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Outliers
The book is getting snarky reviews but if it were by an unknown, rather than by the famous Malcolm Gladwell, many people would be saying how interesting it is. The main point, in economic language, is that human talent is heterogeneous and that the talent of a particular person must mesh with the capital structure of his or her time if major success is to result. The book is best read as a supplement to Ludwig Lachmann's Capital and its Structure. The main enduring insight of both Lachmann and Gladwell is simply how much we live in a world of complementarity rather than substitutability.
Nowhere in the book does the name Dean Keith Simonton (check out the headings to these links) appear nor does the phrase "multiplicative model of human success." A lot of the content here has already been done with more rigor and empirical support and also in readable form I might add. Everyone should read Simonton, noting that his hypotheses fare better in the arts than in politics.
If you ask too much from Outliers it will fall apart. It is too easy to find contingency in the world and Gladwell doesn't begin to look for a theory of which contingencies are interesting or not. For instance arguably Ludwig van Beethoven would not have been a great composer if:
1. An extra butterfly had died two million years ago.
2. The outcome of the Thirty Years' War had been different.
3. The Germany of his time had not had fortepianos.
4. His parents had conceived their child one second earlier.
5. Haydn had not paved the way.
#3 and #5 seem more interesting than #1 and #4 but that's because some contingencies just don't help us understand the world very much. Gladwell never gives us enough theoretical structure to see why his contingencies are the relevant ones. Simply showing the contingencies in personal histories is not, taken alone, very enlightening.
Gladwell's contingency stories skid out of control. At one point it seems the main claim is that the steady accumulation of advantages is what matters, but once you ask which advantages end up "counting," the claim collapses into tautology.
There is also a "PC" undercurrent in the book of "don't write anyone off" but if everything is so contingent on so many factors, maybe writing people off isn't such a big deal. It could go either way. It depends.
Gladwell deliberately steers us away from the contingency of genetic endowment (even for a given set of parents, which sperm got through?), but if you hold everything else fixed you can assign a very high marginal product to the genetic factor if you wish, usually up to 100 percent of a person's outcome. That mental exercise is verboten but somehow it is OK to hold the genetic endowment constant and vary some other historical factor and regard that as a meaningful contingency. See the discussion of Beethoven above, especially #4 on the list.
Gladwell descends into the swamp of contingency but he is unwilling to really live in it and take it seriously or, alternatively, to find a way out.
In reality the complementarity concept is easier to work with and also more fruitful for thinking about policy implications or for that matter the implications for management or talent training. Success is fragile but foster competing cultures based on clusters of talent motivated by rivalry and emulation. Don't filter out the eccentrics or the risk takers. That's about where David Hume ended up but Gladwell never gets anywhere close.
It's still a good book and a fun book. You can order it here.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 19, 2008 at 06:29 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Ya think that Kakutani does anything else than snarky reviews?
Posted by: Digital Cabinet at Nov 19, 2008 7:41:29 AM
As someone with a great interest in early music I don't see how #3 or #5 are interesting either unfortunately. There was half a century from the invention of the fortepiano for it to get to Germany before Beethoven composed on it, and even if (for the purposes of hypothesis) it had not arrived, he would have composed on something else. Yes, his piano pieces are particularly idiomatic to the fortepiano, but Beethoven was never a piano composer in the way that you might say Chopin or Liszt were. The absence of fortepianos never stopped JS Bach from being a great composer for example. The evolution of Beethoven's style was undoubtedly influenced by the instruments that were available and particularly those he played, but that's a pretty trite assertion.
The Haydn thing is dumb also. Haydn might not have been a great composer were it not for CPE Bach, CPE would not have been a great composer were it not for JS Bach and Handel and so on. It's meaningless to make these assertions because they're just turtles all the way down. Artists are influenced by other artists, and what we get is a unique product of their personal circumstances. Of course we would have something different if their circumstances were different. But they weren't so they aren't.
These sort of contingency thought experiments are akin to "If I had ham, I could make ham and eggs. If I had eggs".
Posted by: Sean Hunter at Nov 19, 2008 8:05:59 AM
Is this basically a rehash of Jared Diamond's "Gun, Germs, and Steel" except on an individual level rather than a societal level?
Posted by: Reader at Nov 19, 2008 8:14:58 AM
Mr. Gladwell will have a short shelf life. In the vernacular, he's a bullshitter.
Or as Eliza Doolittle puts it,"Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words".
Posted by: jontradom at Nov 19, 2008 8:19:28 AM
"There is also a "PC" undercurrent in the book of "don't write anyone off" "
I'm okay with not writing anyone off, until it takes money out of my pocket that I could use to provide my children with opportunities. I say don't spend resources on closing doors, and don't spend resources keeping them open. The whole point is that people making the decisions on which doors to close on whom haven't a clue, or worse.
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 19, 2008 8:25:58 AM
Gladwell's book are fun to read for their anecdotes but will ultimately end up next to "Future Shock" in the big remainders bin in the sky.
Posted by: Winslow Theramin at Nov 19, 2008 8:56:45 AM
Is this basically a rehash of Jared Diamond's "Gun, Germs, and Steel" except on an individual level rather than a societal level?
The arguments of "Guns, Germs and Steel" don't work at the individual level. For obvious reasons.
Posted by: Chris E at Nov 19, 2008 8:58:38 AM
Great review, thanks.
I'm curious to know where Hume says what you attribute to him, about allowing space for eccentrics and risk takers.
That, to me, sounds a bit like Bentham in critique of Smith on usury.
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Nov 19, 2008 9:18:14 AM
I'm sure Outliers is an interesting book, but these are the same concepts researched by William Duggan at Columbia Business School. He wrote the book "The Art of What Works - How Success Really Happens," which I found to be very accessible to the general public. So although I enjoy Malcolm Gladwell's writing, I can understand where his critics are coming from.
Posted by: Joe at Nov 19, 2008 9:27:50 AM
The idea that Gladwell will have a short shelf life is completely non-interesting. So what? We're so caught up (consciously and unconsciously) in the Great Books model that we think the measure of a work's value is whether its still being read 100, 500, 1000 years after its published.
But not all books are made like that nor should they be. Lucretius' epic poem "De Rerum Naturae" has been kicking around for ~2000 years but many more human beings will read, and be influenced by, Gladwell's book in the first year its published than have read De Rerum Naturae since it was written.
There is a value, very real and very important, in works that engage a culture at a particular time and place (even if they seem dated 20 years later). Gladwell's book will be entertaining for millions of people (a good thing), constructively thought provoking for tens of thousands of people (a good thing) and an impetus to deeper research for thousands of people (a good thing). It will probably be destructively misleading for thousands or tens of thousands of people as well (a bad thing), but its hard to see this outweighing the good that the book will do.
Gladwell pisses off bookish types because he sells lots of books of a type and quality that strike them as "nothing special." This of course begs the question of "if they are nothing special why don't you..."
Posted by: sd at Nov 19, 2008 9:51:51 AM
Why don't the snarks learn from Gladwell how to market their ideas? :o
If not for this discussion of Gladwell, I woudn't have added Duggan to my wish list.
Gladwell, on the other hand, should never shear his 'fro, even if it does kind of look like Sideshow Bob.
Gladwell reminds me a bit of M. Night Shyamalan. It's getting harder to get that successful surprise, but even harder without it, and competing with your own success is brutal.
As for libertarian pragmatism, he gets it, even if he doesn't realize he gets it. The tipping point is near.
http://www.satyamag.com/sept04/gladwell.html
"This is a good example of an issue because it is an area people are paying lots of attention to. My advice is to maintain that gay marriage is not about gays, it is about the larger issue of freedom. Don’t we live in a society in which we allow people to do things even if we may not agree with them? The second issue is to acknowledge that this issue is difficult for some people. It is important to recognize that fact, that gay marriage is something that people may find uncomfortable. But once again, that is not the issue. Don’t we live in a society that requires you tolerate certain things, even if they make you feel uncomfortable? You don’t look down on people who have a problem with it—you acknowledge the problem. And say I am not trying to convert you, I am just trying to win your tolerance."
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 19, 2008 10:52:21 AM
MG, because of his commercial success, is now the easy middlebrow target. He's realized there's a market of educated people who don't go out of their way to wrestle with ideas but are grateful for the pleasant exposure to 'big thoughts' he gives them. Not unlike Vanity Fair, which knows we're somewhat bright, but, really, knows we are more deeply fascinated by the prospect of two Kate Winslet movies this Christmas season.
Posted by: Brian at Nov 19, 2008 11:16:12 AM
This was a really good review Tyler, thanks. I think I have to buy (or at least get on tape for a road trip) Gladwell's books from now on, because they are always so chock full of interesting anecdotes. But you're right, I often don't think his overarching theory is too impressive. But Blink was worth it for me, just for the story about the New Coke and the war games exercise where the maverick commander in charge of the second-rate army trounced the US forces, and the military just reran the simulation to make sure he couldn't do it again.
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Nov 19, 2008 11:36:47 AM
Great review, thanks for the pointer to the Lachmann work.
I thought this review might have been an attempt to write a "What White People Like" review of the book. Even though it wasn't, the comments have clearly taken it to that realm.
The fact of the matter is there are way more people who either don't have the time or interest to read something like Lachmann, and instead will "make due" with Gladwell. Why must Gladwell be smacked about for this? Curse him for raising the standard of thought amongst lay people! Smite him for not writing something so complex and esoteric it would never be read by anyone who doesn't regularly use terms like genetic endowment, verboten, heterogeneous, or tautology!!!
Posted by: ckstevenson at Nov 19, 2008 12:24:42 PM
Gladwell serves a useful function in that hearing an acquaintance recommend his books, but not others, is a pretty good sign that they don't read much at all. Ayn Rand serves a similar function.
Posted by: jonm at Nov 19, 2008 1:24:59 PM
Kakutani doesn't sound snarky. She may be direct but direct is not snarky.
Posted by: Dave at Nov 19, 2008 1:25:53 PM
I don't understand this review. The first sentence asserts that Outliers is "interesting and the last sentence offers the non sequitor: "It's still a good book and a fun book."
Everything in between offers evidence that Outliers is a derivative work that mangles and misstates the work and concepts that it rips off. Everything in between substantiates the position that the book is trash and you should instead read what Tyler references.
Because the conclusion is the opposite of the evidence proffered, one is wrong.
Posted by: guy in the veal calf office at Nov 19, 2008 1:34:29 PM
If it were by an unknown, rather than by the famous Malcolm Gladwell, many people would be saying how interesting it is
If it were by an unknown instead of Gladwell, it wouldn't be a bestseller either.
Posted by: Mo at Nov 19, 2008 2:24:53 PM
I love the notion of a capital structure of time. I wish Tyler would write more about this.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Nov 19, 2008 6:31:51 PM
Everything in between substantiates the position that the book does what Gladwell had done in his previous two books, namely tell interesting stories and popularize academic research in a way which doesn't really come together to support the theory the book is purportedly about. Which is what I take it Tyler meant when he said, "If you ask too much from Outliers it will fall apart."
Posted by: washerdreyer at Nov 19, 2008 6:38:48 PM
Kakutani doesn't sound snarky.
I agreed until I noticed the headline.
Posted by: washerdreyer at Nov 19, 2008 6:57:30 PM
Gladwell's strength is that he is extremely open to new ideas. He gets infatuated with obscure academics' ideas and brings them to a huge audience.
Gladwell's weakness is that he doesn't have a skeptical bone in his body. He is unable, both emotionally and intellectually, to perform simple reality checks on the new notions he falls in love with.
Gladwell's huge mistake, the reason his reputation is in freefall right now, is that he tried blogging. First, posting his unedited writing revealed that without the New Yorker's editorial support, he's not a particularly gifted writer. Worse, by naively starting arguments with his critics and then getting crushed by them -- in his own blog's comments section! -- he made clear his shortcomings as a thinker.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Nov 19, 2008 9:26:08 PM
Another Jared Diamond?
Posted by: jorod at Nov 19, 2008 10:08:20 PM
No, Jared Diamond is highly intelligent, just disingenuous. Diamond almost never, ever debates his critics. What's in it for him? He made millions off flattering the politically correct prejudices of the scientifically illiterate in "Guns, Germs, and Steel." He knows perfectly well that his
In contrast, Gladwell is an innocent. For example, he naively started a long back and forth public argument that ended up permanently undermining his reputation by taking public offense at a specific criticism of his book "Blink" made by both Richard Posner and myself. Judge Posner in The New Republic and I in VDARE.com laughed at his misinterpretation of Ian Ayres' study of race and sex discrimination by car salesmen. Gladwell, ever the loyal servant of multi-culti capitalism, couldn't believe that car salesmen would knowingly charge higher prices to women and blacks.
The following is all from Gladwell's website. I've added the initials of the author of each paragraph to make it a little clearer. You can read it for yourself at http://www.gladwell.com/blink/biblio/chapter3.html
" One of the most bizarre reactions that I received from reviewers of Blink is an absolute inability to accept the notion of unconscious prejudice. Here is an example from a fairly well known writer named Steve Sailer. Sailer, in turns, quotes from a very hostile review of Blink in The New Republic by Richard Posner.
MG: "Here is the key section from Sailer's review:
SS: "'For example, Gladwell wields Occam's Butterknife in his discussion of a well-known 1995 study by law professor Ian Ayres of racial discrimination by Chicago car dealers.
SS: "'Ayres sent matched testers into auto show rooms where they found that car dealers gave the lowest initial offers to white men, followed by white women, black women, and finally black men. Even after 40 minutes of negotiating, the black guy shoppers were still being offered prices nearly $800 higher than the initial offer made to the white guys.
SS: "'(Although Gladwell doesn't mention this, the race or sex of the salesperson didn't matter--e.g., on average, black saleswomen quote higher prices to black women than to white men.)
SS: "'Ever the loyal lackey of multiculti capitalism, Gladwell theorizes that the car salespeople just didn't realize "'"how egregiously they were cheating women and minorities."'" He seems to hold the novel opinion that auto dealers are well meaning but uninformed about profit-maximization.
SS: "'See, the salesmen would have offered their female and black shoppers lower prices if only they had known (perhaps from reading Blink) that they suffered from irrational prejudices that were keeping them from making more money!
"'"In a scathing review of Blink in The New Republic, the celebrated Judge Richard A. Posner explains:
RP: "'"It would not occur to Gladwell, a good liberal, that an auto salesman's discriminating on the basis of race or sex might be a rational form of the "rapid cognition" that he admires... [It] may be sensible to ascribe the group's average characteristics to each member of the group, even though one knows that many members deviate from the average. An individual's characteristics may be difficult to determine in a brief encounter, and a salesman cannot afford to waste his time in a protracted one, and so he may quote a high price to every black shopper even though he knows that some blacks are just as shrewd and experienced car shoppers as the average white, or more so. Economists use the term 'statistical discrimination' to describe this behavior."
SS: "'What's actually going on in showrooms is this:
SS: "'Women dislike hurting other people's feelings more than men do, and car salesmen are very good at acting emotionally hurt when you try to lowball them. When I've gone car shopping with my wife, I've seen her flinch in empathetic pain when I scoff at a dealer's highball offer. But, after I've bought our new car for a $1,000 less than she would have settled for, she forgives me. Black men, for whatever complicated reasons, enjoy being seen as big spenders. And car salesmen are all too willing to help them spend big.
SS: "'These ethnic differences in how hard groups will bargain extend far beyond basic black and white. For example, a friend of mine who is a small businessman in Los Angeles can rattle off a ranked list of how difficult it is to bargain with the myriad ethnic groups he deals with. The most ferocious negotiators he runs into are the Armenians, Koreans, and Israelis. The most aristocratically insouciant about prices and terms are the white South Americans.
MG: "It's hard to know just what to say in the face of arguments like this. But let's go over them slowly. My interpretation is that the reason the car salesmen quote higher prices to otherwise identical black shoppers is because of unconscious discrimination. They don't realize what they are doing. But buried prejudices are changing their responses in the moment. Sailer and Posner, by contrast, think that the discrimination is conscious and, what's more, that it's rational. The salesmen, in Posner's words, "ascribe the group's average characteristics to each member of the group, even though one knows that many members deviate from the average." And what is the "group's average characteristic" in this case? That, as Sailer puts it, black men "enjoy being seen as big spenders." Am I wrong or is that an utterly ludicrous (not to mention offensive) statement? Where does this idea come from? How is it possible that when it comes to buying things black men--magically--all take on the same personality?
MG: "Now, I suppose it's possible that salesman believe this ludicrous statement to be true. But not on a conscious level. I refuse to believe that all of the car salesmen of Chicago are so stupid as to believe that by virtue of having a slightly darker skin color a human being becomes somehow predisposed towards higher prices. Sailer and Poser have a very low opinion of car salesmen. Nor do I believe that this ridiculous prejudice is rational. The point of the chapter is that prejudices that rely on people's appearance don't help salesmen make money. A salesman makes money on volume--and anything that has the potential to stigmatize or scare off a specific kind of customer is a really bad idea. The reason the notion of unconscious prejudice is so important is that there are certain kinds of behavior that are so inexplicable that this is the only way to explain them."
http://www.gladwell.com/blink/biblio/chapter3.html
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Nov 20, 2008 1:30:21 AM
There are legitimate gripes with both Gladwell and with his work specifically. However, classing criticism from Posner and criticism from VDARE.com in the same category? Ahahahahah. Well, as they say "by their enemies you shall know them." Just ordered Outliers on this recommendation.
Posted by: Hans Friedrich at Nov 20, 2008 12:28:29 PM
