Thank You - Brandon
Zoning laws, the fact that the ghetto is not an appealing place to open a new businesses, rent control, minimum wage, child labor laws, criminalization of drugs, protectionism, affirmative action, ect.
Democracy is nothing more than replacing bullets with ballots
If Pro is the opposite of Con. What is the opposite of Progress?
Things I would blame the formation of ghettos on:
1. Welfare that creates incentives for young, single women to have illegitimate children and for capable workers to not work and instead become criminals.
2. Drug laws that prevent successful inner city entrepreneurs from doing their work and hiring others.
3. Shitty public schools that entrap inner city kids into a "culture of poverty."
4. Shitty public courts and police forces that do not protect inner city residents from crime.
5. Public housing, which is usually in disrepair and creates a pro-crime psychological arena. The bureaucrats in charge of public housing are usually not able to prevent crime on their premises, either.
6. Minimum wage laws that prevent the least skilled inner city residents from getting a job.
7. Unions that artificially raise wage rates that prevent the least skilled inner city residents from getting a job.
8. High taxes and regulations which prevent businesses from hiring inner city residents and new small businesses from springing up in inner cities.
Political Atheists Blog
Byzantine:Actually, I did correct myself to agree with Stranger.
But you're on the horns of a different dilemma.
And here is where we do begin to tread on the uncomfortable ground of race and IQ.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
Brandon
I don't believe the slums could be eliminated, or prevented. It seems you don't want to believe this but some people do want to live in that culture. Check out the message in so much of the rap music you hear. The bad/ass meacrimnal culture is glorified in most of it. The fasion you see, believe it or not it based on prison culture.
I am a practicing anarchist. I don't vote, I don't pay income taxes. I am a musician and my life is VERY hard. I sometimes live in my car. Sometimes I live in the forest. I live on what I can make playing music and I follow noones rules but my own. I have my own economic formula it is: PPM+MMM which means The power of personal magnetism plus the magic of mental midgetry. Some people think that's sick, but it works for me. Crazy stupid people love to party. They will waste their money and their brains on drugs, alchohol, sex and music. They give me their money because I give them a good time. I cater to the excesses and madness.
Most of these people are wild, and dangerous. I have seen depravetey that would shock you to the core of your being. This culture of people CHOOSE this kind of life. No policy or government intervention can stop them, and many a cop has been killed trying. And such people congregate, they hang together like people of capital, who would otherwise hang seperately. Same factor, other end of economy, equal morality.
Unfortunately I don't see how that makes sense. The inequality of wealth is natural and from an economic point of view a good thing. Some will work harder, make more wealth, and save more wealth. Those people will be wealthy. some will spend more than they can sustain, make poor decisions, they will be poor.
People falsify modern culture. Criminality in "the hood"(lol) is a true thing, but it's simply a way to survive. Very few want a life of violence and poverty, I don't know where you got that idea, it's contradictory to human nature. Drugs, alcohol, sex and music, primarily drugs and alcohol, can be disastrous, but most grow out of that lifestyle, and there is no evidence that a society where drugs are legal or widespread is magically immoral or chaotic. Besides, rap culture is new, while slums are not. People have always, historically, used culture, "a changing society", and music etc... as scapegoats for the true causes behind problems, despite the historic fact that culture, music, and society are usually influenced by the ways of life the people are living, rather than culture, music, and society influencing the way people live. Does this make sense to anybody?
The fact is that if government didn't allow these people to be parasitic and then keep them in a parasitic state with economic restrictions, than they would be forced to work and set their priorities straight. Welfare preys on the vulnerable. While economic restrictions keep them vulnerable, Us libertarians should know this. No government intervention can eliminate slums, I believe that. What they need is the elimination of government interventions. Slums and ghettos just couldn't be sustainable without help from the government.
I think there needs to be a austrian study on the slums and the history of slums. I think it would find that slums are most prevalent in countries that are the least economically free. That they are not products of race. That people employ themselves in violent markets and rely on welfare because they were born with nothing and they simply have few other sensible ways of providing for themselves and their families. And that slums become less prevalent and widespread as an economy becomes more free. Would anybody agree with my hypothesis?
Well it does seem true that countries that are poorest and least developed have the starkest contrasts between wealthy and slum-dwellers.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
I relate to you truth. I wanted you to know these things. You are very intelegent and your faith in mankind is a virtue. Don't loose it. But you do missunderstand human nature. Some people are just wild. Yes if born poor, a person will likely remain poor. But not always. We have choices.
I live the way I live because I grew up like this. My parents were beatnik jazz musicians. Anti-establisment to the core. I learned their ideas, I live on the road as a child and learned to love music and entertaining. I also am very good at developing software, but to me the cubicle life SUCKS! I can build an app about once a year to supplement my income and then it is all I can take.
Human nature is unbounded. Some people are evil incarnate, and if you ask them they will tell you so. Don't stop questioning though. I'm not about discouragement, the world REALY needs people like you so test everything. You will find answers, and that is what we must have.
BTW, if you REALY want to KNOW free market, try performance art. No one has any agreement or obligation to pay you one red cent. You must give them pleasure, you must make them happy, and then you will be rewarded. Otherwise, you will starve.
The business cycle takes about 45 minutes. Anarchy is ALL you have. If you don't understand human nature, you go home broke and hungry.
Byzantine:Are you claiming that some people's intelligence is so low that they are effectively slaves to their impulses?
Whoever said having a free will means being utterly free from the constraints of the physical world, including one's biology? It might just be a matter of degree, and not 'either/or'. In fact if one defines free will as the capacity to override one's baser desires, the possibility of failing to do so looms large.
Juan
sorry to interject, but I don't see where Byzantine said such a thing. YOU said it. What kind of discussion can you have by putting words in other peoples mouths.
Byzantine does NOT contradict himself!
Jon:Whoever said having a free will means being utterly free from the constraints of the physical world, including one's biology?