"In recent decades, we have seen a viewpoint become popular that regards all Black people as oppressed and all White people as oppressors. Proponents of this viewpoint call themselves anti-racists."
I think this viewpoint wouldn't have gotten much traction if not for government policy as implemented since about 1970. Starting with the Griggs v. Duke Power case (handed down in 1971), "objective" factors were considered discriminatory if they had "disparate impact" and were not directly relevant to job requirements. Then, "disparate outcomes" were considered evidence of insufficient "affirmative action", but the Labor Department would provide the appropriate percentages for various occupations in each area, in order to avoid a prima facie case of discrimination. This quickly translated to explicit quotas for many employment categories, even though the Civil Rights Act explicitly forbids quotas. This is an inevitable consequence of expecting measurable results toward any sort of representation levels.
Without this legal framework, the "anti-racist" ideology would have no institutional support, and the "anti-racists" would be just another bunch of cranks making unpopular demands. With the legal framework, it's hard to get public officials or decision-makers in large organizations to publicly support treating individuals fairly regardless of demographics. Or rather, they'll publicly proclaim a commitment to treating all individuals fairly by achieving representation goals. Sometimes with verbiage about the importance of diversity in order to benefit from different thinking styles, or different cultural awareness, or having a "critical mass" to support the members of whatever group is being discussed.
"Neoracists don’t want racial peace, but endless ideological war. "
I don't think that's quite right. I think that's the end result, but I don't think that's the goal. The goal is rather to create a sort of reparations pressure campaign, resulting in a transfer of resources from group A to group B.
Right, the goal in their neoracist heads is Equal Outcomes for Groups.
But none are pushing the NBA to hire more Hispanics, over blacks and whites, just to equalize group outcomes.
It is an impossible goal to have individual differences AND equal group outcomes. The neoracists look for rationalizations to why their equal outcomes goal is good, and Kendi et al supply that market with academic jargonish rationalization words.
But it's a vain search for cosmic justice, in a rejection of the sad Truth.
Life is unfair. (Lots of people know this, most.)
Plus -- there is no just way to equalize the unfairness of reality.
Best we can do as a society is to judge all people on equal measures, and reward success more than failure; become customers of good products rather than of bad products.
Colorblind individualism is the right goal. Equal Outcomes leads to endless race war.
It's not quite right but yet it is. Race will never make no difference whatsoever and if it did, there are still endless reasons one could argue it still appears to make a difference.
"Why the sudden pivot away from colorblindness? The answer has to do in part with the race riots that rocked cities like Detroit and Newark in the mid-1960s—especially during the summer of 1967." [from Hughes' book]
It also has a lot to do with the Supreme Court's March 8, 1971 decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Company. Duke Power used IQ tests in hiring and promotion. This had a racially "disparate impact" because whites scored higher than blacks. The Court held that this violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act even if use of the tests had not begun or continued because of a racially discriminatory purpose. The disparate impact created a prima facie case of illegal discrimination that the company could rebut, but rebuttal would be extremely difficult and expensive.
This was a decision by well-meaning good-thinking people. It was unanimous, written by Chief Justice Warren Burger, who Richard Nixon had nominated as a "conservative" to replace the "liberal" Earl Warren. It instititutionalized the idea that any disparity between an up group and a down group should be thought of as a result of unfair treatment by the up group. This implies that it is proper to fix this disparity by now favoring the down group. I.e., by treating people differently based on their race (or possibly sex or sexuality or ethnicity).
Since this was an interpretation of the Civil Rights Act, Congress could have acted at any time to change it. No politician of any substance has tried.
The truth is that US blacks score lower in IQ tests, on average, than whites. Most people who look into this truth believe that genetics are a reason, many deny genetics.
Too much arguments are whether it's genetics or not -- not enough focus is on explicitly helping low IQ people to have a good, middle class life. Religion used to do that, and a bigger focus on virtuous behavior, rather than "education", is part of a cultural change that would help.
I think of the activist pushback against dumping of chemical waste in Texas bays. Alcoa, for instance, dumped 1.2 million pounds of mercury into Lavaca Bay from 1966 until 1979.
Are shrimpers not producers? Commercial fishermen? What about sport fishing, and all the businesses ancillary to that? Does the guy who works at a manufacturing plant - go from being a producer, Monday through Friday, to a moocher, on the weekend, when he is unhappy to find his fishing grounds polluted and bereft of life? That's fascinating to me; it sure has a taint of ideology about it.
Is the former shrimper lady turned activist who got Formosa plastics to finally stop dumping nurdles into the bay - a moocher? All because you might not care for her other politics? If you understood how difficult it was for private citizens to get a judgment like that, in a state like this! - you would be unlikely to call moochers people who had to work their tales off, unremunerated, for decades.
What about the people who stop dams? Are they moochers? Their task is especially hard because they fight something that the people who benefit, and be assured it is a small number - the promised benefits to the community, of yet another bathtub for bass, generally never materializing - would prefer to just happen in the shadows, unquestioned.
Of course, there is nothing being produced with the dam, but I suppose the fact of its being built - "jobs" for a few short years - inclines the thoughtless to call them producers.
In fact, they exploit clueless and or corrupt government officials, in getting these generally unneeded, publicly-funded projects greenlighted. Typically on some of the most *productive* land around.
And what of the people whose land is condemned? Were they not producers? I know a family right now that is poised to lose their ranch on which they have so labored for decades, that it has even been singled out for an award by the *same government* that wants to take it away from them - for being sucn an excellent example of rangeland restoration and best practices - by producers, of cattle.
The larger point is that while it is of course crazy to swing in the direction of *discouraging the production of productive people and encouraging the production of unproductive people* as the USA explicitly does via policy - crazy to do so because it cannot work long-term - there is no basis to assume that all who might reasonably claim to be "doers" in society, know best what is to be done. None whatsoever. Presume in their favor, perhaps, but go no farther than that.
“I find it plausible that our increased engagement with the computer/communications revolution is responsible for much of this. As people turn inward and forget to ‘touch grass,’ human relationships deteriorate and tension increases.” I agree, but this inward turn is caused by more than computers. We can also blame the large boxes, called houses, that we sit it. Prior to computers we sat in these boxes and stared into TVs. On vacations we sit in mobile boxes called RVs or stacked boxes called hotel rooms. What would Jane Jacobs have to say about this? Not sure. I haven’t read more than a dozen pages of her work, but surely sitting in these boxes causes us to turn inward.
Walk a suburban neighborhood and rarely do you see children out playing. Our houses are not built for social interaction or with a view for the outside world. Compare this with an Airstream travel trailer with its hemispherical ends and wide-field of view windows that gives a sense of being outside, connected with scenery. Architecture matters.
Eliminate those windowless boxes on the front of our houses called garages. Move the kitchen sink to the front of the house. Add two are three times the windows. Shut off the TV and computer, or better yet, lock it up in a closet. Make it only accessible in the evenings for an hour. Eliminate the road in the front of the house and replace with a place to walk, play, ride bikes, and garden. See how that makes a difference. No longer are we hunched over in our boxes, staring into screens.
"as long as we observe racial disparities in important outcomes, people will not be satisfied that individualism works in practice."
Until intellectuals, FI or otherwise, are willing to talk about and discuss the truth, this remains true.
The Truth, the unhappy & cosmically unfair Truth -- Blacks have lower IQs. Wherever IQs are dominantly important to peak performance--NOT the NBA--Blacks will have lower achievement.
Arnold Kling doesn't like Steve Sailer, tho I think he does like Charles Murray -- but Sailer today is more honest & truthful about noticing the reality of low IQs of Blacks.
For those unwilling to ascribe this difference to genes, they should be much more widely be condemning the practice of so many Black women having sex before marriage, with men they're not married to, and delivering babies which become kids raised without married parents.
The "systemic racism" that does exist is the US welfare programs that try to help avoid the kids of those irresponsible mothers, both Black and white, to raise kids without married parents.
Uncle Sugar makes a lousy dad.
It doesn't take an above avg IQ to say "no sex before marriage".
The economic racial disparities will certainly continue, and even get worse, until the behavior of Black people improves. Their behavior, on average, is far far worse than any other group -- and the neoracists say it's because of whites.
Total BS. Or is it?
It's actually kind of true that elite whites in college support early 20s promiscuity, but without having kids thru the use of the Pill, condoms, or abortion. Dems did pretty well in 2022 because of the feminist desire to have abortion on demand, everywhere -- and most places prefer allowing some abortion, like before 8-15 weeks, than total abolishment as the pro-life folk desire.
This elite luxury belief and practice, 20s promiscuity but then marriage & family, get passed down as early promiscuity and kids and then lousy parenting and the boys growing to be criminals and the girls growing up to be sluts to the older slut-jerk guys, the cool guys often including those out of prison. This promiscuity culture, "sexual liberation", hurts all low IQ folk more -- it's more frequent for low IQ folk to be irresponsible and make forgetful mistakes & careless mistakes.
Irresponsible young adults having premarital sex is partly the fault of their parents, but mostly the fault of culture & laws & programs. There are more white kids growing up with unmarried mothers -- but a much higher percentage of Black kids.
We need honest scissors about promiscuity and individual responsibility to cut the thick blanket of unequal racial group outcomes.
I’d say the problem around 2010 was that we crossed a threshold in internet usage. Prior to 2010 most people online (at the global scale) were intelligent, educated, early adopter types. By 2010 that was changing in a big way, and the 2010s generally were the period of the internet being used by people who couldn’t deal with that kind of engagement without having it damage their lives and their minds.
It’s a powerful tool in the right hands and a dangerous self-destructive tool in the wrong ones.
Re: Tove K and moochers. I think much of the problem is that many of them sincerely believe they are “doing good” without much attention paid to actual outcomes. “Doing something” is better than “doing nothing.” For them, intentions matter more than results.
The only way to stop mooching is to have active policies against mooching- we don't. Increasingly, we can't even summon the will to stop shoplifting and other "minor" thefts like car jacking.
The most important anti-racist change in government policy is to support manual jobs for low IQ folk, of which there are more low IQ whites than blacks in America.
The second best policy, based on culture more than gov't, is to support marriage before having kids, which in practice with low IQ folk means marriage before sex. (Not what I practiced when younger.)
A possible way for govt support is to pay, reward, poor couples who get married and live in poor areas. Such couples have less "need" than single parents -- but are far better local role models in school district areas with few married parents.
Such policies should be specifically colorblind -- tho the benefits would differ according to race.
“I taught AP Statistics for 15 years. As I became a better explainer, I became a worse teacher. When I struggled to explain a concept, the students struggled with me.” Arnold - Did you ask many questions of the students to check their understanding? Did you constantly question the students to promote their thinking? A good school will train their teachers how to teach. An MIT PhD is not likely to help one become a good teacher. In fact, it probably makes for a less engaging teacher.
Not sure if you are suggesting this is a problem (job loss?), or if you are explaining how outsourcing the production of TVs has improved our lives by making them incalculably better now for a fraction of the price?
I'm adverting to the rank audacity of outsourcing the jobs and then complaining that the people left behind to find such jobs as they can (healthcare! childcare! apparently even a pundit's coffee and sandwich-providers!) are blanket "moochers".
And the $1.39 queen-for-a-day takes her ridicule and gets a big flat TV in return.
It looked to me that when Tove K was referring to "moochers", she was referring to people involved with "rules, inspectors and bureaucracy". Not at all to low wage people in healthcare, childcare, or sandwich-providers. In fact, I sniffed an implication that the "moochers" are making good money.
She goes on to ask, "Where does the essential task of holding society together end and where does fluff and overregulation begin?" Because "if someone emits toxic chemicals while making useful things, the inspector who stops it will be the hero."
I would only add - that people who evidently believe that other people are so easily tipped into moocherness and unproductivity, should have a very different - and more paternalistic - politics than they do.
Here's Andreessen (quoted approvingly by Tove); the graph is what it is:
"Why? The sectors in red are heavily regulated and controlled and bottlenecked by the government and by those industries themselves.[...] The regulated sectors continuously grow as a percentage of GDP; the less regulated sectors shrink. At the limit, 99% of the economy will be the regulated, non-technological sectors, which is precisely where we are headed.”
Wouldn’t another take-away be that production which could be improved via the dynamics of market competition has led to prosperity, and domains which are able to resist competition are conducive to massive rent seeking (moochers) and even worse, to bureaucrats who are actively employed to get in our way?
If I understand you correctly you seem to want to make the rent seekers sovereign and not let market forces work anywhere.
The libertarian-leaning intellectuals - and, curiously, the money men - have known for a fact that we didn't need manufacturing jobs. They sent them away, and took their commission doing so. They called it free trade, implying equal partners, a lie no one bothers to defend. (That's power.) Then they told everybody they'd need to go to college now, to get a good job. They knew - such is the cynicism - that this would play well with the stupid left, who indeed dropped the banner of labor and took up the banner of "all young people deserve to go to college". This quite predictably caused the colleges to swell up like ticks. But we must pretend, too, that that is a baffling mystery. They then call the college administrators and support personnel who were the creation of their *entire worldview* synthesized with that of the conveniently co-opted left - "moochers". Pretty soon, it becomes easy to make a graph and describe nearly everyone not working for a VC-funded tech startup or FAANG or whatever the acronym is now, as "moochers".
It turns out a majority of the country were natural moochers, and more every day. They're already on UBI in effect! Amazing how our grandparents were good and we are all terrible! It's like an argument against heredity! But the smart people say so and they are good at math so it must be true.
"In recent decades, we have seen a viewpoint become popular that regards all Black people as oppressed and all White people as oppressors. Proponents of this viewpoint call themselves anti-racists."
I think this viewpoint wouldn't have gotten much traction if not for government policy as implemented since about 1970. Starting with the Griggs v. Duke Power case (handed down in 1971), "objective" factors were considered discriminatory if they had "disparate impact" and were not directly relevant to job requirements. Then, "disparate outcomes" were considered evidence of insufficient "affirmative action", but the Labor Department would provide the appropriate percentages for various occupations in each area, in order to avoid a prima facie case of discrimination. This quickly translated to explicit quotas for many employment categories, even though the Civil Rights Act explicitly forbids quotas. This is an inevitable consequence of expecting measurable results toward any sort of representation levels.
Without this legal framework, the "anti-racist" ideology would have no institutional support, and the "anti-racists" would be just another bunch of cranks making unpopular demands. With the legal framework, it's hard to get public officials or decision-makers in large organizations to publicly support treating individuals fairly regardless of demographics. Or rather, they'll publicly proclaim a commitment to treating all individuals fairly by achieving representation goals. Sometimes with verbiage about the importance of diversity in order to benefit from different thinking styles, or different cultural awareness, or having a "critical mass" to support the members of whatever group is being discussed.
"Neoracists don’t want racial peace, but endless ideological war. "
I don't think that's quite right. I think that's the end result, but I don't think that's the goal. The goal is rather to create a sort of reparations pressure campaign, resulting in a transfer of resources from group A to group B.
Right, the goal in their neoracist heads is Equal Outcomes for Groups.
But none are pushing the NBA to hire more Hispanics, over blacks and whites, just to equalize group outcomes.
It is an impossible goal to have individual differences AND equal group outcomes. The neoracists look for rationalizations to why their equal outcomes goal is good, and Kendi et al supply that market with academic jargonish rationalization words.
But it's a vain search for cosmic justice, in a rejection of the sad Truth.
Life is unfair. (Lots of people know this, most.)
Plus -- there is no just way to equalize the unfairness of reality.
Best we can do as a society is to judge all people on equal measures, and reward success more than failure; become customers of good products rather than of bad products.
Colorblind individualism is the right goal. Equal Outcomes leads to endless race war.
The ideological war is necessary because the reparations are unjustifiable without the ideology.
It's not quite right but yet it is. Race will never make no difference whatsoever and if it did, there are still endless reasons one could argue it still appears to make a difference.
"Why the sudden pivot away from colorblindness? The answer has to do in part with the race riots that rocked cities like Detroit and Newark in the mid-1960s—especially during the summer of 1967." [from Hughes' book]
It also has a lot to do with the Supreme Court's March 8, 1971 decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Company. Duke Power used IQ tests in hiring and promotion. This had a racially "disparate impact" because whites scored higher than blacks. The Court held that this violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act even if use of the tests had not begun or continued because of a racially discriminatory purpose. The disparate impact created a prima facie case of illegal discrimination that the company could rebut, but rebuttal would be extremely difficult and expensive.
This was a decision by well-meaning good-thinking people. It was unanimous, written by Chief Justice Warren Burger, who Richard Nixon had nominated as a "conservative" to replace the "liberal" Earl Warren. It instititutionalized the idea that any disparity between an up group and a down group should be thought of as a result of unfair treatment by the up group. This implies that it is proper to fix this disparity by now favoring the down group. I.e., by treating people differently based on their race (or possibly sex or sexuality or ethnicity).
Since this was an interpretation of the Civil Rights Act, Congress could have acted at any time to change it. No politician of any substance has tried.
The truth is that US blacks score lower in IQ tests, on average, than whites. Most people who look into this truth believe that genetics are a reason, many deny genetics.
Too much arguments are whether it's genetics or not -- not enough focus is on explicitly helping low IQ people to have a good, middle class life. Religion used to do that, and a bigger focus on virtuous behavior, rather than "education", is part of a cultural change that would help.
I think of the activist pushback against dumping of chemical waste in Texas bays. Alcoa, for instance, dumped 1.2 million pounds of mercury into Lavaca Bay from 1966 until 1979.
Are shrimpers not producers? Commercial fishermen? What about sport fishing, and all the businesses ancillary to that? Does the guy who works at a manufacturing plant - go from being a producer, Monday through Friday, to a moocher, on the weekend, when he is unhappy to find his fishing grounds polluted and bereft of life? That's fascinating to me; it sure has a taint of ideology about it.
Is the former shrimper lady turned activist who got Formosa plastics to finally stop dumping nurdles into the bay - a moocher? All because you might not care for her other politics? If you understood how difficult it was for private citizens to get a judgment like that, in a state like this! - you would be unlikely to call moochers people who had to work their tales off, unremunerated, for decades.
What about the people who stop dams? Are they moochers? Their task is especially hard because they fight something that the people who benefit, and be assured it is a small number - the promised benefits to the community, of yet another bathtub for bass, generally never materializing - would prefer to just happen in the shadows, unquestioned.
Of course, there is nothing being produced with the dam, but I suppose the fact of its being built - "jobs" for a few short years - inclines the thoughtless to call them producers.
In fact, they exploit clueless and or corrupt government officials, in getting these generally unneeded, publicly-funded projects greenlighted. Typically on some of the most *productive* land around.
And what of the people whose land is condemned? Were they not producers? I know a family right now that is poised to lose their ranch on which they have so labored for decades, that it has even been singled out for an award by the *same government* that wants to take it away from them - for being sucn an excellent example of rangeland restoration and best practices - by producers, of cattle.
The larger point is that while it is of course crazy to swing in the direction of *discouraging the production of productive people and encouraging the production of unproductive people* as the USA explicitly does via policy - crazy to do so because it cannot work long-term - there is no basis to assume that all who might reasonably claim to be "doers" in society, know best what is to be done. None whatsoever. Presume in their favor, perhaps, but go no farther than that.
“I find it plausible that our increased engagement with the computer/communications revolution is responsible for much of this. As people turn inward and forget to ‘touch grass,’ human relationships deteriorate and tension increases.” I agree, but this inward turn is caused by more than computers. We can also blame the large boxes, called houses, that we sit it. Prior to computers we sat in these boxes and stared into TVs. On vacations we sit in mobile boxes called RVs or stacked boxes called hotel rooms. What would Jane Jacobs have to say about this? Not sure. I haven’t read more than a dozen pages of her work, but surely sitting in these boxes causes us to turn inward.
Walk a suburban neighborhood and rarely do you see children out playing. Our houses are not built for social interaction or with a view for the outside world. Compare this with an Airstream travel trailer with its hemispherical ends and wide-field of view windows that gives a sense of being outside, connected with scenery. Architecture matters.
Eliminate those windowless boxes on the front of our houses called garages. Move the kitchen sink to the front of the house. Add two are three times the windows. Shut off the TV and computer, or better yet, lock it up in a closet. Make it only accessible in the evenings for an hour. Eliminate the road in the front of the house and replace with a place to walk, play, ride bikes, and garden. See how that makes a difference. No longer are we hunched over in our boxes, staring into screens.
Hughes=rock, Kendi=paper, Cofnas=scissors
More thoughts on racism (& rock paper scissors):
"as long as we observe racial disparities in important outcomes, people will not be satisfied that individualism works in practice."
Until intellectuals, FI or otherwise, are willing to talk about and discuss the truth, this remains true.
The Truth, the unhappy & cosmically unfair Truth -- Blacks have lower IQs. Wherever IQs are dominantly important to peak performance--NOT the NBA--Blacks will have lower achievement.
Arnold Kling doesn't like Steve Sailer, tho I think he does like Charles Murray -- but Sailer today is more honest & truthful about noticing the reality of low IQs of Blacks.
For those unwilling to ascribe this difference to genes, they should be much more widely be condemning the practice of so many Black women having sex before marriage, with men they're not married to, and delivering babies which become kids raised without married parents.
The "systemic racism" that does exist is the US welfare programs that try to help avoid the kids of those irresponsible mothers, both Black and white, to raise kids without married parents.
Uncle Sugar makes a lousy dad.
It doesn't take an above avg IQ to say "no sex before marriage".
The economic racial disparities will certainly continue, and even get worse, until the behavior of Black people improves. Their behavior, on average, is far far worse than any other group -- and the neoracists say it's because of whites.
Total BS. Or is it?
It's actually kind of true that elite whites in college support early 20s promiscuity, but without having kids thru the use of the Pill, condoms, or abortion. Dems did pretty well in 2022 because of the feminist desire to have abortion on demand, everywhere -- and most places prefer allowing some abortion, like before 8-15 weeks, than total abolishment as the pro-life folk desire.
This elite luxury belief and practice, 20s promiscuity but then marriage & family, get passed down as early promiscuity and kids and then lousy parenting and the boys growing to be criminals and the girls growing up to be sluts to the older slut-jerk guys, the cool guys often including those out of prison. This promiscuity culture, "sexual liberation", hurts all low IQ folk more -- it's more frequent for low IQ folk to be irresponsible and make forgetful mistakes & careless mistakes.
Irresponsible young adults having premarital sex is partly the fault of their parents, but mostly the fault of culture & laws & programs. There are more white kids growing up with unmarried mothers -- but a much higher percentage of Black kids.
We need honest scissors about promiscuity and individual responsibility to cut the thick blanket of unequal racial group outcomes.
I’d say the problem around 2010 was that we crossed a threshold in internet usage. Prior to 2010 most people online (at the global scale) were intelligent, educated, early adopter types. By 2010 that was changing in a big way, and the 2010s generally were the period of the internet being used by people who couldn’t deal with that kind of engagement without having it damage their lives and their minds.
It’s a powerful tool in the right hands and a dangerous self-destructive tool in the wrong ones.
Re: Tove K and moochers. I think much of the problem is that many of them sincerely believe they are “doing good” without much attention paid to actual outcomes. “Doing something” is better than “doing nothing.” For them, intentions matter more than results.
The only way to stop mooching is to have active policies against mooching- we don't. Increasingly, we can't even summon the will to stop shoplifting and other "minor" thefts like car jacking.
The most important anti-racist change in government policy is to support manual jobs for low IQ folk, of which there are more low IQ whites than blacks in America.
The second best policy, based on culture more than gov't, is to support marriage before having kids, which in practice with low IQ folk means marriage before sex. (Not what I practiced when younger.)
A possible way for govt support is to pay, reward, poor couples who get married and live in poor areas. Such couples have less "need" than single parents -- but are far better local role models in school district areas with few married parents.
Such policies should be specifically colorblind -- tho the benefits would differ according to race.
Look forward to your review of Hughes’ book. Maybe it will motivate me to finish the book.
“I taught AP Statistics for 15 years. As I became a better explainer, I became a worse teacher. When I struggled to explain a concept, the students struggled with me.” Arnold - Did you ask many questions of the students to check their understanding? Did you constantly question the students to promote their thinking? A good school will train their teachers how to teach. An MIT PhD is not likely to help one become a good teacher. In fact, it probably makes for a less engaging teacher.
2. The last TV was manufactured in the United States when - the Carter administration? Make it make sense.
Not sure if you are suggesting this is a problem (job loss?), or if you are explaining how outsourcing the production of TVs has improved our lives by making them incalculably better now for a fraction of the price?
I'm adverting to the rank audacity of outsourcing the jobs and then complaining that the people left behind to find such jobs as they can (healthcare! childcare! apparently even a pundit's coffee and sandwich-providers!) are blanket "moochers".
And the $1.39 queen-for-a-day takes her ridicule and gets a big flat TV in return.
It looked to me that when Tove K was referring to "moochers", she was referring to people involved with "rules, inspectors and bureaucracy". Not at all to low wage people in healthcare, childcare, or sandwich-providers. In fact, I sniffed an implication that the "moochers" are making good money.
She goes on to ask, "Where does the essential task of holding society together end and where does fluff and overregulation begin?" Because "if someone emits toxic chemicals while making useful things, the inspector who stops it will be the hero."
I would only add - that people who evidently believe that other people are so easily tipped into moocherness and unproductivity, should have a very different - and more paternalistic - politics than they do.
Here's Andreessen (quoted approvingly by Tove); the graph is what it is:
"Why? The sectors in red are heavily regulated and controlled and bottlenecked by the government and by those industries themselves.[...] The regulated sectors continuously grow as a percentage of GDP; the less regulated sectors shrink. At the limit, 99% of the economy will be the regulated, non-technological sectors, which is precisely where we are headed.”
Wouldn’t another take-away be that production which could be improved via the dynamics of market competition has led to prosperity, and domains which are able to resist competition are conducive to massive rent seeking (moochers) and even worse, to bureaucrats who are actively employed to get in our way?
If I understand you correctly you seem to want to make the rent seekers sovereign and not let market forces work anywhere.
The libertarian-leaning intellectuals - and, curiously, the money men - have known for a fact that we didn't need manufacturing jobs. They sent them away, and took their commission doing so. They called it free trade, implying equal partners, a lie no one bothers to defend. (That's power.) Then they told everybody they'd need to go to college now, to get a good job. They knew - such is the cynicism - that this would play well with the stupid left, who indeed dropped the banner of labor and took up the banner of "all young people deserve to go to college". This quite predictably caused the colleges to swell up like ticks. But we must pretend, too, that that is a baffling mystery. They then call the college administrators and support personnel who were the creation of their *entire worldview* synthesized with that of the conveniently co-opted left - "moochers". Pretty soon, it becomes easy to make a graph and describe nearly everyone not working for a VC-funded tech startup or FAANG or whatever the acronym is now, as "moochers".
It turns out a majority of the country were natural moochers, and more every day. They're already on UBI in effect! Amazing how our grandparents were good and we are all terrible! It's like an argument against heredity! But the smart people say so and they are good at math so it must be true.
Thanks for sharing a different opinion.
“This leads to an increase in mooching, which can take the form of actively inhibiting the producers.”
File under “compliance department.”
I suspect many University admins fall in the category of "moochers" too.