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Julian Sanchez | October 18, 2005

Cathy Young suggests that if we don't like to talk about poverty in America, maybe it's because nobody's favorite political platitudes are very good at solving it.

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|10.18.05 @ 9:58AM|#

In some poor neighborhoods, being a drug dealer is a source of higher status than working in a legitimate job.

Well, given the amount of money to be made....

|10.18.05 @ 10:01AM|#

thoreau,

Most drug dealers don't make much over minimum wage.

|10.18.05 @ 10:02AM|#

Er, broken link?

|10.18.05 @ 10:03AM|#

There's a logical fallacy at the heart of this piece; that if poverty isn't a consequence of having too little money (as Young phrases the leftist argument), then all we are left with is "culture" (defined as work habits, discipline, general interest in and knowledge of being a working person). She cites, as evidence of this, the fact that poverty is often generational in some urban black communities.

What this leaves out is the question of opportunity. How many high-paying jobs do you think there are in Detroit? Or, if the daughter of a cleaning lady who can just barely pay the rent leaves school at 14 to help her mother at work and put food on the table, she is likely to end up in poverty as an adult, regardless of how hard she works and her "cultural" orientation towards employment.

|10.18.05 @ 10:04AM|#

According to a survey of drug dealers' tax returns, Hakluyt is right.

Timothy|10.18.05 @ 10:16AM|#

Link no worky for me.

|10.18.05 @ 10:18AM|#

Some of the worst racial animosity I have seen where I work has been between African immigrants and native born African-Americans. The Americans have said that the Africans are rude (anti-social, not saying "hello" etc..) and they have been accused of "Tomming" pretty regularly. That they tend to speak english without relying on colloquialisms and slang deepens the divide.
On the other side, I have seen the Africans give voice to attitudes that would shock a klansman. It's all been very interesting to an outside observer like me.

|10.18.05 @ 10:27AM|#

joe,

I'd rather think that its a fallacy to believe that there is some magical way to create high paying jobs that will somehow find their way to the poor. Its not the high paying jobs that spring people out of the cycle of poverty - its often one generation making huge sacrifices such as working multiple jobs and well over 40 or even 80 hours a week at crap jobs just to make sure that they can put their kids into and through college and make sure that they have a better life.

That's how the poverty cycle really ends. When immigrants come here, they are willing to (and many times have to) work those kinds of conditions so that they can do the things that often are needed in order for their kids to get a jumpstart on climbing the socioeconomic ladder.

However, when you are 'stuck' in that cycle on a multi-generational level- you do just what you have to do to make it by, and your kids end up having to do the same and their kids and their kids.. etc etc..

And that's where at least partially that old 'conservative' argument comes in - if you make someone just comfortable enough so that they are docile and accepting of their situation - they have much less incentive to change their (or their child's) life's course. Which isn't to judge the morality or intentions of the current system, that's just the way that human nature is..

|10.18.05 @ 10:29AM|#

. Poverty is based on class. Those of higher classes� generally have fewer children than those of the lower classes. As time goes on, the stratification increases and the poverty becomes institutionalized. One thing my dad used to say was, �Poor in hope is the true poverty of the working man�. I think that is a direct quote. He was drunk a lot when mom was pregnant. He said we were all bastards but he insisted that we call him� Dad�.

|10.18.05 @ 10:35AM|#

>>>Most drug dealers don't make much over minimum wage.

Hakluyt,

are you kidding? Averaging salary over a 40hr work week/year?

|10.18.05 @ 10:37AM|#

cjp,

The economists who have done research in this area demonstrate this claim.

Matt,

No, I am not kidding.

fyodor|10.18.05 @ 10:40AM|#

joe

There's a logical fallacy at the heart of this piece; that if poverty isn't a consequence of having too little money (as Young phrases the leftist argument), then all we are left with is "culture"

I don't think Young is framing the issue that way per se. She's only comparing two explanations given by opposites sides of the political spectrum. Whether she's representing those different sides accurately or exhaustively may be open to criticism, but I don't think she's saying that because one is false the other must be true. I don't see her saying that at all.

Regarding your point of opportunity, that is clearly a common leftist argument, and maybe Young didn't address that directly or adequately. But it just so happens that that argument is countered to a large degree by the counter-example of the experience of immigrants that Young brought up. I don't see why immigrants who come here with very little and locate in the same places as the entrenched poor would have any greater opportunity than those entrenched poor. Yet according to Young, they do improve their lives before very long. That would seem to suggest there's something other than mere differential ease of opportunity going on.

|10.18.05 @ 10:43AM|#

I'm really going to come off as a right-wing nut here, but what the fuck is "poverty", anyway? "Poverty", to me, means no ACCESS to running water, electricity, and food. I may be totally wrong, but I don't see a lot of that in this country.

Is it possible for a person in "poverty" have a big-screen TV, a car in the garage, and wear expensive clothes?

|10.18.05 @ 10:47AM|#

fyodor, I think Young's "criticism" of the rightist argument - that it's true, but we should be compassionate and sensitive when making it - pretty clearly shows that she's going beyond merely "he said she said."

Also, the immigrants coming into this country largely aren't settling in the area with large amounts of generational poverty. Very few of them, for example, are moving into public housing projects in urban renewed neighborhoods, or into the most troubled rust belt cities, or into Appalacia or Indian reservations. Not all poor neighborhoods are the same.

fyodor|10.18.05 @ 10:50AM|#

Mr. Nice Guy,

I guess I'm one of the other heartless people who didn't notice shocking poverty in New Orleans. Now, the conditions left by Hurricane Katrina were shocking. That most of the people left behind were black reflecting their differential income levels is one of those sad "oh yeahs" though nothing most of us didn't really know. And if all the people left behind were there because they didn't own cars which was because they really couldn't afford one (as opposed to it not being a high priority cause they lived in a city), then yes that's quite surprising indeed. But offhand, I'm not aware of any shocking levels of poverty revealed by this.

|10.18.05 @ 10:50AM|#

I don't see why immigrants who come here with very little and locate in the same places as the entrenched poor would have any greater opportunity than those entrenched poor.

Hmmm . . . I would have to imagine that the fact that they aren't the entrenched poor, and are new to the area even while being colocated with the poor, would lead to their not feeling as constrained or circumscribed by the same conditions that have led the poor to perceiving -- real or not -- a lack of opportunities or hope. Shorter: Even if you live in the slums, if you're brand new in town, you might not have to feel like you belong there.

MNG: I understand where you're coming from, but limiting ourselves to a discussion of the U.S., I see no problem using "poverty" as shorthand for "having inadequate resources to meet all food, clothing and shelter needs, and inadequate access to the avenues needed to become less so."

|10.18.05 @ 10:54AM|#

"To discuss the culture of poverty is to tread on dangerous ground. One can easily come across as patronizing and condescending, as preaching to the poor from one's middle-class perch�or, worse yet, as bashing the poor for their lack of good character."

Cathy answered her own question as to why no one but idiots like Rangel, Jesse Jackson, and Hollywood celebrities talk about it.
Another reason is that, those of us old enough to remember Johnson's War on Poverty know that the US shot its wad, so to speak, then.

fyodor|10.18.05 @ 10:55AM|#

joe,

Yes, she's clearly more sympathetic to the rightist argument, but my point is that she's not using the logical phallacy that you attribute to her, that the rightist argument must be correct because the leftist one is not.

Regarding your second paragraph, that strikes me as a stretch. There's "generational poverty" in housing projects that have been around for 40 years but there's more opportunity in the poor neighborhoods into which immigrants move? I'm very skeptical, but I don't have the facts and figures to prove you wrong, so, whatever.

|10.18.05 @ 10:56AM|#

It occurs to me that I could provide a great illumination of both sides of this, using my sister and my wife as opposing examples, but they don't post here and it would be unfair to do that. But I can definitely see things from both sides.

fyodor|10.18.05 @ 10:58AM|#

Phil,

You make a good point. But that plays into the "culture of poverty" argument, that it's a matter of people's attitudes.

|10.18.05 @ 11:04AM|#

After the catastrophe in New Orleans, several conservative websites ran an article by Ayn Rand follower Robert Tracinski, who not only decried the effects of the welfare state but also referred to New Orleans's poor as ''sheep" and "parasites."

Those despicable Randroids.

Of course, Rand herself featured poor and working-class heroes in both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. But why let facts get in the way of a good caricature?

Yes, some people manage to overcome multiple social handicaps and break the cultural habits of their environment. But that takes extraordinary energy, determination, and self-sufficiency. Megan McArdle, an editor at The Economist, notes on her weblog, Asymmetrical Information, that while conservatives are right in many ways about the causes of poverty, they need to be less moralistic and "a lot more humble."

Does she mean the Megan McArdle editor at The Economist who runs the weblog Asymmetrical Information located at JANEGALT.net? How come McArdle isn't quoted as an "Ayn Rand follower"? Because she doesn't fit Cathy's caricatured image of what an "objectivist" is?

|10.18.05 @ 11:18AM|#

I think fyodor is right: the two sides don't have to be mutually exclusive.

My experience leads me to believe that the problem is currently culturally based. But that it is encouraged by certain other current issues (such as the one size fits all mentality of urban public schools).

Furthermore, you can't divorce the current culture from the past history of the United States. The story about immigrants cuts both ways - it also shows that it isn't the inherent culture of Africans that leads to the cyclical poverty of African Americans. Rather, it has something more to do with the "American" part of their history and culture. And it's not too hard to see that in the past, when a college educated african american was reduced to working as a day laborer alongside high-school dropout African Americans (due to outright, often state-sponsored racism) that education, and the drive to improve oneself, might start receiving less value in the culture. Add in the extra scorn and foul treatment the 'uppity' types received, with no recourse, and it is understandable that the culture has degenerative aspects.

That said, the answer of how to address it is not clear, other than the general reference that localized, voluntary associations always outperform centralized, bureaucratic, coercive measures at addressing social problems.

|10.18.05 @ 11:22AM|#

fyodor: You're right, and I believe that in many -- not all, but not a trivial number -- cases, it is indeed a matter of attitudes. I also believe there's a difference in the attitudes that develop from real barriers, and the ones that develop from perceived barriers that can be relatively easily overcome, too. Part of the way to help is to educate people on the difference between the former and the latter, and provide the roadmaps and in some cases the resources to overcome to overcome-able.

Going deeper, there's too often these days an attitude by family members that they shouldn't have to sacrifice anything in this generation for the next one to succeed. I'm going from personal experience here, as well as from a lot of cases I've been witness to.

|10.18.05 @ 11:28AM|#

Phil,

"I also believe there's a difference in the attitudes that develop from real barriers, and the ones that develop from perceived barriers that can be relatively easily overcome, too."

I think that, without the former, the latter would dry up and blow away. If you plop an assembly plant with 2000 $35k-$60k jobs on the edge of Gary, Indiana tomorrow, we'd be amazed at how quickly the local culture changed.

|10.18.05 @ 11:30AM|#

joe,

There is no reason to plop one there though. Gary, Indiana has nothing to offer a prospective employer.

|10.18.05 @ 11:36AM|#

Matt-

It's actually a little complicated with drug dealers. Many of them make very little, but there is the very real potential for big bucks, so they get into the business for a shot at the top. In Freakonomics they suggested that it isn't all that different from people who wait tables in LA while hoping to make it in show-biz.

So, given the amount of money that CAN be made, it seems that drug dealing is seen as a shot at the jackpot, and hence potentially glamorous.

Timothy|10.18.05 @ 11:38AM|#

Mr. Nice Guy:

"Poverty" is a loosely definied, usually comparative measure of "income distribution" used to make successful people feel guilty. There's little to no justification for it in microecnomics, although many normative economists will claim that it's possible to achieve a net utility gain by income transfer. A comprehensive overview of the normative approach can be found in Peter J. Lambert's book. Full Disclosure: I had him for a class on this material after he moved to Oregon, and I got an A despite fundamental disagreements with him over the moral obligation to change "income distribution" or the notion of "income distribution" in the first place. The book is great if you're interested in the material, but you'll need to know a little calculus. You can integrate-by-parts, right?

|10.18.05 @ 11:43AM|#

"So, given the amount of money that CAN be made, it seems that drug dealing is seen as a shot at the jackpot, and hence potentially glamorous"

Add in the fact that in many poor urban neighborhoods, the only person making any consistent money is the drug dealer - and he often has the status symbols to advertise it. Plus, the lifestyle is much more attractive - you are in essence an entrepreneur, setting your own hours, running the business in the way you want (with some concessions to the supplier). No getting up at 8 am and putting on a silly uniform. No having to deal with obnoxious retail customers or micromanaging bosses. No unpleasant tasks such as cleaning out the deep fryer. Most of all, no need to continue going to school to get the job.

It is a very complicated problem, as you say. But the answer to this particular problem IS fairly clear...

|10.18.05 @ 11:45AM|#

Hakluyt,

Just to be clear, I wasn't making a policy recommendation (we can't just be plopping unnecessary plants around just to create jobs), but an observation about the "culture" thesis.

Also, Gary has a waterfront location and an available workforce with knowledge of industrial practices. It is'nt what cities like Gary lack that's their biggest obstacle to attracting investement. It's the presence, real or perceived, of poverty, crime, and hopelessness.

|10.18.05 @ 11:46AM|#

"So, given the amount of money that CAN be made, it seems that drug dealing is seen as a shot at the jackpot, and hence potentially glamorous."

thoreau,
Yet another reason to be an anarchist, not to mention another reason for ending the WOD: When becoming a professional lawbreaker is "glamorous."

Do gummint-types got some 'splainin' to do, or what?

|10.18.05 @ 11:47AM|#

No, Joe, we likely wouldn't, because most of those jobs would go to people, from some distance away, who had already demonstrated a history of habitually showing up on time sober, and without a penchant for resisting taking orders from people above them up in a hierarchy.

Now, if the unemployment rate were virtually zero, even for minimum wage jobs, then the chronically unemployed in Gary may experience greater change, but as long as there is greater supply of workers for such high paying jobs, the chronically unemployed of Gary are very unlikely to see much benefit from such an employer, because such an employer is unlikely to give somebody without a work history a $40/hour job, when he can give it to somebody with a work history.

|10.18.05 @ 11:57AM|#

I think that, without the former, the latter would dry up and blow away. If you plop an assembly plant with 2000 $35k-$60k jobs on the edge of Gary, Indiana tomorrow, we'd be amazed at how quickly the local culture changed.

Short answer: Yes, with an "and." Long answer: No, with a "but." Which is to say that, even erasing the former, it does take some time for attitudes to trickle down and out to where the perceived barriers begin to topple under their own weight. And also for other cultural attitudes about success and advancement to change.

I'm thinking here of the idea that, even as people with newly available opportunities like you mention take advantage of them and lift their status a bit, and start to take on some status-signifiers (usually consumer goods), they might still harbor cultural biases that keep the next generation relatively locked into that status.

keith|10.18.05 @ 12:08PM|#

you are in essence an entrepreneur, setting your own hours, running the business in the way you want (with some concessions to the supplier). No getting up at 8 am and putting on a silly uniform. No having to deal with obnoxious retail customers or micromanaging bosses. No unpleasant tasks such as cleaning out the deep fryer. Most of all, no need to continue going to school to get the job.

You haven't met many low-level drug dealers, have you? They don't always set their own hours, they can't run the business the way they want (which, I assume, would be a lemonade-type stand with no police interference), and as for not having to deal with obnoxious customers -- have you seen some of the people who buy drugs? And no micromanaging bosses? No unpleasant tasks?

You may want to think a little deeper about the daily task of being a drug dealer, the people with whom they have to deal, and the tasks that go into it beyond handing some dude on the street a vial of crack.

-K

|10.18.05 @ 12:15PM|#

I'm a bit dubious about any blanket statements about the earnings of drug dealers--exactly where does one get accurate wage data about this profession? To make matters worse, I imagine that any data in assessing drug dealer earnings would be skewed by the fact that many "dealers" are also users. If bakers had a compulsion to eat all of their products rather than sell them, well, I imagine they'd have greatly reduced earnings, too :)

|10.18.05 @ 12:16PM|#

Is it simply a given, as Ms Young appears to believe, that "poverty in the African-American community results largely from the terrible legacy of a racism"?

While that may well be true in its broadest sense, might it not equally well be said that such poverty, insofar as it now persists, currently results from a number of ill conceived attempts at redressing that legacy?

|10.18.05 @ 12:25PM|#

A discussion of government versus poverty is similar to a discussion of government versus education. First, who gets to define it (poverty and education)? Second, can we agree on the definition?

Now, do hillbillies define poverty down?

|10.18.05 @ 12:30PM|#

I'm sorry you're such a snob, Will.

Isn't it amazing how the migration of jobs and investment away from a city like Gary is so dependably correlated with a cultural devolution that has no connection at all with material conditions?

|10.18.05 @ 12:32PM|#

I say God-damn. God-damn the pusher man.

"You can integrate-by-parts, right?"

In my sleep. But I don't remember any of it during the day.

|10.18.05 @ 12:32PM|#

"You may want to think a little deeper about the daily task of being a drug dealer, the people with whom they have to deal, and the tasks that go into it beyond handing some dude on the street a vial of crack."

Apparently, I know them a lot better than you do. I've known several personally - either through teaching them, or having had them as neighbors. And yes, it's more than just handing it to some dude on the street. But if you think it is in any way comparable to being a McDonald's employee, you must be buying some bad stuff.

|10.18.05 @ 12:33PM|#

Or, if the daughter of a cleaning lady who can just barely pay the rent leaves school at 14 to help her mother at work and put food on the table, she is likely to end up in poverty as an adult, regardless of how hard she works and her "cultural" orientation towards employment.

this is an example of the mother having children without being able to support them.

|10.18.05 @ 12:44PM|#

"They don't always set their own hours"

Nice qualifier. No, they do need to sell sometime, and there are better times than others. Just so happens that the better times to sell are evening to late night. Which also happens to be the preferred operating time of most adolescent males.

"they can't run the business the way they want (which, I assume, would be a lemonade-type stand with no police interference"

I said there were some concessions, but really, compared to showing up at McD's in your uniform, with a manager breathing over your shoulder all day long, tapping his watch during your breaks, paying attention to your clock in and out, and setting schedules, it's closer to entrepreneur. Also nice strawman - everyone would love to run their business like a lemonade stand. Unfortunately, the market demands more than that.

"and as for not having to deal with obnoxious customers -- have you seen some of the people who buy drugs"

Yep. Some are surely obnoxious. But the fear of getting shot and/or dealing with higher-ups tends to calm them quite a bit. Further, if the customer is a pain, the dealer just says I'll find someone else to sell to - the government enforced scarcity ensures that there is always plenty of demand to be met.

"And no micromanaging bosses? No unpleasant tasks?"

Nope - your supplier isn't there with you all day long. And compared to cleaning out the dregs of the fryer, no, not really. Sometimes there are unpleasant tasks, but they are nowhere near as common as the necessity of cleaning the toilets at KFC.

|10.18.05 @ 12:45PM|#

i think we all understand that the "culture of poverty" doesn't arise regardless of material conditions. poverty begets the culture begets poverty, etc.

i read this article more as a reaction to the positions both that existing poverty has little to do with it and existing culture has little to do with it. there wasn't much asserted beyond that.

|10.18.05 @ 12:50PM|#

i don't really understand what your point is, quasibill. if you fuck up at mcdonald's or KFC, you get fired. if you fuck up dealing drugs, you get the crap beaten out of you or worse. regardless of wages, that makes KFC and mcdonald's the preferable choice, if status is not an issue. (hell, it makes them the prefereable choice anyway.)

keith|10.18.05 @ 12:55PM|#

And compared to cleaning out the dregs of the fryer, no, not really. Sometimes there are unpleasant tasks, but they are nowhere near as common as the necessity of cleaning the toilets at KFC.

You seem to be engaging in an argument I wasn't making. I never said that working at McDonalds or KFC was more glamorous or easier than being a drug dealer; merely that being a drug dealer isn't all that free and easy a lifestyle unless you get to be one of those guys who delivers to office workers and bored college students, and that plenty of low-level drug dealers -- at least here in NYC -- deal with just as much crap for not that much more money.

And this does indeed include suppliers who are often nearby, keeping track of things and possessed of the ability and inclination to do a lot more than just fire you for stealing McNuggets on the job. Street level dealers are just as easy to replace as fast food workers.

|10.18.05 @ 1:37PM|#

"merely that being a drug dealer isn't all that free and easy a lifestyle"

Talk about arguments never made! My point all along was that, compared to other options in a depressed neighborhood for unskilled workers, being a drug dealer IS more glamorous, for more reasons than money. Not that I'd want to do the job, or that it is better than a job as a programmer, doctor, etc.

"And this does indeed include suppliers who are often nearby"

"Often nearby" is vastly different from over shoulder, counting minutes, screaming when you misread an order.

Really, there is a huge difference between the jobs. Most suppliers (granted, not all, but the vast majority) care only about the $$$. If the street dealer provides that, and follows the established patterns of pick-up and drop-off, the supplier generally doesn't care about much else. As opposed to other unskilled opportunities, where things like punctuality and commitment to being on the job when scheduled and having a smile for customers and reciting stupid catch phrases are much more prevalent.

That's all that my point was - compared to retail fast food or other unskilled opportunities, being a drug dealer is an attractive option. To ignore that is to cast a blind eye towards a major problem in our society. And much of what makes it attractive is the due to the fact that it is illegal.

|10.18.05 @ 1:40PM|#

So this thread went from a discussion of poverty to an argument about the job descriptions of drug dealers vs. KFC employees. Interesting.

keith|10.18.05 @ 1:42PM|#

I'm guessing Quasibill and I simply have different experiences -- but ultimately, it's fairly silly to devolve into an argument about the merits and drawbacks of low-level drug dealing (do they have 401k). Most of what I've encountered over the years has come largely from working alongside more than a few drug dealers as a bike messenger -- which is another funny thing. It's amazing how many guys deal drugs AND STILL have to hold down a job at KFC. And as with any sort of job, experienced vary wildly based on location, motivation, what you're dealing, who you get it from, who you sell it to, and so on.

A friend fo mine used to work at the burrito joint (The Crazy Burro, I believe it was called) back down in Florida, where the head cook was also a petty pot dealer. He'd wrap his merchandise up in a tortilla, drop it in a to-go bag, then send it out the back door as buyers wandered by. I always thought it'd be funny to see a bunch of frat guys unwrapping their pick-up to discover it was just a bunch of bean burritos, while at the same time, some family in the restaurant was wondering why there was so much oregano and cilantro in the burrito, and nothing else.

-K

theOneState|10.18.05 @ 1:59PM|#

Hak,

The economists who have done research in this area demonstrate this claim.

Who are "the economists who have done research in this area"? Can you point to a couple (not including the recently published UChicago professor who put a weird apple on the cover of his book)?

|10.18.05 @ 2:11PM|#

Can we all just agree that being a low-level drug dealer has a lot of sucky aspects, as does working at KFC? Can we agree that the sucky aspects of the two jobs are different, and that the sucky aspects of being a low level drug dealer are probably worse?

Can we agree that the possibility of promotion to manager of the local KFC is not as glamorous as the possibility of promotion to high-level drug dealer?

The KFC manager makes a modest middle class living while the high-level drug dealer enjoys lots of bling and babes.

The KFC manager might hire a rent-a-cop for the night shift. The high level drug dealer has a few tough guys with guns escorting him around.

The KFC manager might join the Chamber of Commerce if he opens his own franchise. The high level drug dealer might get to personally bribe or blackmail judges, police chiefs, and other authority figures.

The KFC manager will have to fire some obnoxious teenagers who can't do simple tasks or follow directions. The high level drug dealer can have his tough guys administer brutal beatings.

I'm pretty sure that these are the reasons why being a low level drug dealer can be more attractive than being a KFC fry cook. Both jobs suck, but one holds at least the possibility of a (supposedly) glamorous future down the road.

|10.18.05 @ 2:13PM|#

Oh, somebody will probably point to the advantages of being a KFC executive. Yeah, well, you have to go to college for that gig.

|10.18.05 @ 3:05PM|#

i would still rather be a lowly manager in a KFC than any form of drug kingpin. as cool as it's made out to be, i would lose my mind knowing that the price of failure is death, no matter how far up you get. if you stop making money, you become expendable. so it's when you don't value your own life that these things become most appealing. and to tie it in with the original article, that's a cultural thing.

|10.18.05 @ 3:34PM|#

i would lose my mind knowing that the price of failure is death, no matter how far up you get

Trust me, the whole thing is a lot more mundane than it's made out to be. Unless you're slinging crack on a street corner or hooking up white trash with meth, at worst the job isn't much more dangerous than working graveyard at a convenience store. Which is to say, maybe you'll get shot at, but if you're not stupid about what you're doing then it probably won't kill you.

|10.18.05 @ 3:47PM|#

Trust me, the whole thing is a lot more mundane than it's made out to be. Unless you're slinging crack on a street corner or hooking up white trash with meth, at worst the job isn't much more dangerous than working graveyard at a convenience store.

we are talking about people slinging crack on a street corner.

|10.18.05 @ 3:53PM|#

Crack isn't the only drug that has to be dealt, you know. Why does everyone always go immediately to crack? It's guaranteed to instantly poison debate by making everything so goddamn melodramatic.

|10.18.05 @ 4:18PM|#

Maybe "crack" will be the new Godwin's Law for drug-dealing discussions.

|10.18.05 @ 4:32PM|#

I dunno felllows, I think this another one of many of Ms. Young's great articles. I think her main points are: 1. the left is wrong to not recognize a culture of poverty that will frustrate government programs to end poverty and 2. the right is certainly wrong to gloat over this.
I think we have duty to try to help people, and the right should recognize this rather than say "well, you chose poorly tough luck" (this also ignores Ms. Young's point about how easily it is to be trapped in poor behavioral choices). It's the Christian and human thing to do...

|10.18.05 @ 5:24PM|#

"Yes, poverty in the African-American community results largely from the terrible legacy of a racism that, for generations, denied blacks not only equal opportunity but basic civil rights."

Standard "I'm not a racist" posturing. If we are to discuss poverty and race seriously in America, we need to stop this sort of knee-jerk apologizing.

Sub-Saharan Africans have no history, civilization, or accomplishments comparable to that of Western Europeans. Of course they won't have equal opportunity. They don't have equal ability or experience. If you ran a C.P.A. firm, would you hire someone with no accounting experience?

|10.18.05 @ 7:34PM|#

Joe, I am sorry that you are so unthinking as to assume that the chronically unemployed of Gary are the same folks who used to work 40 hours a week while living there. Guess what? They've mostly left town. Try increasing your cerebral output prior to engaging in the yammering ad hominem rhetoric next time.

|10.18.05 @ 8:25PM|#

Maybe "crack" will be the new Godwin's Law for drug-dealing discussions.

OK, Shem's Law-The longer a discussion on drug use or distribution continues, the more likely it is that any permutation of the words crack (ie crackhead, crack dealer, crack rock, crackokane, etc) will be introduced. As in life, the party who first makes use of the substance is assumed to have lost the debate.

And, because I hate it when people call Goodwin's on discussions about Nazis:

Addendum to Shem's Law-The law cannot be invoked if the discussion was about crack in the first place.

|10.19.05 @ 11:03AM|#

You can stop the debate about merits of being a low level drug dealer. It was only this line

"In some poor neighborhoods, being a drug dealer is a source of higher status than working in a legitimate job."

That never should have been included. American culture as a whole has always had a soft spot for the "criminal" entrepreneur. This is not specific at all to the culture of poverty.

There are widely accepted folk heroes, cultural icons, mainstream movies and other media celebrating climbing the economic food chain of criminals.

|10.19.05 @ 12:50PM|#

but dakota, the question is, why is it that suburban americans, as much as we love The Godfather, rarely actually participate in that sort of life? that increased level of actual involvement (and not the "antihero worship") is specific to the culture of poverty.

we in the suburbs have our own, less dangerous crimes of choice.

drf|10.19.05 @ 1:47PM|#

onestate:

i remember reading something in the not-too-distant past about David Friedman and drugs/crime/individuals who do both.

A DC group (hang on... here: "the sentencing project") has a report about this, too - their work was from 2003 and cited Leavitt's work (for full disclosure), while one of the studies was from RAND.

and Leavitt's work did make the NBER, which suggests that the analysis has some refereed backing. this work was done before f'nomics.

I have not read much of F'nomics, so i don't wanna suggest that i agree or disagree with what he says

but i suppose this NBER posting might be equivalent to lots of global warming studies: approved and refereed but doubted by some. i'll leave that alone, since i haven't seen the numbers in the NBER study).

"Drug war facts" had some stuff about this too.

one potential reason that the lowest class workers aren't making the big bucks dealing drugs, because individuals with organizations behind them will move in and take the high-paying jobs from the local singletons, kinda like an arbitrage opportunity, i guess.

if entry level were so profitable, more people would be fighting for these spoils, and violence might be higher.

An MIT guy Caulkens (spelling?) has something about this, too.

the idea has been kicked around in econ for a while (Chaplouka at NYU, UIC talked about something) like this a bit ago).

I don't think Hak was reporting F'economics, rather what has been kicked around in econ for a while.

there could be other benefits besides wage behind this: security (maybe a type of "feudalism"?), social acceptance, addiction (payment in product), what have you.

hope this helps.
drf