From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Economic Discrimination in Libertaria
Date: 28 Sep 92 12:40:25 GMT
	<1992Sep27.002244.1769@panix.com>
	<ISBELL.92Sep27083559@panther.ai.mit.edu>
	<1992Sep28.022547.5889@panix.com>
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: jk@panix.com's message of 28 Sep 92 02:25:47 GMT

jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
|isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) writes:
|>Actually the Chinese in America are among the poorest in this country
|>(per capita).  Despite the popular myth (which depends on household
|>income, a skewing statistics in a household with three or four wage
|>earners), the American dream still hasn't come true for them.

|My impression is that most of the Chinese here are rather recent
|arrivals who tend to work very hard at low-paying jobs, but that the
|second and third generations tend to hold not-so-low-paying jobs.  If
|I'm right, then my claim that the things they value as a culture helps
|them prosper as a group in this country still stands up.  Does anyone
|have any figures?

I'd be interested in reading this as well; however, I believe you are
actually thinking of the influx of immigrants from Vietnam and Korea
(as opposed to China).  Anyway, it doesn't really matter because I
think it adequately belies the notion of Chinese-do-better-due-to-
their-self-sufficiency.

|>Furthermore, it is a myth that Asian-Americans do not get "govt help"
|>(ie Affirmative Action):  their AA help tends to be in the social
|>sciences where they are underrepresented while Black folx mostly get
|>theirs in the sciences where they are underrepresented.
|My claim was that the explanation of the success of the groups that
|have been successful has not been AA and other forms of govt help, and
|that reliance on such things is a distraction from the real task of
|developing the habits and institutions that will lead to success. 

Well, develop this further then.  I'd argue that the facts do not
support this well enough to allow a simple "claim" to stand.  This
seems to me to be the problem of the myth of the model minority: it
leads us to claim things that are incorrect.

|Under our current system, the government tries to provide the greatest
|goodies for the greatest number.  So I have no reason to doubt your
|statement that some Asian-Americans get AA help.

|>Further, as a liberterian, I would expect that one would find the
|>requirement that one "assimilate" (that is subjugate one's individual
|>cultural mores to the mainstream) in order to succeed somewhat
|>distasteful.  Why is it that it doesn't engender that response?

|What's the requirement?  You get what you pay for.  If you want to be
|successful and prosperous you cultivate one sort of cultural mores.  If
|there are other things you value more, that's fine but don't complain
|that you're not successful and prosperous.

I'm afraid that this doesn't follow from my point (or maybe it does
and I just don't follow you).

|>Also, it is a myth that Blacks aren't better off in a whole lot of
|>ways since the 1960's.  At current trends, >50% of Blacks will be in
|>the middle class by 2000.  The income gap between Black families
|>(two-income households) and White families has narrowed . . .

|What was going on before the 1960's?  I don't have any statistics
|readily at hand specifically relating to blacks, but in the Fall 1982
|issue of _Public Interest_ Charles Murray cites figures from the
|_Statistical Abstract of the United States_ showing that poverty as
|defined by the Bureau of the Census declined from 33 to 28 percent
|between 1949 and 1952, to 22 percent by the end of the '50s, to 18
|percent in 1964 (the beginning of the Great Society), and to 13 percent
|on 1968.  There really hasn't been any progress since then (the poverty
|rate dropped as low as 11.1 percent in 1973 and has since risen).  So
|the net benefit for poor people in general of the more active
|government role in fighting poverty that we have had since the middle
|'60s seems to be limited at best.  I have no reason to think that poor
|blacks benefited more than other poor people, although of course they
|may have.

All stats that I've seen note a very sudden spurt of growth after 1965
which can be related almost directly to AA and other ways fo including
Blacks in the mainstream work force (follow the history of AT&T in New
Jersey, California & Atlanta to see this).  Something that did have a
skewing effect: In 1982-83 at the height of the unemployment figures,
Blacks who had just entered into the fringes of the middle class fell
off at number more than triple of their White counterparts and haven't
quite recovered.  Some have argued convincingly (IMHO) that a good
deal of this could be attributed to the last-hired-first-fired
problem: Blacks entered the workforce late (ie were allowed to enter
the workforce late) and so were the first fall (seniority system and
all that).

|As to the position of blacks in particular, how much does the relative
|success of two-income black households aid the two-thirds of black
|children who are now born out of wedlock?  The employment rate of young
|blacks has also dropped a great deal since the 1960s.  These trends are
|not encouraging.

The gap has halved for the two-income group since 1965.  That's the
importance of it.

The other trend can be attributed to many things, but the overall
picture is more prophetic than anything else:  the gap between the
rich & poor is widening and widening fast (this is also true of the
overall workforce--I can almost assure you that we'll be talking about
that constantly by decades end).

My numbers have left me with the impression that the youth employment
figures have dropped most notably since the 1980's (after a spurt
during the 1970's) from which we might draw a different conclusion.  I
should note however that I haven't looked at those stats in a while
and I may very well be misrembering them.

[...]
|In addition, of course, I think anti-discrimination laws are wrong, but
|you don't seem much impressed by my arguments on that score.

I honestly don't recall the arguments (I do remember the assertion)
:-).  I'd argue that these laws make sense pragmatically and make
sense ethically.  I'd be more than happy to discuss it further: 1)
explain why you think they are wrong and 2) explain why you think they
make bad policy (ie have bad real-world effects).  Note that
anti-discrimination laws are a different thing than Affirmative
Action, which I'm not discussing (except in the periphery).

|>|The MIT example you give is of discriminatory government action that
|>|would have no justification under the laws of Libertaria.  Certainly, it
|>|has no connection to freedom of association.
|>
|>Bullshit.  Both systems would have human judges and I suspect that it
|>would be impossible to claim that one system will not have the
|>problems of the other in this regard . . .

|I don't claim that the MIT situation (unequal treatment of murder
|victims by race and social class) could not arise in an actual
|Libertaria, only that it would be no more consistent with the laws of
|Libertaria than with the current laws of Massachusetts and that it has
|no particular connection with whether private discrimination is
|allowed.

I recall you arguing that it would be less likely in Libertaria...
perhaps I misread you.  I'll go back and re-read your article.  But if
you weren't asserting that, what was your point?  

|>One of these days, I'm going to have to explain why I think Liberteria
|>will, over time, degenerate (if that's the right word) into what we
|>have now.  Except that maybe the drug war wouldn't have been
|>declared....

|One could always take the view that the way things are is the way things
|necessarily are, and that view might even be correct.  I don't believe
|in defeatism, though.

Oh, I don't think that's the case.  I do not think Communism
"degenerates" into what we have now.  I do think Libertaria *in
particular* would.

In fact, particularly on issues of children, discrimination and the
enivronment I've found that most Libs with whom I've had sustained
email/personal conversations are much closer to the sort of compromises
we've worked out in the USA than they are to the "official" Lib
positions.

I, personally, find the Lib positions interesting but impractical in
the end, by and large.  As a matter of the initial goal of reform, I
find it useful, as a matter of a real-life goal I find it unreal.

--
Peace.
            "Look! An X-man movie's coming out!"
                    care of a 10 year old in a Tulsa movie
                    theater, looking at a poster for _Malcolm X_
                                   -\--/-
    Don't just adopt opinions     |  \/  |       Some of you are homeboys
          develop them.           |  /\  | but only I am The Homeboy From hell
                                   -/--\-

Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:4352 talk.politics.misc:48022