Sociologist Matthew Desmond has studied the sources of persistent poverty and finds that insufficient spending is an important root cause. He argues the evidence points to an imbalance of power between poor people and those who are not poor. It is even more important than diversion of welfare dollars by states for non-welfare spending. Desmond writes for the NYT Magazine:
A fair amount of government aid earmarked for the poor never reaches them. But this does not fully solve the puzzle of why poverty has been so stubbornly persistent, .... [isn’t that some kind of fraud?]There are, it would seem, deeper structural forces at play, ones that have to do with the way the American poor are routinely taken advantage of. The primary reason for our stalled progress on poverty reduction has to do with the fact that we have not confronted the unrelenting exploitation of the poor in the labor, housing and financial markets.
As a theory of poverty, “exploitation” elicits a muddled response, causing us to think of course and but, no in the same instant. The word carries a moral charge, but social scientists have a fairly coolheaded way to measure exploitation: When we are underpaid relative to the value of what we produce, we experience labor exploitation; when we are overcharged relative to the value of something we purchase, we experience consumer exploitation. For example, if a family paid $1,000 a month to rent an apartment with a market value of $20,000, that family would experience a higher level of renter exploitation than a family who paid the same amount for an apartment with a market valuation of $100,000. When we don’t own property or can’t access credit, we become dependent on people who do and can, which in turn invites exploitation, because a bad deal for you is a good deal for me.
Our vulnerability to exploitation grows as our liberty shrinks. Because undocumented workers are not protected by labor laws, more than a third are paid below minimum wage, and nearly 85 percent are not paid overtime. Many of us who are U.S. citizens, or who crossed borders through official checkpoints, would not work for these wages. We don’t have to. If they migrate here as adults, those undocumented workers choose the terms of their arrangement. But just because desperate people accept and even seek out exploitative conditions doesn’t make those conditions any less exploitative. Sometimes exploitation is simply the best bad option.
See why I keep harping on the critical importance of always keeping track of where power and wealth flows? See why I keep pounding on the radical right for attacking and shrinking civil liberties and deregulating businesses while empowering business over consumers?
I continue to argue that what we are witnessing right now is a gigantic war between the organized, disciplined, well-funded authoritarian radical capitalist and Christian theocratic forces against the messy herd of cats forces fighting for democracy and civil liberties. The authoritarians are fighting for concentrated power and wealth for the elites. The democrats are fighting for somewhat more distributed wealth and power for the masses
That’s my narrative and I’m sticking to it unless some really compelling contrary evidence comes on the scene.
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Personal safety tip: Always keep an eye on personal power flows.
Anti-woke = pro-discrimination, pro-authoritarian/theocracy, and anti-democracy: If one is paying attention, one will certainly have noticed by now that radical right anti-woke measures in laws usually change how power is distributed.
Power usually flows from targeted groups, usually minorities such as the LGBQT community, to businesses and corporations or to inherently authoritarian/theocratic red state governments or religious organizations. In essence, the anti-woke movement is focused on withdrawing civil liberties and consumer protection powers from the federal government and individuals and redistributing it to elites.
Accumulating more power is what the anti-woke movement is primarily focused on. A secondary focus is rewriting and whitewashing inconvenient history.** Hence the book bans that anti-woke elites are heavily promoting in their dark free speech campaign.
As we all know, more wealth usually comes with more power. The anti-woke movement serves the elites at the expense and freedom of the masses.
Or, is there a lethal flaw or two in that reasoning?
‘Slavery was wrong’ and 5 other things some educators won’t teach anymore
To mollify parents and obey new state laws, teachers are cutting all sorts of lessons
Excerpts from Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.” Passages from Christopher Columbus’s journal describing his brutal treatment of Indigenous peoples. A data set on the New York Police Department’s use of force, analyzed by race.
These are among the items teachers have nixed from their lesson plans this school year and last, as they face pressure from parents worried about political indoctrination and administrators wary of controversy, as well as a spate of new state laws restricting education on race, gender and LGBTQ issues.
Making power flow from the people to the elites,
and making ignorance flow to the people
