The Difference
How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Society
Scott E Page

Alistair John
posted 5 June 2007

Diversity has always been the elephant in the liberal democrat’s living room. In the wake of 9/11 and 7/7, this elephant has become increasingly hefty and rambunctious. As the task of mediating between our society’s myriad groups becomes increasingly complex, our politicians and commentators have started with increasing frequency to spout out their views on identity and diversity and Britishness and multiculturalism, and as they do so, with equal frequency, we realise they have no clue about how to fix things. So a book with a title such as this is timely. Yet, The Difference is not a polemic. Before Scott Page stakes his claim that heterogeneity beats homogeneity hands down, we are issued with a warning. What will follow, Page warns, are not political statements. They are mathematical truths.

The Difference is an economist’s take on diversity. As such, those looking for a tract on fairness and tackling cultural conflicts should look elsewhere. Such issues are dealt with merely by implication and inference, if at all. Rather, the ‘better society’ of the title is a society that can better solve its practical problems. ‘Solutions’ is the word bandied about frequently, with Page’s examples relating to institutions doing their jobs better: ice-cream companies increasing their profits, universities and schools increasing society’s knowledge base, basketball teams winning more games and trophies.

The roots of the book reach back to an experiment Page conducted as a newly qualified professor in California. Setting up a computer model of groups of problem solvers and making them search for solutions (this was done “for fun”), he found that the groups consisting of diverse characters were more successful than the groups consisting of similar characters. Struck by this, he continued with more of the models (setting tasks such as making cups of coffee) and further research, the results of which reaffirmed the conclusions that a collective can be so much more than the sum of its parts, provided that the parts are diverse. The logic behind his theory rests upon the empowering acknowledgment that we are all are imbued with unique ‘toolboxes’, consisting of combinations of the innate aptitudes that we enjoy on entering the world and the perspectives we gain from our experiences once we are here. We each bring something new to old problems, and seeing things in a different way means we will not get stuck at the same points of others.

Though the proposition that diversity is the lifeblood of development is neither new nor obscure, Page’s book is a useful and thorough elucidation of the proposition’s logic. Arguably, it is too thorough. For the less scientifically minded reader, this sheer depth and breadth of the theoretical exposition (coming in at around two-hundred pages) is perhaps unnecessarily drawn out and cumbersome. While hesitating to dabble in judging a book of this sort by its prose, it must be said that while the exposition is for the most part dry, the dryness is preferable to ‘witty’ asides littering the analysis. (To pick a particularly egregious example, perforating discussion of a thought experiment called the ‘Travelling Salesperson Problem’ is the question, ‘What’s next? Personufacturing?’.) Attempting to enliven sober text is a nice idea, but the execution merely highlights the principle that we do not go to a comedian for insights into Game Theory, and works to the book’s detriment.

This is not least because the asides are unnecessary. Page’s prose is lucid enough and his material of enough value to keep things moving without him needing to prod us along in a form at times dangerously close to that of the ‘Economics Can Be Fun, Too!’ brigade. In addition, he writes with obvious enthusiasm for his subject and his delight in the ameliorative potential of his theories is infectious. This is especially so in the final section of the book - a clarion call for a society to do much more than merely tolerate diversity, but actively aim for it.

Page's most glorious example of the diversity he argues for relates to the unlocking of life itself: the two minds who uncovered DNA were not expert biologists; one lacked a PhD and the other was a zoologist. Indeed, Page often brims with the confidence and certitude of a scientist who has discovered a cure for cancer. But like all claims of a miracle cure, the reality is much more complicated than the headlines make out. At the culmination of the book, important questions are left lingering. The most prominent of these is perhaps that of how diversity in Page’s managerial terms is related to wider concerns about ethnicity and so on. At one point, Page calculates that the likelihood of two people sharing the exact same 'toolbox' is one in three million. This begs the question of why we need to think about diversity at all, since it is inevitable that any given group will contain a diverse range of ‘toolboxes’ regardless of whether it is diverse by political standards.

Diversity is the liberal democrat's domiciled elephant precisely because it highlights the often disregarded fact that 'liberal' and 'democrat' may not necessarily mean the same thing. As reconciling these two concepts is a necessity for anyone who wants a society in which no-one is bound by the prejudices of those in power, how we treat diversity and the extent to which we embrace difference are vital questions. It is here that The Difference falls short. While Page has certainly produced a book useful for economists, students of business and those devoted to bettering our services, for the majority of us concerned with diversity, the subjects covered in the book are somewhat of a sideshow to debates of a greater urgency and currency.