[ExI] Class Differences Among Black People

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On May 29, 2007, at 8:35 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote:
> * He is against gay marriage because, he says, marriage is actually a
> "restriction" (but what I don't understand is if gays want this
> "restriction" like, apparently, some heterosexuals do, then why not  
> give it
> to 'em?);


Depending on the assumptions one is willing to make, there is nothing  
intrinsically wrong with this position.  There are a myriad of  
significant benefits available to narrow classes of people.  If you  
are going to dissolve one of them on arbitrary moral or legal  
grounds, you'll pretty much have to dissolve *all* of them if there  
is to be any kind of consistency, something most people would be very  
uncomfortable with.

I am actually on the "dissolve" side of this issue.  The state has no  
business giving special recognition or privileges to homosexual  
marriages any more than it has business doing so in heterosexual  
marriages.


> * He is against minimum wage;


Any economist worth a damn would be, for well understood reasons.   
The only reason people even care about the minimum wage is that some  
union contracts have wages that are set as a fixed multiple of the  
Federal minimum wage -- if you increase it 40%, the union guys get a  
40% pay raise or something along those lines.  Raising the minimum  
wage is nothing more than pandering to the unions.  It has no other  
significant consequences other than pricing labor out of the market  
on the low end.

In a way, I support radical increases of the minimum wage.  It will  
bankrupt the companies and break the unions, putting that idiocy to  
rest.


> * He is against affirmative action (but he's seemingly not opposed  
> to white
> affirmative action - I mean, I've heard no complaints from Sowell  
> about the
> current affirmative action baby in the White House (no pun intended));


Any economist worth their degree would be against affirmative  
action.  The costs and consequences far outweigh whatever nominal  
benefits these poorly thought out programs have.


> * He is against universal / socialized health care;


Socialism is not expensive per se, but entitlements destroy societies  
by reducing flexibility in the economy.  If you keep accreting these  
kinds of liabilities, the lack of economic flexibility and  
adaptability will cause a very predictable downward economic spiral.   
Any economist worth a damn knows this, and the result has repeated  
itself numerous times in the real world.  (Which is not to say some  
private systems such as the US are not broken; clearly wholesale  
restructuring is needed in US medicine, but those problems can be  
solved without government healthcare.)

I have yet to see a good idea for how to keep a social program,  
particularly a universal one, from calcifying into an entitlement  
with all the economic damage that causes.


> * He gave kudos to Malkin's book about how the Japanese internment  
> during
> WWII was a good idea (although he did think the government went too  
> far by
> taking away the houses of those people who were put into the  
> internment
> camps ... it's okay to take the people away from their homes - just  
> don't
> pocket the homes, I guess is his position on this);


It is obvious then that he viewed it as a necessary measured  
pragmatic action by some calculus rather than as a punitive measure  
against people of Japanese ancestry.  That distinction reflects  
favorably on him even if you disagree with his analysis of the problem.


> * And, please, tell me this is a joke, yes?  Oh, please.  Sowell  
> recently
> wrote: "When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our  
> media,
> our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can't help wondering if  
> the day may
> yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a  
> military coup":


I can see why people who did not consider what he was saying would go  
apoplectic over that statement, but that really reflects poorly on  
the person having that response.  If we posit that the US is on a  
downward spiral -- something you agree with -- and not likely to  
change any time soon, which is something I think any pragmatic  
economist would agree with, then what will be the long term  
resolution as a country?  What is the end point?

You make assertions about a set of conditions, and actually have made  
numerous statements that are in agreement with Sowell over the  
increasingly degenerate state of many segments of population, but  
object to anyone that follows those assumptions to reasonable logical  
conclusions because you find the conclusions abhorrent.  If you are  
not arguing from adverse consequences, then what is your argument?

Sowell here and you are in pretty close agreement about the nature of  
the system.  What historical precedent are you going to offer that  
shows Sowell is probably wrong about the inevitable conclusion?  My  
cursory view of world history lends quite a bit of support to the  
idea that an unrecoverable degenerate state terminates with the  
military arm of the government cleaning house, sometimes restoring  
civil government but often not.  In some democracies, like Turkey, it  
is even their express job, and the US military oath makes similar  
statements.  The alternative is a civil revolution, but those tend to  
be very ugly and almost never restore anything resembling the  
original government.  It is not something we normally think about,  
but the world changes.  Have you really thought about the topic,  
given that you agree with the base conditions required for the  
proposed eventuality to occur?


Cheers,

J. Andrew Rogers