...One thing Murray’s defenders tend to get more right than his critics is that the racial portions of The Bell Curve are relatively marginal to the overall project (as Nathan Robinson writes at Current Affairs, Murray’s bizarre non-policy book Human Accomplishment makes far more provocative claims on race), which, despite its prurient interest in racial gaps, is fundamentally about economic class. Race is, however, central to the political project of maintaining a stingy welfare state.
...Murray does have a side agenda that is race-specific, however. Near the very end of The Bell Curve, he writes, somewhat euphemistically, “that group differences in cognitive ability, so desperately denied for so long, can best be handled — can only be handled — by a return to individualism” rather than with policies that seek to specifically address or remedy racism or racial disadvantage.
...Talking to Harris on his podcast last year, Murray denounced an idea he calls “the equality premise,” arguing that the idea “that all groups of people only have differences in outcomes because of racism or sexism or inappropriate institutions, that assumption has created huge harm.” Affirmative action policies in college admissions, he argues, actually hurt black and Latino students by creating a “mismatch” between their abilities and those of their white and Asian peers, which leads to elevated dropout rates....