Jocks, Nerds, and Income Redistribution

In this comically absurd piece, Bryan Caplan argues that governments engage in income redistribution due to pressure from so-called "jocks" to prevent the "revenge of the nerds." The idea is that those who are physically stronger but mentally weaker, the people who dominated social life in high school due to their physical attractiveness and athletic ability, push for income redistribution because they tend to lose out in economic competition to those whom they looked down upon during their teen years, and succeed in getting redistributive policies enacted essentially by threatening the economically prosperous nerds. Caplan asks us to think about this in terms of what he calls "evolutionary psychology" (I wonder how many actual psychologists would sign on to this ridiculous theory):

When the best hunter in the tribe gets rich, his neighbors will probably ask nicely for a share, if they dare to ask at all. But if the biggest nerd in the tribe gets rich, how long will it take before the jocks show up and warn him that "You'd better share and share alike"?

Now it would be one thing if the picture Caplan was attempting to paint were a mere oversimplification of a more complex reality (which he parenthetically admits that it might be). This could be excused in a short piece designed to put forward a general but incomplete account. One of his assumptions, namely that society breaks down neatly into "jocks" and "nerds", is clearly an oversimplification, but it's one that it seems innocent enough to work with for at least some purposes; I'll assume the distinction in the remainder of this post, despite the relative fluidity and indeterminacy of the categories.

Caplan's overall picture is, it seems to me, wildly off the mark. In his world the "nerds" are simply out in the economic arena trying to make as much money as possible, only to have much of it stolen from them by the big bad bullies, much like their lunch money was probably stolen from them, by the very same people, back in high school. In the absence of government redistribution, the nerds could have their sweet revenge on their high school tormentors as they watched them suffer in poverty, but, alas, the jocks have managed to bully the government into preventing the total economic dominance of the nerds.

I don't know about my readers, but this picture strikes me as obviously false in almost too many ways to count (if others find it more plausible, I'd be very interested to hear about it).

First, the idea that it's the "jocks" who generally support redistribution, with the "nerds" forced, against their will, to acquiesce, seems to me to get things almost backward, though of course there are surely nerds who are vehemently opposed to redistribution (e.g. Steve Moore of the Club for Growth), and jocks who favor it. But in thinking about those with whom I went to high school, college, and the students that I've had at Berkeley, the norm is very much for those who would tend to be considered jocks to be more economically conservative, and those who would tend to be considered nerds to be more economically liberal (of course there are plenty of exceptions to this tendency as well). This point can be expanded beyond my own circle of acquaintances by thinking about some of the prominent politicians within the two major parties. Of George Bush and John Kerry, who is more likely to have been at the school football game and the post-game kegger, and who more likely to have been at home reading books and watching the news? Are we supposed to believe that Harry Reid, Bernie Sanders, and Dennis Kucinich were popular jocks, while Jeb Bush, George Allen, and Mitt Romney spent their high school years buried in books?

Also, Caplan's assumption that nerds tend to do much better economically seems far from universally true. Of course there is a positive correlation between grades and economic success, but it's also the case that many nerds choose to go into fields that are less lucrative than others that they could have pursued. They become doctors instead of businessmen, public interest lawyers instead of corporate lawyers, professors instead of consultants. Far from being disappointed by their inability (due to whatever redistribution there might be) to dominate their less intellectually inclined peers in the economic arena (as Caplan seems to be), most nerds that I know never would have thought to try, and in fact would be horrified at the very idea of it. The motivational structure that would be necessary to pursue such a goal is simply foreign to most nerds.

Interestingly, such a motivational structure is not at all foreign to the jocks who spent their high school years tormenting nerds. The same callousness that allows such individuals to make high school a living hell for others would seem to be just what is needed to pursue vast wealth within our capitalist system. Only someone who possesses this sort of callousness could feel no compassion for the suffering of the world's poor, and promote policies that encourage the exploitation of those people for the sake of massive profits for themselves. My suspicion is that many of the corporate leaders at the very top of the income distribution were not nerds at all, but instead jocks from wealthy families who had (often significant and unfair) advantages over others in getting to where they are. Furthermore, I'm not surprised that some of the corporate leaders who clearly were nerds, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, are much more generous with their wealth and much more liberal in their politics than most of their peers.

There's no question that during their high school years many nerds have a certain amount of envy toward jocks. But most of them grow up and get over the fact that they missed out on the cool parties and whatever else jocks in high school do (I wouldn't know all that much about it, since I defected to the nerds around sophomore year). And having been at the bottom of the popularity food chain often encourages in nerds a level of compassion for the suffering of others that many jocks never develop. Some nerds, however, never get over having been nerds, and harbor a resentment toward others for the rest of their lives because of it. My best guess is that this is the psychological situation of Mr. Caplan (and perhaps Mr. Moore as well); at least this would help explain how he could put forward such a patently absurd theory of redistributive policies.

* As a sidenote, for some very interesting and far less absurd thoughts on the jock/nerd dynamic and its relation to adult life, see this essay by Paul Graham.