The diversity paradox

Chris Dillow writes about The diversity paradox.

What I mean is that there are (at least) three distinct meanings of the term. One is ethnic and gender diversity — ensuring that women and minorities are fairly represented in positions of power and prominence. A second is cognitive diversity — giving space to different intellectual perspectives. And a third is ecological diversity: having a variety of strategies and business models.

I would argue very strongly for diversity in the last two senses.A multiplicity of perspectives — or epistemological anarchism in Paul Feyerabend's words — can be a solution to the problems of (tightly) bounded knowledge and rationality; this is expressed mathematically in the diversity trumps ability theorem. And ecological diversity can protect economies from shocks: the 2008 crisis was so severe because there was a lack of such diversity in the financial sector because many banks were following similar strategies. In a changing environment, mixed strategies help ensure survival.

Emphasis Mine

This is something the Bolshevik Party found very hard to maintain after victory in the Russian Civil War. All other political parties were suppressed because of their alignment with the forces of reaction. Once this happened, the only means of political expression was through the Communist Party. Trotsky saw this as one of the contributing factors in the degeneration of the Communist Party.

Cuba avoids this problem to some extent by allowing independents to stand for election. Indeed, most of the deputies are independent! Because of the unrelenting economic and political blockade from the USA, any new political party would be subverted by US interests.

This is a fundamental problem with Communist revolutions—the protracted struggle leads to less diversity as less willing participants leave to join the reaction. Pushing people beyond their endurance forces them to revert to old and known ways.