Welfare Reform Kills II
Earlier I noted the research of Peter Muennig, Zohn Rosen and Elizabeth Ty Wilde which proves (at all standard confidence intervals) that welfare reform killed people. I was alarmed that almost nobody but the must read Bill Gardner noticed this research. Now Dylan Matthews has a long excellent post on the research and other evidence that anti poverty programs save lives.
This should transform the political debate entirely. I expect it to have almost no effect. But the best of the blogosphere is doing its best.
well, it won’t transform the debate at all.
those in power are predators and they don’t care whether people live or die except as they need them for workers or soldiers.
those not in power don’t know anything about any of this except what they are told by those in power.
and the debaters debate about it.
Well said Coberly. I do not know why I am agreeing with you more and more–perhaps you have convinced me. As a life long capitalist, I am having a hard time letting go, but it seems indisputable that whatever balance once existed between labor and capital is gone. Perhaps it was the fall of communism. Perhaps it was the fall of the fourth estate. Perhaps it was globalization. Perhaps it was the technological revolution. Perhaps it was the dumbing down of the populace. Whatever the cause, I am coming around to the idea that at least as democracies have evolved capitalism will lead to near feudal societies, admittedly at a much higher standard of living than during the middle ages, but one nevertheless where a very few control the resources and fight among themselves while the great majority are required to sell their labor at whatever price the lords are willing to pay or go hungry.
Terry
I don’t claim to know anything, but I don’t think the problem is “capitalism” per se. It is the take-over of governments by people with lots and lots of money who use their money and power to get more money and more power.
This might (or might not) have been inevitable under the capitalist model. But I don’t think so. Government regulation has never been anti-capitalist. Capitalism and free markets should be able to thrive even with taxes and government regulations which restrict what “capitalists” can do with their money the same way it restricts what burglars and muggers can do with their labor.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that “higher standard of living.”
Tell you a sad story:
the abuse of borrowers by bankers is continuing. the response of the people who know about this is to call for jailing some bankers.
they don’t seem to have understood yet that the bankers own the government.
unless the people are able and willing to take matters into their own hands, the abuse will continue.
unless the peo