Against High-IQ Misanthropy
Out of all the reactions I’ve heard to Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, the most disturbing are all variations on “Except stupid people. They shouldn’t have kids.” I could snark, “You mean people like you?,” but that would be dishonest. The latter-day proponents of negative eugenics have reasonably high IQs. But their misanthropy is still morally and economically mistaken.
Morally, I just have to ask the high-IQ misanthrope, “What did stupid people ever do to you?” Their complaints are pretty petty: The dumb kids asked annoying questions in class, made fun of your Star Trek costume, etc. Are these injuries even remotely awful enough to outweigh the fact that a human being gets to exist and enjoy life? In any case, once you reach adulthood, people of all IQs generally leave you alone if you leave them alone. If you want to give your kids a better childhood than you had, use your brains to make some extra money and move to a nicer neighborhood.
Economically, the high-IQ misanthrope has an even weaker case. Smart people may excel in all activities, but as the law of comparative advantage reveals (see here and here) everyone’s better off if people with high IQs outsource their less challenging tasks to others. In a society of Einsteins, Einsteins take out the garbage, scrub floors, and wash dishes. What a mind-numbing waste of talent!
Yes, a handful of people have IQs so low their marginal product is negative. But the vast majority of low-IQ people pull their weight. In a market economy, being less productive than average doesn’t make you a parasite. If you produce less, you earn less – simple as that.
Bottom line: When stupid people have kids, high-IQ people should be happy for them. Being smart is better than being stupid, but being stupid and alive is far better than not existing at all.
The post appeared first on Econlib.
I agree with your overall point, but I think the examples you give as reasons that misanthropes dislike low iq people is uncharitable. It seems like a lot of societal ills are caused by traits that seem to be correlated with low iq (e.g., correlation with crime and low iq). Doesn't mean it is logically or morally justifiable to try to prevent their existence, but it's a much easier case to be made than "some low iq people made fun of me."
I don't begrudge stupid people having kids, since having kids is just about the most fulfilling thing possible to a human, and it's a great deal for the kids too. However, let's not pretend that there aren't social drawbacks to stupid people having a lot of kids.
In an ideal libertarian society, the stupid people would bear the fruits and costs of their own actions, and if they live side by side with "smarter" and more productive people it would only enrich everyone. In the real world, there is a very big government that interferes in everyone's lives, and the government must cater to the lowest common denominator, which is the stupid people. They also have an outsized say in how to stupidly run the government if there are more of them. Although in your ideal world, stupid people could not have any negative effect on anyone but themselves, in the real world they make a big difference for everyone, and it's unlikely that that will change in the foreseeable future.