photo credit: lessismoreorless
The British Guardian/Observer just did one of the better stories I have seen on US cities suffering greatly in this Bush depression–showing that in Detroit things are worse than in the great Depression of the 1930s. Much of Motor City is now “a ghost town.” The 1930s saw official unemployment reach about 25 percent. Today it is 29 percent in Detroit. This predominantly black city has lost more than half its population in recent years as U.S. capitalists have made many poor decisions, usually in the name of profit, including disinvestment in U.S. industry. Among other things they have sought cheap labor overseas, often at near-slave wages, and weak government regulation. Once the fourth largest city, Detroit has dropped to 11th in the country.
One summary of 2000 and 2005-2007 census data describes racial percentages in the city:
The racial makeup of the city was 81.6% Black, 12.3% White, 1.0% Asian, 0.3% Native American, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 2.5% other races, 2.3% two or more races, and 5.0 percent Hispanic. The city’s foreign-born population is at 4.8%. Estimates from the 2005-2007 American Community Survey showed little variance.
A city once overwhelmingly white, Detroit is now one of the least white cities, the probable reason mainstream national media have paid little attention to the economic depression firmly entrenched here. Journalist Paul Harris at The Observer describes severe conditions in Detroit thus:
Try telling Brother Jerry Smith [at a Capuchin brothers’ soup kitchen] that the recession in America has ended. . . . Outside his office the hungry, the homeless and the poor crowded around tables. Many were by themselves, but some were families with young children. None had jobs.
He adds:
There is little doubt that Detroit is ground zero for the parts of America that are still suffering. The city that was once one of the wealthiest in America is a decrepit, often surreal landscape of urban decline. . . . The birthplace of the American car industry, it boasted factories that at one time produced cars shipped over the globe. Its downtown was studded with architectural gems, and by the 1950s it boasted the highest median income and highest rate of home ownership of any major American city.
Then U.S. capitalists started aggressively disinvesting in U.S. cities’ industries, and whites had already begun to flee cities like Detroit for the suburbs. With the help of white real estate decisionmakers, White flight created the famous “doughnut” pattern of black residents at the center surrounded by mostly white suburbs. Manufacturing decentralized in the metro area, then started fleeing to the South and other countries — for cheaper labor and no regulation. The city dropped half its nearly two million population to about 900,000 now. And today even the suburbs are also in trouble:
Its once proud suburbs now contain row after row of burnt-out houses. . . . Now almost a third of Detroit – covering a swath of land the size of San Francisco – has been abandoned. Tall grasses, shrubs and urban farms have sprung up in what were once stalwart working-class suburbs. . . .
The city has a shocking jobless rate of 29%. . . . Recently a semi-riot broke out when the city government offered help in paying utility bills. Need was so great that thousands of people turned up for a few application forms. In the end police had to control the crowd, which included the sick and the elderly, some in wheelchairs.
To make matters worse the city has a huge government debt and is cutting major services like street lights and public transportation.
(For a boosterish story on Detroit, that barely touches on these issues see Wikipedia here)
We have summarized the significance of much of this capital flight from US cities here:
Capital flight—the movement of companies to locations with lower labor costs and favorable profit-making conditions—is now a threat to many U.S. workers. And it is distinctively racialized, with workers of color in recent decades often suffering disproportionately from it. Especially African American and Latino workers in blue-collar jobs in major US industries like the auto industry.
Many US corporations now routinely operate around the world. The global capitalistic market has made low-wage labor and unregulated working situations available to most big corporations which shift investments out of moderate-profit industries to higher-profit international ventures, abandoning U.S. industries. From the (usually white) corporate executives’ view, plant closings and capital flight “discipline” U.S. workers to accept lower wages—and to be docile in the face of corporate decisions. A variety of U.S. firms are using relatively low-wage, nonunion labor pools in poor countries to cut production costs. Computer and electronics industries, which many have counted on to provide jobs to replace the decent-paying ones lost in declining “smokestack” industries, have joined the corporate flight overseas. Many blue-collar jobs and, increasingly, many white-collar jobs are being exported overseas; they are often the jobs important for many new entrants into the U.S. work force, such as non–college-bound high school graduates. The U.S. government has aggressively facilitated the export of many decent-paying jobs to low-wage areas in other countries. Without some countervailing power, corporations with accountability to no country will go wherever labor is cheapest and most repressed, a process that has steadily eroded the standard of living for many U.S. workers and their families–of various racial backgrounds.
I’m sorry, I feel as though I’m caught unaware. When you mention the US govt facilitating capital divestment, are you talking about NAFTA and other trade agreements or something else?
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If you’re not interested in the history of ideologies, just skip straight to the last “section.”
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This next is an economic-political question wrapped in a racial question. The people protesting federal govt action in face of the recession, what would they have the govt do? It seems to me that as a practical matter of dollars and sense, the protesters have much, if not the most, to gain from govt actions, and history teaches that massive intervention on the part of the fed govt. Spending for the war got the economy going; and, it was Hoover’s attempts to balance the budget and cut spending that turned a great recession into a depression. From what I’ve read, FDR’s mistake was pulling back on govt spending at the best of conservatives once things started improving. Japan lost an entire decade basically because the govt never spent enough to spur economic growth. (I go through that history to pre-empt those who would question my understanding of economics.) So, don’t these protesters know that federal spending, not trying to balance the budget is what will get us out of the recession? Is the problem public education or ideology? Do they not realize that it’s been “pro-business” decision, “small govt” decisions that have led to these problems in the first place? So what do they suggest the govt do?
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To the racial component, we’ve all noticed the pale nature of all these protests. Knowing that these people have much, if not the most, to gain from massive govt intervention, are they protesting because they think others will benefit more than they? I was just talking with a poli-sci major and we discussed the history of Southern political ideology. The South was solidly Democratic until the CRM. These Dems would’ve been what we call “conservative,” but they belonged to the same ideological party as FDR. From what I now understand, conservatives don’t dislike all govt intervention, just fed govt intervention, re: conservative support for states’ rights or pushing decisions to the state level. But the only time the fed govt intervened against the wishes of locals was to push Civil Rights legislation. In fact, millions of elderly Americans switched parties so they could vote for FDR and medicare. So what is this distrust of fed govt really about?
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But anyway, this article is upsetting but not surprising. Once Auburn Hills starts to suffer, the media will head to Detroit’s surrounding area, at least. Black America has been in a recession for the past several years. It’s always been the contention of many black people I know that the media only covers certain events when it happens to white people. This is just one example of that subjugated knowledge.
Important post, Joe ~ thanks for this.
No1KState, thanks for your (many) good comments and insights on our blog posts. Yes, the US government has numerous trade agreements, legislation encouraging or facilitating capital transfers, and other legislation that facilitate US investments and capital flight — not to mention our numerous military invasions and CIA subversions of ‘unfriendly’ goverments, which then open up opportunities US investments and/or flight there. See the last reference I link to if you want more info.
Yes, it is strange to see working class and lower middle classs whites protesting programs that will actually benefit them, often in major ways. These ‘ordinary’ white folks seem just to be brainwashed by the various brainwashing institutions, like several cable channels. They get so much misinformation that they just cannot see the world for what it really is. And, yes, whites’ racial fears (about black people getting political/social power) do seem to have much to do with some white conservatism, especially in the case of historical shifts by many white voters from the Dem Party to the Rep Party in the South and southern parts of northern states. In Europe, many of these white working class and middle class voters would be in left (socialist or Communist) parties.
Re: “In Europe, many of these white working class and middle class voters would be in the left (socialist or Communist) parties” — which wouldn’t make them less racist…
In any case, I just wanted to draw your attention to something else that could be of relevance to this post – the link between systemic racism and the urban planning of cities. Langdon Winner has quite a controversial piece on this, which attempts to link architectural and urban design with racism. Whether systemic racism is a cause or a consequence or both, the important point here is that material arrangements are often perpetuating racist structures.
>In my own very large city, there was a section of ‘uptown’ that was composed of lower income housing apartments.They were filled with mostly black citizens. It wasn’t ‘pretty’ because poverty Is Not pretty.
> I drove uptown recently and those apartments were completely gone. Instead was this framework for what looked like huge condominium skyscrapers.So, I wondered, what happened to all those poor black people who couldn’t afford any place else to live? I mean, were they just pushed away like fairy dust?
>My son, who is in the construction business, told me that ‘new owners’ come in and just give eviction notices to the tenants. Then {in this case} they just demolish the buildings and re-build. My son said, poor black people just have to move to other low income housing Somewhere. This complex held probably 500 hundred units..that translates into 500 families uprooted. This practice is very common.
>I’ve read articles in the newspaper calling for ‘uptown to look better! Some sections are unsightly’. MOM once said poverty is not a crime. Well, apparently it is if you want Pretty Uptowns. Can’t Let the Tourists See Unsightly!
Ellen, good points. Detroit has seen this type of Condo gentrification too, and the wikipedia article on Detroit highlights it as good stuff. My own hometown, Houston, is doing a lot of this now too, displacing black, Latino, and older white working class populations
Thanks for the post, Joe. I plan to have my urban students read this in class.
Thanks Joe. And thanks for the post. I’m just trying to make sense of the world around me.
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@ thinking difference @ Yes, they would be just as racist in Europe. I’m just trying to understand why a group who would otherwise be leftist/socialist/communist actually vote as capitalists. In the US, they try to get people of color to believe that the sudden shift is about “moral issues” like abortion and that it’s reasonable that these people would consider social issues, including but not limited to abortion, just as important as economic issues, if not more so. They’re stuck in other contradictions like how God would send Katrina and Rita in his wrath against homosexuality; but 9/11/01 can have little to nothing to do with the US’s interactions with the rest of the world.
Yes, European workers can be quite racist towards people of color. Yet, It is interesting that it was the middle and upper classes (and capitalists) in Germany, much more so than the German working class (disproportionately socialist/communist), that brought Hitler and the Nazis to power. Hitler killed many socialists, communists, worker protesters……
How can you say “people of color” are suffering from capital flight? It’s not like the capital is flying to Western Europe — it’s going to semi-developed, often non-White countries. Isn’t this a good thing by your standards? Or perhaps your interest is more tribal: you’re interested only in American non-Whites.
Even the premier environmental preservation organization, the Sierra Club, will not now speak against immigration as a deleterious force. With the population projected to reach 450 million by 2050, this is most disconcerting, for, self-evidently, the environment will suffer. If the lion’s share of these immigrants were of European extraction, I’m willing to bet their would be no problem for the Sierra Club in advocating its cessation. Which should tell us something, namely, that all principles, no matter how indispensable and prudent their goals, must yield to ‘fighting White racism’. It is no longer about practical measures to improve the lives of all people, but an exercise in exorcism of demons. That is to say, a essentially religious crusade pursued with irrational malice towards Whites. Getting Whitey has become an end unto itself.
“Yes, European workers can be quite racist towards people of color.”
So the European peoples have no right even to the possession of their own ancestral lands in perpetuity so that they might live and not die? It does not surprise me you should think that, at all.
Getting Whitey has become an end unto itself!
@Darin
>So the European peoples have no right even to the possession of their own ancestral lands in perpetuity so that they might live and not die?
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In the European context: What is considered white and ‘non-white’ ? Do you think about ‘ancestral lands’ according European countries or the European continent?
And why do you think Europeans would die rather than live with an anti-racist system which would respect basic human rights of all people?
Why do you think that violating the basic human rights of People of Color would help the survival of Europeans?
>Actually Darin, it depends oh how you view capital flight. Capital Flight has hurt Americans immeasurably. All Americans from white collar to blue. You know this. The globalization of our economy is about delegating work to people, world wide, who will do it for Less.
>Additionally, our country lags behind the rest of the world in Science and Math education. India is using its profusion of scientifically educated graduates to compete with us dumb Americans.
>What can give us back the edge? I’ve said it before 1.edcuation 2.education 3.education.
>This capital flight has left many millions of Americans stranded. However, if you start out on the border-lines economically, like many African Americans, this globalization will doubly impact you.
The following is an excerpt from the book Flight Capital:
>Shifting U.S. jobs overseas remains an emotional hot button. In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry chastised “Benedict Arnold CEOs,” who favored foreign over American employees. Then-secretary of state Colin Powell, dispatched by President Bush to New Delhi, countered by saying that outsourcing was “a reality of the twenty-first century” but that India should do more to offset the loss of U.S. jobs by opening its market to American goods.
>But don’t dismiss the gains in productivity and competitiveness to U.S. business and the jobs that are created as a result of outsourcing. The rule of thumb is that each Indian employee represents an annual savings to American employers of $20,000 to $30,000. The cost of transmitting work offshore is expected to plummet by as much as 60 percent in 2005 thanks to new undersea cables. While such savings are a big draw, quality of work is a close second — and gaining in importance. The skills of India’s computer scientists, for example, are unsurpassed.
>A decade ago, only Motorola’s unit in Bangalore achieved a 5 rating. Today, 387 Indian companies are so accredited. Therefore, multinational enterprises are getting more complex work done on the subcontinent — not just in IT but in fields ranging from financial services to biotechnology.
> India’s unforeseen leap into the top ranks of global technology refuted conventional development theory, which predicted that India and other poor countries would follow the same long, slow path Western industrial nations had followed — from agriculture to manufacturing to high technology. India’s development shortcut made it the first Third World nation to use its brain- power, not natural resources or low-wage labor, to propel its entry into the economic big leagues.
>By some estimates, there are more IT engineers in Bangalore (150,000), India’s self-proclaimed Silicon Valley, than in its California counterpart (130,000). In this southern city once known as “pensioners’ paradise” for its mild weather and slow pace, you’ll find the landscape blazoned with famous corporate logos: GE, Intel, Cisco, IBM, Philips, AOL. More than half the U.S. Fortune 500, as well as leading European, Japanese, Chinese, even Pakistani companies, have a significant presence here — all using Indian Brainpower.
Copyright © 2005 David Heenan
All this is great for India, terrible for the United States.
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/9-15-2005-76880.asp
@ ellen – Good info. What’s more is that this cheap labor is being exploited. And once there’s push back and the companies have to do right, standard of living will increase. That’s a good thing. But should it get too high, the multinationals will leave for another developing country.
Ellen:
John Kerry, Colin Powell, and George W. Bush – a trifecta of economic ignoramuses! A good rule of thumb might be if those three agree on it, the opposite is true.
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You probably won’t be surprised to hear that I disagree with the general assessment of the economics of this issue. “Capital flight” is nothing more than competition for capital and other resources. It happens within the US — Boeing just elected to build its next big plant in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, rather than Washington State — and it happens internationally. But overall, it’s a very powerful force for good. India, to use your example, can’t compete in most areas with developed economies. What India can provide is cheap labor, it’s chock full of people who need to earn a living. Economists would say that India has a “comparative advantage” in low-skilled labor. So India exploits this advantage by marketing its low-skill labor in the international market, which makes Indians much better off. Of course, other providers of low-skill labor don’t like competition from India, so they complain bitterly, but that’s how life is.
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I can appreciate that if you personally lose your job to an Indian you would be pretty upset about it. Just like the Boeing machinists I saw on the news who are upset that Boeing is moving to South Carolina. But what do you want Boeing to do? It’s not like Boeing can simply pass those costs along. Theirs is a competitive market, and if Boeing’s costs rise, they’ll lose money to Airbus. They have no choice.
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Detroit is a particularly galling example. Instead of letting the American car industry die a quiet, dignified death, the government has been propping it up. Meanwhile more and more workers come to rely on this house of cards for their livelihoods. They’re going to get screwed. Well, that’s not true: the rest of us are going to get screwed picking up the tab for totally indefensible packages of benefits and pensions negotiated in a labor market insulated from market discipline. Actually, that’s not true either: the 50 percent of us who actually pay taxes are going to get screwed. It’s disgusting, frankly. A political mess, not an economic one, though.
Darin Said:Economists would say that India has a “comparative advantage” in low-skilled labor. So India exploits this advantage by marketing its low-skill labor in the international market, which makes Indians much better off.
>Darin {sigh!} did you Not read this article thoroughly? Read again please: ‘India’s development shortcut made it the first Third World nation to use its Brain- Power, not natural resources Or Low-Wage Labor, to propel its entry into the economic big leagues.’
>So, India is cranking out mechanical and electrical engineers by the basketful and they are willing to work for lower pay than Americans. {This article was Not about Low Skill Labor.}
>But all is not lost here. My ‘ace in the hole’ that may save all Americans, including minorities, is more emphasis on science and math for American students so we can compete. This is something dear to my heart: pushing education on US students and especially trying to increase the educational level of minority kids.
>Plus, just because something is economically more viable regarding large US companies..it certainly doesn’t mean this is {on the whole Darin} beneficial for America! Darin, our unemployment rate is almost as high as it’s been since the Great Depression. Americans desperately need these jobs.
>During the period after the American Revolution, the Continental Congress placed a tariff on imported goods to encourage Americans to buy American made products. This may be illegal now {I don’t know the import/export laws} but damn we need some Way to off-set the global market.
> Plus, please don’t deny the simple fact that if you’re in a precarious situation financially to begin with {such as poor black Americans} all this globalization will impact you Severely. Many working class whites have been impacted also, but not to the extent blacks have cuz of our old nemesis Racism.
Okay, okay, I wasn’t very precise, you’re right! I look at it this way: India is in unique position to provide labor for technical markets. There’s no entrepreneurship going on in India. No high-end technical stuff. To the extent that it’s technical, it’s “mechanical” – outsourcing of accounting, medical diagnoses, computer programming, etc.
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But you’re right, that’s better than unskilled labor. Of course, India does a lot of that, too. I think I just heard that the only country in the world that still does sand-casting is India.
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India is also unique in that lots of people speak English, which means they’re in a position to work with the West, and particularly with the Anglosphere.
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I am left utterly cold by the Lou Dobbs “saving jobs” argument. I think if work is more efficiently accomplished in India or China than here, then it ought to go there. And if Americans desperately need those jobs, then they should get them. Honestly. By underbidding the competitor. It’s a tough world; if you want to make ten times as much money, you have to be ten times as productive. The advantage of living in America, where we have so much great technology and freedom to innovate, is that it is possible to be ten times more productive. Anyway, trying to keep it here, a la the Big Three, only postpones the judgment day and makes it all the worse.
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It’s funny where these lines get drawn. You are actively “non-racist,” yet you protest these jobs going overseas to the benefit of a bunch of non-Whites. How ever do you sleep at night, Ellen?
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Of course, I totally disagree with your last paragraph. The last thing we need is protectionism, although I fear that our current leaders are naive, craven, or stupid enough to give it to us anyway. I seriously doubt there’s a single example of a protectionism leading to anything by poverty. Oh, sure, if you’re the one being protected it’s great. But it comes at a cost, which is carried by consumers. Including Blacks.
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Education. Hm. I hypothesize that wealth (usually created by a free market) does more to improve education than the other way around. We could test this by trying to determine whether good formal education has led or followed economic development generally. I wonder where we’d find data on that kind of thing.
“In the European context: What is considered white and ‘non-white’ ?”
All those that are descended from the ancient peoples of Europe, such as the English, German, Greek, Russian, French, Italian, etc.
“Do you think about ‘ancestral lands’ according European countries or the European continent?”
The European countries that bear the name of the people that created them (e.g., France, Germany, Italy) are the lands that those peoples have called their own for thousands of years.
“And why do you think Europeans would die rather than live with an anti-racist system which would respect basic human rights of all people?”
The European peoples are already dying. For instance Germany has a total fertility rate of 1.3, with one of at least 2.1 needed merely to break even with as many born as have died in a given time frame. The true measure of the future of a people is the number of breeding age females to its name. Now, with rising miscegenation, and the socially corrosive effects of ethnic diversity on the social fabric (see research of Robert Putnam – ethnic diversity reduces social capital), with continued liberal immigration policy and the much higher birth rates of foreign populations, the genetic extinction of the distinct European peoples as such is all but assured. To turn this thing around would almost certainly require the intervention of the state and national rejuvenation of ethnic consciousness on the part of Europeans even without the presence of non-White immigrants. But, as they are present, and when their numbers grow to such as extent that political power in the context of a democracy will be insuperable, the necessary conditions for native Europeans to stop and reverse the slide of their peoples into oblivion will be denied them.
“Why do you think that violating the basic human rights of People of Color would help the survival of Europeans?”
It cannot be the “human right” of anyone to take away the existence of an entire people. The interest an entire people has in continuing to exist is greater than the putative “rights” of any given individual. People of Color will yet be, it is only ours that, current trends persisting, will cease to exist. That is unacceptable, and we will never accept it.
Whether or not an unfettered free market does a net good can be debated, I guess. And I guess the merit of the benefits/pay packages could be argued. But hey, as I recall, in free-market capitalism, “labor” is a form of capital. If that’s what the unions negotiated, then that was the market value. Right?
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China and Japan did pretty well with planned economies and some protectionism before transitioning to free markets. Economic growth follows democracy, though, more so than whether or not the govt institutes forms of protectionism. But I don’t know of any situation where protectionism led to poverty. Mostly because I don’t know that it was allowed to go on that long. One source for this might be aidwatchers.com. And from there, you might be able to find other sources. When it comes to education, absent opportunity, you’re right it doesn’t generate much wealth. But where there is opportunity, education does generate wealth and having a better educated populace will certainly be beneficial. But you have to keep in mind that education, wealth, and democracy kinda go hand in hand. Where people become more educated they demand more democracy. Where people have beneifited from micro-loans, this new familial wealth does enable the children to go to school. But the reason it’s so important to go to school is that education helps build wealth. Around the world in developing nations, where people can afford to do so, they send their kids to school. That said, relatively lots of wealth could be generated just by maintaining infrustruture and getting people the tools they need. For example, the problem in Zimbabwe isn’t the redistrubution of land, but that the beneficiaries didn’t have the tools or knowledge to actually generate wealth. So they all go hand in hand.
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When you add non-filers and non-payers, that comes to 57.5 million people in 2004, about 19% of citizens. It’s when you add dependents that the number swells to 40%. So 60 percent of Americans pay federal taxes. And I guess sales tax, property tax, state and municipal taxes we’ll save for a later discussion.
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India does have entrepeunurship. In fact, there is talk of Indian companies outsourcing to Americans.
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I disagree that outsourcing benefits people of color around the world. It can be argued that there’s net good. And govts definitely lobby for the jobs. But the benefit to the average person . . . here’s the problem and my suggestion. The problem is that at some point, the people will demand more capital in return for their labor and the multinationals will leave, which will have a negative effect on the people. That’s not to mention the issue of disruption to their lives and things of that nature. So my suggestion would be for investors to invest in businesses in the country, not just to move western business from one country to another. Actually, lots of people believe that, for example, if given the proper tools, Africa could grow enough food for itself and possibly the world.
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Lastly, this. Darin, you admit to not having the data as to whether education creates wealth or the other way around. You also admitted in the “whitopia” thread that you don’t have the data on race discrimination and disparities. Now, I ask this sincerely – on what do you base your assumptions and credentials, for lack of a better word, that you should inform us? For example, I’ve read a number of research studies and compilations of findings. When I read these things, I check to make sure the method was sound and the researcher accounted for relevant information. So when I come here to discuss a post, I already have a base of knowledge relevant to the discussion. And I don’t expect to have to constantly recount and recite where I found my info here. If this was a different forum, I would. Kinda like if I were taking a college course on US history, I don’t expect to have to prove that for centuries, blacks were held in slavery or that blacks faced discrimination. Maybe I’d have to cite how I know that 99% of crime in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War was committed by whites. But I don’t expect to have to prove that thousands of black men were lynched for rapes they didn’t commit. You get what I mean? So here, I expect to exchange and grow info, not have what’s common knowledge to us questioned. So what makes you so certain that you come to a blog called racismreview and question what we know? We don’t cite specifics because we don’t have to in the same way I don’t have to prove slavery in a US history class. I’m not the best at making myself clear, so I ask seriously, does that make sense?
You’ve got some pretty questionable economics in there.
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You know, you’ve got a lot of nerve attacking me for noting when I don’t have data to back up my claims. I’m being intellectually honest. I’m trying to help you calibrate how much confidence to put in the statements I’m making. When I KNOW something, I say so, when I BELIEVE something, I say so. When I SUSPECT something, I say that. When have you returned the favor? You speak in assertions almost exclusively. You’ve got a lot of nerve.
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Ninety nine percent of all crime in the South after the Civil War was committed by Whites? Really? That’s utterly preposterous on it’s face — even you can’t possibly take that kind of statistic seriously. How would somebody even KNOW a thing like that to a 1% level of precision, no less!
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You guys can go on telling each other how great you are. I don’t care. I represent an opportunity for you to try this case you’re building on an outsider — somebody who does not share your preconceptions, biases, or point of view. If you expect your ideas to matter to anyone other than the narrow group you’ve got coming here, you’re going to have to convince people like me. Or at the very least you’re going to have to know how to debate people like me to convince those in the middle. The fact that you read it on “racismreview.com” is not particularly convincing. See what I mean?
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I do appreciate that you’re willing to engage, by the way, and on a reasonably civilized level. So thanks for that.
@ Darin:
> 1. Actually there is ‘high end technical stuff’ going on in India. That was the entire point of my article. India is using its Brain Power to attract work. They’re not standing around putting cell phone components together..they’re computer programmers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers etc.
> 2. You said: ‘Education. Hm. I hypothesize that wealth (usually created by a free market) does more to improve education than the other way around.’
>Gotta disagree cuz my whole article disproves the above. Indians started cranking out mechanical engineers like cookies and they are now a power source of labor for companies who need engineers who are willing to work for less than American engineers.
>America is pitifully behind other countries in science and technology. China takes education Way More Seriously than Americans cause {heard this on National Public Radio} for every 10 teenagers who apply to college, only 3 get accepted. A man from Beijing was relating this. Plus, I work with lots of Asian kids,
and their parents have told me the same thing.
>The point is Darin, the days of hand labor are fast approaching total demise. As technology advances, more and more work can be accomplished via robotics, computers etc. Thus, knowledge of technical skills and the sciences will be intensely needed for the future, and where employment opportunities will reside. So..in our situation today, it’s Education {initially} that will lead to Wealth. To answer your query.
>Lastly, I believe in fixing America first or honestly, we won’t have an America. Being against racism does not mean seeing your own countrymen suffering and ‘looking the other way’. Of course, I think it’s great that third world countries are finding a way to lift themselves out of poverty. My suggestion is that By Helping Minorities in the States to Achieve {through Education} will reduce much of the poverty endured here. Obama is of the same mind apparently.
Yeah, I know about the education gap. Don’t get me wrong, I think the American public education system is a disgrace. Run by and for the teachers’ union, totally in thrall to the kind of happy-talk sociology we’re always arguing about here. Believe me, I take a back seat to no one in my contempt for public education. I’m just not sure it matters as much as everybody else thinks.
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Again, the mechanism you describe is plausible (it COULD be that education drives wealth rather than vice versa) but describing a possible mechanism is not really evidence. I’m not sure India’s experience really proves anything one way or the other, because the education you’re describing has come at the same time as some laissez faire reforms to the economy. Seem ambiguous, I’m sure you agree.
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Of course, the same is true of China. China is chock full of right-end-of-the-bell-curve Chinese, for goodness sake, but it wasn’t until they began to reform their economy in the 1980s, allowing the free market to work to at least a degree, that they began to see growth and lessening of poverty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_reform_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China
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Your example about Chinese kids getting into college cracks me up. I was going to ask you if they were apply to Cal Tech or one of the State University schools, but I decided not to. Do you think the reason so few get in could have something to do with the number of universities in China?
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By the way, I know China takes education more seriously than the US does. But our per capital GDP is somewhere in the neighborhood of six times theirs. Clearly education (and IQ) isn’t everything. Taiwan, on the other hand, which is full of Chinese but has a free-market economy, has a per capita GDP about 75% of ours. A credible economy.
(Incidentally, I’ll use North Korea as my example of protectionism leading to poverty. Somebody tell No1KState.)
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I have to say, I find your last paragraph pretty confusing. Are you making this up as you go along?
I wanted to add my own closing thoughts—to any lovely’s I have asked to check this site out and spread the word over the last couple of years. Darin and Captainchaos above illustrate examples of what white supremacists are like in our universities. Calm, smooth, articulate. Some are students and some are professors. Some folks have asked what college is like. Well, you’ve gotten a good example here, both with relation to antiracism presented by folks like Nquest, No1Kstate, jwbe, and others–we’ve miss you GDAWG, where ever you’re at. Then you’ve gotten the wide range of the types of racism that thrives in a variety of guises, by other commentors. For those who still come around, I know some have left, keep your minds strong and stand firmly in your own antiracist/anti-hate positions—greater writings skills and the ability to articulate thoughts in a proper white manner does not always equate to a scholarly or more “morally” correct position, greater wisdom and various types of intelligence that cannot be measured. It does not indicate superiority, rather white supremacy, all too often. Much luvs to the lovely’s!
And a song for ya, because well, I just luv ya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JHpmy7RV9Y&feature=related
What American Blacks suffer from is the ethnic cleansing they experience at the hands of Mexicans in places like Los Angeles, and the loss of unskilled, low wage jobs as effected by same. Blacks I talk to (yes, I do talk to them) are more vocal in their opposition to illegal immigration than I’ve ever heard a White man express. Of course Blacks are more racially conscious than Whites, hang around average Black folk once (go on, try it), and you’ll find that at least half of their verbiage is racially self-referential.
Darin Said:Do you think the reason so few get in could have something to do with the number of universities in China?
>That’s precisely why so few get in. Sorry. Thought you understood that. Yet the fierce competition drives excellence.
>You asked me once to ‘take back’ a comment you made. I very graciously did so. Please take back the ‘Are you making this up as you go along?’ question. Would appreciate it. Thank you.
Seattle Said: ‘greater writings skills and the ability to articulate thoughts in a proper White Manner {caps are mine} does not always equate to a scholarly or more “morally” correct position, greater wisdom and various types of intelligence that cannot be measured. It does not indicate superiority, rather white supremacy, all too often.’
> I’m definitely going to share this with my older students..of an example of Fallacious Reasoning. Good writing skills can now be equated with White Supremacy? Don’t let this turn you away from education {this to my black students!} because knowledge and strong writing skills is power. And I want you guys to possess this power.
> Don’t Let Anyone Tell you That a Strong Scholastic Background Has Anything to Do with BEING WHITE or RACISM. You be Smart and You be Proud! That’s what President Obama tells us and that’s what we should all Strive for!
>The interest an entire people has in continuing to exist is greater than the putative “rights” of any given individual.
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Why should an ‘entire people’ define itself according skin-color? The interest of white people should be the survival of humans, at the moment we whites do a great job in destructing the only place humans can live on.
When whites are so concerned with race purity, why then is the European culture stupid enough to destroy all resources?
So the reason for “your survival fears” of the white race is not survival, but remaining in the position to exploit and finally destroy all life on earth – this will include your beloved white race.
“Why should an ‘entire people’ define itself according skin-color?”
You are assuming they are ultimately free to do otherwise. As columnist Joe Sobran observed, the moving and living patterns of White liberals are indistinguishable from members of the Ku Klux Klan. Ethnocentrism is an evolved trait. Studies show White liberals have the same unconscious bias against the Other and for their own people as do avowed ‘bigots’. Other studies have shown that neurologically a decision is made unconsciously before it is even made consciously. Free will is an illusion. And your contention that one can overcome one’s Europeanness, as if attaining some exalted state of anti-racist nirvana, is pure delusion. One cannot, in the main, overcome what one is. Moreover, it is now insupportable to claim that race is “only skin deep,” the genetic evidence is in.
“The interest of white people should be the survival of humans,”
White people have an interest in securing their own survival first. Just as you have an interest in seeing to the welfare of your own children first. This does not preclude concern for other peoples, it is only a matter of prioritization.
“…at the moment we whites do a great job in destructing the only place humans can live on.”
What, and the Chinese aren’t hurriedly destroying the environment of their own country? Come off it. Look, and this is the blunt truth, if those of European descent had not increased the carrying capacity of the land with their agricultural innovation there are literally billions of Third Worlders that would not be breathing at this second. A little perspective please.
“When whites are so concerned with race purity, why then is the European culture stupid enough to destroy all resources?”
If Amerindians had had repeater rifles back when there would not be a single buffalo left. It was only the White, ever, who thought to preserve the natural environment. Yet implicit in your question is this: Either it is the racial/genetic constitution of the White race which causes it to wreak havoc (another instance of the essentially religious delusion of the sole, original sinfulness of European Man) or why should preserving the White race matter to White people if all is destroyed and the White race with it in the process anyway.
The former contention is demonstrably false, anti-White genocidalist rubbish; the latter contention is valid on its face, yet falls to the floor when it is realized that racialists are some of the most staunch environmentalist you will find.
“So the reason for “your survival fears” of the white race is not survival, but remaining in the position to exploit and finally destroy all life on earth – this will include your beloved white race.”
See? You cannot even imagine a world in which the White had for itself the necessary conditions for its survival without all the world being burned to ashes in the end as a result. That is insane, that is delusional, that is genocidalist rubbish. Do you hear me?
Your misbegotten religion cannot be more important that the survival of an entire people.
You forgot to mention that liberal progressive Democrats are all for globalization and “free trade” while the racist, isolationist, anti-Semitic Buchananites are its most outspoken critics. I haven’t seen ObamaMessiah left a finger yet to change our disastrous trade policies.
Ellen, I’ve lost the thread of what we’re talking about, here. I think I was away too long. Regarding my sarcastic question to you, I remember typing it, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what I was referring to. So I apologize. I do remember that I intended it in a joshing way, not that that’s any excuse since I know full well that tone is impossible to convey online.
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Sorry.
>ellen,
>Everything I said went over your head.
>While you and I speak the same spoken language, our language is fundamentally different.
>Take care
Here’s a book I would encourage all anti-racists to read–one of my own favorite qualitative works:
http://www.amazon.com/Racist-Mind-Portraits-American-Neo-Nazis/dp/0140234497/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257390647&sr=8-1
“Change can only come within”, said by a friend of mine who is a former hate group member who has been getting his swastika tattoos covered up for years.
@ Darin:
All is forgiven..this time! {Just kidding.}
I’m sorry Seattle, but we don’t speak the same spoken language. And it’s even More than Fundamentally Different..if that’s possible. Equating Any Educational Goals with being Racist or White is probably the greatest injustice you could ever do to black children. Always felt that way..always will. You take care also.
And just wanted to put thoughts up on the main post that I left elsewhere as it is somewhat in line–this discussion came up when we were talking about how people make comparisons on racism between the “North” and the “South”:
My brother was telling me that a place, “Highland Park” I believe it’s called in Detroit, African American populated, now has no police station, fire department, and the street lights no longer work because this part of the city cannot afford to pay power. There are destroyed buildings, homes, etc. Michigan has one of the fastest increasing prison populations in the U.S. followed with privatized prisons. He equated this ongoing crisis lived by many for decades to damage Katrina caused New Orleans–not saying they were “equally” bad per se because that’s not what he was meaning–both are results of white supremacy. But he was talking about how one got massive media news coverage and while the other has been virtually invisible and silenced (like many other African American populated communities). They are two different kinds of catastrophes that didn’t need to be and both could have been prevented–and both affecting primarily African American communities. One was slower over many years of neglect and marginalization–various sorts of racism. The other, while caused from a natural disaster, the levies and so forth could have been fixed years before if they knew they were bad.
“Just kidding” I’m not forgiven this time? Now I’m paranoid!
Just wondering why poverty is always only a black thing to you folks. It seems like such a self-limiting analytical framework to go with. I know plenty of poor white folks who have had it every bit as rough as poor black folks. I know some poor white folks who live in poor black folk’s communities, and vice versa. There are also quite a few non-black and non-white poor folks who have it even rougher than poor blacks or poor whites in this country. In fact, there are plenty of poor non-black/white folks who live in communities that have poor white and poor black folks as well, and they all suffer together.
Its time to start honing in on the significant folks who have dedicated their lives to preserving and recreating social, cultural, political, and economic systems that fuck poor blacks, poor whites, poor non-blacks/whites with relatively equal wrath. I’m talking about the rich, and those who manage their institutions that suck money from the poor folks and turns lower middle class folks into poor folks. Those who control the levers of capital mobility, decide who will be rich and who will be impoverished. It’s as simple as that. They control both the private and public institutions, and through these institutions they set the rules of poverty. If you aren’t willing to place them in your crosshairs, then you aren’t willing to face your enemy and look at him in they eye. Stop disbursing your energy fighting the useless drones; it’s time to try to win this thing by targeting the queen bee and her inner circle.
Can somebody please translate this for me?: “”Yes, European workers can be quite racist towards people of color.”
So the European peoples have no right even to the possession of their own ancestral lands in perpetuity so that they might live and not die? It does not surprise me you should think that, at all.”
It’s obviously some sort of sophomoric attempt and failure at presenting a straw man fallacy, but it’s so poorly thought out that it’s hard to follow.
It’s tough being a toe.
Interesting comment: “Detroit is a particularly galling example. Instead of letting the American car industry die a quiet, dignified death, the government has been propping it up. Meanwhile more and more workers come to rely on this house of cards for their livelihoods. They’re going to get screwed. Well, that’s not true: the rest of us are going to get screwed picking up the tab for totally indefensible packages of benefits and pensions negotiated in a labor market insulated from market discipline. Actually, that’s not true either: the 50 percent of us who actually pay taxes are going to get screwed. It’s disgusting, frankly. A political mess, not an economic one, though.”
Actually, the auto industry left Detroit a very long time ago. Did you not read the article? So, you want to kill of the remnants of the US auto industry. Well, the auto industry has left Detroit and Flint. How has that worked out? Maybe I’m missing something, but it looks to me like it has been pretty catastrophic. If the rest of the auto industry leaves Michigan, the upper midwest and Canada, it will Detroitize/Flintize more communities. Please do explain why creating more Detroits and Flints out of working class communities would be a good thing.
“The advantage of living in America, where we have so much great technology and freedom to innovate, is that it is possible to be ten times more productive.”
Heh, you’ve obviously never looked at copyright law, have you. Anyways, your linear model of capital value to innovation is wrong. The relationship is actually cyclical (see Joe Schumpeter). In the real world, we can’t all be fiscally successful inventors and innovators. In fact, at no time in history in ANY economy have inventors and innovators made up more than fraction of an economy’s wealth. So, their are the rest of us, who are 99%+ of any given population. The other component that you fail to understand when considering innovation it’s function is to force down wages in the competition. When one company innovates, all other competing businesses must spend more to compete, forcing capital away from the production process and into either capital investment or R&D. Those that can’t disappear. Those that can are forced to divert resources away from labor. In consequence it initiates a spiraling drop in wage distribution within that particular sector of innovation. Innovation has its place in the economy. Unfortunately, capitalism designs it to harm those who produce the capital.
I read your comments and it makes me sad that devotion and loyalty to the ideology of an inhumane system (ie. classical liberal economics) is more important to you than the providing for the basic living of other human beings. This, despite the fact that innovation has enabled humans to provide more than enough supply of the basic needs for all.
Rush Said:
>’Its time to start honing in on the significant folks who have dedicated their lives to preserving and recreating social, cultural, political, and economic systems that fuck poor blacks, poor whites, poor non-blacks/whites with relatively equal wrath. I’m talking about the rich, and those who manage their institutions that suck money from the poor folks and turns lower middle class folks into poor folks. Those who control the levers of capital mobility, decide who will be rich and who will be impoverished. It’s as simple as that. They control both the private and public institutions, and through these institutions they set the rules of poverty.’
>Am I actually addressing Rush Limbaugh? Uh..ok. I was going to say that actually the above is Quite True folks! Anybody read The Arms of Krup? Our very own Rockefellers poured money into the production of weaponry for Both Germany and the United States to profit no matter which side won. That’s one of my sterling examples of how the Wealthy Industries Really Do Control the World. Yup..true as hell.
>That said, honestly though Rush, I don’t know why opposing Racism and Comprehending the Volcanic Economic Forces that really move the continents are mutually exclusive. Cause I don’t see how they are.
>Plus, when Obama was proposing bills to control the Wall Street Moguls {Do you know how many ‘drones..black and white’ lost their nest eggs in the foray?} you were Furious and Screaming ‘Facism! He’s a Nazi!’
Just prior to Obama’s election you were bemoaning the fact about ‘The country we would live under with Obama as our beloved leader’..yada.yada.
> Look Rush, thing is, Big Business pulls the puppet strings for Our Entire Congress! Don’t underestimate your audience. I know housewives phone in tearfully exclaiming, ‘I have no idea what we’d do without You Rush!’ Well, we’d all be just fine. And Racismreview would still address racism. And the Global Economy would get even more ‘Globaller’ {coined that just now!} cause that’s exactly what big business wants. Gerald Celente {look him up} tells us Congress pretends to be entrenched in this
Great Rivalry but behind closed doors they ‘Buddy Up’, have a drink, and decide what they’ll Both Endorse and that Within the Interests of the Global Industrial Forces that are truly shaping the Earth.
>G. Edward Griffin, a professor of International Law, agrees that soon the US will have no sovereignty whatsoever. Only a select few have access to the Federal Reserve and it ain’t us drones!
> We all live in Oz and the Wizards are pulling the strings behind the Curtain For All of Us. But you can rejoice Rush..cause you have a lucrative radio program and you can fill your individual pockets until Nero fiddles and the empire finally does fall. Racismreview certainly won’t be a catalyst for this process! A group of academics fighting racism? That’s who you address? Don’t you have a radio show to manage? Thanks.
At least 90% of the crime, if not more, in the aftermath of the Civil War was committed by whites, mostly war vets. Read the book SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME by Douglas Blackmon.
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I’m repeating what I’ve read in books about developing economies. There’s a difference between protectionism and planned economies; and just because NKorea is ruled by the lord of the rings doesn’t mean some protectionism doesn’t work.
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When it comes to stipulating the reliability of our statements, I don’t comment on things I don’t know about. My point is that you’re commenting on a lot of things you don’t know about.
RLBT, I think you may be mis-reading my point. I’m not saying that losing the auto industry is good. I think it’s terrible. In fact, I think there’s only one thing worse than losing the auto industry: trying to save it from Washington.
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Schumpeter!
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My point about productivity is not the inventors and innovators themselves are particularly important to the productivity of an economy. Rather, it’s the inventions and innovations they leave behind. I remember once when I was working on a construction crew, I was just an idiot summer laborer, but I had lots of time to think. It occurred to me that the guy driving the backhoe was a real idiot. He had no particular skills (I’m sure I could have learned to operate the backhoe in a week), yet he earned some large wage — I’ve forgotten the number, but a lot. Why?
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The reason was not his native abilities or his work ethic, which were terrible. The reason was the backhoe, which made him easily ten times more productive than a guy with a shovel, which is what he would have been without it.
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So whoever invented the backhoe made Ed a nice living. Of course, the other nine guys who would have had shovels were out of a job. That’s bad for them initially, but good for them over the long run because it frees them up to run their own backhoe or Zamboni or work in a factory somewhere where they’ll also provide ten times the value, and earn ten times as much, as if their shovel-job had somehow been saved. And it’s very good for the rest of us, because we get ten times as much work done.
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Creative destruction, to use Schumpeter’s term.
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Your understanding of the effects of innovation and competition is totally ass-backwards. These things help consumers, not hurt them. The reason you can afford to buy a car and a TV and a refrigerator is because somebody had a great idea, which competition forced him to sell at a low price. That happens over, and over.
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And what on earth does “divert resources away from labor” mean? Do you think money that is not spent on R&D would go to wages? Hah! Not by a long shot. The labor market is highly competitive; cutting R&D would have no effect on the short run, a negative effect in the long run — when there are no new backhoes to increase productivity and drive wages up.
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I don’t have a lot of devotion and loyalty to classic liberal economics. It’s more that they seem to be how economics works, and efforts to change it by and large do more harm than good. You might as well say I have devotion and loyalty to Newtonian mechanics or the English language.
(Just a quick accent/side note to the main post: We have to show some love and appreciation for Detroit’s important musical contributions—while this band had so many good hits across a couple of decades, I thought this song would get some blood flowing for anybody in need: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7KHSzf10T4 ) 😀
Question for Rush:
>What constitutes White Culture? Plus, why do you imply soccer’s a negative activity by labeling mothers who want their children to participate as ‘stupid soccer moms?’ {This oughta be good.}
Come on, now, Ellen. Can Whites not have a culture? Don’t you think Germany is different than Afghanistan? Or Korea?
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He’s right, though, that soccer is a harbinger of the end of America*. If it isn’t beaten down at every turn, we’ll be just like Belgium!
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* It’s okay for kids under 13, who lack the physical dexterity and mental capacity for more sophisticated sports. So maybe the soccer moms are okay as long as they become football moms by seventh grade. Seventh grade — that’s all the stands between us and the barbarians.