Televisions, DVD players and mobile phones have become so cheap that even poor third world families can own them. In Foreign Policy, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo write:
In rural Morocco, Oucha Mbarbk and his two neighbors told us they had worked about 70 days in agriculture and about 30 days in construction that year. Otherwise, they took care of their cattle and waited for jobs to materialize. All three men lived in small houses without water or sanitation. They struggled to find enough money to give their children a good education. But they each had a television, a parabolic antenna, a DVD player, and a cell phone.
In the Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell wrote: "Twenty million people are underfed but literally everyone in England has access to a radio." Rather than spending all their money on necessities, the English poor were alleviating the drabness and monotony of low income life by spending money on things that brought a little fun, style or excitement. So as Orwell observed: "in a decade of unparalleled depression, the consumption of all cheap luxuries has increased."
Banerjee and Duflo agree with Orwell. Village life is dreary and things like television make life more enjoyable. But the policy wonks at the Heritage Foundation are convinced that in the United States, televisions are incompatible with true poverty. In an attempt to rubbish the US Census Bureau's definition of poverty they reveal:
The typical poor household, as defined by the government, has a car and air conditioning, two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there are children, especially boys, the family has a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.
Not only that, but the statistics show that most poor households also have a refrigerator, oven and stove -- not to mention a microwave oven. But as Melissa Boteach and Donna Cooper point out, "it takes much more than a few appliances to support a family." There's also the cost of things like housing. And in the United States, that's not cheap if you're earning close to miniumum wage.
Considering how affordable they now are, the idea that refrigerators or ovens are luxuries seems a little silly. As Matt Yglesias writes:
Back in the late 1920s, a refrigerator would be worth a lot more than eight days’ worth of food. And a microwave wouldn’t exist at all. But in the modern day, these appliances don’t represent meaningful levels of accumulated wealth. What’s more, they’re not luxuries. They’re actually thrifty things to own. If a single mom raising three kids sold her fridge, she’s be making a very imprudent call from a strictly financial point of view. Buying food at the grocery store and saving it thanks to the miracles of modern refrigeration is sound household budgeting. Given the dynamics of a modern economy, it would be pretty irresponsible for a poor person not to own basic household appliances.
But according Heritage, the widespread adoption of household appliances by low income Americans shows that anti-poverty activists and the liberal media are running a shameless propaganda campaign.
It's a shitload cheaper than it is in Australia.
I mean, even your graphic spells it out pretty clearly:
$1700 for two and half month's rent for a house big enough for 4?
$677 per month. You'd be lucky to rent a place for a fortnight in Australia for that kind of money.
Well obviously the high price of housing in Australia means there is no poverty in the US. Why did no one notice this inescapable fact before?
I believe the point they are making is that if you have a car, a place to live, a refrigerator with food in it and a TV, you aren't doing it particularly tough and there isn't really much justification for the government to give you any more money.
There is relative poverty, as there will always be unless the government mandates everyone earns the same wage. But I find it hard to accept that someone who owns a car, and has enough money to rent a house, pay their utility bills and buy food is really struggling to the point where the government should intervene.
Ah yes, this is the same Newt Gringrich who in his glory days advocated the replacement of all financial support for sole parents (most of whom in the US are, of course, "those people" - you know who I mean) with orphanages. A charming man.
Of course TVs and DVDs are by far the cheapest form of entertainment going - that is, in fact, exactly why Budget Standards approaches (google it) to measuring poverty generally include them. Not that I'm an advocate of Budget Standards approaches - apart from the very real technical and methodological problems, they too easily lend themselves to wilful misinterpretation (see above).
And Yobbo, Don is perfectly correct to point out that cars, refrigerators and phones are both big money savers for some people. But more broadly, you should read Adam Smith and his example of the "linen shirt" (a necessity for even the poor of his day, but not a timeless necessity for subsistence) to see why poverty is only ever meaningful as a relative rather than absolute measure.
I was surprised last year in China to see impoverished migrant workers and very poor laborers with mobile phones. They were cheap for me but not for people on very low wages. My guess is that they pay for themselves in a society where life among the poor is a struggle. You can keep in touch with others at lower cost than not having one and this helps you to survive.
But... but... if America's poor don't have TV sets any more, how will they be induced to vote for conservative candidates?!
hc - I think you're right. For many people in developing countries their mobile phones more than pay for themselves. For example:
According to Simon Romero in the New York Times mobile phone use has spread rapidly in countries like Hati. "With financially distressed governments often unable to provide adequate public services, including telephones, people are turning to privately built wireless networks as a way to communicate over extended distances."
Even homeless Americans now have mobile phones as this Washington Post article explains:
This year there was a doco on the ABC or SBS showing poor Africans using mobile phones as the basis for their banking system and thus increasing trade opportunities.
But, irrespective of whether it is now a necessity (and its not), surely a mobile phone was never a "privilege", just a useful thing that started off being expensive.
I'm surprised Hillbilly skeleton has not come to complain about this post.
Haven't you people seen The Wire? Burners are essential in the modern urban crime environment. ;)
It's on past my bedtime! Though apparently you can't organise a good looting without a blackberry.
It's class resentment by another name. For decades the middle class has been told by advertisers that if they have a house and car and a range of standard appliances and goods, that they have somehow "made it". And to not have those things makes one a loser. If the poor have those things too, then what makes the middle class special? The class resentment from the slightly more comfortable on display on blogs and twitter over the London Riots is amazing to behold. How dare they have mobile phones that carriers give away for free with a cheap monthly plan!
I'm fairly sure the resent the London rioters because they are burning and looting the city, not because they have mobile phones.
I found this a useful perspective on being poor in the US
http://aep.typepad.com/american_empire_project/2011/08/nickel-and-dimed-2011-version-.html#more
How the poor survive at all is a miracle to me, but good luck to them if they manage to cling on to a few basic necessities for survival.
Rhys, WTF? I'll bet those nasty middle class types just want to feel safe at home and not have their city trashed, but who knows, maybe you're correct and their snobblishness and superiority is being snatched away among the burning buildings.
There's a really easy explanation for people doing bad things, they're bad. I think the same applies to why people say dumb things.
"How the poor survive at all is a miracle to me,"
One of my colleagues recently expressed disbelief that people on lower incomes could survive at all, let along buy houses and stuff. I thought it strange that people would question the evidence before their eyes. Obviously the poor surviving is not a miracle because they don't happen. So, if you're struggling to understand it then maybe you're a bit dim.
In Africa mobile phones were found to be highly cost effective, one village could share a phone and it could be usd for medical emergencies or establishing market prices and demand for goods.
It's a nonsense to say that because someone has whitegoods or electrical items they are not subject to and experiencing poverty.
@16:
An explanation that very conveniently pre-empts any other explanation and spares us the effort of examining other possible explanations.
Paul, we can ask why they are bad, but from our moral perspective they are. Think of if your son/daughter was doing it.
Try putting aside "our moral perspective" and looking at it this way: these are people doing bad things. This opens the way to two much more productive questions: "Why are they acting badly? What can we do to change this?"
Not a parent, so I have no experience in the area. But if I were, I doubt that I would begin dealing with the problem by assuming that doing something bad makes my kid a bad one who will inevitably turn into a bad adult. That's pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You can define poverty however way you want, so obviously nobody can argue with this statement.
However, it's not nonsense at all to say that if someone has whitegoods, a car, and a place to live, then they are not in any need of further government handouts. Because really that's what this poverty debate comes down to in the end, an excuse to raise taxes.
"not nonsense at all to say that if someone has whitegoods, a car, and a place to live, then they are not in any need of further government handouts"
What's the advantage of owning such things if you can't even afford be able to pay for food, utility bills, medical bills, etc. etc.? Even if you insisted they sell everything but the "absolute" necessities, it wouldn't help them particularly.
And why would anyone want an 'excuse to raise taxes'. The ultimate goal of support to a country's poorest citizens is to get them to a point of self-sufficiency - i.e., to the point they can pay taxes - so yes, the ultimate upside may well be increased tax revenue, but you seem to see that as a bad thing?
Sounds like you are in favour of govt handing out whitegoods, a car, and a place to live?
No, I think that what you are saying is that someone with whitegoods, a car, and a place to live can live without government interference. But where do you draw the line with government handouts? Do roads, power, phone, health, education, law, defense and other activities qualify as "handouts?"
Yeah I find this analysis a bit feeble also. Yes its an important angle to take. But its just one angle. My grandparents were hopelessly poor and were the survivors of the "Spanish Flu" that killed more people than the World War that spread that same virus. And some of my forbears prior had survived the potato famine. But my grandparents generation could easily go into business, buy a house, support a wife that did not need to work, with 2-6 kids, and their hard work would always pay dividends ... should they have chosen to work hard.
"This opens the way to two much more productive questions: “Why are they acting badly? What can we do to change this?”"
Easy, punish them. The idea that you shouldn't steal and destroy stuff that other people own has been around for a pretty long time, so what's not to get about it. They used to shoot looters didn't they?
The important part about being a grown up is that you are responsible for your own actions. I heard some dick on RN this morning moaning about how these kids had been dispossessed. Which is to get it exactly wrong. The stupid thugs were busy dispossessing others.
The causes of the problem are likely to be some or all of the following:
1 the police have turned into pussies;
2 young men are prone to be very stupid;
3 some young men are especially stupid;
4 some idiots have been feeding their sense of entitlement and justifying their tendencies to violence (especially easy to stir up in young men).
What your seeing is not due to an insufficient welfare state.
They aren't acting wrongly. They are acting in accordance with the new ethics of the stimulus package and the banking bailout heist. Those ethics are that if poor people are hurting due to public sector parasitism DOUBLE DOWN on the parasitism citing Keynes. And should you be already rich and can steal 12 trillion dollars when you have manifestly failed: Do it. Do it. Just do it.
Better get to foil hat on Bird, the UN black helicopters will be buzzing around.
Except these people (I assume we're now talking about the UK rioters) have been committing crimes in areas with plenty of CCTV cameras around, so they must have realised there's a decent likelihood of getting caught and punished. If you think purely reactive measures are sufficient, then I'd ask you to explain that to the people who had their homes and shops destroyed.
Further, I don't know how anybody can claim with any certainty to what degree the *size* of the welfare state is the key problem, but it seems pretty clear that behaviour that largely seems to involve looting reasonably-priced consumer items wouldn't make any sense unless the people involved felt they had sufficiently little hope of ever being able to provide well enough for themselves to purchase them legitimately. I certainly don't accept that the state should have the *sole* responsibility of providing such opportunity to these communities, but realistically it is the single largest body capable of doing so, and hence it's reasonable to conclude that the degree to which government policy and rhetoric has failed to achieve that goal is a fairly major part of the problem.
I'd also say Pedro I'm quite willing to accept an under-resourced police force is a big part of the problem, but by your own definition all government spending is welfare of one form or another, so I'm wondering if you're not slightly contradicting yourself.
You saw the masks Wiz? Do you think people steal things because they think they can't afford one? I expect they do it because they are completely wicked (hardcore crims), or very stupid and think they will get away with it.
Perhaps the problem is that the State represents that it can provide opportunity, despite lots of evidence to the contrary, and then people get shitty when it can't. I don't know how the State is supposed to provide opportunity through the expansion of state activities as there seems a limit beyond which the expansion of the state is positively disasterous. It seems to me that those limits were being discovered before the 1980s.
I can't recall every seeing anything to suggest that a welfare expansion leads to less crime, but there have been apparent successes for law and order programs. New York perhaps, but there are always lots of things going on when crime is substantially reduced.
Recently I saw an article by someone who studies this stuff and said that recessions and depressions don't immediately lead to substantial increases in crime. I'll try and find it.
"Do you think people steal things because they think they can’t afford one?"
Sounds like a pretty reasonable hypothesis to me, for at least a significant percentage of petty crimes. But I don't have data to back it up.
What's your "lots of evidence" that the state can't provide opportunity? Are you suggesting the correlation between social mobility and the inclusiveness/effectiveness of the welfare state (i.e., high in Scandanavian countries, relatively low in US/UK) is meaningless?
Wiz, not what I saw, but interesting
https://files.nyu.edu/ejs210/public/Bohlken_Sergenti.pdf
Here it is
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/06/08/freakonomics-quorum-why-during-a-bad-economy-does-crime-continue-to-fall/
I reckon that a few turks and such might wonder where all that scandinavian social mobility went to. I believe that culture explains social mobility. The US has had lots and the UK relatively less. People there still think that they're better than the likes of me because of their ancestry.
I wrote a long reply but it disappeared sorry...why do you think Turks (or other lower-skilled non-EU immigriants) coming to Scandnavian nations are less likely to move up the socio-economic ladder than native-born citizens? Or are you referring to their restrictive immigration policies?
Wiz, are you seriously suggesting that these people were stealing stuff because they couldn't afford it?
I think they were stealing it because they were presented with the opportunity and because they have a mentality that they are entitled to what they can get.
Some apposite commentary on the London riots from the UK's Telegraph - hardly a rabidly left-wing news organisation:
This isn't much different from commentary I've read elsewhere which points to a materialistic culture which assesses personal & social worth in terms of plasma TV ownership as a major contributor to the rioters' willingness to break shop windows to obtain plasma TVs and other goodies.
Pedro @25:
That's just facile - you've only answered the second of the two questions I posed and even then you offered a standard conservative formula as your answer. What if "punishment" doesn't work - what if all it does is take criminals and turn them into worse criminals (and there's plenty of evidence that that is just what it does). What value punishment then?
So here's a new question - are we really interested in looking for ways to reduce the occurrence and risk of crime or would we rather indulge in "tough" measures (like mandatory sentencing etc) that make us feel good while they actually aggravate the problem of crime? I know which I'd prefer but I'm a bit of a weirdo.
And from your second link Pedro:
"Better get to foil hat on David, the UN black helicopters will be buzzing around."
You've never been that bright Pedro. But you can see the sense of acting such that when something happens, find out what the people who PREDICTED that it would happen were saying. People out there took the stimulus heist and the bank bailout heist and predicted that the streets would be full of violence. You didn't listen to them then. Maybe you ought to listen to them now. The problem was the bank and stimulus heists. The problem was not the streets burning. Thats a consequence and not any comparable problem.
"I believe that culture explains social mobility. The US has had lots and the UK relatively less."
It's lucky you picked Britain as a comparator Pedro, otherwise your statement would be just plain wrong. See this Huffington Post article from not so long ago:
Patrick why would somebody have a "mentality that they are entitled to what they can get" if they *could* afford it in the first place?
Also "stealing because they couldn't afford" is not entirely logically equivalent to what I actually said "they wouldn't be likely to steal it if they could afford it".
This reads like the recipe for a police state and as history has shown, you need a lot of police to punish a bad population and the process is essentially unproductive and eventually catastrophic. Far better to have fewer police and a population gainfully employed.
Sure, wiz, if they were billionaires then they might not have bothered. But I don't think they can't afford them in any meaningful sense...there are lots of things I can't afford, but I doubt you would have much sympathy for me looting them!
Except I don't have any real sympathy for the individuals looting the items that they did. But I do for the majority of the members of similar communities that struggle under the same conditions but don't channel any similar sense of financial hopelessness or social disconnection into violent behaviour.
Anyway, nobody's suggesting they need to be billionaires. Indeed, if there's anybody especially likely to have a 'sense of entitlement', it is the children of the very wealthy, so I'm struggling to see why that would be hugely relevant.
Now youhave really lost me! I too feel sympathy for those who are faced with a constant struggle to make ends met and real difficulty imagining their way out of it! But I don't really.see how that is supposed to flow ijto sympathy for their kids whose almost wholly unjustified sense of entitlement and lack of.'strong' moral code leads them to think that if there is an opportunity to loot some jice clothes or perhaps.a binch of electronics that they kight be anle to make a buck from, well, why not? I ssay 'sense of entitlement' bas a way of describing that belief that one is entitled to what one can get, by whatever means - I don't know what you would rather call this - the belief that society owes you something, the flopside of that stupid belief so rightly skewered by Margaret Thatcher that 'society' owes 'these people' something and thus ought to look after them
Ken, I was thinking about it over the long run. For most of modern times the US would have been one of the greatest examples of social mobility. I don't doubt that social mobility has decreased in the US recently and I expect two groups will be the ones most frozen. I picked the UK as a classic example of culture driven low mobility. I don't think anything in the OECD report affects my claim that it is culture that allows social mobility.
The Turks in scandinavia don't seem to enjoy much social mobility.
Prison is not the only punishment. Though some people ought to be in prison to protect the public. Where is the evidence for social programs that made a difference to social pathologies? I belief our govt just spent 18 months trying to hide a report indicating just the opposite with our most disadvantaged.
Wiz, you hunted right through the piece to select the nugget you think supports your argument, meanwhile missing all the bits about how the connection between social pathology and economic problems takes a very long time to develop.
Exactly Patrick. Let's here it for the deserving poor and acknowledge most of all that people first need to take responsibility for themselves.
I don't know about the situation in the UK, but I'll bet that the areas from which the rioters come have the highest levels of disfunctional families, and especially a lack of dads. There is certainly nothing the State can do about that. If anything the evidence is that the State has, over the last 50 years, done more to undermine the family unit than any other factor in society.
Um...even allowing that you apparently typed that with your knuckles I'm having a hard time trying to work out how it's a logical response to my comment...
(That was to Patrick)
To Pedro: "missing all the bits about how the connection between social pathology and economic problems takes a very long time to develop" - I didn't miss them at all, and never argued otherwise.
And Pedro your last two sentences are again contradictory - if there is nothing the state can do about dysfunctional families, then how can you argue it has done so much to undermine families?
Well, I meant it can't fix them, and I think you knew that. But there is a big parallel between the growth of welfare and the increase in single parent families. Now, I think these are hard issues. Imagine being forced, literally or socially, to give up your child, as happened to my mother in law. But that does not change the facts about kids (and especially boys) growing up without fathers.
Kids have been growing up without fathers since time immemorable. Indeed, it was probably norm for the more violent parts of human history. I believe also Sweden has one of the highest rates of children growing up in single parent families, yet we don't see that translating into the sort of hopelessness currently evident in the UK.
Do you believe the state could solve the problem of dysfunctional families by reversing whatever policies have contributed towards them in the first place?
One question to those blaming the riots on "sense of entitlement" - why would this more of a problem in the UK than in other countries? It certainly can't be due to the ease of welfare availability (as somebody pointed out in another blog, even Howard's work-for-the-dole policies here are pretty soft compared to the sort of restrictions and withdrawal policies that exist in the UK).
(I should add to 50. - I'm not questioning that inadequate parenting isn't a part of the problem, and this article certainly makes a good case that's more than most lefties would like to admit. But blaming it largely on 'absent fathers' seems far too simplistic.
Wiz@51, it isn't; but the sense of entitlement is not a sufficient catalyst to start looting it just influences what people do when they get the opportunity.
Wiz@48 are you kidding, you wouldn't accept that it is easier to tear something down than to build it up again? Besides, the logical implication is that to rebuild families the State should withdraw from welfare and (which part you ignored above) abolish barriers to entry in the labour market.
Wiz@52 sure, it is too simplistic, if that is to be the whole explanation. But blaming it on absent fathers and the breakdown in social mores including the idea of working for a living, perhaps both attributed to similar factors, is less simplistic.
~ ~ ~
I do think that there is a bit more lottery in life than is ideal, in Australia as in Britain and indeed nearly everywhere else. Leaving aside the lottery of being born in a rich country as opposed to any other, if you are born to well-off or even 'middle-class' parents your odds of avoiding significant downside are pretty good, if you are born poor it seems that you have to try a lot harder to avoid significant downsides such as being unemployable. A lot of this comes down to support structures - ironically it is perhaps better for children to grow up with a father who is almost never there since he has to work so hard just to afford school and food etc than a father who is always there but on welfare.
Also, fixing schools, essentially by introducing charter-type schools and vouchers across the country, would seem to me likely to help a lot. Kids have to be exposed to the idea of a work ethic somewhere and at some point, ideally before they turn 18.
I think a part of me never really renounced Plato.
There's a sadly predictable gulf between left and right-leaning responses to the UK riots. Lefties blame poverty, inequality and the evils of neoliberalism, while the right blames bad parenting and a sense of aggrieved entitlement among the undeserving poor whose plight is largely self-inflicted.
There's probably a certain amount of truth in both perspectives, but no doubt a lot of other factors as well. We certainly shouldn't dismiss the much greater income inequality and lack of social mobility in the UK compared with Australia (and most other western countries). Britain has taken neoliberal economic prescriptions significantly further than we have. This Globe and Mail article provides Gini comparisons:
However this one from The Economist makes a similar point to Pedro above at #45 about status and social mobility (with which I agree):
Surely this can't be true - doesn't the UK tax and spend more than we do??
Patrick
This is the sort of question that Peter Whiteford could no doubt answer very well. My general understanding is that Britain's welfare system is much more poorly targetted than ours, with more middle class welfare and more punitive policies towards the poor. Higher taxes and spending don't necessarily equate with lower inequality. It depends who you tax and who you spend it on (and how).
Patrick there is nothing wrong with neo-liberal economic policies per se'.
I think most people who maybe considered leftist to moderate John Quiggin, Fred Argy ,Nicholas Gruen ( in my opinion they range from the leftist to moderate in the order I wrote) would all support market based poicies in most areas.
The problems in the economy in the UK were a large Budget deficit in good times which became a huge budget deficit in bad times and consequently austerity policies introduced at the wrong time. This may well have exacerbated the situation if this paper is correct
KP, granted, but that is to suggest that Britain was insufficiently neoliberal, not vice versa!!
Patrick
I guess it depends on your definition of neoliberal. See Don's other recent thread. In any event, it's a digression from the points I was seeking to make.
BTW This story rather suggests that spoiled brat aggrieved entitlement rather than poverty and inequality is at least part of the picture:
I wonder about the accuracy of the "cuts cause riots" aetiology. If the neoliberal era was one of opportunity unequally spread then these areas would not have been the recipients of increased income. Rather like the welfare dependent area I live in recessions come and go the the influence of the outside world doesn't extend deeply into chronically economically depressed areas. Unemployment is always huge and the black economy rises to counter it's effect. So what is the trigger for this cascade of unrest and looting? If you have been poor and excluded for 30 years why get uppity now? I haven't read much discussion about multiculturalism as a source of this discontent but in a situation of having perfect hindsight 2 english neighbours remarked to me that this 2nd and 3rd generation of the migrants of the commonwealth has been raised as outsiders to english culture. They no roots to the culture of their parents and grandparents and they aren't identifying as english. Why not attack those with material advantage? The idea that the rioters are destroying their own neighbourhoods is also not completely accurate . There are more than enough youtube clips showing the Turks or the Indians being the victims even when they are integrated members of these communities.
"There’s a sadly predictable gulf between left and right-leaning responses to the UK riots."
Not so sure about that Ken-
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/less-political-rebellion-more-mollycoddled-mob/story-e6frg6zo-1226111939883
Somewhere along the way we all forgot what works timelessly and how those of us who know what works best, should have the balls and wherewithal to stand up and shout it out loud and clear and if that message doesn't go in the ear it goes in the bloody rears just like in my folks' day. All lifestyles and life choices are not bloody equal.
I heard an excellent point yesterday about the effective breakdown of the rule of law in areas with substantial gang and drug cultures. Those people operate extra legal businesses and therefore have extra legal remedies for business disputes. Thus they become habituated to violence and crime. Some of the stories suggest quite organised looting enterprises and perhaps that is a hallmark of gang thinking.
Certainly I think that the riots more likely reflect a long-standing lack of law and order in certain areas than austerity policies and social grievances. We're not that far removed from the tribe, or even the savannah.
The other thing to remember is that people create communities, governments create slums.
Patrick, re entitlement, perhaps, but even if it were true, there's plenty of evidence that welfare states can provide useful support and opportunity to the poor without inculcating an undue "sense of entitlement" that translates into
negative behaviour.
As far as the state/family dysfunctions goes, I don't really accept the premise in the first place (that it has done significant harm to families), but yes, if that is your premise then the rational thing to do is reverse such policies. It won't fix families that are already dysfunctional, but it is an act by the state that could in principle help reduce levels of family dysfunction.
Ken, I'd be pretty surprised if those cases proved to be typical.
Wiz, you would want to be surprised since if those cases are typical you would completely wrong. If I could think of an objective measurement I would bet you on this one, though.
As for the evidence about welfare states, how much? Does any of that evidence arise out of multicultural societies or just monocultures?
Well obby,
That was a sadly predictable effort by you to link to a sadly predictable op-ed that amusingly and predicably shot itself in the foot with its opening line.
And this is precisely what I mean- http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/transit-officer-punched-in-face-at-station/story-e6frfku0-1226113204867 They should all receive the rattan cane, no ifs buts or maybes, black white or brindle.
And we wouldn't have to do it very often and shock certain 'sensibilities'. Just leak the caning videos to Wikileaks and trust me, the word would get around real quick with the Youtube, Facebook and Blackberry set. Disobey a police officer's instructions or insult the representative of our laws and you would get the same unlike this crap- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuqeQaEatiI&feature=player_embedded#at=20
"There’s a sadly predictable gulf between left and right-leaning responses to the UK riots. Lefties blame poverty, inequality and the evils of neoliberalism, while the right blames bad parenting and a sense of aggrieved entitlement among the undeserving poor whose plight is largely self-inflicted."
Well what is wrong with looking at both sides of the balance sheet? But its not neoliberalism. Thats the one thing you've said that is clearly wrong. All the above is correct other than that. Your list is neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive.
What about the culture of stealing? Stealing for non-existent global warming! Stealing for the public service splurge that you ridiculously call a stimulus. Stealing for your banker mates.
We are watching an orgy of stealing. But we have been watching an orgy of stealing ever since Henry Paulson became treasury secretary. Its a continuous orgy of stealing and yet you see no commonality. And neither does the right.
Patrick, absolutely - and indeed I've only expressed a tentative idea of what factors *might* be significant because I don't think there's nearly information to be sure. I would say the US and Australia over the last 70 or so years are pretty good examples of multicultural societies where (by and large) the welfare state has helped to alleviate poverty and provide some sort of leg-up to the least fortunate among us. The percentage for whom that has as translated into a self-destructive sense of 'entitlement' would seem to me fairly small.
From the Telegraph article describing the unexpected appearance of some obviously reasonably advantaged members of society:
"Most defendants conformed more closely to Mr Cameron’s “sick society” template"
It would seem the most likely explanation is that once crowd mentality sets in, there will be opportunistic people from all walks of life likely to join in all sorts of nasty behaviour.
It's the initiators that are worth focusing on.
Really?
How about getting rid of single mother's pension? You don't think that would lead to a sharp decrease in babies being born to single mothers?
Yobbo, the single mother's pension didn't exist for most of human history, but unmarried or unsupported mothers have. Now why is that, hmm? Thinking cap on now.
Yobbo if you're seriously suggesting for a moment that anyone in their right mind who choose to put themselves in the position of having to raise a child on their own purely for the pitiful govermment support you get for doing so then may I humbly suggest that you obviously have no grasp of just what being a single parent actually means. If I misunderstood you I apologise, but I'm struggling to see why there would be any likelihood that reducing single parent pensions would have any significant impact on family dysfunction. But perhaps my judgement is tainted, having seen how trying it was for own my mother to bring up three kids largely on her own (the little government aid that was available to her she largely used to re-educate herself and get back into workforce).
Sure Sally, but not in such massive numbers as they do now. And they were mostly a result of bad fortune rather than bad planning. A woman has a baby with her husband and then he either abandons her or dies or something of that nature. Women didn't knowingly choose to have babies alone very often.
Because more pregnant teenage girls would choose to have abortions or give babies up for adoption rather than raise them in the cradle-to-the-grave welfare dependent communities that have arisen in the UK since these kind of pensions were introduced.
Sigh...then you are confirming my point that you really have no idea what an undertaking being a single parent is. And if you think 'more abortions' is a solution to dysfunctional families, then why not just go the whole hog and suggest sterilization. I'm not even convinced that there's a higher proportion of 'dysfunctional' single-parent families than two-parent families anyway.
Interesting snippet for those thinking about the unmarried mum situation- if you have worked in the UK in some of the riot affected areas- like Clapham, Brixton, Tottenham ,East Ham you will learnt that the situation is quite intentional for most of the women involved. One women may have multiple partners and as such for example 4 kids with 4 fathers.It is a normal choice in the UK resident west indian community .The guys I met in Brixton were all supporting to some extent the children but the mother is the centre of the home and the lives for the children. The fathers are distant figures and usually not wanted around the house too much. The idea that there are failed nmarriages involves is just incorrect in most casers.
"Because more pregnant teenage girls.."
Yobbo, if you look it up, the number of pregnant teenagers is tiny in Australia (hardly worth worrying about) -- and the only groups which do have a higher rate of it are probably not exactly groups who are thinking about planning for the future too hard. In addition, given current birth rates, perhaps we should think about these people in the opposite way -- they are really doing us a favour. In addition, if you're worried about money and subsidies, you may as well start complaining about large groups of women, not just single parents. Try looking up the amount that are taking years off full time work after all that money is spent on their education etc. (in a time of skills shortages). You can doubly complain about older women too, since their kids have a higher rate of various disorders than younger women (and no doubt as they get older, they have less energy to care for them and the kids seem to be more disruptive -- this an anecdotal comment I get from teachers -- having a 50 year old parent isn't necessarily a good thing). Indeed, given the tax scales, you could complain about almost all single parents, or what the heck, people having kids in general (you subsidize their schools, after all).
If that's true murph, the interesting question is why is the phenonemon largely restricted to west indian communities - i.e., it suggests like there are cultural factors at play, so there's limit to what degree it makes sense to look at the welfare system as a whole as a source of problems. But more pertinently, is there actually a strong enough statistical connection between being brought up by single mothers and engaging in criminal/destructive behaviour to draw any useful conclusions?
conrad, is the proportion of 'pregnant teenage girls' significant higher in the UK? And are their single parent pensions are more generous or easily available? For instance, I'd read that in the UK once their oldest child is 5 single parents are required to look for work in order to continue receiving any benefit. Is that the case here?
Don't think it is restricted to one community just not abnormal in some. We have the same thing occurring in much reduced numbers around my current home. Not aware that there are studies but they would be out there somewhere - my comment was just to counter the concept of marriage and marriage failure being involved. re the issue of welfare - my thinking is that the children deserve the support and if that is delegated through the mother it is quite appropriate.
Why frame the debate like it is? I guess better questions are:"Is there any evidence that great numbers of people have children so that they can get the single parent pension". Only in the minds of conservatives I believe, and "if people are unemployed and single parents, is the pension high enough such that they can look after their children properly". Yes, in the minds of people Yobbo, who will then complain when their children create problems because they can't understand why they are living in shitty housing and are marginalized compared to most other children.
Here is the data you were looking for:"http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_tee_bir_rat-people-teenage-birth-rate"
I guess we'd better start watching out for the end of society coming in New Zealand, and Greece looks like a wonderful place.
Thanks for that conrad, though I'm now even more interested in finding information on single parent welfare availability per country. Particularly for the U.S., which as often seems to be the case, is off the charts. Because if there was a strong correlation then Yobbo may well have a point. Which isn't to say I'd automatically agree that the best solution is restricting such welfare, but it would at least make the discussion worthwhile.
I think the correlation is approximately zero, with the US on top and Korea on the bottom, both places with low SS benefits, and Germany and Norway in the middle, both places with comparatively reasonable benefits.
Old and U.S. only, but from http://www.moappp.org/Documents/pregnancypovertyschoolandemployment.pdf:
"Overall, studies have found that larger AFDC payments in states are weakly associated with higher rates of out-of-wedlock teen childbearing among whites, but this association does not hold for African American or Latino teens. No correlation has been found between the level of welfare benefits and
additional births to teen mothers (Moore 1995)."
(AFDC = "Aid to Families with Dependent Children")
So to answer your question Yobbo "You don’t think that would lead to a sharp decrease in babies being born to single mothers?" my answer is a firm 'no'.
Sterilization, on the other hand, would probably work quite well.
Wasn't this the whole rationale behind Clinton's welfare reforms?
If it were the *whole* rationale, they were a complete failure. Though I'm surprised how successful they were in other areas.
My understanding is that black communities in the US have traditionally had a large proportion of single mother households because there was work for women and not much work for men. Being married meant that the husband was an extra mouth to feed. Why put up with a bored surly man who is likely to beat you up when you pay for him? Hence low marriage rates.
I think the lack of steady employment opportunities for men decrease their marriage propects but obviously not their paternity activities.
Yobbo, out of curiousiy, do you consider single parents that freely choose to leave their spouses and then rely on custody payments from them to be welfare dependent? If so, what about those who are left by their spouses, or those leave due to abuse etc.?
No, I'm mostly talking about women who choose to have babies with no partner, knowing in advance where their income is coming from.
Obviously it's hard to argue that unforeseen future circumstances (such as a husband leaving or dying or starting to abuse you) are affected by welfare incentives.
Meaningless drivel, you would have replied with this no matter what I wrote.
Well I had allowed for the possibility that I had completely misinterpreted you. Sadly I hoped for too much.
At any rate I haven't found a skerrick of evidence that reducing the availability of single parent welfare has any measurable impact on the choices of partnerless woman to have children.
"No, I’m mostly talking about women who choose to have babies with no partner, [not] knowing in advance where their income is coming from. "
Excluding rich almost middle aged women getting IVF (which costs thousands, so we can safely assume most of them are rich enough that they won't be the type of person you are thinking of), what percentage of parents are we talking about here? I'll admit it, I've never met anyone that has decided to have a child knowing full well their will be no father from day 1 (c.f., just got drunk one day, screwed some guy, and then got pregnant). If we're talking about 1% of the population, I'm not really sure why you are so worried.
Well that's here conrad where there's a relatively low portion of fatherless families. Supposedly Tottenham has some crazy stat like 80% of families being fatherless, which is high enough that, when combined with general low-income status, you'd expect a rise in social problems. On that basis, I would definitely think it worthwhile trying to look for underlying causes. If there are any significant number of women there choosing to have babies in order to receive paltry amounts of additional state aid, that would tend to suggest both a) a lack of resources available to help these women make such choices and b) a truly desperate lack of alternative choices. Either way, I'd much rather see attempts to tackle the problem before the whole getting pregnant part.
Wiz, one reason you can't find the evidence is that it doesn't exist, as compared to the suggestion by disproved.
As for Tottenham, I dare say that much less than 80% would be enough.
"If there are any significant number of women there choosing to have babies in order to receive paltry amounts of additional state aid, that would tend to suggest both a) a lack of resources available to help these women make such choices and b) a truly desperate lack of alternative choices"
I wonder whether the pensions are so paltry? Do you think that the classic, as seen on channel 9, welfare bludger family does not exist at all?
A study on parenting and crime
http://www.aic.gov.au/documents/6/0/A/%7B60A2798D-AE48-49FF-B028-D7ECC6C55E72%7Dti85.pdf
Well I'm not aware of any evidence such families exist in sufficient numbers to be the sound basis for policymaking. No matter what the system is there will always be people that cheat it.
Thanks for the link, though I'd say there's nothing surprising about it, and the obvious conclusion is that families in disadvantage areas need *more* support, not less. However I would agree it needs to carefully directed support - handouts on their own clearly aren't a sustainable solution.
No big surprise being that you are comfortably middle class. Then again, a blogger who should be well known to readers of this blog did exactly that a few years ago, and bragged about it all the delicious welfare she'd be receiving on Larvatus Prodeo.
I think yobbo must be right about wiz, you can't possibly not know anyone who knowingly had a child as a single mum!! Of course anecdote doesn't prove much but they do say a lot about the teller ;)
Actually I did know such a person (we've since lost touch). I've no doubt at all the the knowledge government aid would be available had factored into her decision to keep the child rather opt for abortion or adoption. I would certainly accept that if you completely scrapped single mother pensions, there would be a small fraction of expectant single mothers who would choose abortion or adoption instead of keeping the child. My (perhaps over-) reaction to Yobbo's statement that there would be a "sharp decrease in babies being born to single mothers" was the implication that there would a significant number of women either deliberately or negligently getting pregnant with the knowledge welfare would be available, and the further implication that getting rid of such welfare payments would be a desirable result, considering the horrendous impact it would have on the majority of single mothers who became such through circumstances largely out of their control. Indeed I don't even accept it's better for pregancies in general to end in abortion/adoption rather than a period of welfare dependency, even if one can surely point to individual cases where it would be difficult to argue otherwise.
Just realised that last statement was slightly open to misinterpretation. There's no way I could ever imagine usefully arguing that a particular child of a single mother would have been better off having been aborted or adopted - as it is, if such mothers are obviously neglectful/abusive any children would be taken away and re-parented anyway (hopefully as a temporary measure only). I could certainly suggest they would have been better off if the father had stayed around - but I can't see how you could restructure welfare payments to generate a financial incentive for fathers to do so without generating all sorts of other negative outcomes (does anybody know if it's been tried?). I suppose all I meant is that there are particular cases where we can reasonably say "we want less of these types of situations to happen in the first place".
Am I alone in thinking that babies who are adopted out to loving 2-parent families are almost always better off than babies raised in single-parent households?
wizofaus:
"There’s no way I could ever imagine usefully arguing that a particular child of a single mother would have been better off having been aborted or adopted ..."
Strongly disagree. A great of human suffering, not to mention public expense, would be saved if the most dysfunctional mothers were paid monies in return for sterilisation. Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, being born with a condition like FASD isn't much fun.
" Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, being born with a condition like FASD isn’t much fun."
Although it must be more fun that not being born, otherwise presumably these people wouldn't still be here. This is the problem with evaluating people based on comparisons between groups -- what we really do is accept that there must be some absolute line above which being alive with whatever things people happen to think are bad is still better than not being alive. So I think wizofaus is correct from both the perspective of the individual and our current society. It's also congruent with the future identity problem of Derek Parfit which suggests there is simply no comparison to be made between "you with something" or "you without something", since two possible versions of you could never exist (they would be different people).
Really? Wouldn't it be always better not to be born at all?
Yobbo, I would certainly not presume anything close to 'almost always'.
But the point is, while a particular individual may have had a less-than-ideal upbringing to the inability of a single mother to provide it on her own, then unless the circumstances were so dysfunctional that Child Services (or equivalent) had to intervene, you achieve nothing constructive by telling the child/mother "well Ms Smith it would obviously have been better if you'd chosen to have an abortion given up little Johnny for adoption". The individuals in question and the relationship between them have an instrinic value that your hypothetical alternative just assumes away as being not worth preserving.
The only workable and moral 'direct' solution I can envisage is educational programs (plus contraceptive subsidization) to reduce the pregnancy rate among single disadvantaged women, to change the attitudes of the fathers that have little compunction in not fulfillling their share of the responsibility, and lastly to ensure those women still finding themselves pregnant after the father has left are able make a sensible informed decisions about whether to abort, adopt or keep. All of which costs money of course, but I'd hazard even a relatively modest success rate in reducing welfare dependency would allow such programs to pay for themselves in due time.
Yobbo, mine was a single family household, from just before I turned 5. I'm the oldest of 4 and I can't much remember dad because he was sick for about 18 months I think. I'm pretty sure I would not have been better off adopted out, but of course I don't disprove your statement. My mum always worked, despite a year 10 education and she has 4 successful kids. I do think you can see how dad going caused problems in our lives, but we still had one quality parent.
The big problem is dud parents, and especially dud single parents. I don't see how the govt fixes that other than taking the kids away. An army of social workers is not going to change much.
http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/fichiers/public/Piketty2003.pdf
"The Impact of Divorce on School Performance:
Evidence from France, 1968-2002*
For given observable parental characteristics, children with divorced or
separated parents tend to perform less well at school than children living with
their two parents. This result has been used to argue that softening divorce
legislation might be bad for children. This might, however, just reflect a
selection effect: parents who decide to separate are presumably parents who
fight with each other, etc., and it is unclear whether children growing up in a
high-conflict, two-parent family are better off than children with separated
parents. In this Paper, I develop two identification strategies suggesting that
the selection hypothesis is indeed relevant. First, I look at the school
performance of children a couple of years before their parents separate, and I
show that they are doing as bad as children already living with only one of
their parents. Next, I exploit the large increase in separation rates following
the 1975 divorce law reform (as well as cross-regional variations in divorce
rates) to show that the performance gap of single-parent children is a
declining function of the separation rate, with an elasticity close to -1. Taken
together, my results suggest that parental conflicts (rather than separation per
se) are bad for children, and that the distribution of conflict intensity between couples has been fairly stable over time and was not significantly affected by the change in divorce law."
So now I'm genuinely curious Pedro - what was it you were thinking of on the other thread when you wondered if government policies weren't somewhat to blame for a rise in 'dysfunctional families'?
If there were any one factor that I might posit as being likely to contribute towards family dysfunction, it's relevant paucity of free time and energy available to parents today compared to, say, 30 or 40 years ago. The total number of hours worked each work by both parents now is surely significantly higher than it was two generations ago, to a degree that it's hard to see how it can't have had a negative impact on family cohesion*.
I'm not sure to what degree you can *blame* this on government policy - which isn't to say that changes in our tax system and labour regulations haven't played a part in triggering the increase in working hours.
* If you consider divorce statistics as any sort of proxy for measuring this, then arguably we don't really have a problem anyway, given they've been on the decrease for some time. But I'm not convinced it's a particularly accurate proxy.
So it was pretend curiosity before? ;-)
Simple, I believe that there are more children being born and raised in disfunctional circumstances because of govt policies (and social mores changes) supporting that. By those I mean long-term welfare and dud single parents.
I'm not sure about the working hours as a general matter, but personally I refuse to work so long that I'm not around much for the kids. I make most of the breakfasts and probably half of the dinners and I probably do most of the bedtime stories as well. We both work, my wife ostensibly part time, but pretty much full time anyway. I think people make choices about their lives and have much more control than is commonly claimed. I also think that lots of middle class and wealthy parents make crap choices and then pretend they really have no choice.
A ford hatchback and toyota wagon don't degrade your life compared to a BMW and a Volvo wagon and, shock horror, we make do with only 2 bathrooms (one of which doubles as the laundry if you can believe that!).
But what would be an example of a government policy that has lead to an increase in dud single parents? And are you really so sure that on balance, the sorts of parents that are on long-term welfare would somehow be better parents if they relied inside on charities and god-knows-what else to scrape out some sort of living?
And I agree in principle that people DO have more control over their choice of work hours than is claimed, however there's only so much one can do about human nature and the fact that that we tend to irrationally fear being 'left behind' if we can't attain the same lifestyles those around us do. The biggest problem seems to be people working overtime for no extra pay, and at best either the hope that this will lead to promotion or at least ensure their job remains secure. But of course it's largely a pointless arms race if everybody is doing much the same thing.
Wiz, perhaps it's just my right-wing prejudices leading me astray, but I could swear I've seen lots of stuff over the years about the failure of the great society and the creation of welfare dependency.
I said earlier, just so you don't think me heartless, that I think there is a real policy dilemma. Even a drug-addled loser can miss his or her kids.
However, I expect that once upon a time more kids were given up for adoption because of social pressure (there were a few at my catholic school) and as a result there were less single parents from the get go, as compared to widows. Many of those kids will have been better off as a result.
And anyone without a extreme left-wing prejudice would agree welfare dependency is generally a bad thing (accepting that there will always be some people sufficiently disabled etc. that their only realistic existence means reliance on welfare). But there does actually seem to be a reasonably good track record of successful programs to tackle it. Maybe it's my left-wing prejudices but I've seen lots of stuff about the failure of simply making welfare harder to get :-)
Making welfare harder to get is part of the problem Wiz.
Governments have increasingly made it harder for childless people to get welfare, while simultaneously making it easier for women with children to get it.
Surprise: more single, jobless women deciding to have kids.
And on a related note: A noticeable steady increase in the number of disability pensioners, despite advances in medical science.
I hate it when the working poor get a bad rep. Fuck YOU. My god damn mother worked monday through sunday.
After ten years, she only had 40,000 bucks saved up (10 years of the same routine). She basically killed herself working, and worked harder than ANY OF THESE FUCKERS CRITICIZING HER. Especially that fat turd Limbaugh, who essentially gets paid thousands to act like a fool in front of a microphone.
She was also an immigrant, which Americans seem to love calling ''lazy and moochers''
I say all this because telling my mom she can't have a fridge or a microwave otherwise she is ''mooching' is absolutely insane. Where the hell do you want her to store her food? Place salt on it?
Dont get me wrong, there probably are moochers. But none in my family. We also received food stamps, BTW. LOVING THAT FREE RIDE.
as for welfare; there is a time and place for it. But it essentially ''imprisons'' you to mediocrity lest you want it taken from you. Least that's how a teacher of mine explained it. My mother never wanted it either (she was eligible), she wouldn't be able to bear the embarrassment.