Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It
The experience of oppressed people is that the living of one’s life is confined and shaped by forces and barriers which are not accidental or occasional and hence avoidable, but are systematically related to each other in such a way as to catch one between and among them and restrict or penalize motion in any direction. It is the experience of being caged in: all avenues, in every direction, are blocked or booby trapped.
—Marilyn Frye, “Oppression,” in The Politics of Reality
Governments—local, state, and federal—spend a lot of time wringing their hands about the plight of the urban poor. Look around any government agency and you’ll never fail to find some know-it-all with a suit and a nameplate on his desk who has just the right government program to eliminate or ameliorate, or at least contain, the worst aspects of grinding poverty in American cities—especially as experienced by black people, immigrants, people with disabilities, and everyone else marked for the special observation and solicitude of the state bureaucracy. Depending on the bureaucrat’s frame of mind, his pet programs might focus on doling out conditional charity to “deserving” poor people, or putting more “at-risk” poor people under the surveillance of social workers and medical experts, or beating up recalcitrant poor people and locking them in cages for several years.
But the one thing that the government and its managerial aid workers will never do is just get out of the way and let poor people do the things that poor people naturally do, and always have done, to scratch by.
Government anti-poverty programs are a classic case of the therapeutic state setting out to treat disorders created by the state itself. Urban poverty as we know it is, in fact, exclusively a creature of state intervention in consensual economic dealings. This claim may seem bold, even to most libertarians. But a lot turns on the phrase “as we know it.” Even if absolute laissez faire reigned beginning tomorrow, there would still be people in big cities who are living paycheck to paycheck, heavily in debt, homeless, jobless, or otherwise at the bottom rungs of the socioeconomic ladder. These conditions may be persistent social problems, and it may be that free people in a free society will still have to come up with voluntary institutions and practices for addressing them. But in the state-regimented market that dominates today, the material predicament that poor people find themselves in—and the arrangements they must make within that predicament—are battered into their familiar shape, as if by an invisible fist, through the diffuse effects of pervasive, interlocking interventions.
Consider the commonplace phenomena of urban poverty. Livelihoods in American inner cities are typically extremely precarious: as Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh writes in Off the Books: “Conditions in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty can change quickly and in ways that can leave families unprepared and without much recourse.” Fixed costs of living—rent, food, clothing, and so on—consume most or all of a family’s income, with little or no access to credit, savings, or insurance to safeguard them from unexpected disasters.
Dependent on Others
Their poverty often leaves them dependent on other people. It pervades the lives of the employed and the unemployed alike: the jobless fall back on charity or help from family; those who live paycheck to paycheck, with little chance of finding any work elsewhere, depend on the good graces of a select few bosses and brokers. One woman quoted by Venkatesh explained why she continued to work through an exploitative labor shark rather than leaving for a steady job with a well-to-do family: “And what if that family gets rid of me? Where am I going next? See, I can’t take that chance, you know. . . . All I got is Johnnie and it took me the longest just to get him on my side.”
The daily experience of the urban poor is shaped by geographical concentration in socially and culturally isolated ghetto neighborhoods within the larger city, which have their own characteristic features: housing is concentrated in dilapidated apartments and housing projects, owned by a select few absentee landlords; many abandoned buildings and vacant lots are scattered through the neighborhood, which remain unused for years at a time; the use of outside spaces is affected by large numbers of unemployed or homeless people.
The favorite solutions of the welfare state—government doles and “urban renewal” projects—mark no real improvement. Rather than freeing poor people from dependence on benefactors and bosses, they merely transfer the dependence to the state, leaving the least politically connected people at the mercy of the political process.
But in a free market—a truly free market, where individual poor people are just as free as established formal-economy players to use their own property, their own labor, their own know-how, and the resources that are available to them—the informal, enterprising actions by poor people themselves would do far more to systematically undermine, or completely eliminate, each of the stereotypical conditions that welfare statists deplore. Every day and in every culture from time out of mind, poor people have repeatedly shown remarkable intelligence, courage, persistence, and creativity in finding ways to put food on the table, save money, keep safe, raise families, live full lives, learn, enjoy themselves, and experience beauty, whenever, wherever, and to whatever degree they have been free to do so. The fault for despairing, dilapidated urban ghettoes lies not in the pressures of the market, nor in the character flaws of individual poor people, nor in the characteristics of ghetto subcultures. The fault lies in the state and its persistent interference with poor people’s own efforts to get by through independent work, clever hustling, scratching together resources, and voluntary mutual aid.
Housing Crisis
Progressives routinely deplore the “affordable housing crisis” in American cities. In cities such as New York and Los Angeles, about 20 to 25 percent of low-income renters are spending more than half their incomes just on housing. But it is the very laws that Progressives favor—land-use policies, zoning codes, and building codes—that ratchet up housing costs, stand in the way of alternative housing options, and confine poor people to ghetto neighborhoods. Historically, when they have been free to do so, poor people have happily disregarded the ideals of political humanitarians and found their own ways to cut housing costs, even in bustling cities with tight housing markets.
One way was to get other families, or friends, or strangers, to move in and split the rent. Depending on the number of people sharing a home, this might mean a less-comfortable living situation; it might even mean one that is unhealthy. But decisions about health and comfort are best made by the individual people who bear the costs and reap the benefits. Unfortunately today the decisions are made ahead of time by city governments through zoning laws that prohibit or restrict sharing a home among people not related by blood or marriage, and building codes that limit the number of residents in a building.
Those who cannot make enough money to cover the rent on their own, and cannot split the rent enough due to zoning and building codes, are priced out of the housing market entirely. Once homeless, they are left exposed not only to the elements, but also to harassment or arrest by the police for “loitering” or “vagrancy,” even on public property, in efforts to force them into overcrowded and dangerous institutional shelters. But while government laws make living on the streets even harder than it already is, government intervention also blocks homeless people’s efforts to find themselves shelter outside the conventional housing market. One of the oldest and commonest survival strategies practiced by the urban poor is to find wild or abandoned land and build shanties on it out of salvageable scrap materials. Scrap materials are plentiful, and large portions of land in ghetto neighborhoods are typically left unused as condemned buildings or vacant lots. Formal title is very often seized by the city government or by quasi-governmental “development” corporations through the use of eminent domain. Lots are held out of use, often for years at a time, while they await government public-works projects or developers willing to buy up the land for large-scale building.
Urban Homesteading
In a free market, vacant lots and abandoned buildings could eventually be homesteaded by anyone willing to do the work of occupying and using them. Poor people could use abandoned spaces within their own communities for setting up shop, for gardening, or for living space. In Miami, in October 2006, a group of community organizers and about 35 homeless people built Umoja Village, a shanty town, on an inner-city lot that the local government had kept vacant for years. They publicly stated to the local government that “We have only one demand . . . leave us alone.”
That would be the end of the story in a free market: there would be no eminent domain, no government ownership, and thus also no political process of seizure and redevelopment; once-homeless people could establish property rights to abandoned land through their own sweat equity—without fear of the government’s demolishing their work and selling their land out from under them. But back in Miami, the city attorney and city council took about a month to begin legal efforts to destroy the residents’ homes and force them off the lot. In April 2007 the city police took advantage of an accidental fire to enforce its politically fabricated title to the land, clearing the lot, arresting 11 people, and erecting a fence to safeguard the once-again vacant lot for professional “affordable housing” developers.
Had the city government not made use of its supposed title to the abandoned land, it no doubt could have made use of state and federal building codes to ensure that residents would be forced back into homelessness—for their own safety, of course. That is in fact what a county health commission in Indiana did to a 93-year-old man named Thelmon Green, who lived in his ’86 Chevrolet van, which the local towing company allowed him to keep on its lot. Many people thrown into poverty by a sudden financial catastrophe live out of a car for weeks or months until they get back on their feet. Living in a car is cramped, but it beats living on the streets: a car means a place you can have to yourself, which holds your possessions, with doors you can lock, and sometimes even air conditioning and heating. But staying in a car over the long term is much harder to manage without running afoul of the law. Thelmon Green got by well enough in his van for ten years, but when the Indianapolis Star printed a human-interest story on him last December, the county health commission took notice and promptly ordered Green evicted from his own van, in the name of the local housing code.
Since government housing codes impose detailed requirements on the size, architecture, and building materials for new permanent housing, as well as on specialized and extremely expensive contract work for electricity, plumbing, and other luxuries, they effectively obstruct or destroy most efforts to create transitional, intermediate, or informal sorts of shelter that cost less than rented space in government-approved housing projects, but provide more safety and comfort than living on the street.
Constraints on Making Income
Turning from expenses to income, pervasive government regulation, passed in the so-called “public interest” at the behest of comfortable middle- and upper-class Progressives, creates endless constraints on poor people’s ability to earn a living or make needed money on the side.
There are, to start out, the trades that the state has made entirely illegal: selling drugs outside of a state-authorized pharmacy, prostitution outside of the occasional state-authorized brothel “ranch,” or running small-time gambling operations outside of a state-authorized corporate casino. These trades are often practiced by women and men facing desperate poverty; the state’s efforts add the danger of fines, forfeitures, and lost years in prison.
Poor Shut Out
Beyond the government-created black market, there are also countless jobs that could be done above-ground, but from which the poor are systematically shut out by arbitrary regulation and licensure requirements. In principle, many women in black communities could make money braiding hair, with only their own craft, word of mouth, and the living room of an apartment. But in many states, anyone found braiding hair without having put down hundreds of dollars and days of her life to apply for a government-fabricated cosmetology or hair-care license will be fined hundreds or thousands of dollars.
In principle, anyone who knows how to cook can make money by laying out the cash for ingredients and some insulated containers, and taking the food from his own kitchen to a stand set up on the sidewalk or, with the landlord’s permission, in a parking lot. But then there are business licenses to pay for (often hundreds of dollars) and the costs of complying with health-department regulations and inspections. The latter make it practically impossible to run a food-oriented business without buying or leasing property dedicated to preparing the food, at which point you may as well forget about it unless you already have a lot of start-up capital sitting around.
Every modern urban center has a tremendous demand for taxi cabs. In principle, anyone who needed to make some extra money could start a part-time “gypsy cab” service with a car she already has, a cell phone, and some word of mouth. She can make good money for honest labor, providing a useful service to willing customers—as a single independent worker, without needing to please a boss, who can set her own hours and put as much or as little into it as she wants in order to make the money she needs.
But in the United States, city governments routinely impose massive constraints and controls on taxi service. The worst offenders are often the cities with the highest demand for cabs, like New York City, where the government enforces an arbitrary cap on the number of taxi cabs through a system of government-created licenses, or “medallions.” The total number of medallion taxis is capped at about 13,000 cabs for the entire city, with occasional government auctions for a handful of new medallions. The system requires anyone who wants to become an independent cab driver to purchase a medallion at monopoly prices from an existing holder or wait around for the city to auction off new ones. At the auction last November a total of 63 new medallions were made available for auction with a minimum bidding price of $189,000.
Besides the cost of a medallion, cab owners are also legally required to pay an annual licensing fee of $550 and to pay for three inspections by the city government each year, at a total annual cost of $150. The city government enforces a single fare structure, enforces a common paint job, and now is even forcing all city cabs to upgrade to high-cost, high-tech GPS and payment systems, whether or not the cabbie or her customer happens to want them. The primary beneficiary of this politically imposed squeeze on independent cabbies is VeriFone Holdings, the first firm approved to sell the electronic systems to a captive market. Doug Bergeron, VeriFone’s CEO, crows that “Every year, we find a free ride on a new segment of the economy that is going electronic.” In this case, VeriFone is enjoying a “free ride” indeed.
The practical consequence is that poor people who might otherwise be able to make easy money on their own are legally forced out of driving a taxi, or else forced to hire themselves out to an existing medallion-holder on his own terms. Either way, poor people are shoved out of flexible, independent work, which many would be willing and able to do using one of the few capital goods that they already have on hand. Lots of poor people have cars they could use; not a lot have a couple hundred thousand dollars to spend on a government-created license.
Government regimentation of land, housing, and labor creates and sustains the very structure of urban poverty. Government seizures create and reinforce the dilapidation of ghetto neighborhoods by constricting the housing market to a few landlords and keeping marginal lands out of use. Government regulations create homelessness and artificially make it worse for the homeless by driving up housing costs and by obstructing or destroying any intermediate informal living solutions between renting an apartment and living on the street. And having made the ghetto, government prohibitions keep poor people confined in it, by shutting them out of more affluent neighborhoods where many might be able to live if only they were able to share expenses.
Ratcheting Costs Up and Opportunities Down
Artificially limiting the alternative options for housing ratchets up the fixed costs of living for the urban poor. Artificially limiting the alternative options for independent work ratchets down the opportunities for increasing income. And the squeeze makes poor people dependent on—and thus vulnerable to negligent or unscrupulous treatment from—both landlords and bosses by constraining their ability to find other, better homes, or other, better livelihoods. The same squeeze puts many more poor people into the position of living “one paycheck away” from homelessness and makes that position all the more precarious by harassing and coercing and imposing artificial destitution on those who do end up on the street.
American state corporatism forcibly reshapes the world of work and business on the model of a commercial strip mall: sanitized, centralized, regimented, officious, and dominated by a few powerful proprietors and their short list of favored partners, to whom everyone else relates as either an employee or a consumer. A truly free market, without the pervasive control of state licensure requirements, regulation, inspections, paperwork, taxes, “fees,” and the rest, has much more to do with the traditional image of a bazaar: messy, decentralized, diverse, informal, flexible, pervaded by haggling, and kept together by the spontaneous order of countless small-time independent operators, who quickly and easily shift between the roles of customer, merchant, contract laborer, and more. It is precisely because we have the strip mall rather than the bazaar that people living in poverty find themselves so often confined to ghettoes, caught in precarious situations, and dependent on others—either on the bum or caught in jobs they hate but cannot leave, while barely keeping a barely tolerable roof over their heads.
The poorer you are, the more you need access to informal and flexible alternatives, and the more you need opportunities to apply some creative hustling. When the state shuts that out, it shuts poor people into ghettoized poverty.
Comment by Lynn Atherton-Bloxham on 20 July 2009:
Well written and organized. I will email this to all my well meaning “progressive” friends who just do not get the concept of voluntary exchange and the actual progress this brings to people who are allowed to freely participate.
Comment by Jeanette on 13 September 2009:
This article is completely oblivious. It ignores the poverty/disability cycle – and advocates solutions that would exacerbate the problems. See: http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/disabled/disabday.htm
and
http://www.preventblackcrime.com/pcbc.nsf/ae787fdf52e79d63852567b4006ae820/d3de709c7033275e852568500056c87a?OpenDocument
and
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/disability.pdf
The author glosses over the fact that violence and crime are very often the means of scratching by.
Non-licensed hairdressers work out of their home all the time under the table, as a barter or cash only basis. They are available to anyone who wants to risk health problems or poor quality.
And, BTW, I started my own home business from scratch legally– and my out-of-pocket expenses to government bureaucracy were $15.
I agree that the status quo should be continually questioned, evaluated, criticized, and improved. But this train of thought is myopic.
Comment by julie on 15 September 2009:
I disagree that this particular view is, as you say, \"myopic.\" Rather, it is presenting facts from the point of view of, say, someone who might want the government to respect their personal rights. This is exactly, in large part, what is happening with the government in general right now. \"We\" (that is, Big Brother) wants to \"take care\" of everyone, so \"we\" are going to force all of you insignificants that can\’t really fight against it (thus, the involuntary part)into doing what \"We\" feel is best for you. Oh, and by the way, thank you very much for your cash for our decision on your behalf. \"You\" can\’t logically decide whether or not you want the city to pick up your garbage for you or if you want all of the benefici of living within the boundaries of the neighboring city. We have this issue occurring right now. Our city wants to annex the unincorporated areas (much, if not all is farming land, which individuals have purchased for that sole purpose–because it wasn\’t within the city boundaries, specifically) because it just passed a new budget, nearly doubling our current taxes. When I first read about them possibly doing this, the red flags were violently waving in my face, telling me to go and help defend those having their rights violated. Yes, violated. Shame on those who sit on these city councils, or at the state level, and ever consider involuntary o.k. Just my personal opinion, perhaps too \"free\" for our current political climate thinking, of course.
Comment by Jeanette on 15 September 2009:
Well, I will start off by saying that I believe that the US Constitution is wonderful. Bu like any human creation, it is valuable and fallible.
Jefferson strove to fight tyrannies: Political, economic, religious, and majority rule. He wanted government to be strong, but not impotent. It is supposed to speak for those who are bullied into submission.
It sounds like you have a political tyranny going on in your community. Good thing there are recourses to protest and rectify that. You sound as if you have the physical, emotional, and intellectual resources to do just that.
An idea, like any human creation, is valuable and fallible. But some people take a position that their ideology is perfect in every situation, everywhere in the world, for every population, in every period of time. THAT is myopic.
Pingback by Libertarianism and Beneficiary-Bashing « Brad Taylor’s Blog on 24 October 2009:
[...] government policy today disproportionately harms the poor. Mandated minimum levels of safety and quality on housing and other goods outlaws the products many [...]
Pingback by Cry Little Girl, Cry « Human Iterations on 13 November 2009:
[...] are endless, from native-plantlife restoring landscaping to bike repair. Of course the government actively suppresses such wildcat production and commerce, but imagine how awesome it would be to be greeted at the [...]
Comment by Eli Harman on 1 December 2009:
Jeanette, your comment about unlicensed home hair-braiding being available to people who want to “risk health problems and poor quality” betrays the fact that you’ve bought the socialist fallacy hook, line and sinker. We must be such stupid, helpless and pathetic creatures if we can’t even be trusted to keep our own homes in a condition that won’t cause health problems, or do some task as simple as braiding hair without the sage guidance, expert instruction and yes, heavy-hand, of all-wise and benevolent planners directing and supervising us at every turn.
You say that government “is supposed to speak for those who are bullied into submission.” And what can the weak give to those in “government” that will make it worth their while to offer protection from the strong? Wishful thinking and starry-eyed platitudes are all well and good, but what is there in the nature of men or things to make it so? Nothing.
Those in “government” will do for those who can advance their never-ending quest for power and plunder. In a competitive political marketplace,(representative democracy) those who do not will be beaten by those who do. Government is a negative sum game, it is dog eat dog, it is cannibalism.
Civil society, in contrast, fosters peace, cooperation, and mutually beneficial exchange. If I am at peace with my neighbors, I can derive benefits from peaceful production and mutually beneficial trade. If I choose aggression, in the hopes of securing plunder, I must count against the plunder, not only the direct costs and risks of procuring it, but also all the benefits of peace I must give up in going to war against my neighbors. The incentive, if any, to engage in criminality is weak. My neighbors, for their part, have only to choose between perhaps losing their property and their lives by resisting my depredations or certainly losing them by not resisting. So I’m guaranteed to face bitter opposition.
Though common criminals are easy enough to deal with, those calling themselves “governments” are more difficult. When a “government” is so awesome that it can easily overpower any subject to it, those who compose it shall have no incentive to respect the persons or property of others. The power of “government” can be turned to plunder and enslavement without risk to those who wield it, and the structure of incentives is exactly reversed from what prevails under a state of nature. Where free men will choose to resist invasions rather than submit to them, those subject to a “common power” they cannot hope to resist will choose submission, in the hope that through supplication they might buy some small mercy, where resistance means only certain and total destruction. And accordingly, history has shown that plunder and slavery have been the chief occupation of every “common power” established, even to this day.
The authors of your UN paper also get it wrong.
If poverty/disabilty were a self-reinforcing, positive-feedback cycle, we’d all be disabled and impoverished today.
Their recommendation to “improve the integration of persons with disabilities by equalizing their economic and social opportunities” is dead wrong. While the disabled still retain myriad economic and social opportunities, sufficient in most cases to lead whole, productive and self-supporting lives, (and even to excel and inspire) those opportunities will necessarily be somewhat more limited than is typical. Any attempt to “equalize” their opportunity amounts to an unearned subsidy, and doing so would only increase the amount of disability. This is not to say that people would disable themselves, but it would decrease the incentive to avoid becoming disabled. And if disability confers an entitlement to unearned opportunity, if disability becomes a livelihood rather than a liability, then you’ve created a niche that will be filled.
Nor are their claims of discrimination credible. If disabled people, for example, earn less, it can only be because they produce less. If irrational discrimination were the cause, then why would a rational businessman hire abled people, when (as a result of other people’s biases) he can get the disabled to do more for less? If you think the disabled are being irrationally discriminated against, there’s no surer way for you to make massive profits than by going into business and hiring them.
Pingback by How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It - Reboot The Republic on 5 February 2010:
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Pingback by Sustainability, Mutual Aid, and Liberation Redux « On ALLiance on 15 February 2010:
[...] Mike Reynolds is an architect with a vision. Reynolds and his New Mexico based team have developed the practice of biotecture which is the combination of biology and architecture. The documentary Garbage Warrior highlights Reynolds move from traditional architecture to the creation of biotecture and the unique “Earthships.” Each of these structures utilized reclaimed materials and are completely off the grid. These homes do not require heating or cooling systems. Follow this link for more information on Earthship Biotecture. Reynolds was invited to help design homes in India after the 2004 Tsunamis devastated Southeast Asia. This was AFTER he lost his architecture license for breaking architectural codes and planning laws. US architects were demonizing his work while Indian architects were praising it. (For more on regulatory and licensing see Charles Johnson’s Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It.) [...]
Pingback by Sustainability, Mutual Aid, and Liberation Redux « ChrisLempa.info on 15 February 2010:
[...] Mike Reynolds is an architect with a vision. Reynolds and his New Mexico based team have developed the practice of biotecture which is the combination of biology and architecture. The documentary Garbage Warrior highlights Reynolds move from traditional architecture to the creation of biotecture and the unique “Earthships.” Each of these structures utilized reclaimed materials and are completely off the grid. These homes do not require heating or cooling systems. Follow this link for more information on Earthship Biotecture. Reynolds was invited to help design homes in India after the 2004 Tsunamis devastated Southeast Asia. This was AFTER he lost his architecture license for breaking architectural codes and planning laws. US architects were demonizing his work while Indian architects were praising it. (For more on regulatory and licensing see Charles Johnson’s Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It.) [...]
Pingback by Obama Wants New Poverty Measure | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty on 3 March 2010:
[...] a redefinition poverty; we need the removal of government barriers out of it. FEE Timely Classic “Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It” by Charles [...]
Pingback by | The Murph Report | Poverty Without the State by Gary Chartier | on 9 March 2010:
[...] All of the following points (in making which I draw on insights gleaned from Roderick T. Long, Charles Johnson, Kevin Carson, David Friedman, and others) ought to figure, I think, in an anarchist response to [...]
Pingback by Pissed Off « Instead of a Blog on 30 April 2010:
[...] and similar sorts of limitations.” What “we” need is to understand that “decisions about health and comfort are best made by the individual people who bear the costs … What “we” need is to let markets work, the actual, freed [...]
Pingback by Rad Geek People’s Daily 2010-05-08 – Bits & Pieces on Free Market Anti-Capitalism: Rigged markets, captive markets, and capitalistic business as usual on 8 May 2010:
[...] See also Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It. [...]
Comment by garhunt05 on 9 May 2010:
The problem with the article is that it assumes that a private party will not try to vacate the poor or that the free market will not be manipulated against the poor. The fact of the matter is tyhat freedom isn’t free at all it requires that everyone acknowledge that that person is free and as history has shown people just cannot do that.
Pingback by Rad Geek People’s Daily 2010-05-13 – Bits & Pieces on Free Market Anti-Capitalism: Is this all just a semantic debate? on 13 May 2010:
[...] The images of the strip mall and the bazaar are taken from my concluding paragraph in Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It. Those images were inspired by and modified from Eric Raymond’s use of The Cathedral and the [...]
Pingback by Counter Culture « Instead of a Blog on 23 May 2010:
[...] business policies.” I give her credit for being honest about the state’s involvement in creating poverty and putting up barriers against truly free competition, but I’m not sure how that helps [...]
Pingback by Thinking Liberty » Blog Archive » 2010-05-25 on 26 May 2010:
[...] Scratching By [...]
Pingback by MYOB! « Instead of a Blog on 21 July 2010:
[...] shouldn’t I take the message to be “We will no tolerate it when ‘poor people do the things that poor people naturally do, and always have done, to scratch by…“? It’s almost like they want poverty, isn’t it? (CHT Brad Spangler) [...]
Comment by Jim Miller on 15 August 2010:
House Member Judy Nerat
House of Representatives, State of Michigan
judynerat@house.mi.gov
There is much to do to create 640,000 full time, well paying jobs in Michigan. Do you know where to locate the brick wall which inhibits job creation? Answer: planning and zoning laws of local government, primarily, and State of Michigan rules secondarily.
Take a look at the ghettoization of land uses featured as “good community planning” in most cities, counties and townships – so-called “use zones”. Each such entity has planned the communities “as if only the internal combustion and vehicles matter”. Read, Hard-wired Traffic Jams, http://www.monbiot.com/archives/1998/01/07/hard-wired-traffic-jams/
We need to re-think how people live, work, recreate and get around. We need to plan communities “as if people matter”. The solution to most of our economic problems would be solved by putting where people live next to where those same people work, shop and recreate. The multi-use planning approach is the Planned Unit Development, exemplified by the Frenchtown regulation: http://www.frenchtowntownship.org/admin/files/zoning%20ordinances/ARTICLE%2023.pdf
For too long we have accepted the status quo of community planning and watched as urban sprawl has snaked its way along the roads and byways, causing monster traffic jams at rush hour and negatively impacting all sorts of municipal services. We can cut this waste by the simple step of aggregating our living and working lives in what might be called “urban villages” and in the more rural areas, “eco-villages”. The PUD approach is the solution, albeit it a very cumbersome one if Frenchtown’s regulations are a typical example. Rather than treating the mixed-use PUD as a narrow exception, it ought to become the favored majority planning schema. My essay on the subject may be read at: DUMBBELL PLANNING VERSUS INTEGRATED COMMUNITY PLANNING, http://masallp.wetpaint.com/page/DUMBBELL+PLANNING+VERSUS+INTEGRATED+COMMUNITY+PLANNING
If you want good jobs for Michigan, then please draw attention to the need to create more mixed use urban villages and rural eco-villages. Do you agree? Once the legal tangles are resolved, then we need to work on the funding of worker cooperatives, the subject of my next letter to you.
Best regards,
James E. Miller, BA, BS, JD
Pingback by Government Programs for Poor Expand Briskly | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty on 30 August 2010:
[...] Timely Classic “Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It” by Charles [...]
Comment by Brian on 30 August 2010:
Jeanette may well never read this, but if she does, I’d love for her to substantiate her assertions with respect to Jefferson, particularly:
“Jefferson strove to fight tyrannies: Political, economic, religious, and majority rule. He wanted government to be strong, but not impotent. It is supposed to speak for those who are bullied into submission.”
As I recall, Jefferson was among those who formed the Democratic Republicans, which was a party that believed the national government should be limited and subordinate to state governments. This group was initially, and tellingly, known as the Anti-Federalists? Among Jefferson’s enemies was Alexander Hamilton, leader of the Federalist Party?
In short, the most cursory investigation would reveal that Jefferson believed the federal government should be watched closely and with suspicion and its only powers were those specifically granted to it by and through the explicit conveyances of the constitution and NOT by the “general welfare” language.
Thanks if you’ve read this far.
Comment by Drik on 30 August 2010:
Used to be the vast majority of people that were poor did not stay poor. Government put a stop to that by institutionalizing and supporting living in poverty.
Currently the vast majority of people that are rich were not born rich. They only became rich through dint of hard work, long hours, doing without, and persevering. Government is going to put a stop to that too.
Comment by Cry Aboutit on 31 August 2010:
Jeannette seems to believe that the State is established to protect the disadvantaged from market players who have the resources to force their will upon others…don’t want to see/deal with poverty? Stick it in a ghetto.
Where you are wrong, Jeannette, is that you have “free market” confused with State corporatism, a common error considering the fact that proponents of State corporatism throw the term “free market” around like they do “patriotism”–and bastardize both.
Those who are being bullied into submission, who cannot defend themselves, are at the mercy of their aggressors and rely on the support of their benefactors. You assume the government, created by and for the People, has an obligation to represent those people and to protect the dignity of their lives while they scratch their way back into prosperity. You know what? I agree!
But here’s how it looks from the State Official’s perspective:
“you want me to cut ties with my campaign contributors and network of connections to champion a group of people who don’t pay taxes and often don’t even vote? Are you serious?!
Here’s a counter offer–I’ll make a program that makes it look like I’m doing something. It will be expensive and it will only work well enough to keep disadvantaged people out of sight (and hopefully out of mind).”
I worked with a microfinance group that operated in the ghettos of Lima, Peru, and found that people who have something to lose are more stable and responsible than those who don’t.
Well-intentioned as they may be, government programs take the agency out of disadvantaged peoples’ lives. They wind up “owning” nothing, and are at the mercy of the State. Their supposed benefactor becomes the aggressor when they try to use innovation to escape their situation. Cowed by constant meddling, their right to make choices is eroded, leaving deep-seated resentment.
Comment by 胡志成 on 1 September 2010:
“Rather than freeing poor people from dependence on benefactors and bosses, they merely transfer the dependence to the state, leaving the least politically connected people at the mercy of the political process.”
Really Really good quote
Comment by Miles on 30 September 2010:
Easily one of the most important articles I’ve come across. Also, great comments from people.
Comment by Mark Baird on 11 October 2010:
Communal housing may work for some; but, they usually create fights and soon everyone moves out. Americans are not used to living together. — Instead, living in RVs and tents may become the norm. However municipalities are fighting against this. Which of course makes no sense.
For Instance: In many places it is legal to sleep in the bushes but not in your car or RV!
Cities need to prepare for our dire future and make it easy for families that go homeless to have a place to live. They need to provide facilities and stop the police from ticketing people for being too poor to rent or buy.
Our economy and the world’s will collapse. In fact, it has already. The blast just has no blown everything to pieces yet.
Comment by Mark Baird on 11 October 2010:
Communal housing may work for some; but, they usually create fights and soon everyone moves out. Americans are not used to living together. — Instead, living in RVs and tents may become the norm. However municipalities are fighting against this. Which of course makes no sense.
For Instance: In many places it is legal to sleep in the bushes but not in your car or RV!
Cities need to prepare for our dire future and make it easy for families that go homeless to have a place to live. They need to provide facilities and stop the police from ticketing people for being too poor to rent or buy.
Our economy and the world’s will collapse. In fact, it has already. The blast just has not blown everything to pieces yet.
Comment by Amy on 11 October 2010:
There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. The author’s stereotypes of poor people and their capabilities is crude and offensive. He merely suggests poor people engage in what they do best: drug dealing, prostitution, hair braiding (because ALL black women love to deal drugs, s#ck d#ck and braid hair, right?), and live in shanty towns.
Is this the poor man’s liberation? Simply eliminate government programs and oppression and you will be free to “scratch by”?
People already deal drugs and pimp, but seldom does it lead to longevity or riches outside the ghetto. Please explain how drug dealing and prostitution (violent rackets) suddenly elevate your position in life if done under the guise of total freedom?
Underage girls, start prostituting now! Men pay more for a young piece of tail! That’s how the “free market” works…
Yes, the poor are limited. They lack KNOWLEDGE on how to generate and build wealth. We have the resources to educate and elevate those behind the curve. If freedom is a moral right, then why does is author hell-bent on merely liberating people? The moral thing to do would be liberate and educate the poor of the new reality/model. But perhaps the author isn’t interested in whether the poor do any more than “hustle” and “scratch by”. So much for freedom…
Comment by laughsalot on 15 October 2010:
I slightly agree with Amy….some very distasteful stereotyping about the “poor”, but let’s look at what American “poor” truly is. We actually call them “low income earners” and “at risk”. So, they are not the poor that this article is referring to. We have the richest poor in the world. Most “poor” are simply people in transition from either immigrating here, lost jobs, or mental health (alcohol and drug abuse) disability. Our liability is to the true disabled (including many elderly) and orphans. There really is no excuse for anyone other than that population to be included as “poor”. So, this article is quite telling….that we actually DO create poverty by restricting people “in transition” by placing confining rules against them….so they can utilize the government “services”. When you have to quit your job because you don’t want to lose your section 8 housing (because you can’t move in with your friends due to zoning and housing regulations)….then you realize you have become a slave to the government. Scratching by should be the last resort when you have tried your hardest to get out of your “transition”. People should be relying on neighbors, friends and family when in need. This is true charity. Might I also add, as I have worked in government agencies before and I have found that many immigrants from other countries strive to actually get off the dole. It is the generational welfare that know nothing else than standing in line for their vouchers and government checks that because that is what they have been taught. We need to re-teach our citizens.
Trackback by Quora on 25 October 2010:
Should UberCab be regulated out of existence?…
No. UberCab should operate as long as possible, skirting regulations without overtly breaking them, to demonstrate how the a free market in cabs is both moral and more effective than the communistic version that we have now. They ought to build a new o…
Comment by Beth on 20 January 2011:
Amy and laughsalot,
You did not read the entire article. If you did, you would have read this clear and concise statement made by the author that directly contradicts both of your assertions,
” Every day and in every culture from time out of mind, poor people have repeatedly shown remarkable intelligence, courage, persistence, and creativity in finding ways to put food on the table, save money, keep safe, raise families, live full lives, learn, enjoy themselves, and experience beauty, whenever, wherever, and to whatever degree they have been free to do so. The fault for despairing, dilapidated urban ghettoes lies not in the pressures of the market, nor in the character flaws of individual poor people, nor in the characteristics of ghetto subcultures. The fault lies in the state and its persistent interference with poor people’s own efforts to get by through independent work, clever hustling, scratching together resources, and voluntary mutual aid.”
There is no doubt that the author is not “distastefully sterotyping” poor people.
Comment by Beth on 20 January 2011:
I would posit that if poor people have a bad reputation, it is often if not usually made worse by government “compassion”.
I have had money and I have been poor. The reason why I do not stay poor is because I bear the costs of the lack of productivity/skills. Since I do not like the pain of poverty, I do what it legally takes to get out of it and I alter my behavior so that I will have less of a chance ending up poor again. It is the idea of bearing the pain of poverty that keeps my current financial activities and pursuits in check so that I do not return. If “compassionate” government is always there to help me if I become poor, my incentive to avoid it is less. If I know that government will be there to help me for whatever calamity or bad choice I make, I will make more unwise decisions because I will not have to bear the cost of pain as much. I will also become wasteful and not frugal with my time investments, leading to further faulty decisions.
If there is pain for consequences, the acts that often lead to those consequences will be avoided. If there is reduced, tolerable, or very little pain with consequences, the acts that lead to them will more often than not be ignored, and time and what little resources that one has may be misallocated causing further dependence in the future.
The government must get out of the business of easing the citizens pain. It is for the citizens own good, both now and in the future.
Pingback by The Story of a Girl - RE: SEX TRAFFICKING & the Super Bowl on 27 February 2011:
[...] Johnson’s Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It evoked some criticism from a liberal friend of mine. In particular, Johnson’s take on the [...]
Comment by Darris on 5 March 2011:
“Jefferson strove to fight tyrannies: Political, economic, religious, and majority rule. He wanted government to be strong, but not impotent.”
He wanted the government to be strong, but not weak lol
I think you mean omnipotent
Pingback by The Boss as Ruler. on 27 March 2011:
[...] the economy is so rigged that wage labour is made to be the most viable form of employment for the vast majority.Barriers to [...]
Comment by Fernando on 12 April 2011:
My 12 year old daughter is now working in the prostitution bussiness. Children do not need regulations, they need opportunity to not be dependend!
Pingback by State vs. social redistribution on 13 April 2011:
[...] range of privileges that shift resources into the pockets of the wealthy and well connected—whilemaking and keeping others poor. Think occupational licensure, patents and copyrights, zoning laws and building codes, the use of [...]
Pingback by Richard Troxell. Looking Up at the Bottom Line: The Struggle for the Living Wage | The Libertarian Alliance: BLOG on 27 April 2011:
[...] Johnson, in “Scratching By,” describes all the ways the homeless and working poor are nickled and dimed to death by local [...]
Pingback by Redistribution and the State — The League of Ordinary Gentlemen on 1 May 2011:
[...] range of privileges that shift resources into the pockets of the wealthy and well connected—whilemaking and keeping others poor. Think occupational licensure, patents and copyrights, zoning laws and building codes, the use of [...]
Pingback by Poverty and the State | Bleeding Heart Libertarians on 12 May 2011:
[...] addition, states actively make and keep people poor. Licensing laws, zoning regulations, and similar restrictions make it hard for poor people to enter [...]
Pingback by Of Malice and Straw Men | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty on 24 June 2011:
[...] the welfare state historically has been much more than a cover for the corporatist privilege that harms the most vulnerable; and as if individuals, restricted to peaceful methods such as mutual-aid associations and [...]
Pingback by A Quest for Sanity on 13 July 2011:
[...] capital what chance do you have against the currently insulated corporations? You’ll probably be Scratching By and there’s good reason for that. Again, this society is driven by insane people, the people in [...]
Pingback by Getting Past Anarcho-Party-lines on 3 August 2011:
[...] of labor, racism, patriarchy, and other forms of oppression, with governments acting to enforce social privilege, and drawing ideological and material support from existing power dynamics. From their point of [...]
Pingback by Corporations versus the Market on 10 August 2011:
[...] seem prima facie morally justified, for as long as the exploitation and oppression continues. 1 Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty 2 ibid. 3 ibid. 4 ibid. 5 Proletarian Blues Reply With Quote + Reply to [...]
Pingback by RECIPE: Chia Seed Drink | Pickles Not Pipe Bombs on 11 August 2011:
[...] While I’m glad that different kinds of food and beverage are getting some recognition, I am amazed at how pricey these things are. I support cottage industry and I definitely support small-scale producers. What I don’t support, however, are a few brands taking over a “niche” market. For example, I have been told that my pickled okra is too expensive at $5.00 a pint. That’s because people can find mass-produced “pickles” at the locally grocery store for half the price. I would argue that local, small-scale producers use superior ingredients and also support other local producers and markets. Now with people accustomed to paying $2.50 a pint for pickled okra, there is a barrier to entry for small-scale producers. Consumers are left with supporting the large-scale producers or search for competing markets. (This leads to a different topic for a different article.) [...]
Pingback by Libertarian Anticapitalism | Bleeding Heart Libertarians on 18 August 2011:
[...] the funnelling of resources into the military-industrial complex, by trillion-dollar bail-outs and pervasive, intense hyperregulation of the economic prospects of the poor and marginalized. Thus, the argument goes, the natural tendency of the free market is actually anti-capitalistic, in [...]
Pingback by Attack the System » Blog Archive » Libertarian Anticapitalism on 20 August 2011:
[...] the funnelling of resources into the military-industrial complex, by trillion-dollar bail-outs and pervasive, intense hyperregulation of the economic prospects of the poor and marginalized. Thus, the argument goes, the natural tendency of the free market is actually anti-capitalistic, in [...]
Pingback by Strategies for the Struggle: Strategy 1, Agorism on 31 August 2011:
[...] So in order to build the use of counter-economics we as anarchists must reach out to those who need the alternatives the most. Alternative ways of doing medicine, alternative ways of organizing (more egalitarian, cooperative, independent, etc.), alternative ways of dealing with money, security, and more. The more people we can help out and spread the word with the better we as agorists or just anarchists in general can do. And agorism certainly has it’s place in trying to rally around other common people just trying to scratch by. [...]
Comment by Vince on 7 November 2011:
GREAT article.
A side note… I’m sick of people misusing the phrase “general welfare”. This is especially true amongst politicians that are trying to expand and consolidate their power and their useful idiots.
Comment by usedtobesupermom on 6 December 2011:
Obviously none here is disabled. None here is or has actually been poor. None here has never been forced to live in “ghettos”- I’d rather say poor areas of town in my case-
POOR PEOPLE aren’t POOR BECAUSE THEY CHOOSE TO BE-& DISABLED DON’T CHOOSE THAT EITHER!
We have 300,000 HOMELESS veterans in this country! They came home from fighting a war that was NOT to protect the country- BUT INSTEAD FOR THE PROFITS OF VERY FEW!
Many RICH people in this country are rich -not for what they invented, created or anything else TO BENEFIT MANKIND- some inherited it- many others especially today GOT RICH FROM FRAUD, EXPLOITATION, THEFT of OTHER countries resources-& more.
If CHARITIES could eliminate poverty- it NEVER HAS- why hasn’t it EVER?
I do AGREE that social programs as they are don’t help for the MOST PART- get people out of poverty! One reason is because that for EVERY DOLLAR ONE EARNS- $1 is taken away!
As far as jobs & education are concerned- FIRST THERE HAS to BE JOBS! If college is the answer- why are there so many COLLEGE GRADUATES UNEMPLOYED???? Even those with ADVANCED DEGREES!
Believe it or not SOME POOR & DISABLED HAVE HIGH I.Q.’S- some over 140!!! Probably higher than the author of this article & most everyone who commented here.
As for building codes- I live in CA. EARTHQUAKES I’ve seen almost an entire city leveled-from the Whittier Narrows earthquake- 5.8-5.9 on the Richter scale- homes that were built before building codes! I will say that there are OTHER WAYS to build that may be even safer- maybe there shouldn’t be ONLY 1 way to build- especially if it can be proven- that the structure is safe.
Some government programs do work- can work- it’s when they are so RIGID they don’t work!
Letting poor people scratch by—- usually ends in jail/prison time!
Unlike when the VERY WEALTHY commit crimes who don’t! Believe me it’s the VERY WEALTHY WHO BRING THE ILLEGAL DRUGS INTO THE COUNTRY- for the poor to sell-IT IS THE WEALTHY THAT DESTROY THE ENVIRONMENT- the poor don’t have the money or the means to do so! It’s the poor who fight the wars that the RICH PROFIT FROM!!!
Comment by kenny clifton on 16 December 2011:
The ones that disagree with what this article is saying obviosly are not poor
Comment by Elizabeth Faraone on 21 December 2011:
There is nothing wrong with the government stepping in to end poverty. Government programs and charitable organizations do not do enough to help those who are poor. Poverty is not to be blamed on those who are experiencing it. Greed and cruelty is what creates poverty. This writer perverts the truth and does not truly understand the origins of poverty.
Pingback by What about Ron Paul? | Bleeding Heart Libertarians on 21 December 2011:
[...] don’t need state action to promote racial justice and inclusion. Eliminating state-secured privilege and rectifying the effects of violent dispossession, subsidy, and land engrossment could deal [...]
Pingback by Corporatism vs. the Free Market on 9 January 2012:
[...] lazy poor. He gives two links with left-libertarian arguments for how government creates poverty: Scratching By: How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty Originally Posted by Chartier Government action in contemporary society makes and keeps [...]
Comment by Reality on 10 January 2012:
Elizabeth, you might find it useful to read the article, as Mr. Johnson provides many examples of the government cutting off choices which that would let the poor live better.
Not far into the article, the article asserts that “the one thing that the government and its managerial aid workers will never do is just get out of the way and let poor people do the things that poor people naturally do, and always have done, to scratch by.”
A recent New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/us/los-angeles-cracking-down-on-street-vendors.html) describes Los Angeles’ efforts to crack down on exactly this sort of spontaneous commerce. Rather than encouraging this fledgling economy, the city of Los Angeles is fighting hard to shackle it.
Can you explain how LA’s actions are helping the entrepreneurial poor?
Pingback by Perhaps If We Just Ignored Them, Then They Might Just Go Away (the fascists, that is) » Scott Lazarowitz's Blog on 4 February 2012:
[...] Johnson: How Government Creates Poverty As We Know It [...]
Comment by Peg Perego on 7 February 2012:
This is a great web site, might you be involved in doing an interview about how you created it? If so e-mail me!
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Comment by beth on 31 March 2012:
How do you break free of all unhealthy dependence weather financially or emotionally or unconsciously if no one is around that gets it to help guide you? IF ur life is so public that no one with any common sense will come near you? and you continue to be victimized for years even being aware of life but stuck in there reality???
Pingback by Re: People who Piss me off: Free Market Anarchists « Who Plans Whom? on 22 April 2012:
[...] government-enforced discrimination continue to suffer at the hands of government-enforced poverty. As Charles Johnson summed up in his “How Government Creates Poverty as We Know It” essay, “The [...]
Pingback by When It Comes to Abortion, Republicans Contradict Themselves Again « Who Plans Whom? on 22 April 2012:
[...] occupational licensing laws, burdensome zoning regulations, restrictions on labor organizing and all the other government-causing poverty policies could make parenting more affordable and abortion less necessary, in the eye’s of expecting [...]
Comment by E.T. on 21 May 2012:
Here in the UK it’s the same- you can buy land but lord help you if you move on to it and try to just subsist outsode of the reacket that is capitalist economics- not only does the system we have in place exist solely as a mechanism to perpetuate the flow of wealth from the employee to the owner (as the earner is stupid enough to feel he “needs” a new car every year, must have a bigger TV, must eat the foodstuffs he sees on TV rather than learning to repair an old car, read a book from a library or grow his own vegetables), it actively and violently opresses those who choose to try and exist outside such a selfish and idiotic construct- take Dale Farm last year for example. Want to live off the land like a peasant? Not for long without armed riot police turning up to enforce compliance in a blatant display of morally juvenile state brutality. They do not want you to be free to do as you choose, end of story. They need you there to exploit. But there’s no real point in saying such things out loud- the vast (and quite unbelievably stupid) majority will continue to rent-buy all the lies they can eat and new-reg Audis they can burn oil in until it all caves in on itself under the weight of abject ignorance and self interest. Enjoy the products and the advertising and the marketing and the oversexualised teenagers in the pop music videos, and everything else the iniquitous circus they have built for you, and you have created for yourselves contains while it lasts- there’s a firestorm coming and nobody will care how long it takes you to burn to death in it