All language subtitles for Through.the.Wormhole.S05E03.Is.Poverty.Genetic.720p.HDTV.x264-DHD

Freeman:
Are the wealthy just born

in the right place
at the right time,

or are the poor
victims of a system

designed to keep them down?

Perhaps physics and biology

determine who's rich
and who's poor.

Many hope to erase the divide

between the haves
and the have nots,

but what if nature demands
winners and losers in life?

Could poverty be genetic?

Space, time, life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

♪ Through the Wormhole 05x03 ♪
Is Poverty Genetic?
Original Air Date on June 5, 2013

== sync, corrected by elderman ==
@elder_man

Pharaohs, kings, great
industrialists and C.E.O.s.

Throughout history,

a select few have claimed
enormous wealth

as a birthright.

Some of them say they also
inherit qualities and virtues

that keep them rich.

Could the chasm that separates
rich and poor

really be the result of our DNA?

Scientists are trying
to discover

if there is a biological reason
the rich stay rich

and whether equality
and prosperity for all

contradict the laws of nature.

Where I grew up,
nobody had much money.

Nobody we knew, anyhow.

Rich people were out there,
somewhere,

but to us, they may as well
have been Martians.

Money was so scarce

that I went around
the neighborhood

collecting bottles.

I traded them in when I had
enough to get into the movies.

Now, of course, things
are different for me.

I'm in the movies.

Money isn't much of a worry.

My experience shows
that being born poor

is not necessarily
a life sentence.

But for billions of people
around the world,

poverty passes from generation
to generation without end.

We inherit property, or the lack
of it, from our parents.

We also inherit
our parents' DNA,

and for as long as we've
known about genetics,

scientists have been wondering
if there is a connection

between our money and our genes.

Genes are pieces of code that
tell your body how to function.

There are about 25,000 genes
in human DNA.

How do they affect
our personalities?

These are questions

University of Virginia Professor
Eric Turkheimer

has been asking for 20 years.

Eric studies the genetics
of complex human behavior.

One way you can think
about the role

that individual genes play

in the creation
of complex genetic effects

is that it's like the role
that an individual thread

might play in the creation
of a complex tapestry.

You couldn't really understand
the role of each thread

one at a time,
separate from the others.

You have to know how each thread
fits into the warp

and woof of the fabric

and how they all work together
to create the pattern.

Well, with genes,
it's the same way.

Freeman: These are
the genetic interactions

within just one of your 23 pairs
of chromosomes.

It's a highly interconnected,
highly complex web

of genetic factors.

After the human genome
was decoded in 2001,

studies emerged claiming to find
links between individual genes

and characteristics
like common sense,

ambition, and perseverance.

Some imagined we might soon be
able to identify who was born

to prosper
and who was born to fail.

This has frightening
implications.

Imagine banks demanding saliva
tests before granting loans,

custody battles decided
by which parent

has better financial genes,

or entire races labeled
as credit risks.

But a decade later,

the vast majority of these
one-gene, one-trait studies

have been proven wrong.

Turkheimer: I think if you would ask me
20 years ago,

"are we gonna know what the
genes for human personality

are in 20 years?"

I think I would've said,

"Yeah, sure,
we'll know something."

It's turning out that the way
genetics works

is more complicated in a way
that doesn't allow us

to identify the effects
of individual genes.

Freeman:
So Eric has a new approach:

Using statistical software to
analyze the vast body of data

collected around the world
on twins.

Are you shaped by your genes
or by your environment?

It's the problem that always
gets in the way of studies

on how genes are connected
to complex traits.

But twins offer a way

to separate the effects
of nature and nurture.

Identical twins share virtually
100% of their genetic material.

Fraternal twins share 50%
of their genes.

By comparing identical
and fraternal twins,

we were able to demonstrate
in a general way

that genes have effects
on almost everything.

Freeman: Eric began looking
at very large samples

of twins from all
around the U.S.

From all socioeconomic groups.

He used I.Q. as a predictor
of future wealth of a child,

a link most studies find
to be very strong.

Turkheimer: What we found
was quite surprising.

Children raised in poverty,

their home environment was by
far the most important factor.

Their genes seemed to play
almost no role at all.

Freeman: If a child with genes
predisposing him or her

to be a financial wizard

is raised in an extremely
harsh environment,

that exceptional DNA
may not shine through.

Turkheimer: And then
as you moved from kids

raised in those really
terrible circumstances

up to kids raised
in the middle class,

the role of genes became more
and more and more important,

and once you got
to the middle class or better,

genes took over,

and by the time you got to the
wealthiest people in the study,

genes were making
all the difference.

Freeman: Genes do have
important effects

on how rich or poor children
will be when they grow up,

but it's an effect
that is only visible

when kids grow up
outside of poverty.

Turkheimer:
To some extent,

it's probably true that people
who wind up living in poverty

have some kind
of genetic difference

from people who wind up
making a lot of money.

I think what our work has shown

is that it doesn't matter
what kind of genetic tendencies

some of these kids may have had.

If they're raised in
a bad enough environment,

they're not gonna be able
to express them.

Freeman:
The tapestry of genes

that make up you as an adult

are shaped by the fabric of DNA
you were born with

and by the environment
you grew up in.

How can we overcome the cards
that nature and nurture dealt us

in the womb and the crib?

A new study suggests
our economic destiny

may be determined by the time
we are 12,

because poverty can affect
the brain.

Martha Farah is the founder
and director

of the Center for Neuroscience
and Society

at the University
of Pennsylvania.

She has often wondered,

"Why do poor children perform
worse on I.Q. tests

and in school?"

Farah:
Many different disciplines

have tried to understand
how it is that poverty

shapes people's life chances.

My colleagues and I are taking
a neurobiological approach

to this question.

Freeman:
Over the past few years,

Martha and her colleagues have
scanned the brain architecture

of hundreds of children

from a wide range of
socioeconomic backgrounds.

She has found there are
physical differences

between the brains of the rich
and the poor.

Farah:
The question we asked was,

"What parts of the brain
are dependent

"on that socioeconomic status

for the size and shape that they
eventually grow to?"

What we found is that several
important areas

do show an effect of
socioeconomic status.

Freeman: Growing up
in extreme poverty

slows the growth
of the hippocampus,

which is important for learning,
memory, and stress regulation,

and it also shrinks
the prefrontal cortex,

which helps coordinate memory,
perception, and motor control.

Rich kids tend to have a thicker
cortex than poor kids,

but it is crucial to note

the rich and poor aren't born
with these differences.

The brains of the poor start off
the same as anyone else's.

Their brains are, however,
at greater risk

of developing slowly
in early childhood.

It is not genetics
that does the damage.

It is lack of mental stimulation
and the stresses of poverty.

One difference we know exists

between the childhood
experiences of poor kids

and wealthier kids

is that the wealthier kids get
more cognitive stimulation,

everything from being read to,
just being talked to,

conversation,

visits to interesting places,

and we know that that
promotes cognitive

and brain development.

Freeman: But other forces
can determine

who is rich and who is poor,

forces that govern
not just individuals

but entire nations.

Today's rich man
may be tomorrow's pauper,

because wealth is often a matter
of geography.

Two millennia ago,

if you wanted to get rich,

you'd head for Rome.

For the past century,
you came to America.

Now you might want
to head for China.

Why are certain places bursting
with money at certain times?

Why are some nations
poorer than others?

Two scientists have
a radical explanation.

Economies buzz
because of the genetic mix

of the people in them.

These Ivy league economists
may not look dangerous,

but to the academic world,
they are wild-eyed anarchists.

A few years ago,

Quamrul Ashraf
of Williams College

and Oded Galor
of Brown University

were looking to explain
the disparity

of wealth between nations.

Their findings set off
a raging debate

about the roots of poverty.

As economists,
we are ultimately interested

in understanding the origins
of global inequality.

Those origins lie
in the distant past.

Freeman: Oded and Quamrul
set out to study

the role genetic diversity

has played
in wealth distribution

around the globe.

They reached a surprising
and unpopular conclusion.

You know, Oded and I established
that there is a cause and effect

of genetic diversity
on economic development

that goes back
to the distant past,

and it persists
through the present day.

Initial conditions
tend to be very persistent.

These variations in conditions
that go back, you know,

80,000 to 40,000 years ago
show up in the data today,

and they're there.

Evolutionary biologists

find that the farther an
indigenous group is from Africa,

the less diverse
it is genetically.

Africans are the most
genetically diverse

because all the various peoples
of the world originated there.

The smaller groups
that left Africa

to settle in more distant lands
are less diverse.

Oded and Quamrul traced
this genetic effect

across 80,000 years.

Then they compared it to markers
of economic development

over the last 2,000 years.

Genetic diversity is responsible
for about 1/6

of the variations
or the inequality

that we see across the globe,
which is a huge fraction.

The economists found
that too much or too little

genetic diversity can be harmful
to economic development.

Throughout history, they claim,

successful societies have been
the ones that hit the sweet spot

of genetic diversity.

In baseball,
the sweet spot of the bat

is about six inches
from the end of the barrel.

This is where the performance
of the bat is maximized

and the hand sensation,
or sting, is minimized.

It is the spot where the bat
is just right.

There is a sweet spot.

The sweet spot at the moment
is associated

with the level of diversity
in the United States,

and societies that are
more diverse

are more able to cope

with this rapidly changing
technological environment,

and the degree of diversity
is generating benefits

in the context
of innovations.

But this is where
it gets controversial,

because if there is a perfect
amount of genetic diversity,

that means there are also less
optimal mixtures of humanity.

Oded and Quamrul found

that societies lacking
in genetic diversity

tend not to be innovative.

On the con side,

societies that tend
to be more diverse

are less trustful, less
cohesive, less coordinated.

An overly diverse country,
by this analysis, is the Congo,

where ethnic groups have been
dividing for over 50,000 years.

Now it's mired in civil war.

On the other hand,

a country like Poland
isn't diverse enough.

It has only been inhabited
for about 5,000 years.

So it is very coherent
ethnically,

but it is not a powerhouse
of innovation.

Oded and Quamrul say a blend
somewhere in the middle

lets new voices emerge,
promotes innovation,

and leads to economic health.

But some anthropologists say
the economists are wrong.

There is no sweet spot.

They also charge that Oded
and Quamrul's work

could be used to justify
discrimination

or even genocide

to reduce diversity in the name
of economic progress.

The professors say their work
has been misunderstood

because an appreciation
of diversity

can overcome its drawbacks.

We can assure that societies
that are overly diverse,

such as the societies
in Africa,

can benefit from their level
of diversity

simply by assuring that,
in fact,

diversity is cherished,
diversity is respected,

and ethnic groups
are being protected.

We are not saying
that there are some traits

that are better
than others

for, you know,
economic prosperity,

both at an individual level
or at the societal level.

What we're saying is
it's the mix.

It appears that since
human civilization began,

some have always had more
than others,

be it individuals or nations.

Wealth and power
may change hands,

but the difference remains.

Can this be changed?

Can we create a society in which
there is wealth for everyone

and not just a few?

According to this man,

the odds may be stacked
against us.

Poverty may be
an inevitable outcome

of the laws of physics.

In the 19th century,

physicists developed mathematics

that could predict
the seemingly random movements

of gas molecules.

Today, Wall Street
is full of physicists

trying to find similar equations

to predict the movement
of money.

They haven't been
very successful,

but that could be because

they're overlooking
one crucial factor.

The rich don't play by the same
rules as everyone else.

Victor Yakovenko is looking for
the causes of income disparity.

A Professor at the University
of Maryland,

Victor helped create
econophysics.

He used the science of
thermodynamics to study markets,

capital, and earning power.

Victor has found there are
really two economies:

One for the rich
and one for everyone else.

Yakovenko: My message is, there's
no such thing as middle class,

because if I wanted
to draw a boundary

to define the middle class,
I don't know where to put it.

Data has no features,
no structures.

Data shows me that there are
only two classes:

Lower class and upper class.
That's it.

Freeman: Victor's data shows
97% of the population

is in the lower class
and 3% is in the upper class.

For example, today, there are
about 1,500 multi-billionaires

in the world

and 2 billion people who live
on less than $2 a day.

Of the 311 million people
in America,

the 9 million at the top
have most of the money.

In this vault,
we put 100 gold bars

to illustrate
probability distribution

of income and wealth
in the American economy.

So, here we have
different levels.

Poor people with low income,

and then progressively
higher income.

These three shelves represent
50% of the population --

a half of the population --

and all this total income of
the half of the population,

you count these bars,
it's only 10 bars out of 100.

In other words,
the lower 50% of population

receives only 10% of total
income of the system.

That's income inequality.

Freeman: This imbalance between
the haves and have nots,

though dramatic,
is not unique to the U.S.

Yakovenko: Pretty much
any society has inequality --

a few rich people,
many poor people --

and it's a persistent
feature

of pretty much all societies.

And so I said,

maybe there's some kind
of deep reason for this,

and maybe we can understand them
by knowledge of its physics.

Freeman: Victor took concepts
from physics,

such as the behavior
of molecules,

and applied them
to financial data.

He discovered that
in virtually all countries,

there is the economy
of the rich

and a very different economy
for everyone else.

In America, the 3% with incomes
greater than $150,000 a year

might as well live
in a different reality

than the less well-off 97%.

Victor calls them the thermal
and the superthermal economies.

Each behaves in ways physicists
find eerily familiar.

Consider this pot
of boiling water.

The water molecules in the pot
jiggle around

and bump into each
other with no apparent order,

but these random movements
actually fit a pattern

called a Boltzmann distribution.

It describes how energy
is spread between particles

when they achieve
thermal equilibrium.

So, we see this distribution
in physics

when atoms collide
and redistribute energy,

but we also see
the same distribution

in distribution of money.

Freeman:
Strangely enough,

this is how money is scattered
across 97% of the population.

Even if everyone starts out
with equal amounts of cash,

over time, the money spreads out
in a Boltzmann distribution.

There will be lots of people
in the middle,

and fewer who are very poor
or relatively wealthy,

but for the 3% at the top,
it's a very different story.

The thermal economy gives way

to what Victor calls
the superthermal economy.

The superthermal economy is like
the high-energy molecules

that break free of boiling water
and escape as steam.

Yakovenko: The molecules of water,
they have certain temperature.

So the vapor here would be
the analog of the upper class,

because these are the molecules

with the highest
possible energy.

Freeman:
These high-energy molecules

no longer follow a Boltzmann
distribution.

Instead, they are governed
by a power law,

a distribution that
has no upper limit.

So, why are there two economies
with two sets of rules?

The 97% of the population
in the lower classes

live off the money
from their paycheck.

Meanwhile, the upper class
invests its money

in financial markets
and property.

Unlike people living
on a fixed wage,

the rich have their money
in a part of the economy

that has no limits.

Like steam, it has escaped
the boundaries of the pot.

The pattern
stretches across history

from ancient Egypt to today.

No matter how equal
a nation starts,

this pattern
seems to take over.

Take Israel.

When formed in 1948,

Israel was a highly egalitarian
country with a socialist bent.

By design, people had more
or less the same income.

But Israel's income distribution
slowly broadened,

and by 1990, it, too,
had reached the shape

of a thermal economy.

So, in 40 years or so,

it evolved from
highly equal distribution

to this broad
unequal distribution,

and after that, I believe,
it developed upper class,

the superthermal tail,
even higher inequality.

Equality, perfect equality,
is totally unstable. Okay?

Once you engage
into any transaction,

equality goes away.

The super rich operate by their
own separate physical laws,

but they have to live
on the same planet as the poor.

Biology could hold the key
to our mutual survival.

Charles Darwin saw life on earth

as a bitter struggle
for survival.

That seems like carte blanche

for the rich to take
what they want.

Greed is king,

but our understanding
of evolution is evolving.

Cooperation and community
may be just as essential

to our survival as selfishness.

Tracy Mincer studies the oldest
communities on earth:

Colonies of microbes.

Working out of the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institute

in Massachusetts,

Tracy and his team
of microbiologists

travel the world gathering
exotic microorganisms.

I feel like I'm really looking

at some of the last wilderness
left on earth to explore

because what we're seeing
is wilderness in a tube.

We're harvesting microbes
from their wild sources

and looking at how
they're working.

Freeman: Single-celled organisms
are everywhere:

In the soil, in the trees,
in our bodies.

They were at the ground floor
of evolution,

but they are so tiny,

millions can fit into the eye
of a needle.

Until recently,

we could only see how these
creatures functioned as a group.

We couldn't see the molecular
processes happening

inside individual microbes.

But that has all changed.

Mincer: It's a very exciting
time right now,

because we can look
at really big questions

that were asked 40 or 50 years
ago in science

but were unanswerable

because of the limitations
in the technical tools.

Now, with the revolution
in genomics

and sequencing and molecular
biology and cloning,

we can look at a single cell
that's growing

and see the signals that are
being produced from it

and understand what's happening
at that single-cell level.

Freeman: One would expect
microbes to be ruled

by the most basic laws
of nature,

survival of the fittest,

where every organism
fights for itself,

but Tracy has found that
even these simple creatures

are capable of cooperation.

Tracy watches how different
strains of marine bacteria

defend themselves
against predators.

He places a strain
of vibrio ordalii,

a bacterium that causes disease
in fish, in a petri dish.

Then he adds brine shrimp,

predators that like to munch
on bacterium.

In self defense,

some of the vibrio bacteria
begin to produce a toxin

that kills the predatory
brine shrimp.

This toxin does not kill
vibrio's closest relatives,

the members of what biologists
call its guild.

What's striking
is that they never killed

within their own guild.

They killed only outside.

Freeman:
Even more surprisingly,

the bacteria that make the
antibiotics sacrifice themselves

when they kill the brine shrimp.

By taking one for the team,
they protect the entire group.

Down at the level of microbes,
we see altruism:

Self-sacrifice
for the good of the community.

Mincer:
Altruism holds for microbes,

because of these
guild-type structures

where it really is for the
betterment of the microbes

to be able to sacrifice.

So, things aren't always
fighting to the death

at all times.

It takes a group effort.

Freeman:
For organisms to cooperate,

they need to communicate,

the way that Tracy's team works
to gather samples.

But how do creatures with
no brains or vocal chords

convey a message that causes
them to act together?

The answer is embedded
in nature.

There is a chemical form of
communication we cannot see

but which is an essential part
of life.

The tree behind me has roots
to get at elemental nutrients,

and it has a giant trunk

going up towards the light

where this beautiful tree
is harvesting light.

Now, microbes have
a real problem,

because they're --
they're really tiny,

and for them to be able to
connect to elemental nutrients

that they need

and be able to have
an energy source,

they have to work together.

Unlike us, where we have sight
and we talk and can hear,

microbes can't do any of that.

They rely upon chemistry
that they produce

to be able to signal
to one another.

So they have to work
with one another

and coordinate with one another

or fight others
to keep others out.

Freeman:
Individuals may be selfish,

but even the simplest organisms
seem programmed

to put the survival
of the species

ahead of their own needs.

But at what point
in our evolutionary past

did we move beyond
expedient cooperation

and develop a sense of fairness?

It may be linked to the ability
of primates

to communicate
sophisticated emotions.

This woman has found

that while inequality is part
of our genetic roots,

so is a strong desire
for fairness.

When a pride of lions
makes a kill,

the dominant male will
take the "lion's share."

We accept this as nature's way.

But when we see the rich taking
more than they need,

we cry, "not fair."

This concept of fairness seems
like just a modern human idea,

but could it have been woven
into us by evolution?

Could other species have evolved
to rage against inequity?

Chimps share 98.5%
of their genes with humans,

and like the division
between the super rich

and everyone else
in human society,

chimp society
is also unequally divided.

A small group of Alpha males
calls the shots

and hoards the resources,

while the rest
live off the leftovers.

The chimps lower in social rank
are sicker,

produce more stress hormones,

and have trouble
finding sexual partners.

But according to evolutionary
biologist Sarah Brosnan,

chimps don't blindly accept
their lot in life.

Sarah is the director
of the comparative economics

and behavioral studies
laboratory

at Georgia State University.

You need to go get your mom
to come out here.

She could use some grapes.

Freeman:
She looks for the origins

of human social behavior.

Brosnan: I am interested in the
evolution of decision making.

How did we get to where we make
the decisions that we do?

And you can't, obviously,
study fossilized decisions,

in most cases.

So what we do is
we study other primates,

because as we ourselves
are primates,

they're sort of the closest
we can get

to understanding
the evolutionary history.

[ Object clangs ]

Freeman: Sarah is
particularly interested

in how our primate cousins
respond to inequity.

Brosnan:
So, inequality would be

when individuals don't get
exactly the same thing,

whereas inequity would be
when you get something

that's not relative
to the input.

So, unequal pay would be

we don't get exactly
the same amount.

Inequitable pay would be
that maybe you do a harder job

than me, but you're making
the same salary as me.

Freeman: Today, Sarah is
conducting an experiment

with Capuchin monkeys

to see how they respond

when one monkey gets a better
reward than another.

So, what we do is,
we take two individuals

from the same social group,

and they sit next
to one another,

and they take turns doing a task

and getting a food reward
for it.

So you can think of it as doing
work and getting paid.

Freeman: At first, both monkeys
get bell peppers.

Here you go.

Then one monkey is rewarded
with grapes.

Keep in mind,
they both like bell peppers,

but they like grapes even more.

After seeing his partner perform
the same trick,

but get a better reward,
this monkey loses his cool.

He starts tossing his peppers
on the floor.

Brosnan:
I was really surprised

when we got individuals
actively refusing food rewards.

So that's like giving your dog
a milk-bone

and having them turn it down

because the dog down the street
got a bigger milk-bone.

You just don't expect something
like that to happen.

Freeman: Animals are willing
to accept

that a dominant male or female
may get better food

and a little more of it,

but Sarah's research shows

there comes a point
where they won't accept it.

And the animals in power
seem to realize this.

Some have even refused
the grapes

when they have seen
their partner is upset.

Just because you're
the dominant individual,

typically an Alpha male,

doesn't mean that you get
anything you want.

So they typically have
first access,

or they might have better access

or be able to get
the better rewards,

if they're limited,

but they can't just take
what they want.

For starters,

they need the other individuals
in the group,

so they need to give
the other individuals

sufficient incentive
to stay in the group.

Freeman: Sarah has found
the Alpha is less a dictator

and more a leader
of a coalition government.

To keep his job,

he has to maintain the support
of monkeys

at all levels of society.

He must observe social rules,

and one of the most
deeply ingrained rules

is to be fair
to the other monkeys.

Like other primates,

humans also accept a certain
amount of inequality,

but most of us
cannot abide inequity.

So, a human sense of fairness

is more than just not liking

when you get less
than someone else.

Really, what we mean

when we talk about a human sense
of fairness

is this almost moral obligation
to treat people equally,

to have things work out equally.

This may be the underlying
driving force for the evolution

of the sense of fairness.

Maybe by having a sense
of fairness,

it allows you to be
a better judge

of when you're with a good,
cooperative partner,

and when it's time
to go find somebody else

who might be better.

Freeman: The battles between
selfishness and fairness

keeps us moving forward
as a society.

But when individuals act
with extreme selfishness,

their behavior can put
many others at risk.

They can lead to revolt.

Both apes and humans
will overthrow leaders

who abuse their power.

Perhaps there's a gentler way.

In human societies,

a wealthy few may lord it over
a vast lower class,

but the poor do have power.

They can use the innate
human instinct for fairness

as a secret weapon.

Unequal distribution of wealth
is as old as history,

and so is resentment about it.

The richest 85 people
on this planet

have as much money
as the poorest 3.5 billion.

How can we shrink
the ever-widening divide

between the haves
and the have nots?

Jennifer Jacquet is a clinical
assistant professor

of environmental studies
at New York University.

Lately, she's been contemplating
a phenomenon

called the tragedy
of the commons.

It has its roots
in mankind's agrarian past.

The commons is a pasture
where herdsmen can decide

whether or not to graze
their cattle.

The benefits of adding a single
cow are individualized,

but the costs of adding that cow

are shared among
all the herdsmen,

and this is the tragedy
of the commons:

The tension between the
individual and the group.

And the real problem
is that just one herdsman

who decides to add
too many cattle

can ruin it for everybody else.

Freeman: The tragedy of
the commons, Jennifer says,

is now a global tragedy,

a tragedy that is
being accelerated

by the selfishness
of the super rich.

Jacquet:
There's the global oceans.

There's the atmosphere.

There are the global forests.

There are migratory birds.

There are so many things

that behave exactly
like this common pasture.

So we now live in a world

in which a very small
minority of people

is capable of ruining it
for everyone else.

Freeman: Typically, society
keeps citizens in line

by the rule of law.

But around the world,

the extremely wealthy are often
able to circumvent the law

or have laws changed
to suit them.

So how do we stop these people

from depleting
our shared resources?

Revolutions have been fought
over such things,

but Jennifer argues the only
sensible recourse is shame.

So, when we talk about shame,

what we're actually talking
about is a tool,

a type of punishment.

The threat of exposure,

this idea that
we could show the crowd

that you haven't been behaving

like the rest of the group
would like,

this is the type of shame
I examine.

Freeman: Today, Jennifer
is running an experiment

demonstrating
the power of shame.

It reveals the difference
in people's behavior

when their identities are hidden

versus when their actions
are exposed to the group.

Each player is given the choice
to contribute or not contribute

to a common pool.

Whatever money goes
into the common pool

is doubled
and then redistributed.

If everybody puts in a dollar,

in each of 10 rounds,
they all get $20 back.

That is, if they all play fair.

That almost is never
the way the game is played.

People often leave with far less

than the socially
optimal outcome,

and that's because
certain individuals

start pulling out
and stop cooperating.

Freeman: Most contribute
to the common pool,

except these players.

They keep their $10,

but still take an equal share
from the doubled communal pot.

So they end up making more
than their classmates,

and they get away with it

because no one knows
who is cheating.

But now Jennifer
runs the experiment again,

adding in the element of shame.

At the end of the 10th round,

the real names
of the two participants

who donated least overall

are revealed
to the other players.

Freeman:
The threat of being exposed

changes the way people play.

Now almost everyone puts in
their fair share.

So the threat of shame

actually led to
50% more cooperation

than the anonymous --
completely anonymous control.

Freeman: So, what are the
real-world effects of this?

Jacquet: So, in 2008,

the United States government
gave banks $245 billion

in bailout money.

Many of the banks
decided to give bonuses

that added up to $20 billion.

During that time,

President Obama called
those bonuses "shameful,"

and that's in part because
there was no formal mechanism

in which to punish the banks
for having done that.

So he sort of called on
the crowd to come in and say,

"this is not
appropriate behavior."

Many bankers
didn't see it that way.

They saw it as
perfectly normal behavior.

Freeman: Shameful behavior is
in the eye of the beholder.

Most of the super rich
would argue

they are not breaking
any social rules.

In fact, their investments
create jobs

and make the entire economy
thrive and grow.

But there will always be a few
people at any income level

who are willing to cheat
to make a profit.

When those people are called out
by name in front of a crowd,

shame can be effective.

California has started
listing the names

of the state's top 500
tax delinquents online,

using shame to coerce them
to pay their fair share.

But is the power of shame enough

to close the gap
between rich and poor?

Brosnan: There are no
simple solutions, of course.

These problems are --
are gigantic and difficult.

Shame is relatively cheap
in terms of punishment,

and relatively ineffective.

But sometimes it's all we have.

I am living proof
that poverty is not genetic.

I've lived on both sides
of the divide

between rich and poor.

The forces that distribute
wealth among us are complicated.

They're a mixture of biology,
psychology, and mathematics

playing out over lifetimes

and across the sweep
of human history.

If we can understand
those forces,

I hope we can someday lessen
the devastation of poverty

and allow each of us to
reach our full potential.

== sync, corrected by elderman ==
@elder_man