marginal revolution read out: The Greg Clark Symposium
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marginal revolution read out, with The Greg Clark Symposium. The post surveys a new Econ Journal Watch symposium on Gregory Clark's manuscript To Have and Have Not: The Determinants of Social Status in England, 1600-2026.
The author begins by noting that he earlier wrote that Greg Clark may well be the most important social scientist of the twenty-first century, so this symposium is very welcome. He acknowledges that the symposium includes serious critics, most notably Stuhler and Benning, but suspects even the critics would agree with Arden and Plomin. Those two write that Clark marshals evidence from diverse sources, and that the data reach from 1600 to 2026 is jaw-dropping. The author is struck that most critics now acknowledge twin and adoption studies have badly undermined the claim that parental investments are big determinants of adult ability and earnings. He argues there is a basic asymmetry between the competing explanations. Genetics supplies independently established inheritance rules, while environmental models can reproduce genetic-looking correlations only by choosing transmission rules precisely because they mimic genetic inheritance. The author also notes that the nurture effects environmentalists point to often seem to affect optional, steerable, or transferable choices rather than fundamental abilities. He highlights Clark's striking finding that social status is inherited as strongly as height, with significant correlation even between relatives nine generations apart, across two hundred seventy years. And he says the fact that this monumental and challenging book cannot find a major academic publisher is an intellectual scandal.
The post links first to an earlier piece whose title is I wrote. That is where the author made the claim that Greg Clark may well be the most important social scientist of the twenty-first century. The linked article could not be retrieved, so beyond that statement and the title, there is nothing further to describe.
Next is the symposium in Econ Journal Watch. The symposium appears in the September 2026 issue and centers on Clark's third book in a trilogy, titled To Have and Have Not: The Determinants of Social Status in England, 1600-2026. The page lists the book manuscript and commentaries from Rosalind Arden and Robert Plomin, John Benning, Noah Carl, Nikolai Haahjem Eftedal, Joseph Francis, Charles Murray, Jan Stuhler, and a reply by Gregory Clark. The author says the symposium is very welcome and that it includes serious critics, most notably Stuhler and Benning.
The next linked article is Stuhler. Jan Stuhler's commentary, Overreaching on Genes, grants that Clark's book offers new evidence and that the claim genes may matter more for socioeconomic outcomes than most social scientists assume deserves to be taken seriously. But Stuhler argues the book overreaches. He says its presentation is one-sided, its reading of the literature is selective, and its interpretations are far stronger than the evidence supports. The author names Stuhler as one of the symposium's most notable serious critics.
The next linked article is Benning. John Benning's commentary, To Know and Know Not: Human Genetics and the Limits to Inference, argues that the analyses cannot support claims about the primacy of genetics. He says parents transmit not only genes but also wealth, property, connections, and culture, and these streams are strongly confounded in observational data. Benning argues that what Clark estimates as genetic heritability is actually transmissibility, an unknown compound of transmissible influences that includes genes, culture, wealth, and environment. He proposes an open, reproducible reanalysis of the Families of England data. The author names Benning alongside Stuhler as a serious critic.
The next linked article is Arden and Plomin. Rosalind Arden and Robert Plomin's commentary, The Torrents of Data: Floods of Genealogy, Freshets of Remaining Questions, discusses five topics: the shared environment component in behavioral genetics, indirect versus direct genetic effects, genetic nurture, assortative mating, and parenting. They agree with Clark that genetics has an encouraging message concerning fecundity, and they applaud the ambition and scale of the book. The author suspects even the critics would agree with Arden and Plomin, and he quotes their description of the book's data reach as jaw-dropping and their conclusion that it is a terrific scientific contribution.
The next linked article is many others. This link points to the Wikipedia entry for The Nurture Assumption, the 1998 book by psychologist Judith Rich Harris. The book challenges the idea that adult personality is determined chiefly by the way parents raise children, and points instead to peers and group socialization as important shapers of a child's psyche. The author cites it as an example of how Clark and many others have pushed the nature-nurture debate far into new territory.
The next linked article is religious identification. The article could not be retrieved, but the author's commentary uses it to make a specific point. He says parents have more influence over religious identification than over religiosity, more influence over wealth than income, and more influence over educational attainment than IQ. The title suggests the linked article concerns the heritability or parental transmission of religious identification specifically. The author's larger argument is that nurture effects often show up in optional, steerable, or transferable choices rather than in more fundamental abilities.
The final linked article is religiosity. Like the previous one, this article could not be retrieved. The author's commentary contrasts it with religious identification: parents have more influence over religious identification than over religiosity. The title suggests the linked article concerns religiosity as an outcome. Again, the author's point is about the kinds of parental effects being demonstrated, with influence stronger for more optional or steerable choices than for fundamental abilities.
Taken together, the symposium and the post highlight a live tension. Clark's manuscript claims a strong genetic basis for social status across centuries, while critics such as Stuhler and Benning say the evidence is overread. Yet even the critics, in the author's telling, have moved away from the old assumption that parental investment is the main driver of adult outcomes. The result is a debate that is less about whether genes matter than about how much, and how confidently the historical patterns can be read.