Income Inequality and Reduced Democracy

Ken Fuchsman reviews evidence contradicting many of Pinker’s claims by citing some of his own authorities. He also draws attention to Pinker’s Eurocentric focus and his neglect of the data concerning suicide and destruction of other species. To my mind, all this constitutes a very strong critique of Pinker’s thesis. While, as Paul Elovitz points out, civilization has brought us many advantages (at least in the West), in recent years it has also brought increasing inequality. Wealth has come to be concentrated in the hands of an ever smaller proportion of the population in the advanced societies, with a resulting regression from democracy into a kind of oligarchy in which politicians are bought and paid for by the elites.

If civilization is measured by democratic development, ours is surely in a regressive decline. Only recently has there emerged widespread awareness of the severity of the environmental costs of the “progress” of civilization. Many experts now believe a sixth major extinction, this one man-made, is imminent. Fuchsman calls civilization a mixed blessing. It has brought us a great deal, but it also seems to have hastened our collective demise.

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