That is one hell of a post. An awareness of just how much damage the Left has caused Western societies will gradually seep to the surface and they'll be rightly reviled.
Let's hope it's not too late when it finally happens.
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Title: Family
Excerpt: Kevin at The Smallest Minority has a great (and quite long) piece about underlying cause(s) of violence in our country and others. It's an impressive bit of reasoning and research, as always.
My synopsis: Strong family guided by strong, tradit...
Blog name: MuD&PHuD
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Title: Culture?
Excerpt: Kevin over at the smallest minority has a gobsmackingly good post up on the reasons for poverty and violence in our underclass. He finds parallels between what is happening here and in the UK. His thinking matches my own in many respects, so closely i...
Blog name: The Wrightwing
It's amazing how much work it takes these days to attempt to make people (read: the Left) understand that their grandparents were right. Family is important. In reality, a strong family governed by traditional morals may be the only thing that matters in a primary sense.
Thank you for making the effort to put debunk the BS leftover from the (late) 60's.
It parallels much of what I have been thinking, but stated and documented far better than I have done, or possibly could have done. I do not think I have the patience to track down all those sources you link to.
If you don't mind, I want to riff on a facet that you, and several of your cites came close to touching on, but didn't isolate and clarify.
Namely, the absolute disaster of prison reform in regards the parole and probation systems.
You said:
"B) The USA doesn't have a significant violent crime problem, it has a significant INNER CITY violent crime problem."
It therefore follows that among the violent criminals on the insides of our prisons, the culture of the inner city is prevalent, since the majority of violent convicts imported it with them when they were incarcerated.
And it's a "free trade zone".(Snoop Dogg, anyone? Tupac Shakur?).
You cite Rector:
"There's a complete vacuum of responsible male authority figures in a lot of these low-income communities. This isn't an issue that's restricted to blacks; it's just most pronounced in black communities. The same pattern occurs with low-income whites."
The significant word there is "responsible". There are male authority figures aplenty...but all too many of 'em are convicts...parolees, probationers or caught up in some status of the criminal justice system.
Far from being shunned and derided, many of these irresponsible male authority figures are given respect and reverence.
(O.G.'s anyone?)
The Corrections system is all too helpful, and indeed is forced, to keep a community already mired in welfare poverty freshly supplied with violent parolees and ex-convicts, of the same race and culture as the community they are released to,(or inflicted upon).
The Welfare system has succeeded in feeding and doctoring to violent convicts on the inside AND on the outside, although to get life's necessities once released, the convict needs to get himself a girlfriend to mooch from.
The children are taking all this in.
Joining a gang becomes analogous to playing varsity football in some communities.
Going to prison becomes the equivalent of matriculating to college or joining a union.
They likely will know people there, and they'll probably find the culture to be little different from what they knew at home.
And since, until very recently, a homicide conviction yielded an average of 7 years' incarceration, a seasoned violent convict could expect to be back in the old neighborhood, perpetuating the cycle all over again.
In other communities, that man might have been holding a Journeyman tradesman's license and starting his own business, or a freshly minted lawyer, accountant or doctor.
The welfare system is being addressed, and to some extent, the parole system is likewise, but what I do not see in any parole reform proposal,(short of abolishing it), is a role for the community into which the convict is to be released to have a say in whether or not his presence there is desirable or tolerable.
Should not those most affected by this decision to parole have any say in the matter?
An explanation of a phenomenon must fit ALL the facts, meaning what we observe of reality, because reality remains reality no matter what we observe and no matter what we say or think about it. Your explanation fits.
The subject of absent older male role models triggered a memory of a recent nature show I watched.
The show was about recent problems with elephants in parts of Africa. They had a large number of young bulls behaving aggressively toward just about everything. This included some new aggressive behavior that scientist found puzzling. These elephants would go out of their way to attack. People were often targeted, but strangly other wildlife was also. Rhinos were being killed in large numbers by these elephants. These elephants went into must (rut) earlier and stayed that way longer than other regions.
One scientist had an idea. The area in question had been the subject of elephant cropping in the last 10 to 20 years. (Strange at it sounds, elephants can be endangered overall, but overpopulate some areas. The strategy has been to kill most if not all of some of the herds in the area.) He realized that the problem elephants were orphans that resulted from the cropping. He also realized that there were not enough old males in the current population.
Interestingly, they decided to import some old male elephants from a less violent (elephant wise) region. The problem subsided quickly.
Part of this problem was blamed on essentially traumatic stress syndrome since these elephants had seen their families violently killed in front of them, but obviously a larger part of the problem was lack of adult guidance, otherwise importing the old males would not have had such a positive effect.
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Title: On Poverty and success
Excerpt: I started to post this as a comment to Kevin's Post on The Smallest Minority but it rapidly reached dissertation length so, in order to keep from cluttering up his blog comments, I'll post my observations here.
Blog name: Captain of a Crew of One
I think Grim summed it up well when he said: "The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous."
When I was young, I did what I was told because my parents had made clear to me that there were consequences that came from my choices. If I chose not to listen them, these consequences would be bad, and get worse the longer I did not acquiesce.
By the time I was old enough to *think* that i could equal my father in physical altercations, I understood that actions have results, so I should think hard before doing anything.
Did it always work? No. Teenagers are full of hormones, and teenaged boys tend to get stupid at times. (See Heinlein)
But the lessons my parents had instilled in me, with periodic reminders, made it clear to me that following the rules was the best option.
Thanks for the essay, Mr. Baker. It was a useful work for giving me insight into a group of people who grew up in a life very alien from my: A world with no, or few, responsible male figures to show boys how to be useful members of society.
Just wanted to comment on the effect of the Welfare State in Britain. Benefits are meagre for some (just barely enough to scrape by on) with the recipients having to prove what work they are actively seeking while they receive the payments. Others however, usually those with children and cohabitating, get a little more- not a decent "wage" by any means but enough to survive on; usually they'll get their rent paid for them too. The big problem here seems to be for these people to find a job that actually pays them enough to make it worth their while to get a job.
I've heard of people wanting to quit getting benefits and seeking a job but, the market being what it is, only being able to find a low-earning job to begin with. They might make a heck of a lot more than the benefits they are getting into their hand each week but when they factor in the lost rent cheques too, it can often mean they'll be giving up doing nothing all week for a job that only pays them ten or twenty pounds a week more. Thus, there is little to no incentive for them to take the job.
One solution I can think of is for the government to not just cut off all benefits payments once a person gets a job beneath a certain threshold; pay half the rent for example. That way they'd be paying out substantially less money and it would actually give those out of work who want to go back to earning an incentive.
They seem to be all to happy to continue to pay for people to NOT work, but for those who do WANT to do something (and that little bit extra money could end up being spent on getting to and from work and nothing else) the government seems to not care. I can't understand why they do such a good job of paying for people to do nothing but such a bad job of helping them to help themselves?
I'll also thank you for the long, well-thought-out and researched post.
As a general rule, "If you tax something, you get less of it. If you subsidize something, you get more of it." We've been heavily subsidizing the reproduction and care of the least productive (heck, often anti-productive criminal) members of society, while ever-more-heavily taxing the most productive. The result is about what you'd expect.
OK, I've just started the reading, and I've got a lot of catching up to do, but let's get this out of the way right away. Let's address the "tongue-partially-in-cheek" thing, which I had a feeling would come back to bite me. I was not calling you a racist jerk, nor was I calling you a sexist jerk. It was born of conflating something SayUncle wrote (namely, "But it will never be given the attention it deserves because examining the cause would be viewed as racist.") with the rest of what you wrote. I was attempting (poorly, I now see) to make light of his whole "even discussing this makes you a racist" line. Hence the tongue-in-cheek. Why only partially in cheek, then? Because if you were to make the hypothetical argument I put forth, that women's liberation led to the breakdown of the nuclear family, which in turn is responsible for violent crime, ergo women's lib = increased violence, then that would indeed make you a sexist jerk in my estimation.
Since you didn't actually make that argument (and from what I can tell, neither did anybody else), I wasn't calling anyone either a sexist jerk or a racist jerk. Believe me, if I were calling you either of those things, I would do so openly, rather than hiding behind faux-humor.
So while I'll readily apologize for my poor jokes, I'm not going to apologize (nor, as far as I can tell, have you asked me to do so) for calling you names that I did not, in fact, call you.
Perhaps so, but coming from you, I'd take that as a compliment. Between you and I, there's only one whose ego can't stand criticism, and here's a hint, it's not me.
To anyone else reading, I invite you to go back to any of Thibodeaux's posts on SayUncle, and see the froth into which he'd get himself worked up whenever anyone dared to disagree with him. It wasn't just me, either. Chris Wage springs to mind, and oddly neither Chris nor I ever had any significant problems with anyone other than Thib. So take from that whatever you want.
Kevin, sorry about the threadjack; I just can't let petulant assholes go around calling me a "dick" unchallenged. ;)
Since this is such a long post, it probably deserves a post of its own in response. However, I would like to clear up a few issues where I believe my positions have been misrepresented and/or misunderstood. I've already addressed the "racist/sexist jerk" think, so moving on:
D) When the significant concentration of violent crime IS acknowledged, the astronomical levels are blamed on "gun availability" and then on "disproportional poverty."
I'm unclear to what extent this bullet point was intended to be generalized, and to what extent it was aimed at me personally, but I take strong exception to the implication of a "moving target" wherein some silver bullet is wholly responsible for everything. Personally, I have never argued that "gun availability" is solely (or even mostly) responsible for violent crime, nor have I argued this about disproportional poverty. What I have argued is that both of these things are factors, as are many other things -- and it seems from what I see here that Kevin agrees with this assessment.
Our only disagreement, then, would seem to be the degree to which each of these factors is responsible. It seems that I believe poverty is a larger factor than Kevin believes it to be. But that does not justify misrepresenting my position, even in a general sense.
Tgirsch seems to encourage the regulation of guns, since he sees the "elephant" as being "handgun availability."
Actually, no I don't. And any familiarity with me or my positions would tell you that. In fact, all of the paperwork is in and fees are paid, and within the next couple of weeks I should have my Tennessee CCW permit. We must be careful how our perceptions of left/right color our assumptions of others.
My point in bringing up the availability of handguns was simply that rabidly pro-gun types tend to conveniently ignore this fact, even though it is, in fact, fact. This isn't to say that it's a major contributor to the problem; only that it can't be ignored and is better addressed head-on. Because to someone who doesn't have a lot of information, that's almost certain to be one of the first statistical disparities to jump out at them.
Re-reading what I originally wrote, I can see how someone could misconstrue what I wrote as listing the availability of guns as a primary factor, but that's not what I said. In context, you'll note that I listed it third, after poverty and "other social factors." In truth, I don't think the availability of guns causes any crime per se. It's just the reason why in the US it manifests itself as "gun crime" rather than as assault or as baseball bat crime or knife crime or whatever.
What [Tgirsch] doesn't ask, as I noted, was why American blacks remain largely poverty-stricken a century after emancipation, and nearly half a century after the Civil Rights movement and the establishment of the Welfare State.
Well, that’s part of the problem is that it isn’t exactly direct. There are plenty of good data to suggest that violent crime increases with economic disadvantage. There are also plenty of good data to suggest that economic disadvantage tends to be self-perpetuating, i.e., the cycle of poverty is very difficult — although certainly not impossible — to break. It’s also well-documented that minorities in general and African-Americans in particular are poor at disproportionately high rates.
Now let’s connect these dots, shall we? Violent crime is especially pervasive among the poor. The majority of poor people are poor because they come from poor families. Why are their families poor? The reasons vary, but in the case of many minorities (again, African-Americans in particular), it’s because the opportunities available to them to get good jobs and break the cycle of poverty were artificially limited to them by policies of enforced segregation, institutional racism and discrimination, etc. The economic deck was severely stacked against them, and that’s really only started to change with my generation.
It's one thing to say that my logic doesn't convince you. It's quite another to pretend that I ignore the question when in fact I did not.
To put it even more explicitly, I suspect that one of the best predictors of whether or not someone winds up poor is whether they started off poor. So American blacks are disproportionately poor in very large part because their parents and grandparents were poor, and they were poor in very large part because of the types of institutional racism you describe here.
In this regard, where we differ is in our opinion of what the impact of the "welfare state" has been on this. That is, if we hadn't implemented social welfare programs, would the situation be better, worse, or about the same? You seem to argue that it would be better, whereas I contend it would be even worse.
I just got home and have to go out again shortly, so just a quick note. This post was inspired by our exchange. Much like the fact that your "tongue-partially-in-cheek" comment was not directed at me, much of this is not directed at you, per se, but at the Left in general. However, I used your comments to illustrate my points, so my apologies if I offended.
As to "It's quite another to pretend that I ignore the question when in fact I did not." Touché. I did present the link to the SayUncle post and I did recommend that everyone read them and the comments. I selected two comments from that thread as the basis of this essay. I did not select that comment, and probably should have. However, the intent of this post was to make the argument I wished to make as clearly as I could. I did that. The fact that you did bring up a point that I stated you did not is entirely my error. I should have phrased it generally, rather than specifically insisting that you did not.
Again, my apologies. If you wish, I shall edit the post to correct the error. (Edited to add: I did correct my error.)
I concur with your conclusion, with one caveat. Without the "welfare state" I contend the situation would be different. You contend it would be worse. "Worse" is a value judgement. Worse how?
Thanks for making the corrections; I've noted them. Unfortunately, it's been a hectic couple of weeks for me, too, and it may be a bit of time before I can get to a response in more detail.
To answer your questions about the "welfare state," I suppose it makes sense to take a step back and define precisely what we mean by this. This is where my assumptions about "the right" might be coloring my views of things that you've written. When I've referenced it, I've been talking about it in a very broad sense -- the sense in which conservatives often use it to disparage all aspects of the social safety net, and it is this that I refer to when I say that I believe it does more good than harm. It is my belief that without programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, and affirmative action, the problems correlated with poverty would not only be more acute, but more pervasive.
But as I think on it, it occurs to me that you might be using "welfare state" in a more narrow sense, referring to welfare checks, food stamps, etc. Here I'd still disagree with you, although probably not as strenuously, insofar as such programs likely do have some tendency to create dependencies and discourage moving into the productive workforce. In that sense, I think that the "noble idea" is helping people get onto their feet, but that no-strings-attached hand-outs don't (and can't) generally achieve that end.
"It is my belief that without programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, and affirmative action, the problems correlated with poverty would not only be more acute, but more pervasive."
And this belief is founded on what?
What about the private income lost to fund those projects? Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid consume staggering sums of tax dollars every year, dollars that would have been spent in the enconomy otherwise.
How many jobs were *not* created because of the capital consumed by these "welfare" projects? How many homes were *not* bought because of the taxes that working families had to pay? How much capital was lost to the bureaucracies that administer them? How many billions of taxes dollars have disappeared into waste and fraud in these systems?
While you are considering what *might* have been without the "social safety nets", tgirsh, you might want to consider how America's economy would have grown and evolved differently without those three substanial government drains on it decade after decade.
The problem here is that you chide me for presumably unfounded beliefs, but then replace them with presumably unfounded beliefs of your own. You assume (without presenting evidence) that social security and similar programs have substantially retarded the economy, have prevented job creation, etc.
Unfortunately, I don't currently have time to dig up links, but I'm reasonably sure that (for example) before Social Security, senior citizens collectively were one of the largest "poor" demographics, and Soc. Security largely did away with that.
There's also the issue of how that extra money would have been distributed were it not for such social programs. Would it have been relatively evenly distributed, or would it have concentrated in a few hands? My suspicion is the latter. But the overall economy is healthier, in my estimation, when money is more widely spread out.
tgirsch: "I suspect that one of the best predictors of whether or not someone winds up poor is whether they started off poor. So American blacks are disproportionately poor in very large part because their parents and grandparents were poor, and they were poor in very large part because of the types of institutional racism you describe here."
I see two problems with that theory:
1) I think you are overestimating the time required to climb out of poverty. Throughout the history of this country, most immigrants have been desperately poor. For most groups of immigrants, their children were considerably better-off, and their grandchildren had at least the normal percentage of professionals and successful businessmen. Some of these immigrants overcame blatant discrimination to reach that position, not in their grandparent's time but in their own careers. Before WWI, second-generation Jews were remarkably successful, in spite of quotas used against them at colleges and much other discrimination. The Irish were once called "[blacks] turned inside out", only "blacks" wasn't the word used, and yet their children and grandchildren came to dominate politics and much of business in the same towns that once put up "No Irish need apply" signs.
2) Most poor urban blacks and many Hispanics are NOT slowly working their way up from inherited poverty. Instead they often adopt behaviors that will ensure their own failure and increase the handicaps their children face.
3) By contrast, black immigrants who arrive here dirt poor from other countries tend to work hard, make sure their children get educated, and work their way up as fast as white immigrants ever did.
It's forty-some years after equality became the law nationwide; blaming your poverty on discrimination against your father or grandfather is questionable, but unless something changes, in 30 more years the cities will still be full of unemployable, often drug-addicted, young black men, and no one will believe them when they blame their poverty on the disadvantages their greatgrandparents faced.
Interestingly, for me at least, I haven't seen anyone take on the subject of former NY Senator (and well known liberal) Daniel Patrick Moynihan's much attacked suggestion in the late 1960s that rapidly rising rates of out of wedlocked black children and the loss of the nuclear family in the black community would herald not progress for blacks but rather send them further into poverty and a never ending cycle of crime.
He was attacked unrellentingly as a rascist at the time over it - and lost lots of his former supporters on the liberal left as a result - but it seems to me that its pretty tought to argue he wasn't correct.
You still have offered no evidence that Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid have not hurt the econmy. According to the Social Security Budget for 2004, it collected 668 Billion dollars in taxes for that year. The World Bank projected the US GDP at about 11.6 Trillion dollars. So Social security taxes equalled 5.7% of US GDP, based on those numbers.
What do you think self employed people would do with 15% of their income they pay into FICA taxes? Pay down business or personal debt? Invest it as capital in their business? Purchase goods?
What do you think employees of larger businesses would do with 7.5% more income (more than 3 paychecks)? Purchase goods? Pay down personal debt? Invest it? Save it?
What do you think multiple employee businesses would do if each employee cost them 7.5% less to pay? Would they hire more employees? Invest it as capital? Save it?
Do you know how many times Social Security tax rates have been raised? Do you know what the original percentage the Social Security tax was, and where the income cut off was placed?
And if you take money out of the hands of wealthier individuals, and give it to the poor what do they do with it (assume they have no drug habits)? Will they invest it, or will they spend it in the near term on consumable goods?
What will would a wealthy person have done with the income if the government had not taken it? Invested in a bank or business? Purchased consumable or durable goods?
How has Social Security affected the savings patterns of workers in the United States, both through loss of income and the suggestion that some or all of their retirement needs will be paid for by the state?
Finally, tgirsch, why do you define the income of the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid projects as "extra money"? Did this money *not* come from the private sector, and thus out of the income of private citizens?
As for the elderly being the poorest among the population in the 1930s, according to the US Census in 2000, the two youngest working age categories, 18 to 24 and 25 to 34, had higher numbers of people in poverty, AND a higher rate of poverty than the two oldest ages groups, 60- 64 and 65 and older. Since FICA taxes taper off after $87,000 (the Social Security tax cut-off), these FICA taxes affect lower income workers disproportionally. So younger workers, members of the poorest working age brackets, are being taxed to support senior citizens, who are substanially less poor than they are.
I see three problems with your ability to count to two. ;)
With respect to your first point, there's a tendency to remember the successes and forget the failures. At the sime time, I think you're comparing different eras that aren't necessarily fair to compare. Back when discrimination against Jews, the Irish, etc. was rampant, you didn't need much education at all to make a decent living. Unskilled labor was much more viable as a way to make a living than it was, say, four decades ago, and considerably less so now.
As to your second point, I don't think I'd agree with your "most" assessment there. To be sure, there are many who have behaviors not conducive to breaking the cycle, but I think you grossly underestimate the extent to which the deck remains stacked against them. And by "them" here, I'm not just referring to minorities, but to the urban poor as a group.
To the third of your two points, I question the extent to which this generally holds true. It may be anecdotally appealing, but again, how much of this is overemphasizing the successes while de-emphasizing the failures? Notice, also, the with good educations qualifier that Kevin uses in describing the black immigrant workforce that tends to succeed. Now contrast that against the urban black poor in this country, and take an honest look at how many of them really can get "a good education" even if they wanted to. That's another factor that is probably a post all to itself.
We (collectively) need to understand that these are highly complicated issues, and as Kevin points out, there is no silver bullet to fix them. We can have as many ivory tower blog discussions about the ins and outs of various points of view, but the reality out there is a lot more complex, generally speaking.
You still have offered no evidence that Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid have not hurt the econmy.
And you have offered no evidence that Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid have hurt the economy -- just a bunch of anecdotal "ferinstances." So where does that leave us?
If modern history teaches us anything, the majority of the people would piss away that extra money. A few would save it or invest it wisely, but most would not. If you think even half of people would use the extra money (and that is the correct term -- people would have more in their pockets, according to you, without the tax than with it) to bolster their savings, I've got some Enron stock to sell you.
As for your senior citizen poverty stats, thank you for making my point for me. Do you seriously think that, were it not for social security, the young class would be less poor, while the seniors would be no less well-off? To what extent do you suppose the reduction in poverty in seniors is because of social security? And to what extent do you think poverty in the youth demographic is because of social security? I'd be willing to bet that social security has a lot more impact on the former than the latter.
"If modern history teaches us anything, the majority of the people would piss away that extra money."
So? It's their money.
"If you think even half of people would use the extra money (and that is the correct term -- people would have more in their pockets, according to you, without the tax than with it) to bolster their savings, I've got some Enron stock to sell you."
And this is where we're going to differ. You don't perceive a greater concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands -- which is inevitably what would happen without a social safety net -- as a problem. I do. And this is where libertarians and, well, the rest of us, will simply never agree. Libertarians want to put all the focus on "personal responsibility" (a noble enough endeavor), but they do so to the exclusion of social responsibility.
In the Libertarian view, it's all about looking out for #1. Not speaking for anyone else but myself, I see the picture as a lot broader than that. You seem to see the increased poverty and crime that would come from this as being "someone else's" problem, where I tend to view it more collectively, and even admittedly somewhat selfishly. It benefits me to have a civil, stable society. To the extent that a social safety net helps provide this, it benefits me indirectly, even if I don't directly receive medicare or a welfare check.
Of course, it would help if we had a convenient counterexample we could examine. Some "country X" that we could point to that has a diverse mix of races, and of urban/rural populations, but has little or no such safety net, to compare against how WE do. But I'm not aware of any such example, so the best we can do is speculate.
tgirsch, yous eem to believe that since the elderly *used* to be the poorest segment of our population, it is ok to tax away 15% of the income of the *currently* poorest working Americans, and then give it to the elderly.
How are these people going to "piss away that extra money"? In the first place, the money IS NOT EXTRA. It did not fall from the sky out of a passing UFO. It came out of the paychecks of millions of Americans, who worked HARD to earn it. Second, how do you "piss away" money? You could burn it I suppose, but that is criminal for you and me. If they spend it at McDonald's, it goes to the economy. If they spend it at Amazon, it goes in the economy. If they buy cars, it goes into the economy. And *gasp* if the workers put that money in the bank, or the stock market, it goes into the economy.
My point was this: The people who recieve they checks from the government will *at best* "piss away" those dollars the same as the men and women who earned them. If they do not spend it on crack, or meth, or other drugs, they will spend it on groceries, cars, or rent. But whereas the people who *worked* for the money have to *work* to earn more to replace that money they 'piss(ed) away", the people collecting government checks, can sit around and do nothing, and then get another check. There is no incentive for hard work, or personal responsibility.
You seem to believe that the presence of the "social safety net" benefits you. How does the welfare state as it exists today make our society "civil" or "stable"? Are the people getting the checks more "civil" than the rest of us? Mr. Baker's statistics seem to suggest not.
And how does having a system in which the government takes money from one group, under threat of force, and gives it to another group make our society more "civil" or "stable"?
*If* the Social Security plan involved taking money out of people's pockets, and putting it in a box to give to them for their retirement, then maybe your "piss away" comment *might* have merit. But the Social Security system has *never* been that, nor will it become that as long as Congress fights to keep it in current form.
And, in case you were curious, since 1935 the Social Security tax rate has increased, in 20 steps, from 2% of the first $3000 in wages, to 12.4% of the first $87000. According to Inflationdata.com the inflation rate from January 1935 to January 2005 was 1302.21%. So $3000 in 1935 equals $39,066.30 in 2005. So, over 70 years, the Government increased the maximum amount of private income consumed (in 2005 dollars) from $781.33 to $10,788, or an increase of 13.8 times. And you appear to have no problem with this.
You appear to think the government consuming THAT much personal income, on TOP of sales, income, property, capital gains, and inheritance taxes is appropriate. You appear think that the results of the Social security system justify that level of forcible income redistribution. If I am wrong, then please point out where my error was, otherwise I have nothing else to say to you.
Again, Kevin, it was a well thought out and eloquent essay.
"It's forty-some years after equality became the law nationwide; blaming your poverty on discrimination against your father or grandfather is questionable, but unless something changes, in 30 more years the cities will still be full of unemployable, often drug-addicted, young black men, and no one will believe them when they blame their poverty on the disadvantages their greatgrandparents faced."
Wanna bet?
It will continue to be used as a powerful political resource to cultivate and maintain the poor in the belief that their poverty is all the result of external forces.
That is WHY we still have largely black generational urban poverty.
tgirsch, you asserted that blacks are violent because they are poor. Does it occur to you that they are both poor and violent for the same reason? That their poverty is a reflection of their values? If wealth was the mitigating factor, then why is there so much violence and animosity in the hip hop entertainment community with all its wealth and success? Can you think of any reason why there are so many casualties amongst rap stars and their entourages, as opposed to, say, country music or pop stars?
Notice, also, the with good educations qualifier that Kevin uses in describing the black immigrant workforce that tends to succeed.
IIRC the black immigrant work force that tends to succeed doesn't arrive here educated. They become educated. More often, the first generation works its buns off to educate the second generation. West Indian immigrants as a group don't share the problems of poverty and crime with American blacks -- in fact, as a group they earn as much as whites -- and the reason for this is entirely cultural. They have a much different work ethic than American blacks -- does anyone remember the jokes about them on In Living Color with their multitudes of jobs? And whereas American blacks tend toward conspicuous consumption, West Indians put their money into real estate, opening businesses, and investing. They also have a different attitude towards other races, particularly whites, and tend to integrate much better.
Kevin,
The culture of American blacks is the result of a history of abuse and manipulation that would make any group dysfunctional.
Yet West Indians in America are able to function quite well in spite of the legacy of slavery. Nevertheless, by the 1960s, the effect of this history was becoming moot as blacks in America were surpassing every other group in terms of moving out of poverty. Then the Left swooped in with their social engineering experiments and set the course in reverse. What we see in the inner cities today is a direct product of this tinkering.
Nevertheless, by the 1960s, the effect of this history was becoming moot as blacks in America were surpassing every other group in terms of moving out of poverty. Then the Left swooped in with their social engineering experiments and set the course in reverse. What we see in the inner cities today is a direct product of this tinkering.
Well, yes:
When things finally started to improve socially, the intellegentsia stepped in and threw a monkey wrench into an already damaged mechanism - with the best of (stated) intentions.
Thank you! Excellent post, You have consolidated several thoughts that I have been working out for years.
One area that you touched on in the difference in immigrant cultures and resident generational poverty culture is in motivation. Immigrants rise from poverty for the same reasons that they were motivated to come here in the first place. Providing a better life for themselves and their children, in most cases. The idea of sacrificing immediate gratification to save or send their kids to better schools, to spend time doing homework with them, being active in their lives, is the exact opposite of the urban ghetto lifestyle you describe. Family values that are scoffed at as old fashioned, are the building blocks that keep societies growing.
Kevin, I have to concur with the other commenters here: this is an excellent piece of work, sharp, cogent, and definitely on the money. It surprises me, as it did one of your previous commenters, that none of the commenters brought up the work that Daniel Patrick Moynihan did on this subject in the 1960’s, work that showed Moynihan to be the American equivalent of the mythological Cassandra, telling those in power the somber truth they do not want to hear or believe. Nor has anyone brought up Myron Magnet’s work, The Dream and the Nightmare, a detailed look at the poisoned legacy of Sixties liberalism and its effects on the culture of the American inner city. I think, though, that Moynihan would be the first to point out that the welfare state, as such, is not the creator of the problems of the underclass; it is an enabler of an already existing pathology.
In the nineteenth century the welfare state did not exist, and yet many of the same pathologies we see today among the black urban underclass existed among the famine Irish. Under the burden of mass starvation, emigration under the most horrific of conditions, and the societal dislocation of a peasant agricultural people without any urban job skills tossed suddenly into a whole new economic and social culture, the Irish family disintegrated; fathers abandoned their wives and children, mothers put their children out to work when they still very young, crime and violence in the Eastern Seaboard cities skyrocketed as the young Irish turned on each other and on native American gangs. What saved the Irish from a never-ending cycle of despair was the one Irish institution that most native Americans loathed to the depths of their beings: the Roman Catholic Church. The church, led by such men as Archbishop Hughes of New York, got the Irish back into the church, got them back to accepting personal responsibility for their actions, and, in many cases, got them back to work.
Preaching the social gospel is all well and good, but clearly a gospel that concentrates on society’s obligations to the poor and downtrodden without requiring some small level of personal responsibility on the part of those people is clearly unbalanced. Blacks are among the most religious people in this country, but when was the last time anyone has heard of a prominent black minister reminding their congregations that the sort of if it feels good do it sexuality promoted in the media and practiced by many in their flocks is sinful, and therefore good Christians should avoid this behavior lest they endanger their immortal souls? No one wants to sound like an old prude, and I imagine that many black ministers do not want to alienate the people in the pews, many of whom engage in just this sort of behavior, but what good is a pastor who will not warn his flock that what they are doing is, first, wicked in the sight of God, and second, a sure path to never-ending and ultimately humiliating dependency on the state
"If modern history teaches us anything, the majority of the people would piss away that extra money."
Game. Set. Match.
That, right there is the fundamental paradigm that tgirsch can't conceive of changing.
That it's someone's ability, duty, and dammit, their RIGHT to determine where the fruit of THEIR labor goes.
That the "Smart" people can determine that far "better" than the people who will "piss away" their money.
Well, TG - In a compound word, BS.
Look at what happens when you set up those systems. You want to talk to me of pissing away money? Let's discuss Social Security. Not the program, the bureacracy. But *after* we tackle Medicaid. Which has more people shuffling paper than see patients. Or, how about we discuss other countries efforts? The Canadian $2M Gun Registry that would be paid for with a small additional tax, and 10 years later, is over the $2B CDN mark.
*THAT* is _pissing away_ money.
Want to look at the relative efficiency of Wal-Mart versus FEMA in getting assistance to Katrina victims?
Sorry, it's a loaded question. Of course you wouldn't.
But thanks for being honest. I don't mean that sarcastically, I'm fully, totally serious. I know you were honest with that comment, and I for one, appreciate it.
It's going to cause you problems, and I'm sure you see that - but that's why I distrust "Liberals/Democrats" - they're not honest up front about what their goals are, what they believe, and wink wink nudge nudge, we'll do it our way later.
This way at least, we can have an honest discussion.
It is "extra" take-home money, something which should have been clear in context. You see, in English, words can have many meanings, and zeroing in on one to the exclusion of all others is silly. But somehow, that's what you want to do with the word "extra" in this case. So the next time I temporarily lower my 401(k) contribution so I'll have some "extra" spending money in my pocket that pay period, I'll think of you, and remember that it's wholly inappropriate for me to use the word "extra" in that context.
Sheesh!
Now if you want to discuss social security, that's fine, but we'd be way the hell off-topic. Long ago I blogged about it, if you're interested in seeing where I stand on it.
By the way, for all your griping about my misuse (in your opinion) of the word "extra," you cite specific numbers which turn out to be wrong. For starters, the cap number you cite dates back to 2004. In 2006, the cap is $94,200. Also, your inflation figures aren't terribly meaningful, given that you're trying to compare eras that aren't easily compared and that cost-of-living and inflation aren't the same thing. For example, how many families owned cars in 1935 (or even needed to) as opposed to now? (And notice that the more luxurious, two-car standard came about despite the horrible drain the social safety net supposedly creates; boy are we ever collectively suffering!)
Addison:
That it's someone's ability, duty, and dammit, their RIGHT to determine where the fruit of THEIR labor goes.
If we were talking strictly about people making bad decisions and suffering for them, I'd be inclined to agree. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking, in many cases, about parents whose children in many cases will be poor, neglected, and disadvantaged through no fault of their own. I'll be the first to admit that "liberal" solutions don't do as good a job as they could here, but it beats the holy shit out of doing nothing. And last I checked, we as a nation could afford it.
That the "Smart" people can determine that far "better" than the people who will "piss away" their money.
Oh, horseshit. This isn't about smart/dumb, it's about strength in numbers. Pooling our resources together for common good is eminently reasonable, and we do it all the time. Unless, of course, you're bitter about those "smart" people who think it would be "better" if we all chipped in to have things like a fire department, a police force, and a world-class military.
Want to look at the relative efficiency of Wal-Mart versus FEMA in getting assistance to Katrina victims?
A whole 'nother tangent, there. FEMA had actually grown into a highly-effective disaster relief organization until Bush 43 gutted it.
But again, this gets us back to our fundamental difference: given the choice between an ounce of prevention and a pound of cure, you prefer the pound of cure.
but that's why I distrust "Liberals/Democrats" - they're not honest up front about what their goals are
Yeah, because "Conservatives/Republicans" are oh-so-up-front about their goals. Just for example, if you think any of the administration's Social Security "reform" proposals were really intended to "ensure the long-term solvency of the system," I've got a great lead on a Nigerian foreign minister who needs to shelter some money...
This way at least, we can have an honest discussion.
While we're on the subject of honest discussions, let's be frank about what most opponents of the social safety net are really after. Most of them don't believe that gutting such programs would truly make the country a better place; they just think that doing so would make things better for them.
That's where I agree with Dr. Biobrain and his commenters, who point out that a lot of Libertarianism is just a search for philosophical justification for selfishness.
Nevertheless, by the 1960s, the effect of this history was becoming moot as blacks in America were surpassing every other group in terms of moving out of poverty.
Well, perhaps, but isn't that a bit like saying that Vonage is growing exponentially faster than AT&T?
"We're talking, in many cases, about parents whose children in many cases will be poor, neglected, and disadvantaged through no fault of their own."
I believe that the _accepted_ shorthand for that is "IT'S FOR THE CHIIIILLLLLLLDDDDDDRREEEENNNN!!!" Please stick to the Approved Lefty Screaming Points, it'll make things simpler.
"Oh, horseshit. This isn't about smart/dumb, it's about strength in numbers."
Yes, it *is* about smart/dumb.
You're the one who said that we are too stupid to know how best to handle our money. That's what "Pissing it away" _means_.
See, (Sorry, Kevin. :) ) words have MEANINGS. When you say "They'd just piss it away" that MEANS "They're too stupid to spend it smartly". There is no other reasonable interpretation.
It's NOT about pooling resources. At least not according to you. People don't choose between paying for the fire department or buying beer. That's the strawman you're trying to set on fire to not discuss what you just said.
"A whole 'nother tangent, there. FEMA had actually grown into a highly-effective disaster relief organization until Bush 43 gutted it"
That is a bald-faced, unsupportable lie. Wait, wait, wait, let me take this back. This might get interesting. Define what you're using as a MEANING of "effective". And define "effective" operations they relieved. We'll see if I had personal experience with the one you're referring to. :)
"While we're on the subject of honest discussions, let's be frank about what most opponents of the social safety net are really after. Most of them don't believe that gutting such programs would truly make the country a better place; they just think that doing so would make things better for them."
That's your strawman. And you're already trying to deny saying what you said, that's your veracity problem, not mine. (I'll hold off on the FEMA until you give concrete examples)
You're projecting. I want the system to work well for me, of course. Because that will work better for *everyone*. That's my belief.
Kevin just detailed the massive problems with the handout system, the social services, how it's *not* fixed. And your reply is "Oh, you're just selfish! You can afford to give the money! Besides, you'd just WASTE it anyway, you idiot!"
Now, I'm sure - and again, I'm serious - that you believe that your way is better. You're not merely being selfish.
Why is it you refuse to extend that same belief and respect?
"Well, perhaps, but isn't that a bit like saying that Vonage is growing exponentially faster than AT&T?"
And if a change in the laws and environment occurs, and Vonage drops dramatically......
You know, you really need to go back, and re-read Kevin's piece.
"(And notice that the more luxurious, two-car standard came about despite the horrible drain the social safety net supposedly creates; boy are we ever collectively suffering!)"
When I worked for AmEx, they kept touting how great we were growing. 4%! 6% Almost 8%!!
At the time, the Dot-Com was booming, and Visa and MC were seeing 10-50% growth rates.
Given your rationale, since things were better (there was growth), things were good. But it ignores how much better things MIGHT have been.
We've gotten to the point where almost everyone can afford a car not because of the "drain of the social safety net" but literally, in spite of it. (And most social planners are trying to get the oldest/cheapest cars outlawed).
Think where we might be without that much lost productivity and drain.
Well, perhaps, but isn't that a bit like saying that Vonage is growing exponentially faster than AT&T?
Geez frickin' Louise, leave it to a leftist to find fault with improvement. Should blacks have instantaneously leapt out of poverty and arrived at success and wealth without passing through all points in between? Had it not been for the social experiments of the Left, one can imagine where two generations of continuous improvement would have gotten blacks today.
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Title: Strategy of Culture and History
Excerpt: I recently wrote on the subject of groups in a rather non-specific and general way. Kevin Baker writing at The Smallest Minority has finally posted his latest essay on the same subject though in a very specific and detailed manner (as is his usual pr...
Blog name: The Warrior Class Blog
It is "extra" take-home money, something which should have been clear in context. You see, in English, words can have many meanings, and zeroing in on one to the exclusion of all others is silly. But somehow, that's what you want to do with the word "extra" in this case. So the next time I temporarily lower my 401(k) contribution so I'll have some "extra" spending money in my pocket that pay period, I'll think of you, and remember that it's wholly inappropriate for me to use the word "extra" in that context.
Ok, I was being able to keep my brains from oozing out my ears until that one.
If I voluntarily make a change in the amount of money I use for one thing (in his case, a 401K contrribution), in order to use it elsewhere, then yes, THAT would be considered "Extra" money.
However, if a business is paying "Protection" money to a local crime boss, and all of a sudden he has a radical life change and stops making them pay "Protection", how exactly does that equate to "Extra" money? He didn't have a right to that money in the first place! So the implication is that if I'm not robbed, I have "Extra" money!
We've fixed it this time. We really, really really believe! We won't fail, even if it kills you!
Indeed, Addison. You've got to marvel at that kind of dogged devotion to failed ideas.
You've also got to marvel at the hypocrisy. You notice how the standard of perfection only applies to ideas the Left doesn't like? A single lost life isn't worth the burden of an armed populace or spreading democracy around the world, but if untold numbers suffer and die while the Left tries to figure out how to work this collectivist thing, well... oops.
I believe that the _accepted_ shorthand for that is "IT'S FOR THE CHIIIILLLLLLLDDDDDDRREEEENNNN!!!"
Excellent dodge. Much easier to accuse me of using a talking point than to actually deal with the problem, after all.
You're the one who said that we are too stupid to know how best to handle our money.
Not all of us, but many of us. Others would simply get unlucky, and lose money (rather than make it) in their investments through no fault of their own (see S&L collapse, Enron, etc.). Still others wouldn't get enough extra from the "savings" to make a significant difference. You're right in pointing out that "pissing away" was an exceptionally poor choice of words. But my point is that the safety net is there for a lot of reasons not involving failure to plan or irresponsibility on the part of individuals.
You, on the other hand, seem to prefer Social Darwinism, an idea that I (naively) thought was dead and buried. (Of course, I may be dead wrong about this, but given your refusal to address what, if anything, ought to be done for those who fall behind, especially those who do so through no fault of their own, I'm forced to make that assumption.)
As for FEMA, I suggest you look at the history of the organization under James Lee Witt -- the only director in the organization's history to have any significant disaster management experience -- and specifically his Project Impact initiative. (It was cut in 2001 by President Bush).
Because that will work better for *everyone*. That's my belief.
Albeit an ill-founded one. Of course, you could prove me wrong simply by pointing me to an example of where it has ever worked on anything approaching a large scale.
Kevin just detailed the massive problems with the handout system, the social services, how it's *not* fixed.
Well, yes and no. Kevin gave a bunch of anecdotes and ferinstances, but didn't build anything close to a compelling case. In fact, I'd wager that it would convince very few people who didn't already agree with him to begin with. Especially considering that according to his logic, the "hand out" program magically only (or, at least, vastly disproportionately) hurt poor urban blacks while somehow not having the same effect on anyone else.
Why is it you refuse to extend that same belief and respect?
Point taken, and apologies. My perceptions are clearly colored by past experiences with libertarian-types who want all the benefits of living in a civil society without having to pay for any of it, and without feeling any responsibility to help maintain it. To the extent that I've projected that prejudice onto you, I apologize.
We've gotten to the point where almost everyone can afford a car not because of the "drain of the social safety net" but literally, in spite of it.
What can I say, other than that I disagree? But here we're dealing with conflicting underlying assumptions. I assume that the safety net serves to level the playing field somewhat, and that without it there would be a great deal more concentration of wealth in fewer hands -- essentially, we'd have a plutocratic oligarchy (to an extent, I'd argue we already have that, but I suggest it would be far more dramatic). You seem to assume (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that without the drain of the safety net, the market would provide and everyone would be better for it.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see that. In fact, if history has taught us anything, it's without some measure of control, the market leads to robber-barons.
Sarah:
Had it not been for the social experiments of the Left, one can imagine where two generations of continuous improvement would have gotten blacks today.
Which ignores the fact that most of the country had to be forced kicking and screaming into providing some sort of equality. By whom? Oh yeah, the EEEEEVIL federal government. Damn them!
The fact is, you (and Kevin and others) assume that blacks would be better off were it not for such social programs, but you provide absolutely no evidence to back this up. Sorry, but the plural of "anecdote" is not data. To be fair, I haven't provided any evidence to show that they would be worse off, but then the burden of proof is (or ought to be) on those who would change the status quo, not those who would preserve it.
Kevin:
The philosophy cannot be wrong! If the action failed, it must have been due to improper implementation.
At this rate, I'm going to buy straw futures. (Although I suppose over-generalization isn't exactly a straw man...)
WayneB:
Taxes are like a mafia protection racket? Sheesh! No wonder you can't get libertarians elected to any office of note...
"As for FEMA, I suggest you look at the history of the organization under James Lee Witt -- the only director in the organization's history to have any significant disaster management experience -- and specifically his Project Impact initiative. (It was cut in 2001 by President Bush)."
Yes, but I asked you for _specific_ examples to back up your assertation. I had personal experience with FEMA (and their response) (prior to 2001), on 4 occasions. None of which were noticeably positive. It would be very instructive if one of your examples was one I was involved with. So I'd still like you to be more specific. I've not noticed that post-2001 that it was substantially different. Other than post-Katrina FEMA is now gearing up to be first-responders.
And as per Kevin's opus - it's going to be worse. In my opinion, of course.
You used 2 examples of things that caused people "through no fault of their own" to fall behind. S&L and Enron.
Both of those "disasters" were a _response_ to the "intellegentsia"'s best laid plans. And the "disaster" of Enron was the retirement fund that had invested in Enron stock... Those people who had taken the initiative and diversified, weren't crushed. The ones who trusted in the "experts"... Again, back to Kevin's main point.
What to do for people who "fall behind"? That's a much longer subject. And it's one that depends a *lot* on *definitions*. How do you define "fall behind"? At what point do you get to say that I'm pissing away my money, and take it away from me for my own good?
But Kevin's entire point - the current welfare/goverment "we're here to help you" is doing the exact opposite". I find little to debate.
"Of course, you could prove me wrong simply by pointing me to an example of where it has ever worked on anything approaching a large scale."
*boggle*. TG, obviously, the gulf is huge between us. Have you never heard of oh, Dave Thomas? Or Ross Perot? (For the sake of this discussion, we'll just discuss his prior-to-politics rise to the top). Heck, what about the entire US? People who went into the wilderness, and built the do-it-yourself spirit that you say is outmoded and selfish?
"Especially considering that according to his logic, the "hand out" program magically only (or, at least, vastly disproportionately) hurt poor urban blacks while somehow not having the same effect on anyone else."
Oh, if that's what you took away, someone missed something.
I can attest to the same problem(s) being prevalent in all races who fall into the welfare dependancy "system". But it's the black community that's loudly outspoken, and insisting on increasing the same system that's causing the problem. Other than West Virginia, you don't see this for white trash, for instance. (have to toss a shot at Byrd in, I can't resist)
It *does* have that same effect on everyone who it touches.
As to the changes - give me a day or two, I'll try and get back with some data for you as to the total evisceration of the black-owned businesses circa from the early 60s. The black business owners I know _Noticed It In A Big Way_, I've read several articles detailing it. Let me see if I can find them.
Shorter Kevin (And Addison):
The 8 most feared words in the English Language: We're from the Government, We're here to help!
According to the CDC, in 2002 68.2% of births to black women were illegitimate, compared to 23% for whites, 34% for Hispanics and 14.9% for "Asians and Pacific Islanders.
Actually, 43.5% for Hispanics, according to that report.
In any case, my rebuttal (such as it is) is finally up.
Addison:
Have you never heard of oh, Dave Thomas? Or Ross Perot?
Gee, I guess I didn't realize they got to bypass safety net taxes. Seriously, how the hell do they matter? I'm not talking about individuals as "large scale examples," I'm talking about modern societies.
It *does* have that same effect on everyone who it touches.
It does? It touches virtually everyone: everyone who either recieves its benefits or pays taxes to support it, anyway. And yet in spite of this, we've managed to be one of the most prosperous and desirable nations in the world, and we've managed to do so with one of the lowest effective tax rates in the Western world. That doesn't sound like tremendous harm to me.
I know, I know, in Libertarian Fantasy Land (tm), we could be even more prosperous without it! But if there were a Pascal's Wager of Economics, it would be that it's better to continue succeeding with the safety net than to risk failing without it. (No, I'm not really a fan of Pascal's Wager.)
While we're digging for references, I'll see if I can find an article I saw where a pro-globalization, pro-free-trade type made the argument (effectively, in my opinion) that deregulation, free trade, and globalization make the job market less stable, and that therefore the social safety net needs to be buttressed rather than gutted. It struck me as odd because it was basically a libertarian-type who was making this argument.
One more note: Perhaps I'm wrong, but Kevin doesn't seem to be arguing that the "welfare state" impacts everyone it touches evenly, but that it harms African-American culture disproportionately, and that this is part of why homicide is so prevalent among the young African-American population.
Which ignores the fact that most of the country had to be forced kicking and screaming into providing some sort of equality. By whom? Oh yeah, the EEEEEVIL federal government. Damn them!
OK, we're talking about the civil rights laws here. But the truth is that, in the struggle for equality, government did squat. What was happening at that time was a gradual transition of the white Southern culture into the dominant Northern culture of freedom. These two cultures are so opposed to one another, that Southern whites were basically immigrants in their own land after the Civil War. Now, acculturation is terribly difficult. It's just a nasty, horrible struggle, and it takes a long time. The Southern whites had to lose their culture of slavery, and this took three or four generations to happen. The point at which the old Southern culture in America was finally thrown off, allowing the civil rights movement to happen, was the late 50s/early 60s. If the Southern whites had had the immediate post-Civil War level of culture at that time, the civil rights movement would not have happened. The equality movement was the result a natural process of acculturation, and the gradual dying out of the old, defeated culture. It was not a result of government, but a result of the courage of the civil rights movement leaders (which you seem willing to sell short) and the readiness of the rest of the country to accept this equality. The civil rights movement was the final and overdue completion of the American Revolution, and the final triumph of freedom. The federal government just jumped on the bandwagon. And, in fact, you can see where federal government tried to force things on people that they weren't ready for, like forced busing, Brown vs. the board of education. Horrible failure. Catastrophic. Black children today get a horrible education and are trapped in a totally dysfunctional system, because the forced busing of white children was a major factor of white flight to the suburbs. The government did squat to provide equality. We have equality because the American people wanted change, they were ready for change, and wanted the freedom and political equality for all Americans.
The fact is, you (and Kevin and others) assume that blacks would be better off were it not for such social programs, but you provide absolutely no evidence to back this up.
I know for a fact blacks would be better off were it not for social programs, because that is the proof of history. In all the decades and generations of immigrants coming to America, no matter how poor or uneducated, every one of those groups of immigrants went into the major cities of the U.S. and emerged, one-to-three generations later, prosperous and integrated. Our first permanent urban underclass did not develop until the federal government had the power and desire to do something about discrimination and equality. The end result is that blacks (and now some hispanics) are now a permanent urban underclass, the first one in the history of America. That's what government intervention has caused. It's a complete disaster and reversal of the very successful American melting pot, which worked wonderfully for hundreds of years.
As a black woman who sees the effects of liberalism, welfare and maladjusted black culture I have to say Kevin that you are spot on in your analysis. Too bad liberals refuse to see this.
TG:
"Gee, I guess I didn't realize they got to bypass safety net taxes. Seriously, how the hell do they matter? I'm not talking about individuals as "large scale examples," I'm talking about modern societies."
What does bypassing safety net taxes have to do with anything? They're guys who, without safety net _assistance_, went from nothing to everything. Rags to riches, as the old saying goes. Instead of sitting back, and collecting a check, merely for being there, and not making enough/not having education (Thomas), or the like.
Modern societies? Since you won't take the US as a good example, how about, oh, Hong Kong (even today, but more true before Chinese takeover)? Compare HK to the Chinese areas around it, notice a big difference in quality of life, goods, services?
Now, the Chinese government areas were *far* more *uniform* - uniformly poor. Despite the people being identical, the Chinese areas having "better education", and more "social programs".
Or, take Taiwan. Which during it's most booming years in the 60s and 70s was a dictatorship. (Thus, it can be compared more evenly with say, China, North Korea, Vietnam) Which had (and has) close to no natural resources, none of the benefits that most people wave dismissively at the United States experiment. (The land, the lack of population, the resources, the variance in climate, allowing for varied enterprises)
But they built an economic powerhouse, not based on government handouts, but on building "greedy" companies. Both those examples are stars in the Asian economic sphere, without the problems of considering say, Japan (which was defended by the US, thus able to roll more of their own money into the economy).
It's countered by the welfare states of France and Germany. In the US, the press castigates Bush mercilessly for a 5% unemployment rate. (Which was considered structural by the press when Clinton had 5.5%). Germany, in boom times, never sees less than 9%. (Even prior to reunification. I've not seen stats on the French level, but I wouldn't believe them if they stated them lower.
And I don't mean to be nasty about it, but I *am* going to be picky about the FEMA comment you made. Either you need to retract that it was well run before Bush, or provide concrete examples of something being well run. If it was just the usual gratitious Bush-bashing, well, that's fine, but please admit it, or retract your prior statement, at least. (Or give me an example of how "FEMA had actually grown into a highly-effective disaster relief organization until Bush 43 gutted it."
Cause that doesn't tally with *my* professional or personal experience with FEMA in the late 90s. And I'd like to see what you're using as an example, and what your definition is. (It's entirely possible that your viewpoint and mine are both correct, and opposed to each other, depending on what you were expecting, versus my expectations, after all).
"Perhaps I'm wrong, but Kevin doesn't seem to be arguing that the "welfare state" impacts everyone it touches evenly, but that it harms African-American culture disproportionately, and that this is part of why homicide is so prevalent among the young African-American population."
I believe he handled that well in the original post - and explained his hypothesis why, quite well. It's not *just* the "safety net", but it's combination of history, expectation, and "leaders".
"But if there were a Pascal's Wager of Economics, it would be that it's better to continue succeeding with the safety net than to risk failing without it."
And if the safety net you laud is part of the entire cultural problem that's creating areas in the US that are blighted, that are hellholes of crime, and corruption, you consider this *good*?
See, that's where we differ, in a big way. I look at the problems, and say "There *has* to be a better way". You're looking at them and saying "Hey! Look how good the rest of us have it".
Well, true, we *do* have it pretty good, despite those problems.
But I don't think contributing to the CULTURE of the biggest problem we have, abandoning people due to the misfortune of being born into the hellhole is, overall, a good thing, or even, a liberal idea. The point is to *decrease* suffering as much as possible, not shift it somewhere else, and pat ourselves on the back. In my opinion, of course.
I'm not _against_ some safety nets, either. But you have to be aware of 1) what they're intended to save you from, and 2) what they're being used to "save" you from. 3) If it's still a problem.
Reminder: "Welfare" (AFDC) was started because widowed women were by and large unable to work at _all_. This was prior to WWII, before Rosie the Riveter, and if you weren't a teacher, and you weren't a nurse, by and large, you were screwed if you didn't have a male bringing home the bacon. And there were lots of widows (single mothers didn't factor into this, at the time, heavens, forbid), who were basically wards of Churches, or soup kitchens. Who's going to object to making sure that the widow - and especially the child - are incapable of living, and going to school?
And what did it _turn into_? Was AFDC in 1997 when Clinton's reforms ended that specific program (by name, and put time limits on replacements, and conditions) in any way, shape, or form, what was proposed, debated, specified, and enacted? Or was it a part of what Kevin's describing as part of the Cultural problem?
Note:
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An excellent article.
Thank you.
That is one hell of a post. An awareness of just how much damage the Left has caused Western societies will gradually seep to the surface and they'll be rightly reviled.
Let's hope it's not too late when it finally happens.
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Title: Family
Excerpt: Kevin at The Smallest Minority has a great (and quite long) piece about underlying cause(s) of violence in our country and others. It's an impressive bit of reasoning and research, as always.
My synopsis: Strong family guided by strong, tradit...
Blog name: MuD&PHuD
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Title: Culture?
Excerpt: Kevin over at the smallest minority has a gobsmackingly good post up on the reasons for poverty and violence in our underclass. He finds parallels between what is happening here and in the UK. His thinking matches my own in many respects, so closely i...
Blog name: The Wrightwing
It just occurred to me that France has a massive underclass problem right now. Exacerbated by the Muslim cultural/religious fanaticism.
It's amazing how much work it takes these days to attempt to make people (read: the Left) understand that their grandparents were right. Family is important. In reality, a strong family governed by traditional morals may be the only thing that matters in a primary sense.
Thank you for making the effort to put debunk the BS leftover from the (late) 60's.
Kevin, if I've learned one thing while blogging at Uncle's, it's this:
tgirsch is a dick.
A well spent 3 weeks.
It parallels much of what I have been thinking, but stated and documented far better than I have done, or possibly could have done. I do not think I have the patience to track down all those sources you link to.
Well done.
Small Minor;
Whew...three weeks in labor, huh?
If you don't mind, I want to riff on a facet that you, and several of your cites came close to touching on, but didn't isolate and clarify.
Namely, the absolute disaster of prison reform in regards the parole and probation systems.
You said:
"B) The USA doesn't have a significant violent crime problem, it has a significant INNER CITY violent crime problem."
It therefore follows that among the violent criminals on the insides of our prisons, the culture of the inner city is prevalent, since the majority of violent convicts imported it with them when they were incarcerated.
And it's a "free trade zone".(Snoop Dogg, anyone? Tupac Shakur?).
You cite Rector:
"There's a complete vacuum of responsible male authority figures in a lot of these low-income communities. This isn't an issue that's restricted to blacks; it's just most pronounced in black communities. The same pattern occurs with low-income whites."
The significant word there is "responsible". There are male authority figures aplenty...but all too many of 'em are convicts...parolees, probationers or caught up in some status of the criminal justice system.
Far from being shunned and derided, many of these irresponsible male authority figures are given respect and reverence.
(O.G.'s anyone?)
The Corrections system is all too helpful, and indeed is forced, to keep a community already mired in welfare poverty freshly supplied with violent parolees and ex-convicts, of the same race and culture as the community they are released to,(or inflicted upon).
The Welfare system has succeeded in feeding and doctoring to violent convicts on the inside AND on the outside, although to get life's necessities once released, the convict needs to get himself a girlfriend to mooch from.
The children are taking all this in.
Joining a gang becomes analogous to playing varsity football in some communities.
Going to prison becomes the equivalent of matriculating to college or joining a union.
They likely will know people there, and they'll probably find the culture to be little different from what they knew at home.
And since, until very recently, a homicide conviction yielded an average of 7 years' incarceration, a seasoned violent convict could expect to be back in the old neighborhood, perpetuating the cycle all over again.
In other communities, that man might have been holding a Journeyman tradesman's license and starting his own business, or a freshly minted lawyer, accountant or doctor.
The welfare system is being addressed, and to some extent, the parole system is likewise, but what I do not see in any parole reform proposal,(short of abolishing it), is a role for the community into which the convict is to be released to have a say in whether or not his presence there is desirable or tolerable.
Should not those most affected by this decision to parole have any say in the matter?
Regards;
An explanation of a phenomenon must fit ALL the facts, meaning what we observe of reality, because reality remains reality no matter what we observe and no matter what we say or think about it. Your explanation fits.
Well done.
The subject of absent older male role models triggered a memory of a recent nature show I watched.
The show was about recent problems with elephants in parts of Africa. They had a large number of young bulls behaving aggressively toward just about everything. This included some new aggressive behavior that scientist found puzzling. These elephants would go out of their way to attack. People were often targeted, but strangly other wildlife was also. Rhinos were being killed in large numbers by these elephants. These elephants went into must (rut) earlier and stayed that way longer than other regions.
One scientist had an idea. The area in question had been the subject of elephant cropping in the last 10 to 20 years. (Strange at it sounds, elephants can be endangered overall, but overpopulate some areas. The strategy has been to kill most if not all of some of the herds in the area.) He realized that the problem elephants were orphans that resulted from the cropping. He also realized that there were not enough old males in the current population.
Interestingly, they decided to import some old male elephants from a less violent (elephant wise) region. The problem subsided quickly.
Part of this problem was blamed on essentially traumatic stress syndrome since these elephants had seen their families violently killed in front of them, but obviously a larger part of the problem was lack of adult guidance, otherwise importing the old males would not have had such a positive effect.
Interesting parallel, no?
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Title: On Poverty and success
Excerpt: I started to post this as a comment to Kevin's Post on The Smallest Minority but it rapidly reached dissertation length so, in order to keep from cluttering up his blog comments, I'll post my observations here.
Blog name: Captain of a Crew of One
Yes, it is, Debbie.
I think Grim summed it up well when he said: "The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous."
When I was young, I did what I was told because my parents had made clear to me that there were consequences that came from my choices. If I chose not to listen them, these consequences would be bad, and get worse the longer I did not acquiesce.
By the time I was old enough to *think* that i could equal my father in physical altercations, I understood that actions have results, so I should think hard before doing anything.
Did it always work? No. Teenagers are full of hormones, and teenaged boys tend to get stupid at times. (See Heinlein)
But the lessons my parents had instilled in me, with periodic reminders, made it clear to me that following the rules was the best option.
Thanks for the essay, Mr. Baker. It was a useful work for giving me insight into a group of people who grew up in a life very alien from my: A world with no, or few, responsible male figures to show boys how to be useful members of society.
Another excellent work Kevin.
Just wanted to comment on the effect of the Welfare State in Britain. Benefits are meagre for some (just barely enough to scrape by on) with the recipients having to prove what work they are actively seeking while they receive the payments. Others however, usually those with children and cohabitating, get a little more- not a decent "wage" by any means but enough to survive on; usually they'll get their rent paid for them too. The big problem here seems to be for these people to find a job that actually pays them enough to make it worth their while to get a job.
I've heard of people wanting to quit getting benefits and seeking a job but, the market being what it is, only being able to find a low-earning job to begin with. They might make a heck of a lot more than the benefits they are getting into their hand each week but when they factor in the lost rent cheques too, it can often mean they'll be giving up doing nothing all week for a job that only pays them ten or twenty pounds a week more. Thus, there is little to no incentive for them to take the job.
One solution I can think of is for the government to not just cut off all benefits payments once a person gets a job beneath a certain threshold; pay half the rent for example. That way they'd be paying out substantially less money and it would actually give those out of work who want to go back to earning an incentive.
They seem to be all to happy to continue to pay for people to NOT work, but for those who do WANT to do something (and that little bit extra money could end up being spent on getting to and from work and nothing else) the government seems to not care. I can't understand why they do such a good job of paying for people to do nothing but such a bad job of helping them to help themselves?
Kevin:
I'll also thank you for the long, well-thought-out and researched post.
As a general rule, "If you tax something, you get less of it. If you subsidize something, you get more of it." We've been heavily subsidizing the reproduction and care of the least productive (heck, often anti-productive criminal) members of society, while ever-more-heavily taxing the most productive. The result is about what you'd expect.
OK, I've just started the reading, and I've got a lot of catching up to do, but let's get this out of the way right away. Let's address the "tongue-partially-in-cheek" thing, which I had a feeling would come back to bite me. I was not calling you a racist jerk, nor was I calling you a sexist jerk. It was born of conflating something SayUncle wrote (namely, "But it will never be given the attention it deserves because examining the cause would be viewed as racist.") with the rest of what you wrote. I was attempting (poorly, I now see) to make light of his whole "even discussing this makes you a racist" line. Hence the tongue-in-cheek. Why only partially in cheek, then? Because if you were to make the hypothetical argument I put forth, that women's liberation led to the breakdown of the nuclear family, which in turn is responsible for violent crime, ergo women's lib = increased violence, then that would indeed make you a sexist jerk in my estimation.
Since you didn't actually make that argument (and from what I can tell, neither did anybody else), I wasn't calling anyone either a sexist jerk or a racist jerk. Believe me, if I were calling you either of those things, I would do so openly, rather than hiding behind faux-humor.
So while I'll readily apologize for my poor jokes, I'm not going to apologize (nor, as far as I can tell, have you asked me to do so) for calling you names that I did not, in fact, call you.
As you were.
Thibodeaux:
Perhaps so, but coming from you, I'd take that as a compliment. Between you and I, there's only one whose ego can't stand criticism, and here's a hint, it's not me.
To anyone else reading, I invite you to go back to any of Thibodeaux's posts on SayUncle, and see the froth into which he'd get himself worked up whenever anyone dared to disagree with him. It wasn't just me, either. Chris Wage springs to mind, and oddly neither Chris nor I ever had any significant problems with anyone other than Thib. So take from that whatever you want.
Kevin, sorry about the threadjack; I just can't let petulant assholes go around calling me a "dick" unchallenged. ;)
BLOGGER FIGHT! :)
Great essay, great comments!
Since this is such a long post, it probably deserves a post of its own in response. However, I would like to clear up a few issues where I believe my positions have been misrepresented and/or misunderstood. I've already addressed the "racist/sexist jerk" think, so moving on:
I'm unclear to what extent this bullet point was intended to be generalized, and to what extent it was aimed at me personally, but I take strong exception to the implication of a "moving target" wherein some silver bullet is wholly responsible for everything. Personally, I have never argued that "gun availability" is solely (or even mostly) responsible for violent crime, nor have I argued this about disproportional poverty. What I have argued is that both of these things are factors, as are many other things -- and it seems from what I see here that Kevin agrees with this assessment.
Our only disagreement, then, would seem to be the degree to which each of these factors is responsible. It seems that I believe poverty is a larger factor than Kevin believes it to be. But that does not justify misrepresenting my position, even in a general sense.
Actually, no I don't. And any familiarity with me or my positions would tell you that. In fact, all of the paperwork is in and fees are paid, and within the next couple of weeks I should have my Tennessee CCW permit. We must be careful how our perceptions of left/right color our assumptions of others.
My point in bringing up the availability of handguns was simply that rabidly pro-gun types tend to conveniently ignore this fact, even though it is, in fact, fact. This isn't to say that it's a major contributor to the problem; only that it can't be ignored and is better addressed head-on. Because to someone who doesn't have a lot of information, that's almost certain to be one of the first statistical disparities to jump out at them.
Re-reading what I originally wrote, I can see how someone could misconstrue what I wrote as listing the availability of guns as a primary factor, but that's not what I said. In context, you'll note that I listed it third, after poverty and "other social factors." In truth, I don't think the availability of guns causes any crime per se. It's just the reason why in the US it manifests itself as "gun crime" rather than as assault or as baseball bat crime or knife crime or whatever.
Actually, I do address this directly. Quote:
It's one thing to say that my logic doesn't convince you. It's quite another to pretend that I ignore the question when in fact I did not.
To put it even more explicitly, I suspect that one of the best predictors of whether or not someone winds up poor is whether they started off poor. So American blacks are disproportionately poor in very large part because their parents and grandparents were poor, and they were poor in very large part because of the types of institutional racism you describe here.
In this regard, where we differ is in our opinion of what the impact of the "welfare state" has been on this. That is, if we hadn't implemented social welfare programs, would the situation be better, worse, or about the same? You seem to argue that it would be better, whereas I contend it would be even worse.
More later, as I finish reading.
I started to post a comment but it rapidly degenerated into a dissertation. I'll post it on my blog here and then send a trackback ping as well.
Thank you for the well researched, eloquent and thoughtful post Kevin.
Required Reading.
tgirsch:
I just got home and have to go out again shortly, so just a quick note. This post was inspired by our exchange. Much like the fact that your "tongue-partially-in-cheek" comment was not directed at me, much of this is not directed at you, per se, but at the Left in general. However, I used your comments to illustrate my points, so my apologies if I offended.
As to "It's quite another to pretend that I ignore the question when in fact I did not." Touché. I did present the link to the SayUncle post and I did recommend that everyone read them and the comments. I selected two comments from that thread as the basis of this essay. I did not select that comment, and probably should have. However, the intent of this post was to make the argument I wished to make as clearly as I could. I did that. The fact that you did bring up a point that I stated you did not is entirely my error. I should have phrased it generally, rather than specifically insisting that you did not.
Again, my apologies. If you wish, I shall edit the post to correct the error. (Edited to add: I did correct my error.)
I concur with your conclusion, with one caveat. Without the "welfare state" I contend the situation would be different. You contend it would be worse. "Worse" is a value judgement. Worse how?
And that is another essay all its own.
Great post. Thank You!
Kevin:
Thanks for making the corrections; I've noted them. Unfortunately, it's been a hectic couple of weeks for me, too, and it may be a bit of time before I can get to a response in more detail.
To answer your questions about the "welfare state," I suppose it makes sense to take a step back and define precisely what we mean by this. This is where my assumptions about "the right" might be coloring my views of things that you've written. When I've referenced it, I've been talking about it in a very broad sense -- the sense in which conservatives often use it to disparage all aspects of the social safety net, and it is this that I refer to when I say that I believe it does more good than harm. It is my belief that without programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, and affirmative action, the problems correlated with poverty would not only be more acute, but more pervasive.
But as I think on it, it occurs to me that you might be using "welfare state" in a more narrow sense, referring to welfare checks, food stamps, etc. Here I'd still disagree with you, although probably not as strenuously, insofar as such programs likely do have some tendency to create dependencies and discourage moving into the productive workforce. In that sense, I think that the "noble idea" is helping people get onto their feet, but that no-strings-attached hand-outs don't (and can't) generally achieve that end.
"It is my belief that without programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, and affirmative action, the problems correlated with poverty would not only be more acute, but more pervasive."
And this belief is founded on what?
What about the private income lost to fund those projects? Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid consume staggering sums of tax dollars every year, dollars that would have been spent in the enconomy otherwise.
How many jobs were *not* created because of the capital consumed by these "welfare" projects? How many homes were *not* bought because of the taxes that working families had to pay? How much capital was lost to the bureaucracies that administer them? How many billions of taxes dollars have disappeared into waste and fraud in these systems?
While you are considering what *might* have been without the "social safety nets", tgirsh, you might want to consider how America's economy would have grown and evolved differently without those three substanial government drains on it decade after decade.
Eric:
The problem here is that you chide me for presumably unfounded beliefs, but then replace them with presumably unfounded beliefs of your own. You assume (without presenting evidence) that social security and similar programs have substantially retarded the economy, have prevented job creation, etc.
Unfortunately, I don't currently have time to dig up links, but I'm reasonably sure that (for example) before Social Security, senior citizens collectively were one of the largest "poor" demographics, and Soc. Security largely did away with that.
There's also the issue of how that extra money would have been distributed were it not for such social programs. Would it have been relatively evenly distributed, or would it have concentrated in a few hands? My suspicion is the latter. But the overall economy is healthier, in my estimation, when money is more widely spread out.
tgirsch: "I suspect that one of the best predictors of whether or not someone winds up poor is whether they started off poor. So American blacks are disproportionately poor in very large part because their parents and grandparents were poor, and they were poor in very large part because of the types of institutional racism you describe here."
I see two problems with that theory:
1) I think you are overestimating the time required to climb out of poverty. Throughout the history of this country, most immigrants have been desperately poor. For most groups of immigrants, their children were considerably better-off, and their grandchildren had at least the normal percentage of professionals and successful businessmen. Some of these immigrants overcame blatant discrimination to reach that position, not in their grandparent's time but in their own careers. Before WWI, second-generation Jews were remarkably successful, in spite of quotas used against them at colleges and much other discrimination. The Irish were once called "[blacks] turned inside out", only "blacks" wasn't the word used, and yet their children and grandchildren came to dominate politics and much of business in the same towns that once put up "No Irish need apply" signs.
2) Most poor urban blacks and many Hispanics are NOT slowly working their way up from inherited poverty. Instead they often adopt behaviors that will ensure their own failure and increase the handicaps their children face.
3) By contrast, black immigrants who arrive here dirt poor from other countries tend to work hard, make sure their children get educated, and work their way up as fast as white immigrants ever did.
It's forty-some years after equality became the law nationwide; blaming your poverty on discrimination against your father or grandfather is questionable, but unless something changes, in 30 more years the cities will still be full of unemployable, often drug-addicted, young black men, and no one will believe them when they blame their poverty on the disadvantages their greatgrandparents faced.
Interestingly, for me at least, I haven't seen anyone take on the subject of former NY Senator (and well known liberal) Daniel Patrick Moynihan's much attacked suggestion in the late 1960s that rapidly rising rates of out of wedlocked black children and the loss of the nuclear family in the black community would herald not progress for blacks but rather send them further into poverty and a never ending cycle of crime.
He was attacked unrellentingly as a rascist at the time over it - and lost lots of his former supporters on the liberal left as a result - but it seems to me that its pretty tought to argue he wasn't correct.
tgirsch
You still have offered no evidence that Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid have not hurt the econmy. According to the Social Security Budget for 2004, it collected 668 Billion dollars in taxes for that year. The World Bank projected the US GDP at about 11.6 Trillion dollars. So Social security taxes equalled 5.7% of US GDP, based on those numbers.
What do you think self employed people would do with 15% of their income they pay into FICA taxes? Pay down business or personal debt? Invest it as capital in their business? Purchase goods?
What do you think employees of larger businesses would do with 7.5% more income (more than 3 paychecks)? Purchase goods? Pay down personal debt? Invest it? Save it?
What do you think multiple employee businesses would do if each employee cost them 7.5% less to pay? Would they hire more employees? Invest it as capital? Save it?
Do you know how many times Social Security tax rates have been raised? Do you know what the original percentage the Social Security tax was, and where the income cut off was placed?
And if you take money out of the hands of wealthier individuals, and give it to the poor what do they do with it (assume they have no drug habits)? Will they invest it, or will they spend it in the near term on consumable goods?
What will would a wealthy person have done with the income if the government had not taken it? Invested in a bank or business? Purchased consumable or durable goods?
How has Social Security affected the savings patterns of workers in the United States, both through loss of income and the suggestion that some or all of their retirement needs will be paid for by the state?
Finally, tgirsch, why do you define the income of the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid projects as "extra money"? Did this money *not* come from the private sector, and thus out of the income of private citizens?
As for the elderly being the poorest among the population in the 1930s, according to the US Census in 2000, the two youngest working age categories, 18 to 24 and 25 to 34, had higher numbers of people in poverty, AND a higher rate of poverty than the two oldest ages groups, 60- 64 and 65 and older. Since FICA taxes taper off after $87,000 (the Social Security tax cut-off), these FICA taxes affect lower income workers disproportionally. So younger workers, members of the poorest working age brackets, are being taxed to support senior citizens, who are substanially less poor than they are.
markm:
I see three problems with your ability to count to two. ;)
With respect to your first point, there's a tendency to remember the successes and forget the failures. At the sime time, I think you're comparing different eras that aren't necessarily fair to compare. Back when discrimination against Jews, the Irish, etc. was rampant, you didn't need much education at all to make a decent living. Unskilled labor was much more viable as a way to make a living than it was, say, four decades ago, and considerably less so now.
As to your second point, I don't think I'd agree with your "most" assessment there. To be sure, there are many who have behaviors not conducive to breaking the cycle, but I think you grossly underestimate the extent to which the deck remains stacked against them. And by "them" here, I'm not just referring to minorities, but to the urban poor as a group.
To the third of your two points, I question the extent to which this generally holds true. It may be anecdotally appealing, but again, how much of this is overemphasizing the successes while de-emphasizing the failures? Notice, also, the with good educations qualifier that Kevin uses in describing the black immigrant workforce that tends to succeed. Now contrast that against the urban black poor in this country, and take an honest look at how many of them really can get "a good education" even if they wanted to. That's another factor that is probably a post all to itself.
We (collectively) need to understand that these are highly complicated issues, and as Kevin points out, there is no silver bullet to fix them. We can have as many ivory tower blog discussions about the ins and outs of various points of view, but the reality out there is a lot more complex, generally speaking.
Eric:
And you have offered no evidence that Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid have hurt the economy -- just a bunch of anecdotal "ferinstances." So where does that leave us?
If modern history teaches us anything, the majority of the people would piss away that extra money. A few would save it or invest it wisely, but most would not. If you think even half of people would use the extra money (and that is the correct term -- people would have more in their pockets, according to you, without the tax than with it) to bolster their savings, I've got some Enron stock to sell you.
As for your senior citizen poverty stats, thank you for making my point for me. Do you seriously think that, were it not for social security, the young class would be less poor, while the seniors would be no less well-off? To what extent do you suppose the reduction in poverty in seniors is because of social security? And to what extent do you think poverty in the youth demographic is because of social security? I'd be willing to bet that social security has a lot more impact on the former than the latter.
"If modern history teaches us anything, the majority of the people would piss away that extra money."
So? It's their money.
"If you think even half of people would use the extra money (and that is the correct term -- people would have more in their pockets, according to you, without the tax than with it) to bolster their savings, I've got some Enron stock to sell you."
Again, SO??
Kevin:
And this is where we're going to differ. You don't perceive a greater concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands -- which is inevitably what would happen without a social safety net -- as a problem. I do. And this is where libertarians and, well, the rest of us, will simply never agree. Libertarians want to put all the focus on "personal responsibility" (a noble enough endeavor), but they do so to the exclusion of social responsibility.
In the Libertarian view, it's all about looking out for #1. Not speaking for anyone else but myself, I see the picture as a lot broader than that. You seem to see the increased poverty and crime that would come from this as being "someone else's" problem, where I tend to view it more collectively, and even admittedly somewhat selfishly. It benefits me to have a civil, stable society. To the extent that a social safety net helps provide this, it benefits me indirectly, even if I don't directly receive medicare or a welfare check.
Of course, it would help if we had a convenient counterexample we could examine. Some "country X" that we could point to that has a diverse mix of races, and of urban/rural populations, but has little or no such safety net, to compare against how WE do. But I'm not aware of any such example, so the best we can do is speculate.
Tgirsch, I think I'm going to get another Den Bestian-length essay out of this comment thread.
tgirsch, yous eem to believe that since the elderly *used* to be the poorest segment of our population, it is ok to tax away 15% of the income of the *currently* poorest working Americans, and then give it to the elderly.
How are these people going to "piss away that extra money"? In the first place, the money IS NOT EXTRA. It did not fall from the sky out of a passing UFO. It came out of the paychecks of millions of Americans, who worked HARD to earn it. Second, how do you "piss away" money? You could burn it I suppose, but that is criminal for you and me. If they spend it at McDonald's, it goes to the economy. If they spend it at Amazon, it goes in the economy. If they buy cars, it goes into the economy. And *gasp* if the workers put that money in the bank, or the stock market, it goes into the economy.
My point was this: The people who recieve they checks from the government will *at best* "piss away" those dollars the same as the men and women who earned them. If they do not spend it on crack, or meth, or other drugs, they will spend it on groceries, cars, or rent. But whereas the people who *worked* for the money have to *work* to earn more to replace that money they 'piss(ed) away", the people collecting government checks, can sit around and do nothing, and then get another check. There is no incentive for hard work, or personal responsibility.
You seem to believe that the presence of the "social safety net" benefits you. How does the welfare state as it exists today make our society "civil" or "stable"? Are the people getting the checks more "civil" than the rest of us? Mr. Baker's statistics seem to suggest not.
And how does having a system in which the government takes money from one group, under threat of force, and gives it to another group make our society more "civil" or "stable"?
*If* the Social Security plan involved taking money out of people's pockets, and putting it in a box to give to them for their retirement, then maybe your "piss away" comment *might* have merit. But the Social Security system has *never* been that, nor will it become that as long as Congress fights to keep it in current form.
And, in case you were curious, since 1935 the Social Security tax rate has increased, in 20 steps, from 2% of the first $3000 in wages, to 12.4% of the first $87000. According to Inflationdata.com the inflation rate from January 1935 to January 2005 was 1302.21%. So $3000 in 1935 equals $39,066.30 in 2005. So, over 70 years, the Government increased the maximum amount of private income consumed (in 2005 dollars) from $781.33 to $10,788, or an increase of 13.8 times. And you appear to have no problem with this.
You appear to think the government consuming THAT much personal income, on TOP of sales, income, property, capital gains, and inheritance taxes is appropriate. You appear think that the results of the Social security system justify that level of forcible income redistribution. If I am wrong, then please point out where my error was, otherwise I have nothing else to say to you.
Again, Kevin, it was a well thought out and eloquent essay.
MarkM:
"It's forty-some years after equality became the law nationwide; blaming your poverty on discrimination against your father or grandfather is questionable, but unless something changes, in 30 more years the cities will still be full of unemployable, often drug-addicted, young black men, and no one will believe them when they blame their poverty on the disadvantages their greatgrandparents faced."
Wanna bet?
It will continue to be used as a powerful political resource to cultivate and maintain the poor in the belief that their poverty is all the result of external forces.
That is WHY we still have largely black generational urban poverty.
Regards;
tgirsch, you asserted that blacks are violent because they are poor. Does it occur to you that they are both poor and violent for the same reason? That their poverty is a reflection of their values? If wealth was the mitigating factor, then why is there so much violence and animosity in the hip hop entertainment community with all its wealth and success? Can you think of any reason why there are so many casualties amongst rap stars and their entourages, as opposed to, say, country music or pop stars?
Notice, also, the with good educations qualifier that Kevin uses in describing the black immigrant workforce that tends to succeed.
IIRC the black immigrant work force that tends to succeed doesn't arrive here educated. They become educated. More often, the first generation works its buns off to educate the second generation. West Indian immigrants as a group don't share the problems of poverty and crime with American blacks -- in fact, as a group they earn as much as whites -- and the reason for this is entirely cultural. They have a much different work ethic than American blacks -- does anyone remember the jokes about them on In Living Color with their multitudes of jobs? And whereas American blacks tend toward conspicuous consumption, West Indians put their money into real estate, opening businesses, and investing. They also have a different attitude towards other races, particularly whites, and tend to integrate much better.
Kevin,
The culture of American blacks is the result of a history of abuse and manipulation that would make any group dysfunctional.
Yet West Indians in America are able to function quite well in spite of the legacy of slavery. Nevertheless, by the 1960s, the effect of this history was becoming moot as blacks in America were surpassing every other group in terms of moving out of poverty. Then the Left swooped in with their social engineering experiments and set the course in reverse. What we see in the inner cities today is a direct product of this tinkering.
Sarah:
Nevertheless, by the 1960s, the effect of this history was becoming moot as blacks in America were surpassing every other group in terms of moving out of poverty. Then the Left swooped in with their social engineering experiments and set the course in reverse. What we see in the inner cities today is a direct product of this tinkering.
Well, yes:
When things finally started to improve socially, the intellegentsia stepped in and threw a monkey wrench into an already damaged mechanism - with the best of (stated) intentions.
I believe I said that.
Thank you! Excellent post, You have consolidated several thoughts that I have been working out for years.
One area that you touched on in the difference in immigrant cultures and resident generational poverty culture is in motivation. Immigrants rise from poverty for the same reasons that they were motivated to come here in the first place. Providing a better life for themselves and their children, in most cases. The idea of sacrificing immediate gratification to save or send their kids to better schools, to spend time doing homework with them, being active in their lives, is the exact opposite of the urban ghetto lifestyle you describe. Family values that are scoffed at as old fashioned, are the building blocks that keep societies growing.
Thanks again,
U hubona
Kevin: Oops. I only had time to skim your post.
Kevin, I have to concur with the other commenters here: this is an excellent piece of work, sharp, cogent, and definitely on the money. It surprises me, as it did one of your previous commenters, that none of the commenters brought up the work that Daniel Patrick Moynihan did on this subject in the 1960’s, work that showed Moynihan to be the American equivalent of the mythological Cassandra, telling those in power the somber truth they do not want to hear or believe. Nor has anyone brought up Myron Magnet’s work, The Dream and the Nightmare, a detailed look at the poisoned legacy of Sixties liberalism and its effects on the culture of the American inner city. I think, though, that Moynihan would be the first to point out that the welfare state, as such, is not the creator of the problems of the underclass; it is an enabler of an already existing pathology.
In the nineteenth century the welfare state did not exist, and yet many of the same pathologies we see today among the black urban underclass existed among the famine Irish. Under the burden of mass starvation, emigration under the most horrific of conditions, and the societal dislocation of a peasant agricultural people without any urban job skills tossed suddenly into a whole new economic and social culture, the Irish family disintegrated; fathers abandoned their wives and children, mothers put their children out to work when they still very young, crime and violence in the Eastern Seaboard cities skyrocketed as the young Irish turned on each other and on native American gangs. What saved the Irish from a never-ending cycle of despair was the one Irish institution that most native Americans loathed to the depths of their beings: the Roman Catholic Church. The church, led by such men as Archbishop Hughes of New York, got the Irish back into the church, got them back to accepting personal responsibility for their actions, and, in many cases, got them back to work.
Preaching the social gospel is all well and good, but clearly a gospel that concentrates on society’s obligations to the poor and downtrodden without requiring some small level of personal responsibility on the part of those people is clearly unbalanced. Blacks are among the most religious people in this country, but when was the last time anyone has heard of a prominent black minister reminding their congregations that the sort of if it feels good do it sexuality promoted in the media and practiced by many in their flocks is sinful, and therefore good Christians should avoid this behavior lest they endanger their immortal souls? No one wants to sound like an old prude, and I imagine that many black ministers do not want to alienate the people in the pews, many of whom engage in just this sort of behavior, but what good is a pastor who will not warn his flock that what they are doing is, first, wicked in the sight of God, and second, a sure path to never-ending and ultimately humiliating dependency on the state
"If modern history teaches us anything, the majority of the people would piss away that extra money."
Game. Set. Match.
That, right there is the fundamental paradigm that tgirsch can't conceive of changing.
That it's someone's ability, duty, and dammit, their RIGHT to determine where the fruit of THEIR labor goes.
That the "Smart" people can determine that far "better" than the people who will "piss away" their money.
Well, TG - In a compound word, BS.
Look at what happens when you set up those systems. You want to talk to me of pissing away money? Let's discuss Social Security. Not the program, the bureacracy. But *after* we tackle Medicaid. Which has more people shuffling paper than see patients. Or, how about we discuss other countries efforts? The Canadian $2M Gun Registry that would be paid for with a small additional tax, and 10 years later, is over the $2B CDN mark.
*THAT* is _pissing away_ money.
Want to look at the relative efficiency of Wal-Mart versus FEMA in getting assistance to Katrina victims?
Sorry, it's a loaded question. Of course you wouldn't.
But thanks for being honest. I don't mean that sarcastically, I'm fully, totally serious. I know you were honest with that comment, and I for one, appreciate it.
It's going to cause you problems, and I'm sure you see that - but that's why I distrust "Liberals/Democrats" - they're not honest up front about what their goals are, what they believe, and wink wink nudge nudge, we'll do it our way later.
This way at least, we can have an honest discussion.
Dammit, Addison, don't preempt my next essay!! ;-)
Eric:
It is "extra" take-home money, something which should have been clear in context. You see, in English, words can have many meanings, and zeroing in on one to the exclusion of all others is silly. But somehow, that's what you want to do with the word "extra" in this case. So the next time I temporarily lower my 401(k) contribution so I'll have some "extra" spending money in my pocket that pay period, I'll think of you, and remember that it's wholly inappropriate for me to use the word "extra" in that context.
Sheesh!
Now if you want to discuss social security, that's fine, but we'd be way the hell off-topic. Long ago I blogged about it, if you're interested in seeing where I stand on it.
By the way, for all your griping about my misuse (in your opinion) of the word "extra," you cite specific numbers which turn out to be wrong. For starters, the cap number you cite dates back to 2004. In 2006, the cap is $94,200. Also, your inflation figures aren't terribly meaningful, given that you're trying to compare eras that aren't easily compared and that cost-of-living and inflation aren't the same thing. For example, how many families owned cars in 1935 (or even needed to) as opposed to now? (And notice that the more luxurious, two-car standard came about despite the horrible drain the social safety net supposedly creates; boy are we ever collectively suffering!)
Addison:
If we were talking strictly about people making bad decisions and suffering for them, I'd be inclined to agree. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking, in many cases, about parents whose children in many cases will be poor, neglected, and disadvantaged through no fault of their own. I'll be the first to admit that "liberal" solutions don't do as good a job as they could here, but it beats the holy shit out of doing nothing. And last I checked, we as a nation could afford it.
Oh, horseshit. This isn't about smart/dumb, it's about strength in numbers. Pooling our resources together for common good is eminently reasonable, and we do it all the time. Unless, of course, you're bitter about those "smart" people who think it would be "better" if we all chipped in to have things like a fire department, a police force, and a world-class military.
A whole 'nother tangent, there. FEMA had actually grown into a highly-effective disaster relief organization until Bush 43 gutted it.
But again, this gets us back to our fundamental difference: given the choice between an ounce of prevention and a pound of cure, you prefer the pound of cure.
Yeah, because "Conservatives/Republicans" are oh-so-up-front about their goals. Just for example, if you think any of the administration's Social Security "reform" proposals were really intended to "ensure the long-term solvency of the system," I've got a great lead on a Nigerian foreign minister who needs to shelter some money...
While we're on the subject of honest discussions, let's be frank about what most opponents of the social safety net are really after. Most of them don't believe that gutting such programs would truly make the country a better place; they just think that doing so would make things better for them.
That's where I agree with Dr. Biobrain and his commenters, who point out that a lot of Libertarianism is just a search for philosophical justification for selfishness.
Sarah:
Well, perhaps, but isn't that a bit like saying that Vonage is growing exponentially faster than AT&T?
"We're talking, in many cases, about parents whose children in many cases will be poor, neglected, and disadvantaged through no fault of their own."
I believe that the _accepted_ shorthand for that is "IT'S FOR THE CHIIIILLLLLLLDDDDDDRREEEENNNN!!!" Please stick to the Approved Lefty Screaming Points, it'll make things simpler.
"Oh, horseshit. This isn't about smart/dumb, it's about strength in numbers."
Yes, it *is* about smart/dumb.
You're the one who said that we are too stupid to know how best to handle our money. That's what "Pissing it away" _means_.
See, (Sorry, Kevin. :) ) words have MEANINGS. When you say "They'd just piss it away" that MEANS "They're too stupid to spend it smartly". There is no other reasonable interpretation.
It's NOT about pooling resources. At least not according to you. People don't choose between paying for the fire department or buying beer. That's the strawman you're trying to set on fire to not discuss what you just said.
"A whole 'nother tangent, there. FEMA had actually grown into a highly-effective disaster relief organization until Bush 43 gutted it"
That is a bald-faced, unsupportable lie. Wait, wait, wait, let me take this back. This might get interesting. Define what you're using as a MEANING of "effective". And define "effective" operations they relieved. We'll see if I had personal experience with the one you're referring to. :)
"While we're on the subject of honest discussions, let's be frank about what most opponents of the social safety net are really after. Most of them don't believe that gutting such programs would truly make the country a better place; they just think that doing so would make things better for them."
That's your strawman. And you're already trying to deny saying what you said, that's your veracity problem, not mine. (I'll hold off on the FEMA until you give concrete examples)
You're projecting. I want the system to work well for me, of course. Because that will work better for *everyone*. That's my belief.
Kevin just detailed the massive problems with the handout system, the social services, how it's *not* fixed. And your reply is "Oh, you're just selfish! You can afford to give the money! Besides, you'd just WASTE it anyway, you idiot!"
Now, I'm sure - and again, I'm serious - that you believe that your way is better. You're not merely being selfish.
Why is it you refuse to extend that same belief and respect?
"Well, perhaps, but isn't that a bit like saying that Vonage is growing exponentially faster than AT&T?"
And if a change in the laws and environment occurs, and Vonage drops dramatically......
You know, you really need to go back, and re-read Kevin's piece.
"(And notice that the more luxurious, two-car standard came about despite the horrible drain the social safety net supposedly creates; boy are we ever collectively suffering!)"
When I worked for AmEx, they kept touting how great we were growing. 4%! 6% Almost 8%!!
At the time, the Dot-Com was booming, and Visa and MC were seeing 10-50% growth rates.
Given your rationale, since things were better (there was growth), things were good. But it ignores how much better things MIGHT have been.
We've gotten to the point where almost everyone can afford a car not because of the "drain of the social safety net" but literally, in spite of it. (And most social planners are trying to get the oldest/cheapest cars outlawed).
Think where we might be without that much lost productivity and drain.
Well, perhaps, but isn't that a bit like saying that Vonage is growing exponentially faster than AT&T?
Geez frickin' Louise, leave it to a leftist to find fault with improvement. Should blacks have instantaneously leapt out of poverty and arrived at success and wealth without passing through all points in between? Had it not been for the social experiments of the Left, one can imagine where two generations of continuous improvement would have gotten blacks today.
Sarah:
Government wasn't involved in that improvement. There was no "great vision" behind it. Therefore it doesn't really matter.
Right, Kevin. Nor can government be blamed for its failure, since it was well-intended.
The philosophy cannot be wrong! If the action failed, it must have been due to improper implementation.
We must do it again, only harder!
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Title: Strategy of Culture and History
Excerpt: I recently wrote on the subject of groups in a rather non-specific and general way. Kevin Baker writing at The Smallest Minority has finally posted his latest essay on the same subject though in a very specific and detailed manner (as is his usual pr...
Blog name: The Warrior Class Blog
Kevin:
No, no. no.
The LAST guys who did it DIDN'T HAVE THE VISION.
They weren't DEDICATED enough.
They didn't BELIEVE.
We've fixed it this time. We really, really really believe! We won't fail, even if it kills you!
Ok, I was being able to keep my brains from oozing out my ears until that one.
If I voluntarily make a change in the amount of money I use for one thing (in his case, a 401K contrribution), in order to use it elsewhere, then yes, THAT would be considered "Extra" money.
However, if a business is paying "Protection" money to a local crime boss, and all of a sudden he has a radical life change and stops making them pay "Protection", how exactly does that equate to "Extra" money? He didn't have a right to that money in the first place! So the implication is that if I'm not robbed, I have "Extra" money!
We've fixed it this time. We really, really really believe! We won't fail, even if it kills you!
Indeed, Addison. You've got to marvel at that kind of dogged devotion to failed ideas.
You've also got to marvel at the hypocrisy. You notice how the standard of perfection only applies to ideas the Left doesn't like? A single lost life isn't worth the burden of an armed populace or spreading democracy around the world, but if untold numbers suffer and die while the Left tries to figure out how to work this collectivist thing, well... oops.
Addison:
Excellent dodge. Much easier to accuse me of using a talking point than to actually deal with the problem, after all.
Not all of us, but many of us. Others would simply get unlucky, and lose money (rather than make it) in their investments through no fault of their own (see S&L collapse, Enron, etc.). Still others wouldn't get enough extra from the "savings" to make a significant difference. You're right in pointing out that "pissing away" was an exceptionally poor choice of words. But my point is that the safety net is there for a lot of reasons not involving failure to plan or irresponsibility on the part of individuals.
You, on the other hand, seem to prefer Social Darwinism, an idea that I (naively) thought was dead and buried. (Of course, I may be dead wrong about this, but given your refusal to address what, if anything, ought to be done for those who fall behind, especially those who do so through no fault of their own, I'm forced to make that assumption.)
As for FEMA, I suggest you look at the history of the organization under James Lee Witt -- the only director in the organization's history to have any significant disaster management experience -- and specifically his Project Impact initiative. (It was cut in 2001 by President Bush).
Albeit an ill-founded one. Of course, you could prove me wrong simply by pointing me to an example of where it has ever worked on anything approaching a large scale.
Well, yes and no. Kevin gave a bunch of anecdotes and ferinstances, but didn't build anything close to a compelling case. In fact, I'd wager that it would convince very few people who didn't already agree with him to begin with. Especially considering that according to his logic, the "hand out" program magically only (or, at least, vastly disproportionately) hurt poor urban blacks while somehow not having the same effect on anyone else.
Point taken, and apologies. My perceptions are clearly colored by past experiences with libertarian-types who want all the benefits of living in a civil society without having to pay for any of it, and without feeling any responsibility to help maintain it. To the extent that I've projected that prejudice onto you, I apologize.
What can I say, other than that I disagree? But here we're dealing with conflicting underlying assumptions. I assume that the safety net serves to level the playing field somewhat, and that without it there would be a great deal more concentration of wealth in fewer hands -- essentially, we'd have a plutocratic oligarchy (to an extent, I'd argue we already have that, but I suggest it would be far more dramatic). You seem to assume (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that without the drain of the safety net, the market would provide and everyone would be better for it.
I'm sorry, but I just don't see that. In fact, if history has taught us anything, it's without some measure of control, the market leads to robber-barons.
Sarah:
Which ignores the fact that most of the country had to be forced kicking and screaming into providing some sort of equality. By whom? Oh yeah, the EEEEEVIL federal government. Damn them!
The fact is, you (and Kevin and others) assume that blacks would be better off were it not for such social programs, but you provide absolutely no evidence to back this up. Sorry, but the plural of "anecdote" is not data. To be fair, I haven't provided any evidence to show that they would be worse off, but then the burden of proof is (or ought to be) on those who would change the status quo, not those who would preserve it.
Kevin:
At this rate, I'm going to buy straw futures. (Although I suppose over-generalization isn't exactly a straw man...)
WayneB:
Taxes are like a mafia protection racket? Sheesh! No wonder you can't get libertarians elected to any office of note...
TG:
"As for FEMA, I suggest you look at the history of the organization under James Lee Witt -- the only director in the organization's history to have any significant disaster management experience -- and specifically his Project Impact initiative. (It was cut in 2001 by President Bush)."
Yes, but I asked you for _specific_ examples to back up your assertation. I had personal experience with FEMA (and their response) (prior to 2001), on 4 occasions. None of which were noticeably positive. It would be very instructive if one of your examples was one I was involved with. So I'd still like you to be more specific. I've not noticed that post-2001 that it was substantially different. Other than post-Katrina FEMA is now gearing up to be first-responders.
And as per Kevin's opus - it's going to be worse. In my opinion, of course.
You used 2 examples of things that caused people "through no fault of their own" to fall behind. S&L and Enron.
Both of those "disasters" were a _response_ to the "intellegentsia"'s best laid plans. And the "disaster" of Enron was the retirement fund that had invested in Enron stock... Those people who had taken the initiative and diversified, weren't crushed. The ones who trusted in the "experts"... Again, back to Kevin's main point.
What to do for people who "fall behind"? That's a much longer subject. And it's one that depends a *lot* on *definitions*. How do you define "fall behind"? At what point do you get to say that I'm pissing away my money, and take it away from me for my own good?
But Kevin's entire point - the current welfare/goverment "we're here to help you" is doing the exact opposite". I find little to debate.
"Of course, you could prove me wrong simply by pointing me to an example of where it has ever worked on anything approaching a large scale."
*boggle*. TG, obviously, the gulf is huge between us. Have you never heard of oh, Dave Thomas? Or Ross Perot? (For the sake of this discussion, we'll just discuss his prior-to-politics rise to the top). Heck, what about the entire US? People who went into the wilderness, and built the do-it-yourself spirit that you say is outmoded and selfish?
"Especially considering that according to his logic, the "hand out" program magically only (or, at least, vastly disproportionately) hurt poor urban blacks while somehow not having the same effect on anyone else."
Oh, if that's what you took away, someone missed something.
I can attest to the same problem(s) being prevalent in all races who fall into the welfare dependancy "system". But it's the black community that's loudly outspoken, and insisting on increasing the same system that's causing the problem. Other than West Virginia, you don't see this for white trash, for instance. (have to toss a shot at Byrd in, I can't resist)
It *does* have that same effect on everyone who it touches.
As to the changes - give me a day or two, I'll try and get back with some data for you as to the total evisceration of the black-owned businesses circa from the early 60s. The black business owners I know _Noticed It In A Big Way_, I've read several articles detailing it. Let me see if I can find them.
Shorter Kevin (And Addison):
The 8 most feared words in the English Language:
We're from the Government, We're here to help!
Kevin:
Another technical error I noticed:
Actually, 43.5% for Hispanics, according to that report.
In any case, my rebuttal (such as it is) is finally up.
Addison:Gee, I guess I didn't realize they got to bypass safety net taxes. Seriously, how the hell do they matter? I'm not talking about individuals as "large scale examples," I'm talking about modern societies.It does? It touches virtually everyone: everyone who either recieves its benefits or pays taxes to support it, anyway. And yet in spite of this, we've managed to be one of the most prosperous and desirable nations in the world, and we've managed to do so with one of the lowest effective tax rates in the Western world. That doesn't sound like tremendous harm to me.
I know, I know, in Libertarian Fantasy Land (tm), we could be even more prosperous without it! But if there were a Pascal's Wager of Economics, it would be that it's better to continue succeeding with the safety net than to risk failing without it. (No, I'm not really a fan of Pascal's Wager.)
While we're digging for references, I'll see if I can find an article I saw where a pro-globalization, pro-free-trade type made the argument (effectively, in my opinion) that deregulation, free trade, and globalization make the job market less stable, and that therefore the social safety net needs to be buttressed rather than gutted. It struck me as odd because it was basically a libertarian-type who was making this argument.
Addison:
One more note: Perhaps I'm wrong, but Kevin doesn't seem to be arguing that the "welfare state" impacts everyone it touches evenly, but that it harms African-American culture disproportionately, and that this is part of why homicide is so prevalent among the young African-American population.
Which ignores the fact that most of the country had to be forced kicking and screaming into providing some sort of equality. By whom? Oh yeah, the EEEEEVIL federal government. Damn them!
OK, we're talking about the civil rights laws here. But the truth is that, in the struggle for equality, government did squat. What was happening at that time was a gradual transition of the white Southern culture into the dominant Northern culture of freedom. These two cultures are so opposed to one another, that Southern whites were basically immigrants in their own land after the Civil War. Now, acculturation is terribly difficult. It's just a nasty, horrible struggle, and it takes a long time. The Southern whites had to lose their culture of slavery, and this took three or four generations to happen. The point at which the old Southern culture in America was finally thrown off, allowing the civil rights movement to happen, was the late 50s/early 60s. If the Southern whites had had the immediate post-Civil War level of culture at that time, the civil rights movement would not have happened. The equality movement was the result a natural process of acculturation, and the gradual dying out of the old, defeated culture. It was not a result of government, but a result of the courage of the civil rights movement leaders (which you seem willing to sell short) and the readiness of the rest of the country to accept this equality. The civil rights movement was the final and overdue completion of the American Revolution, and the final triumph of freedom. The federal government just jumped on the bandwagon. And, in fact, you can see where federal government tried to force things on people that they weren't ready for, like forced busing, Brown vs. the board of education. Horrible failure. Catastrophic. Black children today get a horrible education and are trapped in a totally dysfunctional system, because the forced busing of white children was a major factor of white flight to the suburbs. The government did squat to provide equality. We have equality because the American people wanted change, they were ready for change, and wanted the freedom and political equality for all Americans.
The fact is, you (and Kevin and others) assume that blacks would be better off were it not for such social programs, but you provide absolutely no evidence to back this up.
I know for a fact blacks would be better off were it not for social programs, because that is the proof of history. In all the decades and generations of immigrants coming to America, no matter how poor or uneducated, every one of those groups of immigrants went into the major cities of the U.S. and emerged, one-to-three generations later, prosperous and integrated. Our first permanent urban underclass did not develop until the federal government had the power and desire to do something about discrimination and equality. The end result is that blacks (and now some hispanics) are now a permanent urban underclass, the first one in the history of America. That's what government intervention has caused. It's a complete disaster and reversal of the very successful American melting pot, which worked wonderfully for hundreds of years.
As a black woman who sees the effects of liberalism, welfare and maladjusted black culture I have to say Kevin that you are spot on in your analysis. Too bad liberals refuse to see this.
TG:
"Gee, I guess I didn't realize they got to bypass safety net taxes. Seriously, how the hell do they matter? I'm not talking about individuals as "large scale examples," I'm talking about modern societies."
What does bypassing safety net taxes have to do with anything? They're guys who, without safety net _assistance_, went from nothing to everything. Rags to riches, as the old saying goes. Instead of sitting back, and collecting a check, merely for being there, and not making enough/not having education (Thomas), or the like.
Modern societies? Since you won't take the US as a good example, how about, oh, Hong Kong (even today, but more true before Chinese takeover)? Compare HK to the Chinese areas around it, notice a big difference in quality of life, goods, services?
Now, the Chinese government areas were *far* more *uniform* - uniformly poor. Despite the people being identical, the Chinese areas having "better education", and more "social programs".
Or, take Taiwan. Which during it's most booming years in the 60s and 70s was a dictatorship. (Thus, it can be compared more evenly with say, China, North Korea, Vietnam) Which had (and has) close to no natural resources, none of the benefits that most people wave dismissively at the United States experiment. (The land, the lack of population, the resources, the variance in climate, allowing for varied enterprises)
But they built an economic powerhouse, not based on government handouts, but on building "greedy" companies. Both those examples are stars in the Asian economic sphere, without the problems of considering say, Japan (which was defended by the US, thus able to roll more of their own money into the economy).
It's countered by the welfare states of France and Germany. In the US, the press castigates Bush mercilessly for a 5% unemployment rate. (Which was considered structural by the press when Clinton had 5.5%). Germany, in boom times, never sees less than 9%. (Even prior to reunification. I've not seen stats on the French level, but I wouldn't believe them if they stated them lower.
And I don't mean to be nasty about it, but I *am* going to be picky about the FEMA comment you made. Either you need to retract that it was well run before Bush, or provide concrete examples of something being well run. If it was just the usual gratitious Bush-bashing, well, that's fine, but please admit it, or retract your prior statement, at least. (Or give me an example of how "FEMA had actually grown into a highly-effective disaster relief organization until Bush 43 gutted it."
Cause that doesn't tally with *my* professional or personal experience with FEMA in the late 90s. And I'd like to see what you're using as an example, and what your definition is. (It's entirely possible that your viewpoint and mine are both correct, and opposed to each other, depending on what you were expecting, versus my expectations, after all).
"Perhaps I'm wrong, but Kevin doesn't seem to be arguing that the "welfare state" impacts everyone it touches evenly, but that it harms African-American culture disproportionately, and that this is part of why homicide is so prevalent among the young African-American population."
I believe he handled that well in the original post - and explained his hypothesis why, quite well. It's not *just* the "safety net", but it's combination of history, expectation, and "leaders".
"But if there were a Pascal's Wager of Economics, it would be that it's better to continue succeeding with the safety net than to risk failing without it."
And if the safety net you laud is part of the entire cultural problem that's creating areas in the US that are blighted, that are hellholes of crime, and corruption, you consider this *good*?
See, that's where we differ, in a big way. I look at the problems, and say "There *has* to be a better way". You're looking at them and saying "Hey! Look how good the rest of us have it".
Well, true, we *do* have it pretty good, despite those problems.
But I don't think contributing to the CULTURE of the biggest problem we have, abandoning people due to the misfortune of being born into the hellhole is, overall, a good thing, or even, a liberal idea. The point is to *decrease* suffering as much as possible, not shift it somewhere else, and pat ourselves on the back. In my opinion, of course.
I'm not _against_ some safety nets, either. But you have to be aware of 1) what they're intended to save you from, and 2) what they're being used to "save" you from. 3) If it's still a problem.
Reminder: "Welfare" (AFDC) was started because widowed women were by and large unable to work at _all_. This was prior to WWII, before Rosie the Riveter, and if you weren't a teacher, and you weren't a nurse, by and large, you were screwed if you didn't have a male bringing home the bacon. And there were lots of widows (single mothers didn't factor into this, at the time, heavens, forbid), who were basically wards of Churches, or soup kitchens. Who's going to object to making sure that the widow - and especially the child - are incapable of living, and going to school?
And what did it _turn into_? Was AFDC in 1997 when Clinton's reforms ended that specific program (by name, and put time limits on replacements, and conditions) in any way, shape, or form, what was proposed, debated, specified, and enacted? Or was it a part of what Kevin's describing as part of the Cultural problem?
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