David Brooks discusses the limits of policy:
Roughly a century ago, many Swedes immigrated to America. They’ve done very well here. Only about 6.7 percent of Swedish-Americans live in poverty. Also a century ago, many Swedes decided to remain in Sweden. They’ve done well there, too. When two economists calculated Swedish poverty rates according to the American standard, they found that 6.7 percent of the Swedes in Sweden were living in poverty.
In other words, you had two groups with similar historical backgrounds living in entirely different political systems, and the poverty outcomes were the same.
A similar pattern applies to health care. In 1950, Swedes lived an average of 2.6 years longer than Americans. Over the next half-century, Sweden and the U.S. diverged politically. Sweden built a large welfare state with a national health service, while the U.S. did not. The result? There was basically no change in the life expectancy gap. Swedes now live 2.7 years longer.
Again, huge policy differences. Not huge outcome differences.
This is not to say that policy choices are meaningless. But we should be realistic about them. The influence of politics and policy is usually swamped by the influence of culture, ethnicity, psychology and a dozen other factors.
Steve Sailer describes Brooks’ piece as picking up on his [Sailer's] ideas, but expressing them gingerly enough to keep his job. Sailer adds his not-so-ginger point:
Which is precisely why one kind of policy — immigration policy — is so important. Minnesota is rather like Sweden. In contrast, New Mexico (state motto: “Thank God for Mississippi!”) is still somewhat like Old Mexico, even after generations within the U.S. with relatively little additional immigration since the 1600s.
Tino at Supereconomy says the numbers come from Tino.
And Tino’s right, of course. (I cited his numbers on European-Americans vs. Europeans before.)