The War On Drugs Vs. The War On Poverty
...Each ineffective in its own special ways.
Randall G. Holcombe writes at Mises.org:
The War on Drugs is a real war in which the government has singled out a minority population -- drug buyers and sellers -- for attack. It comes after them with military-style weapons and tactics so it can confiscate their property and incarcerate them.The War on Poverty is not a war. It is a peace-keeping operation that provides goods, services, and money to the poor, much like the Marshall Plan did in Europe after World War II.
In neither case are these programs accomplishing their stated goals. The poverty rate is not declining, and people continue to buy and sell drugs. But then, you knew that before you started reading this.
There are a few genuinely poor people in the USA, but damned few of them. Most "poverty" in the USA would be riches almost anywhere else. Someone hands you enough money to put a roof over your head, food on your table, and even enough to keep a car, an Internet connection and a television.
As a taxpayer, it irritates me no end when I find myself standing in line behind someone paying with a benefits card. Not because I'm a hardhearted bastard - if they were genuinely in need, I'd be glad to help. No, the reason is because they are almost never buying staples - they are buying expensive stuff.
When someone else is paying the bills, why hold back? Why budget? Just buy anything you want.
There is almost no real poverty in the USA. What we have is bread'n'circuses, which is a very different beast.
a_random_guy at August 2, 2014 12:27 AM
Randy, don't be such a transparently bitter conservative zombie.
I'm not saying you're wrong in any sense, I'm just saying don't talk like that.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at August 2, 2014 1:07 AM
"When someone else is paying the bills, why hold back? Why budget? Just buy anything you want."
I think paying the bills can make the problem worse, but it isn't the cause of the issue.
People that are poor--even the ones that work--go for short term goals vs long term. It's why a girl working at Target will obsess over buying a Coach purse vs saving the money. It's also why they have children at such alarming rates with no future plan on supporting them. It's instant gratification and it is well researched that according to your childhood background they can predict how long you can hold out for.
I have a problem with holding out when I am in certain phases of my bi-polar disorder and I don't see why the poor aren't psychologically suffering from something similar.
It doesn't excuse their behaviour but I think it certainly addresses why they do it. It is pretty common for poor families to use all of their financial allowances in one day that was supposed to cover an entire month. (I have done it too but I don't take public aid).
I think it's also why these young men bear children they can't support. Their lives aren't about the long term, budgeting, or planning.
(I don't want to hear how your poor great grand pappy used to save all his pennies, because I too can provide anecdotes to the contrary. Mine spent his all on booze and women ).
Ppen at August 2, 2014 1:35 AM
Let us not forget a bureaucracies penchant for sustaining itself.
No need to be too aggressive in solving the problem when your existence depends on the problem remaining viable.
I'm still hearing a large numbers of commercials reminding young men to register for the selective service. If we can't cut this bureaucratic burden, what can we cut?
doombuggy at August 2, 2014 5:47 AM
(I don't want to hear how your poor great grand pappy used to save all his pennies, because I too can provide anecdotes to the contrary. Mine spent his all on booze and women ).
Posted by: Ppen at August 2, 2014 1:35 AM
Well, one of my grandfathers had a gambling problem. Ended up divorced, with his three children put up for adoption by their mother.
The problem is when government subsidies booze, gambling, drugs, and junk food, there are fewer consequences to irresponsible behavior, and you get more of it.
Isab at August 2, 2014 7:27 AM
I think it's also why these young men bear children they can't support. Their lives aren't about the long term, budgeting, or planning.
____________________________
I think you meant "sire children." :)
Leon Dash (black Washington Post reporter, author of "When Children Want Children" and University of Illinois professor of journalism) wrote that poor teen girls and boys alike often see making babies as the one possible accomplishment where the odds aren't heavily against them, unlike education, prestigious careers - or just plain staying alive. That is, even the girls are not really that interested in their babies after they're born - they just want the new status that comes with becoming mothers. Quote from one People interview:
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20112850,00.html
Q: Aren't these girls having babies because they want something to love?
A: A lot of people say that. But I found it to be a myth.
lenona at August 2, 2014 8:56 AM
Ppen, you understand something few people do -- the subject of life history theory, which my friend, anthropologist AJ Figueredo, is a pioneer in studying.
Here's a paragraph in my notes that explains it. (I was going to put this in a column but decided it was too complex):
The subject is called "life history" and there's fast life history and slow life history. Rabbits have a fast life history, as do kids raised by single mothers in dangerous neighborhoods/ghetto areas. There are many offspring, life is risky (many of those rabbits may be eaten), and those kids tend to grow up with a "do it now/take the payoff now" now attitude. No delayed gratification, or little delayed gratification. This is considered an evolutionarily adaptive strategy.
The elephant, on the other hand, has only one offspring and it takes a long time to mature and is cared for intensely by the other elephants. The well-to-do married couple and their only child son (or fewer offspring) grows up similarly -- well-cared-for in a stable environment. So, that kid is more likely to be able to delay gratification because that's how he's been raised. This kid is going to be (most likely) far more responsible (because responsibility is about delaying gratification) than a guy raised in a risky environment and to deal far better with "found money."
Amy Alkon at August 2, 2014 10:13 AM
"The problem is when government subsidies booze, gambling, drugs, and junk food, there are fewer consequences to irresponsible behavior, and you get more of it."
See this is where I disagree. I don't think we are getting significally more of it because we are subsidizing it. Drug use is pretty much the same among welfare recipients as the general population.
I think the right has this idea that if we remove welfare it will make them more responsible where the left has this idea that if we grant welfare it will make them more responsible.
I like the link lenona posted because it highlights the issue, consequences aren't a motivating factor period and to make that assumption doesn't solve the issue.
I just don't think either giving welfare or not giving it will make them do the right thing. I remember visiting the slums of third world countries and noting that they were doing exactly what our poor people do--and at the same rates. It's just the government wasnt paying for it.
Essentially we are subsidizing an anti-slum campaign, not really looking to pull people out of poverty. And I don't know how we can do that? Poor people are very difficult to live with.
Ppen at August 2, 2014 10:47 AM
"See this is where I disagree. I don't think we are getting significally more of it because we are subsidizing it. Drug use is pretty much the same among welfare recipients as the general population."
Yes, drug use is about the same. But the consequences are totally different. Recreational drug use among the middle class is a fact of life. So is watching the boob tube, and leaving the lights on.
But the middle class can mostly afford these time wasters. The poor, and the people on welfare cannot.
They get trapped in a cycle where the majority of their resources get spent on time wasting unproductive diddling, and most never develop the motivation to emerge from that trap.
They just repeat the cycle with the next generation.
I have a friend who lives in a low rent apartment building in Colorado. He has quite a bit of money, but he is just cheap.
He said he didn't know what most the students and the low income renters in his building did with their time and money, before pot was legalized, but now it is apparent, that pretty much all their time and money is spent buying and smoking pot.
This isn't an argument against legalizing pot. It is an argument that when you are poor, you will remain poor, if you pick up a drug, alcohol, or video gaming habit, that becomes a substitute for having a job.
And when the government provides a pretty good subsistence living for the poor, it enables them to spend their disposable income on crap which far too many of the poor find all too comfortable.
Isab at August 2, 2014 11:24 AM
I just don't think either giving welfare or not giving it will make them do the right thing. I remember visiting the slums of third world countries and noting that they were doing exactly what our poor people do--and at the same rates. It's just the government wasnt paying for it.
Absolutely. It's ridiculous to think that something as primal as sex and childbearing and be regulated -- or deregulated -- by the pittance people get from welfare.
MonicaP at August 2, 2014 12:35 PM
I understand---but that's not my point.
People hold the mistaken belief that the poor are bad at managing their resources because the government subsidizes their behaviour (I.e. the comment at the top of the post, "why would they budget if they don't have to?").
Removing welfare wont make them more responsible because they suffer from lack of delayed gratification (as Amy points above) and whether they work for the money or not they will spend it on frivolous things, including if this means being without food in the future (I grew up as a kid in a poor neighborhood and saw the working poor do it all the time).
The debate shouldn't be whether we are helping the poor, it's obvious we are not. We also shouldn't also hold onto the myth that removing welfare will grant them foresight. Our poor aren't greedy for an education that is blatenly apparent.
The debate should be whether you support or do not support in artificially preventing the creation of third world level slums. That's essentially what we are subsidizing.
Unless someone knows how to break the generational poverty? Because like I said I grew up as a kid in a violent, drug infested poor neighborhood and I sure as hell don't.
(My parents were well educated hence we didn't stay for long).
Ppen at August 2, 2014 12:38 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/08/02/the_war_on_drug_5.html#comment-4903764">comment from PpenWe also shouldn't also hold onto the myth that removing welfare will grant them foresight.
Right, Ppen. As I've learned, the poor are doing what's adaptive in a risky and unstable environment. Learning that has helped me become more realistic and realistically compassionate. It's easy to haul off and deem poor people lazy and disparage them in other ways.
One huge problem is the dissolution of the black family into single mother homes with multiple daddyless children. If Jesse Jackson and other egotistical, ultimately self-interested racebaiters truly had interest in the welfare of poor black people, they would be preaching nonstop against doing this.
I also saw that an assistant of mine, a first-generation American from a Korean family, had a strong family structure. She lived with her siblings and parents and even her Korean grandmother lived with them. This seems to be the structure, even in a poor family, that produces kids who do not live a fast life history. And even kids who grow up in Beverly Hills, in wealth, if they have an unstable family structure and unstable lives, can end up with a fast life history and all the "life for now" adaptations that come out of that.
Amy Alkon at August 2, 2014 1:18 PM
"We also shouldn't also hold onto the myth that removing welfare will grant them foresight."
I don't expect it to grant anyone foresight. But I do think we should structure our welfare programs differently so that kids born into them, find it more difficult to stay in that culture than to get out.
It should be tough enough so that school, the military, the peace corps, or work pays more, and is a better option than dealing drugs on the side.
Ironically the drug war, has kept a lot of people trapped in that poverty culture mindset.
The poor in Japan, and there are a lot of them, seem to value work much more than their American counterparts.
I suspect when the money runs out, and it is coming, a willingness to work, and delay gratification is going to mean the difference between living and dying, as it has in many other times and places.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/20/study-welfare-pays-more-than-work-in-most-states/?utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dstates%2Bwhere%2Bwelfare%2Bpays%2Bmore%2Bthan%2Bwork%26qs%3DAS%26pq%3Dstates%2Bwhere%2Bwelfare%2Bpays%2Bmore%26sc%3D2-30%26sp%3D1%26cvid%3D278ec5249ad84370b8cae7ee7a52cdfa%26FORM%3DQBLH
Isab at August 2, 2014 1:46 PM
It should be tough enough so that school, the military, the peace corps, or work pays more, and is a better option than dealing drugs on the side.
The problem with those things us that they require the ability to plan and delay gratification, which brings us full circle. Dealing drugs is high risk, but it's money right now as opposed to every two weeks, and it taps into skills and a network a person already has in place.
Isab, I find the link you posted a bit confusing. It switches back and forth between "minimum-wage" job and "entry-level" job. There's a link within the article to the actual study, but the link seems to be broken. I could dig around in there, but I'm in a bit of a hurry at the moment, so I'll pass.
At any rate, "entry-level" job isn't a useful term here because salaries for entry-level jobs vary widely based on industry. If they mean minimum-wage, then that suggests something about minimum-wage -- that it isn't enough to live on. If you're going to be dirt-poor flipping burgers or on welfare, then it makes sense to go for the welfare. It's also worth noting that the working poor are also frequently on welfare, i.e., food stamps. Minimum wage isn't enough.
I'm not defending the choice to stay on welfare if a person has other options, but Amy is right: It makes sense within the context of their life situations.
MonicaP at August 2, 2014 3:06 PM
I don't have much to add, but I just wanted to say that I found this thread really thought-provoking, especially Ppen's answers.
I've come to mostly the same conclusions about welfare, after knowing and being related to a few people (the closest one being my sister in law) who spend their lives on various forms of government assistance, sometimes while working or going to school, sometimes not. People like my SIL exist in every country, no amount of tough love or consequences will make her responsible and forward-thinking. She's lost her benefits before because she can't get her shit together enough to go screening appointments and keep her paperwork in order. When that happens, she does without until it comes to one of her siblings' attention (she never tells us herself) and they lecture her and get her what her kids need. Lather, repeat. I feel very sure that if it never came to someone's attention, she'd just feed herself and her kids ketchup if she had to, until she got her next paycheck/windfall/opportunity to apply for benefits.
Now, if welfare didn't exist some people like her would just be a burden to their own families or churches, but those who burned those bridges with families and churches (something low-impulse control people are especially prone to doing)would just be beggars, slum-dwellers and prostitutes. Their children would still exist, and some number of them would be a little more likely to be surrendered for adoption, but the vast majority would still live in poverty and simply be sick and malnourished and that much less likely to contribute to the economy when they grow up. It's annoying watching someone use EBT, but it's better than watching them beg, holding a malnourished baby. While welfare doesn't elminate begging and child neglect, it reduces it to a fairly manageable level.
Jenny had a chance at August 3, 2014 7:08 AM
Amazing isn't it?
We live in a society that is so upside down that you can get arrested for letting your 8 year old play in the park alone,
But if you are too irresponsible to collect welfare benefits, and feed them, or spend the money on cigarettes and booze, they find a way to make sure you get more money, or the government will feed them for you through the school lunch program.
Isab at August 3, 2014 8:02 AM
Also, the military or private-sector employment is already preferable to collecting benefits---if you're actually fit for employment and military service. Military enlistment would be a lot lower if you could live pretty much the same, except safe on your home soil, by getting welfare. My SIL is plumb useless to the military, particularly with three kids dragging along behind her. Her kids' fathers are similar. Employers, too, tend to want people who are forward-thinking, responsible, and have good impulse control. SIL can usually hold a low-wage job, but really just isn't capable, mentally/emotionally/logistically, of generating enough value to her employers to earn more than $10 an hour. It's a sad fact, but there it is.
So what should happen with her children? If they can't get benefits because their parents just suck at life, they'll not only grow up with the "fast life" environment Amy described above, making them psychologically less fit for employment/military service, they'll also likely be less physically fit for a productive life---malnourishment, lead exposure, and untreated illness could keep even the most willing, determined young person from becoming a good soldier or good citizen. Didn't the school lunch program start up because poor young men were trying to enlist in the armed services and being turned away due to poverty-related health problems like rickets?
I suppose people will say that my SIL should've given her kids up for adoption. I agree. But she and her kids' fathers just don't possess the long- term thinking required for that sort of sacrifice. Giving the state the power to seize a newborn from her parents on the grounds of "Parents have known each other ten-and-a-half months and both work at Burger King" makes everyone uneasy, and seizing the kids later, when they are attached and the home life is just poor and chaotic, but not actually abusive, is pretty hard to stomach as well.
Jenny had a chance at August 3, 2014 9:44 AM
"So what should happen with her children? If they can't get benefits because their parents just suck at life, they'll not only grow up with the "fast life" environment Amy described above, making them psychologically less fit for employment/military service, they'll also likely be less physically fit for a productive life---malnourishment, lead exposure, and untreated illness could keep even the most willing, determined young person from becoming a good soldier or good citizen. "
I think what you have to ask yourself is if the current welfare system actually prevents any of that, or just reinforces a hand to mouth mentality.
I believe it to be the later.
The kind of diet that most welfare children live on, way too high in carbohydrates, and too little good fat, and protein sets themselves up for all sorts of expensive health problems later on in life. The WIC programs are not preventing any of that. The only thing that would give them a fighting chance is a well run orphanage, where they are removed from a culture of dependency.
Isab at August 3, 2014 10:02 AM
I think welfare (especially Medicaid, CHIP, and immunization programs and food stamps/WIC) absolutely does prevent much of the malnourishment and complications of childhood/prenatal illness. We hardly ever see kids with rickets anymore. We don't see adults disabled by polio or brain-damaged because of prenatal exposure to Rubella. The vaccines that prevent that are administered to the poor through welfare programs. As far as carbohydrates, that's mostly a problem of information, education and bad science, though impulse-control plays a part in over consumption. Poor people and middle class people eat the standard American diet for mostly the same reasons---they've been taught their entire lives that it's good for them, and it's familiar. I definitely agree that the standard American diet should change, but that's really neither here nor there on welfare. The welfare recipients who currently buy white bread and twinkies on food stamps wouldn't be any more cognizant of the risks of Type 2 diabetes 20-30 years down the line if they had to pay cash.
I don't know that a well- run orphanage is the answer. Is there even such a thing? Disintegrating the notion of family seems to be one of the aggravating factors of poverty, so it seems like further attacking it would be a bad idea. How well do institutionalized children do when they grow up and start families of their own? I think the answer lies in communities, churches and other organizations helping these families become secure and learn how to behave as a family. Which is incredibly difficult; it takes a long time for people to overcome the "fast life" trauma and they can really only do it when their physical needs are met.
Jenny had a chance at August 3, 2014 10:47 AM
my summary of this blog post is that some people ride out life in the fast history lane while others delay gratification as a practiced virtue. responsibility has been identified as delayed gratification. immediate gratification correlates to low impulse control, commonly observed in poor populations.
i grew up as the unstable element in a slow, stable environment to become an impulsive, self neglecting adult, so what does that make me? a sociopath? people give in to temptations and that's a human quality. whether it's now or delayed, gratification needs to be defined as something that ALL humans seek and enjoy.
gratification is pleasuring yourself in a selfish way. Are you happy you just got high? Are you happy you're on the lake riding in the jet ski? are you happy you just bought a summer house in Mexico? All people in these scenarios should give themselves a pat on the back for enjoying the thrills of life. It's obvious that as you go up the economic ladder, the thrills go from cheap to expensive, but they're all self serving. isn't pleasure universal?
what could be accomplished in society if people delayed gratification until NEVER. you never get to feel gratified. there IS no REWARD. one person forever denies themselves the pleasure of being on shrooms. Another person forever denies themselves the impulse purchase at a jet ski dealership. another person never spends the money they worked as a lawyer to buy a summer home in Mexico.
telling the poor how to spend their money is like telling the rich how to spend their money, in the respect that you are talking to a person. a human being who procured their money in any nbr of ways, and now seeks to spend it on pleasure.
it's logical to legalize everything people want to spend their money on. tax it...make the money go around. when money is spent, someone is benefitting.
i just feel that impulse control as it relates to economics is best left unmolested, given its delicate relationship to capitalist interests. capitalism is the only system that works for a society of selfish individuals, which is what humans are in their natural state. capitalism is going with the grain of nature.
so why go against nature? let people please themselves with impulse OR planned purchases. make money from these purchases as is government's custom in all transactions. redistribute the wealth in common sense programs such as school lunch program, tutoring, scholarships, community centers providing exercise, but most importantly, drug abuse counseling.
eventually people WILL decide for themselves that "fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son" (animal house).
they will decide this way because delayed gratification IS better than immediate.
gacamole at August 3, 2014 11:58 AM
"The vaccines that prevent that are administered to the poor through welfare programs. "
Actually they are not. They come through county health departments, and anyone can get them for free if they don't have a regular doctor.
There was a time when my husband was back in college, and we took advantage of the free vaccination programs.
I am in favor of all sorts of programs to help the poor. Just not cash payments, and I don't think it is good policy for productive citizens to go to jail for things that welfare moms get away with.
You are rewarding the wrong behavior. That has long term bad repercussions for our society.
Isab at August 3, 2014 2:33 PM
If we revert to government funded orphanages, we create more incentives for government officials to arrest people who let their 8 year old play in the park alone.
Get social services involved, put the child in a government run orphanage, use public funds to pay private contractors to build and run orphanages/ juvenile detention centers/ prisons. The latter two have been done before, recently.
Pennsylvania's cash for kids scheme used many government paid people in various positions to imprison over one thousand juveniles over several years to he tune of needing to build at least one new facility. (Kudos to the Philadelphia lawyers of the ACLU for taking on the case that helped bring the scheme to a close.)
Michelle at August 3, 2014 2:51 PM
If we revert to government funded orphanages, we create more incentives for government officials to arrest people who let their 8 year old play in the park alone.
The police are not CPS.
And I doubt it. Arrest has been a revenue generation measure for quite some time now. There is no money going to the police department for arresting people who don't have the money to churn through the justice system.
The history of welfare dependency in this country has been basically government at all levels creating one problem after another which they then attempt to solve with more tax revenue.
What happens when you cant raise taxes anymore, and just keep on printing money?
How many of you understand that most of these social welfare programs are in the red right now?
Social welfare as it exists in the US will go broke. So will social security, Medicare, and medicaid.
It is going to get very ugly in the big cities in the US.
Isab at August 3, 2014 4:42 PM
"See this is where I disagree. I don't think we are getting significally more of it because we are subsidizing it. Drug use is pretty much the same among welfare recipients as the general population."
When were you actually IN a Section 8 housing complex?
Oh, yeah, that Walton family, what a bunch of druggies...
My wife was a home-care nurse for several years, and those in eastern FL are a dead zone for the infirm and the addict. You cannot walk up to any of a dozen such complexes in Cocoa, FL and not be asked if you want to buy drugs. Specifically, crack, so no, I'm not talking about giggling about weed in Mom's basement later.
You point is damned difficult to take seriously when I can show you entire blocks in most American cities where big percentages of the population is wasted.
And somehow, this will all go away if drugs are legal...
Radwaste at August 3, 2014 4:57 PM
Isab, the police don't work for CPS, but in small towns that doesn't matter. The PA judicial commission prompted an investigation that detailed how kids brought in for minor charges were all but put on a conveyor belt to juvenile detention so that two judges (since convicted) could get payments from construction contractors once there was a demonstrated need to build more juvenile detention centers.
How often is a parent cited for child neglect or endangerment without CPS being called in?
Michelle at August 3, 2014 5:08 PM
"You cannot walk up to any of a dozen such complexes in Cocoa, FL and not be asked if you want to buy drugs"
And there lies your problem illustrated by your story Rad. The poor are more likely to SELL you drugs than use them.
Drug use is pretty standard across the board, but as Isab said the rest of us have the resources to partake and address the issue. It's a disease for us, and an arrest warrant for them.
The typical heroin user for example is middle class suburban dweller. So no not some weed smoker. Is that what you think middle class people do? Just smoke weed?
Do you think cartels make their money off the poor?
According to the stats I can use all the drugs I want and will likely have the least repercussions for it. I've got three things working for me: 1. woman 2. Middle-Class 3. Professional
Good luck in the system if you are a broke man.
Ppen at August 3, 2014 5:45 PM
"I don't want to hear how your poor great grand pappy used to save all his pennies..."
I have to admit I LOL'ed. My maternal grandfather was an anything-for-a-buck wheeler dealer: flush with cash one day, broke the next, and wealthy again the day after, etc. My grandmother told me that one of his best bits was being a beer bootlegger during Prohibition. He brewed the stuff in their laundry room. He reasoned that the "revenooers" spent most of their time going after hard-liquor bootleggers, and that they'd ignore beer as being small potatoes, and for the most part, he was right. (I hear tell that his beer was pretty awful.)
He was a heavy smoker and he died at the age of 51 from emphysema. (I just barely remember him; I was not quite a year old when he died.) My grandmother lived to 99 and she never so much as dated again.
Cousin Dave at August 4, 2014 6:57 AM
Check this out, too:
"TV as Birth Control" By Fred Pearce
http://conservationmagazine.org/2013/09/tv-as-birth-control/
No, it's not what you might think. (grin)
I found this in a recent issue of Utne Reader, but it's originally from Sept. 2013, from Conservation Magazine.
It seems that when more and more people have access to TV and see how other families are managing to live more happily after bucking the pressure to have large families, the viewers want to do the same.
There are a few maps and pie charts, too.
Excerpts:
"Earlier this year Stanford human geographer Martin Lewis asked his students a simple question: How did they think U.S. family sizes compared with those in India? Between Indian and American women, who had the most children? It was, they replied, a no-brainer. Of course Indian women had more--they estimated twice as many. Lewis tried the question out on his academic colleagues. They thought much the same.
"But it's not true. Indian women have more kids, it is true, but only marginally so: an average of 2.5 compared to 2.1. Within a generation, Indian women have halved the number of children they bear, and the numbers keep falling...
"...The pair noted that the new diet of game shows, soap operas, and reality shows instantly became the villagers' main source of information about the outside world--especially about India's emerging urban ways of life. At the top of the ratings was Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (meaning 'Because a mother-in-law was once also a daughter-in-law'). Based on life in the megacity of Mumbai, it was Asia's most watched TV show between 2000 and 2008 and was an eye-opener for millions of rural Indian women. They saw their urban sisters working outside the home, running businesses, controlling money, and -- crucially -- achieving these things by having fewer children. Here was TV showing women a world of possibilities beyond bearing and raising children--a world in which small families are the key to a better life...
"...There is a history to using soap operas to cut fertility. It goes back to Mexico in the late 1970s, a time when the average Mexican woman had five or six babies and Mexico City was becoming the world's largest megacity. Miguel Sabido, then vice president of Televisa, the national TV network, developed a soap-opera format in which viewers were encouraged to relate to a character on the cusp of doing right or wrong--a 'transitional character' whose ethical and practical dilemmas drove the plotlines.
"His prime soap, or telenovela, Acompáñame ('Accompany Me') focused on the travails of a poor woman in a large family living in a run-down shack in a crime-ridden neighborhood. She wanted to break out and, after many travails and setbacks, did so by choosing contraception and limiting her family size. It was a morality tale, and nobody could mistake the message. The lessons were reinforced with an epilogue at the end of each episode, giving advice about family planning services...
"...We should not think the power of soaps is a purely developing world phenomenon. Many argue that soaps have played a role in triggering changes in attitudes toward homosexuality and gay marriage in Europe and North America, for instance. And even Sabido-style programs are being tried in rich nations. Witness the arrival of online soaps with overt messages, such as East Los High at hulu.com. Launched in June 2013, the soap--funded by the Population Media Center with help from the California Family Health Council-- targets Latino teens with tales of a girl from a single-parent household who struggles against temptation.
"Looking back, it's ironic that many of the same activists warning of the population bomb back in the 1960s were also telling people to 'kill your TV.' They saw TV as a socially damaging technology, bringing in its wake violence, destructive consumer desires, and social dislocation. But TV can also be a force for good, giving isolated and underprivileged people--especially women--a window on different worlds and a sense that they can change their lives. It empowers and increases aspirations--and even delivers lower fertility rates. Could the humble soap save the world? Stay tuned."
(end)
Trouble is, as the article and charts also point out, falling birth rates are no match for a fast-growing life expectancy all over the world. (This should be no surprise when you realize that the global population has been DOUBLING every 50 years since 1920 or so, whether you count from that year or some later year ending in 0. Plus, if we were already at 7.2 billion last year, we'll likely reach 8 billion by 2021 - and after that, it will probably take fewer than 10 years for each new billion to be added.) I.e., the main difference in the future, aside from population size, will be a much more gray-haired population, even when we hit 10 billion. Clearly, we'll have to think of other ways to support the elderly than to breed lots of unwanted babies that might not even become taxpayers.
(Of course, as the Hunger Project likes to point out, whenever hunger is rampant, couples naturally have more children to ensure that at least one of their children will survive childhood and maybe even support the parents in their old age - and when infant mortality plunges, couples have fewer children.)
lenona at August 4, 2014 4:12 PM
Clearly, we'll have to think of other ways to support the elderly than to breed lots of unwanted babies that might not even become taxpayers.
Run, Runner!
lujlp at August 4, 2014 8:34 PM
Imagine you have a glass jar and put two bacteria in it. The bacteria will reproduce and double in number once each minute, for sixty minutes, such that the jar will be full after one hour.
At what point is the jar half full?
The answer is that it's half full at the beginning of the last minute, because it is during that last minute that the bacteria double for the final time, taking the jar from half full to completely full.
Ponder at your leisure.
Pirate Jo at August 5, 2014 8:14 AM
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