[lbo-talk] The Working-Poor Draft (Correction)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

In my reply to Wojtek, I copied a wrong passage in my hurry:  
substitute "Because we lack individualized household income data, our  
approach does not indicate whether or not the recruits came from the  
poorer households in their neighborhoods" for "Income was compared on  
a household basis, not an individual basis, meaning that recruits’  
income was defined by their household of origin" below.  That's an  
important caveat emptor about the data, however you interpret it.

Begin forwarded message:


> From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
> Date: November 29, 2005 11:05:17 AM EST
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: The Working-Poor Draft
>
> Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu wrote:
>
>
>> Yoshie:
>>
>> > The volunteer military in the United States depends on the working-
>> > poor draft.  Rather than drafting the poorest of the poor (whose
>> > physical health is too poor, whose education too neglected, whose
>> > criminal record too extensive, whose attitudes too badass,  
>> etc.), the
>> > Pentagon preys on the sons and daughters of the working poor (those
>> > whose parents are relatively regularly employed, earn too much [the
>> > household income of $25,000-40,000 <http://www.heritage.org/ 
>> Research/
>> > NationalSecurity/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/
>> > getfile.cfm&PageID=85094>] to qualify for most or all forms of  
>> means-
>> > tested public assistance and need-based grants [cf. "Department of
>> > Education to Tighten Pell Grant Eligibility," <http://www.cnn.com/
>> > 2004/EDUCATION/12/23/pell.grants/>], etc., and yet too poor not to
>> > worry about paying bills, especially big-ticket items like health
>> > care and children's' college tuitions).
>>
>> I think this statement perfectly exemplifies what is wrong with  
>> the US Left - its fundamentalist religious belief in a myth, and  
>> its inability to think critically beyond that myth.  If empirical  
>> evidence contradicts that myth the effort is taken to neutralize  
>> the evidence rather than revise the myth.
>
> Empirically, "the working-poor draft" describes the economic strata  
> from which the largest proportions of recruits are drawn.  The  
> number of recruits rises sharply at the threshold of $20,000 and  
> declines steeply at the peak of $40,000 in absolute numbers (at  
> <http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/loader.cfm?url=/ 
> commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=85094>); and differences  
> between recruit and civilian income distributions also show that  
> households that make less than $20,000 and more than $50,000 are  
> underrepresented and those in-between are over-represented (at  
> <http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/loader.cfm?url=/ 
> commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=85096>).
>
> Moreover, we also have to consider the caveat emptor that the  
> Heritage Foundation man himself notes in passing: "Income was  
> compared on a household basis, not an individual basis, meaning  
> that recruits’ income was defined by their household of origin" (at  
> <http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda05-08.cfm>),  
> for the Pentagon stopped collecting individual household income  
> data of recruits in 1999 (at <http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ 
> d05952.pdf>).  If the charts were based upon individual household  
> incomes rather than recruits' neighborhoods, it is likely that the  
> highest income brackets would be even more underrepresented.
>
> Chuck0 wrote:
>
>
>> Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>>
>> > With that in mind, the "working poor draft" and other populist  
>> leftist
>> > dogmas, such as that the poor have no responsibility for their  
>> own actions,
>> > and that responsibility rests solely with the elites, or that  
>> the existing
>> > institutional order is nothing but a conspiracy of the elite,  
>> are examples
>> > of the regressive problemshift by regression to the founding  
>> "principles" or
>> > myths in this particular case.
>>
>> Amen. I've run into this idiocy more than a few time lately, with
>> so-called leftists and anarchists arguing *in favor* of the military
>> because it provides an "option" for working class people. Some of  
>> this
>> has to do with a shallow leftist worship of anything the working  
>> class
>> does. The more common argument is that working class people are  
>> forced
>> by poverty into the military. Poverty certainly limits options, but
>> plenty of poor young people find a way to survive without joining the
>> military. It's kind of sick to hear anti-war people arguing in  
>> favor of
>> poor people joining the military!
>
> Empirically understanding who actually tends to sign up for the  
> military aids counter-recruitment efforts, for it can tell us where  
> we need to do our work.
>
> Yoshie Furuhashi
> <http://montages.blogspot.com>
> <http://monthlyreview.org>
> <http://mrzine.org>
>
>

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>