Delinquency in Context (chapter 8)

 INEQUALITY IN AMERICAN SOCIETY 

·        The Capitalist mode of production

·        Forces (or means) of production (raw materials, skills, technology, etc.)

·         relations of production  (social classes of owners and workers)

• Class is the key variable

·        Based mostly on occupation, which in turn determines much about people’s lives

 Who owns the means of production? 

• Capitalist class does – 1-2% of pop.
• Inequality is the result
• Most workers (even high wage and salary people) have no choice but to “sell their labor”
• Owners have almost all the power, esp. to move capital around the globe and seek cheap labor

·        See example of Green Bay, Wis.

 The Drive for Profit 

·        Desire to obtain prestige and distinction among one’s fellow human beings explains this drive

·        “capital” results in power over others

·        Adam Smith:

·        “Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.  For on rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the rich supposes the indigence of the many. “

 Power, Control & commodities  

·        The desire for power and control permeates all of society

·        From the richest corporate tyrants to the lowest street drug dealer, mugger and rapist

·        What is happening is that everyone is buying and selling “commodities”

·        Commodity is the most important term, which is why the first chapter in Marx’s “Das Capital” is devoted to the subject

 Commodities 

·        Everything is turned into a “commodity”

·        From the simplest products (e.g., paper and pencil) to human beings (e.g., women’s bodies, slaves).

·        any aspect of society that can produce a profit will be exploited, including the misery and suffering of people who have been victimized by crime

·        Can you give more examples?

 Invisible hand or corporate welfare? 

·        Smith’s idea of the “invisible hand” turns out to be a somewhat misnomer

·        The “free market” is mostly a myth

·        Just look at the defense contracts and other examples of government (i.e., taxpayer assistance) like the entire airline industry, the media, oil companies, railroad companies (in the 19th century), etc. – all got some kind of subsidy from taxpayers

 Surplus Population 

·        Inevitable under capitalism

·        This group in turn commits various kinds of property and other “predatory” crimes

·        Gangs spring from this source

·        lumpenproletariat – a term Marx used to describe the lowest stratum and those most heavily involved in “street crime”

·        Then there is corporate crime

o       Annual take of more than $1.5 trillion

 Contradictions  

·        capital and labor  - each wants more of the economic pie

·        Called “class conflict”

·        Owners have consistently won this battle

·        CEO’s and the political class that supports them (who owns the US Congress?) get most of the benefits

o       CEO pay is now 400 times greater than avg. factory worker (30 years ago it was about 42 to one ratio)

 Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed  

• Illustrates the daily struggles of many full-time workers
• These are the “working poor” whose wages place them under the official poverty level
  • most pressing concern of these working poor was that of finding affordable house and health care

• Check juvenile court waiting rooms and see who you find there

 CHANGES IN THE U.S. ECONOMY 

• Four big changes:

·        technological

·        globalization of the economy

·        movement of capital (capital flight)

·        shift from manufacturing to information and services (from high wage to low)

·        We are a “low-wage society.”

Decline of Manufacturing Jobs

Manufacturing Employment (in millions of jobs)

•         See this chart from USA Today

•         http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2002-12-12-manufacture_x.htm

•         The Wal-Mart effect -Its Chinese imports have displaced nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs

–        http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm?id=2743

Most recent report on Economic situation in the US

(Source: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/10/econ_snapshot.html)  

•         Wage growth is low.

•         Benefits are disappearing - The share of private sector workers with a pension dropped from 50.3% in 2000 to 43.2% in 2006, the last year for which data are available, and the share of people with employer-provided health insurance dropped from 64.2% to 59.7%.

•         Family debt is on the rise.

•         Housing market slows

•         Home equity declines

•         Weak job growth

•         Poverty stays high

•         Improvements in government’s finances are temporary. In August 2007, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the deficit for 2007 amounted to $158 billion, $14 billion less than projected in January. Yet the cumulative budget deficit from 2008 to 2012 increased sharply from $194 billion to $696 billion in CBO’s projections.

•         Tax cuts do not pay for themselves. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the tax enacted since 2001 would cost $300 billion in 2007 alone, such that the federal government would show a surplus had it not been for President Bush’s tax cuts.

•         See this web site: http://www.demos.org/inequality/

 Decline in wages 

·        Male decline especially and many males no longer in the work force

·        Especially hard hit are black males

·        1/3 or more of black males in their 20s are somewhere in the CJ system

·        1/3 of black males born today will end up in prison or jail (they occupy a large part of the “surplus labor”

Women’s wages & work  

•         Women concentrated in lowest wage occupations

•         http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873003.html

Growing inequality 

• See tables and graphs in this chapter
• Gini index of inequality – increasing in recent years
• Top 1% have about 42% of wealth
  • The next 9% have about as much, leaving 8% for the rest of us
  • Note that these are revisions of those figures given in text

  Good web site: http://www.demos.org/inequality/

 Growth of Underclass 

• Related to this is the “feminization of poverty” – female headed homes
• Welfare rolls have increased
• Poverty rate going up

·        Esp. high for minorities

·        From 1977 to 1999 black families showed no significant improvement as far as financial standing is concerned

 The Truly Disadvantaged  

·        Two important studies by Wilson documents the effects of the aforementioned economic changes

·        male unemployment is the leading cause of the rise in female-headed households

·        Increasing isolation and segregation within inner cities (which often resemble Third World countries or war zones – like Detroit and Los Angeles, among others)

·        Do your own “drive through” in Las Vegas

·        Rifkin’s study The End of Work documents impact on blacks

 Segmented labor market  

• Primary labor market – the best jobs, with the highest pay and best benefits

·        Whites concentrated here

·        Secondary labor market – lowest pay, little job security, fewest benefits

·        Minorities concentrated here 

Impact on Gangs 

·        Comments by two noted experts on gangs:

·        Joan Moore:

·        This is a world of limited opportunities, with legitimate jobs offering little prospect for lifetime satisfaction. In this respect, the segmented labor market becomes an essential concept for understanding the structure and context of the Chicano gang, the use and marketing of illegal drugs and stolen merchandise, and the prison involvements of the residents of the Los Angeles barrios

·        Malcolm Klein notes that: “Uneducated, underemployed young males turn to the illegal economies enhanced by gang membership, including selling drugs in some instances. Older males who in earlier decades would have ‘matured’ into more steady jobs and family roles hang on to the gang structure by default. The newer gang cities like Milwaukee thus emerge, looking much like the traditional gang cities.”

 Death of Childhood in the Inner Cities  

·        Between 1990 and 2004 the % of children found on “skid row” went from 1% to 15%, while the proportion of women went from 18% to 1/3

·        Read extended quote on p. 254

·        This is the “dark side” of the “American Dream”