Malawi Living Standards Update

Yesterday, I found myself baffled by Gregory Clark's argument that people in contemporary Malawi are worse-off than were stone age hunter-gatherers. I picked up his book in the afternoon, and now I understand the claim better. In particular, if you compare median individuals, then the fact that the contemporary Malian elite is far better-off than are stone age elites vanishes into the background.

The more interesting move is that dead people don't have "standards of living." Clark sees Malawi, like much of contemporary sub-Saharan Africa and the entire world before 1800, as trapped in a Malthusian trap. Improved technologies lead initially to an increase in living standards, but eventually the gains are dissipated into an increase in the number of living people rather than an improved average. Under the circumstances, improvements in health care or public health techniques have a perverse impact. By increasing the ability of marginal cases to survive, they reduce the minimum material conditions required to live. Over the long run, that simply means that average living standards fall back down to the new, lower subsistence level.

Needless to say, this raises some difficult moral questions and makes me want to revisit my Parfit.

Comments

On a similar note, it's long been recognized that when humans shifted from being hunter-gatherers to being village-farmers, living standards and life expectancy both went down.

While counterintuitive at first, it makes sense once you probe into the issue.

Posted by Petey | October 29, 2007 11:39 AM

This was true of most societies after the agricultural revolution. Transition away from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle towards grain-based agriculture allowed societies to support more people with poorer health while allowing the elites to accumulate much more wealth than they could otherwise.

The is the "maximize GDP" conundrum-- an increase in GDP doesn't necessarily imply a better average standard of living. It might just imply more people who, while producing and consuming less per capita, provide an aggregate GDP increase over the previous scenario.

Posted by Tyro | October 29, 2007 11:40 AM

I guess they haven't discovered bootstraps yet.

Posted by Bill | October 29, 2007 11:44 AM

The reproduction mindset in impoverished nations escapes me entirely. Yeah, I'm culturally ignorant of their attitudes toward having kids. I'm sure between religion, tradition and a dozen other factors they have what they consider perfectly logical reasons for it all. Still, I picture myself sitting in some hellhole of a tent city. Penniless, jobless, hungry, sick and with a dead, missing or absent husband. Besieged by warring factions and unsure whether I'll be alive tomorrow. Hmmmm, I think I need to get pregnant. Three kids aren't enough, I'll add a fourth. Or fifth. WTF? It's not as if she/they have a plot of land all their own and need the extra hands to help work the land. Or a small business. Someone explain.

Posted by steve duncan | October 29, 2007 11:58 AM

Tricky to apply Rawlsian logic to this situation. If you don't hold population size constant, you potentially get many more answers for what the level of inequality at which the minimal income is maximized. In some scenarios, it would seem almost inevitable that you get some people living at truly miserable subsistence incomes.

Posted by henry evans | October 29, 2007 12:03 PM

Steve Duncan: Perhaps it's more that sex is an opiate in that hellhole, and tent cities are not noted for their access to contraception.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | October 29, 2007 12:06 PM

I love the bizarro reaction people have to Parfit's "Repugnant Conclusion". They don't like the conclusion, so they frantically search for pretzel-like logic to undermine it. How about just accepting that logic should not necessarily make us feel warm and fuzzy inside?

Posted by Jim W | October 29, 2007 12:12 PM

Of course there's the risk that escaping the Malthusian trap just leads straight to the Idiocracy Trap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

Posted by beowulf | October 29, 2007 12:14 PM

Delicious, I'm sure sex is about the only "free" diversion from the drudgery of their lives that's available. Still, they know what that sex leads to. They see the misery, pain and despair suffered by the children they already have and can't properly support. Is that sex so intoxicating it overrides the maternal instinct of wanting what's best for their children, even those not yet born? Leaving aside rape victims (a not insignificant group I'm sure) summoning sympathy for the "What else is there to do?" crowd is a wee bit difficult.

Posted by steve duncan | October 29, 2007 12:19 PM

"The reproduction mindset in impoverished nations escapes me entirely. Yeah, I'm culturally ignorant of their attitudes toward having kids. I'm sure between religion, tradition and a dozen other factors they have what they consider perfectly logical reasons for it all."

If life expectancy is low, and infant mortality is high, then people will tend to have more children just to have more hands available for chores and work and whatnot.

That is likely to be reflected in cultural values such as social status.

If life expectancy improved and infant mortality decreased, I wouldn't expect the social and cultural values to change immediately. For example, the first response might be that if people initially find it easier to have large families, they will do so, for the additional laborers and/or raised social status. Down the road, those large families may not be as easy to support.

But by then it's too late, innit?

Posted by Jon H | October 29, 2007 12:27 PM

It seems to me that this shows why "aid" broadly construed is unlikely to be of much help. What is really needed are certain changes in the public culture to go along with the aid.

For example, stronger protections of women's rights generally lead to an increased standard of living because this gets a handle on population growth (re: steve duncan). Without changes in the public culture, then giving aid doesn't provide much of a solution.

Posted by Patrick | October 29, 2007 12:31 PM

"For example, the first response might be that if people initially find it easier to have large families, they will do so, for the additional laborers and/or raised social status. Down the road, those large families may not be as easy to support.

But by then it's too late, innit?"

Posted by Jon H | October 29, 2007 12:27 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Down the road? I'd think the financial strain would show up, like, now. What is it that's so subtle and sneaky about the problems a too big family presents that it would take a generation or two to have a V-8 moment?

Posted by steve duncan | October 29, 2007 12:40 PM

Steve Duncan: In traditional cultures, your children are your retirement fund. You have as many as you can possibly support, because that maximizes the odds that when you get too old to support yourself at least one or two will be around to feed you.

It's not like there are a whole lot of alternative investment vehicles for these people.

Posted by Leo | October 29, 2007 1:05 PM

"....your children are your retirement fund. You have as many as you can possibly support, because that maximizes the odds that when you get too old to support yourself at least one or two will be around to feed you.
It's not like there are a whole lot of alternative investment vehicles for these people."

Posted by Leo | October 29, 2007 1:05 PM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm going to put my parents on the "ice floe" retirement plan. Very cost effective.

Posted by steve duncan | October 29, 2007 1:15 PM

Well, there's no doubt that our culture has moved away from this model in a number of ways.

Posted by Leo | October 29, 2007 1:22 PM

What's interesting about the Repugnant Conclusion is that its inverse also seems repugnant. Given an unimaginably vast population of people, even if they live lives barely worth living, it seems wrong to say that a radically smaller, if much happier, population would be "better." It can't be right to wipe out a galaxy to make one Denmark.

Maybe this is just an artifact of Status Quo Bias?

Posted by Trevor | October 29, 2007 1:38 PM

steve duncan: as was mentioned breifly by Patrick, women in countries like Malawi often have no choice over reproduction. They get pregnant because their husband wants sex. They have no right to refuse sex nor do they have access to birth control. So they get pregnant. Pretty simple equation. That is why increasing the education for women almost always reduces the birth rate.

Posted by freddiemac | October 29, 2007 1:40 PM

Maybe I just don't understand the argument, but the Repugnant Conclusion is just not very compelling to me. It just seems like a very simple explanation is in order: they dynamics of morality shift substantially when we are talking about people that don't exist yet versus those who do.

Do all the people who find the Repugnant Conclusion compelling also oppose abortion?

Posted by mpowell | October 29, 2007 1:51 PM

That is why increasing the education for women almost always reduces the birth rate.

Posted by freddiemac | October 29, 2007 1:40 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maybe. I have no reason to doubt statistics bear that out. Still, how does that work, on the most personal level? She says "I've been taught in our situation having sex is inadvisable for several reasons. If we do at least have to use a condom." He says "We're going to have sex whenever I feel like it and I think a condom sucks." She says "I've been taught otherwise and that's the way it's going to be." He says "OK." Ummmmm, sure. That'll be just how the conversation goes.

Posted by steve duncan | October 29, 2007 1:56 PM

Re: "...the dynamics of morality shift substantially when we are talking about people that don't exist yet versus those who do."

I agree that in order to arrive at a consistent and logical ethical system, you have to postulate that people who already exist are magically more important to those who don't. And so, abortion debates always end up with silly arguments about when life "really" begins.

But, logically, why should prior existence matter one way or another? A utilitarian system of ethics always comes down to what the outcome of different courses of action will be to people in the future. Whether or not those people happen to live now shouldn't come into it.

People should just accept the fact that you can't logically ground a system of ethics without ad hoc postulates, and move on.

Posted by Jim W | October 29, 2007 2:04 PM

People should just accept the fact that you can't logically ground a system of ethics without ad hoc postulates, and move on.

I guess I agree with this statement. Perhaps so much so, that I didn't even realize that was the issue. But I actually think that questions of ethics regarding people in the future depend, to some extent, on the people who currently exist. We cannot magically jump to a point where there is a far smaller population, for example. For this to happen, many would have to die, or at least be prevented from having offspring. These kinds of issues tend to hopelessly complicate matters.

Posted by mpowell | October 29, 2007 2:23 PM

If every couple had only one child, the population would fall by 50 percent in one generation (30 years) -- or if some couples had 2 or 3 and and euquvalent number were childless. In two or three generations you could have a population collapse that would mostly be non-violent and not necessarily painful -- considering what would be gained.

Female education and sex and contraceptive education would be a way to achieve this. It would help, too, if old people didn't have to look exclusively to their children for support in old age.

Posted by Harold | October 29, 2007 3:50 PM

The "Repugnant Conclusion" is hilariously idiotic.

Imagine that we have one hot bowl of oatmeal and ten room temperature bowls of oatmeal. We measure their temperatures with a thermometer. The cool bowls are each at 75 degrees, so ten of them must be at 750 degrees!!! The ten cool bowls are hotter than the one hot bowl!!! Yeow, they're exploding!!!! They're burning a hole in the counter!!!!!!

Err - no. Heat can be quantified and the measure of temperatures can be compared, but heat cannot be summed.

So with happiness. A hundred moderately contented people are not collectively happier than one truly happy person.

Can we stop being morons now?

Posted by Bloix | October 29, 2007 4:46 PM

This is why the wingnut war against UNFPA (the United Nations Population Fund) is such a tragedy, not to mention a travesty. (Christina Page had a rather infuriating chapter about this in her book How the Pro-choice Movement Saved America).

"Can we stop being morons now?

No.

Posted by Dan S. | October 29, 2007 5:02 PM

"Still, how does that work, on the most personal level?

Steve - if freddiemac is talking about education in general, than I presume it works at least partly off raising the status of women, as well as options, etc.?

Posted by Dan S. | October 29, 2007 5:06 PM

There's a bit of common sense missing here. As Petey and others have noted, the presence of disease, the rigours of agriculture vs hunting and gathering all make modern Malawi less attractive than Stone Age Malawi.

BUT, not only is it politically infeasible to go back, it's environmentally infeasible too. So whilst there may be some pretty nostalgic points to be made in Clark's comparison, it's not good evidence for his Malthusian attitudes, because he's simply not comparing like with like.

And yes, much of Africa would be better off if birth control was more readily accessible (along with various necessary sex education resources, both about sex in general and AIDS in particular.)

But it's not liberal economists standing in the way of that, it's right wing religious ideologues...

Posted by Meh | October 29, 2007 7:00 PM

Re: If every couple had only one child, the population would fall by 50 percent in one generation (30 years)

Since life expectancy is longer than 30 years it would take quite a bit longer for the population to decline by that much

Posted by JonF | October 29, 2007 7:46 PM

Bloix,

It sounds like your criticism is not of the "Repugnant Conclusion" per se, but of the idea that
the goodness or badness of ends can be quantified.
So, according to your logic, Utilitarianism's "the greatest good for the greatest number" is hilariously idiotic.

And thus, we cannot deem the invasion of Iraq a bad thing because it led to more deaths than not invading (the cumulative loss from many deaths cannot be summed!).

Posted by Jim W | October 30, 2007 9:44 AM

Interesting discussion typical of people who still only see Malawians from their egoistic views. I wish someone explained why Malawians (of which I am) have those numbers of children. If that is not possible, then someone should explain why 'you' suggest one or two only.

From what I have learnt lately to my surprise though, women in Malawi are the ones in control, deciding how many children to have. They say yes the man has a say on the sex of the child but not on the number.

Where is there more sex? Could we say there is more sex in Malawi than.....

I think the author has achieved to paint Malawi and us in the way he intended. Carry on with your intentions and comments.

Posted by Victor Kaonga | November 6, 2007 9:24 AM

On second thought, please ignore or delete my comments.

Posted by Victor Kaonga | November 6, 2007 9:48 AM