGI
values in different sub-groups of countries. 125
Table 5.3 The core groups of the most deviating countries
(countries appearing in both lists are underlined)
according to Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. 150
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Global Inequality
Figures
Figure4.1 Theresults of regression analysis of
PPP/GNI-10%on national IQ in the group
of 178 countries 91
Figure 4.2 The results of regression analysis of Tertiary
education on national IQ in the group of 178
countries. 95
Figure 4.3 The results of regression analysis of Inversed
U-five% on national IQ in the group of 178
countries. 99
Figure 4.4 The results of regression analysis of life
expectancy(Life-10%) on national IQ in the
group of 178 countries. 102
Figure 4.5 The results of regression analysis of Sanitation
on national IQ in the group of 178 countries. 104
Figure 4.6 The results of regression analysis of Index of
Democratization (ID-10x2) on national IQ in
thegroup of 178 countries. 108
Figure 5.1 The results of regression analysis of the Index
of Global Inequality (IGI) on national IQ in
the group of 178 countries. 119
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Preface
Enormous economic and other global disparities in human
conditions persist in the world. Scholars and political leaders have
debated on the causes of these problems and on the means to solve
them, but no agreement has yet been reached on the causes of
global disparities or on the best methods of reducing them. It has
been characteristic of this debate that explanations for global
inequality have been sought only from various cultural, political
and other environmental factors, not from any characteristics of
human nature, although phenotypic phenomena are always
affected not only by environmental but also by genotypic factors.
The limitation to environmental factors seems to be common for
all previous theories of global inequality and poverty: for cultural
theories, modernization theories, dependency and world-system
theories, and political and institutional theories. Unfortunately it
has not been possible to test the explanatory power of those
theories satisfactorily by empirical evidence for the reason that it
has been difficult to operationalize their central concepts and
hypotheses. Consequently, we do not know to what extent those
theories are capable of explaining the emergence and persistence
of global inequality and poverty.
It is characteristic for all environmental theories of
development that they seem to be based on an implicit assumption
that innate abilities of all nations are more or less the same and
that, therefore, it is not necessary to pay any special attention to
possible differences in average innate abilities of nations.
Environmental factors are assumed to be enough to explain the
emergence and persistence of global inequality, although each
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Global Inequality
theory refers, to some extent, to different kinds of environmental
factors. The assumption that environmental factors are enough to
explain the existence of enormous developmental gaps between
countries implies an idea that it might be possible to eradicate
developmental gaps by appropriate changes in relevant
environmental factors and policies. In other words, poverty and
other disparities in human conditions are not assumed to be
inevitable. They are assumed to be partly consequences of
geographical factors, but even more consequences of economic,
social, and political selections and policies, which means that it
would be possible to reduce those disparities significantly by
correcting those policies. Of course, this kind of argumentation is
justified to some extent. The United Nations Millennium
Declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in
2000 is based on such argumentation. The United Nations
accepted the eight Millennium Development Goals that are
intended to reduce poverty and to improve various aspects of
human conditions. It is certainly possible to reduce poverty and to
improve human conditions to some extent in some places in the
world, but according to my theory formulated in this study it will
never be possible to equalize human conditions in the world.
James D. Wolfensohn, the President of the World Bank,
noted in his Foreword to World Development Report 2000/2001
that "at the start of a new century, poverty remains a global
problem of huge proportion." He said that the report "seeks to
expand the understanding of poverty and its causes and sets
actions to create a world free of poverty in all its dimensions." In
other words, he believed it to be possible to eliminate poverty
completely. In his Forward to World Development Report 2004,
Wolfensohn declared confidently: "For the first time in human
history, we have the possibility of eradicating global poverty in
our life time." Many other scholars and politicians have expressed
the same idea about the possibility of creating a world free of
poverty.
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Preface
Serious attention has not been paid to the significance of
the evolved human diversity. My purpose in this book is to
challenge contemporary environmental theoretical explanations of
global inequality and poverty and to introduce a transformed
phenotypic worldview which is based on the idea that to some
extent global inequality is a natural and inevitable consequence of
human diversity. In this book, the evolutionary roots of global
inequality and poverty are traced to the continual struggle for
existence and to the evolved human diversity measured by
national IQ. Together, these two evolutionary factors are assumed
to explain a significant part of the enormous global disparities in
human conditions. These theoretical arguments will be tested by
empirical evidence by correlating national IQ as a measure of the
evolved human diversity with various indicators of global
inequality and poverty. The results of empirical analyses will
show to what extent the evolved human diversity measured by
national IQ is able to explain the variation in some measures of
global inequality and poverty. The unexplained part of the
variation is assumed to be due to various environmental factors
discussed in contemporary and previous developmental theories.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part concerns
theories of global inequality and variables and includes three
chapters. In the first chapter some previous studies and data on
global inequality are reviewed, and six measures of human
conditions are selected to be used in the final test of the
hypothesis. In the second chapter, contemporary theoretical
explanations of global inequality and poverty are reviewed and
my own phenotypic theoretical explanation of global inequality in
human conditions is introduced. In the third chapter, national IQ
and the six measures of global inequality are introduced and
combined into an Index of Global Inequality (IGI).
The second part of the book concerns the test of the
hypothesis and includes three chapters. In chapter 4, the
hypothesis is tested by the six components of IGI, and the results
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