The key is that Brooks attributes the deleterious consequences of racial, political and economic oppression, on the one hand, and structural outcomes associated with different classes of folks immigrating from different places at different times - under different immigration, political and economic regimes, on the other hand, to "culture" - which he equates with ethnicity and race, and human capital - which he separates from oppression, politics and economics. Idiot (sorry, or not).
And, of course, most importantly, he completely and utterly refused to see how all sorts of policies - from legalizing (weak) unions (outside of racialized and gendered agricultural and domestic work) to the GI Bill to funding transportation infrastructures, public education and the arts to civil rights laws to guaranteeing bank deposits and home mortgages, and on to natural resource conservation, wildlife preservation and built environmental protection - are all part and parcel of the success of all those entrepreneurially-independent, culturally-robust, human capital-committed and largely withheld from historically oppressed minorities and the vast majority of poor whites.
This is a pretty good, if occasionally errant, comment from the Recommended ones at the NYT:
A century ago, statistics for Swedes working in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin forests and Swedish agricultural workers on the Danish island of Bornholm would have shown quite a different picture from the bucolic image painted by Brooks. A century ago, a Yankee visiting Marcel, Minnesota could write home that there was "only one other white man in the logging camp, the rest are all Swedes."
This country practiced genocide on the indigenous population of America, threw them into rural ghettos on the least productive land that could be found, and when they were successful at ranching, changed the rules to break up their economic success, keeping them in perpetual poverty.
This country developed the most extreme form of slavery. The Civil War is the single historical event that has had the greatest and longest lived impact on voter behavior and government in American history. Is it any wonder that the descendants of those slaves should continue to lag?
Here in Minnesota, the list of failed school districts recently announced showed one overarching variable connecting all of them, rural or urban, and that was poverty.
In the 1950s, Minnesota ranked 29th in per capita income among states. That is its natural position, considering its mid-continent location far from the more highly developed coastal regions of America. (Over half the U.S. population still lives within 100 miles of a coast.) But in 1970, the state legislature instituted the "Minnesota Miracle" by increasing taxation and investing that money in public infrastructure, especially higher education. This brought Minnesota into the top 10 states. Policy does matter.
This one, too, is pretty good:
... At the end you snap out of it, and say, well, let's not let social action programs destroys the social bonds that may be most important.
Fine. Good. Then I assume you're challenging the billions in subsidies that U.S. Industrial Ag gets for its higher profits to help destroy the social bonds of traditional cultures its prices under-cut and shred all over the world.
I assume you're challenging the reliance on military force, and the propping up of dictatorial regimes all over the world -- especially where there's oil -- all perverting and destroying social bonds just for the sake of America's corporate hegemons.
I assume you're challenging the amoral, ethics-free silo culture of Wall Styreet, or of the U.S.'s corporate academe, where for chicaneries in one, and specializations in the other, all learn never to pay attention to any social bonds, or nature, or human communities anywhere. Money -- corporate privilege -- the only "ethics" in high finance or corporate academe.
I'm glad I've read all the way to the end of yours today where, for the priorities you put on social bonds, we can all count on you finally to be the radical called for by the decency of your own logic.
On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 10:03 PM, D D <retromodernity at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I was wondering if anyone had read this and had any critical
> comments...thanks in advance:
>
> The Limits of Policy
> DAVID BROOKS
> May 3, 2010
>
> Roughly a century ago, many Swedes immigrated to America. They’ve done very
> well here. Only about 6.7 percent of Swedish-Americans live in poverty. Also
> a century ago, many Swedes decided to remain in Sweden. They’ve done well
> there, too. When two economists calculated Swedish poverty rates according
> to the American standard, they found that 6.7 percent of the Swedes in
> Sweden were living in poverty.
>
> In other words, you had two groups with similar historical backgrounds
> living in entirely different political systems, and the poverty outcomes
> were the same....
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/opinion/04brooks.html
>
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319