There are a number of social issues which are of great concern to many black people. Many of us see a number of issues which plague blacks to a more noticeable extent than other minorities and whites. There is substantial poverty among blacks. There are serious problems with crime, and single parenthood is a problem which contributes to the first two. I will attempt to address some of the ones which I find both pressing and telling. We hear many people talking about these issues, describing the problems and recommending solutions. Many times, however, I feel that people miss the underlying causes of these problems, and the rather obvious solutions which make themselves apparent once these causes are discerned.
Government welfare has helped cause more black suffering that just about any other government policy in the past 50 years. I feel that the cultural adaptations blacks made to accommodate slavery made welfare especially devastating. Black men used to be sold up the river. This was a process in which the patriarch of a family would be sold from one plantation to another, breaking up families. Many slave owners had as much respect for the integrity of a black family as a cattle rancher would for the integrity of a bovine family. Single motherhood had always, therefore, been more socially acceptable among blacks. This was an absolute necessity, obviously, and not some indication of some mass failure of black people’s character. After the end of that wretched practice, many women didn’t remarry, as they had no way to tell if their husband was dead or not. This is one reason black women have always had such an obvious role in black economic development. Many black women have always had to work.
People tend to do for themselves, their families, and their communities. This is because, generally, no one else will do it. Women, since they bear the biological burden of child birth and subsequent rearing, have always had a direct incentive to control their sexual urges in a way that men have not. In most places throughout human history, mating with an irresponsible man who would not or could not provide for a woman and any children would result in hardship or death; either by starvation of woman, child, or both; or infanticide. This harsh reproductive reality is one of the reasons behind the common misconception by some men that women are greedy and materialistic. When starvation is a potential result of a poorly planned marriage, being able to see physical evidence of the ability to provide, be it through jewelry, gifts, or other somewhat ostentatious displays of wealth, is not only understandable, it is proper. Even with the economic independence of women, those values have become a cultural norm.
Prior to the development of easily accessible, inexpensive contraceptives, most cultures heavily discouraged promiscuity. For one thing, there was heavy social pressure upon a man to "do the honorable thing" and marry a woman should he impregnate her. This pressure was often not coercive (though the term "shotgun wedding" didn't just appear out of thin air). Ostracism can have powerful effects on people. In this way, freedom, not government, reinforced religious morality. What of the effect of welfare? The automatic safety net provided by welfare meant that women no longer had to be as concerned with the material repercussions of promiscuity. It also meant that men no longer had to experience the shame of having their own flesh and blood begging in the streets or starving to death (and the corresponding worldly costs of becoming a pariah in their own communities). Combine that with the aforementioned acceptance of single motherhood, and you have what is essentially the unmaking of the black family. The black family, well on its way to healing itself following the enormity of government-supported slavery, was sabotaged by government. Once again, government is the promoter of immorality. Government is the entity which takes private vices such as greed, racism, promiscuity, and irresponsibility, and turns them into public scourges. One of the things which Murray Rothbard discusses is the virtue of the market. This is a fact which is often missed in arguments against big government, but in my mind, it is perhaps the most important. A true free market naturally encourages many of what are normally thought of as virtuous behaviors and government actively discourages them.
Another terrible government program has been the war on drugs. The solution to the drug problem in black communities could be implemented I feel, through two mechanisms: repeal of the drug laws, and private property. Now, a lot of what I’m about to point out has already been said, and better, by Murray Rothbard in For a New Liberty, but not everyone has read it (or listened to it). "Pro-black" books have been very popular among black people for years. These books vary in quality, but I find it striking that Murray Rothbard wrote things in that book which are, in effect, extremely "pro-black." They are pro-white, pro-Asian, and pro-insert-ethnicity-here as well. They are pro-human. One of the things he discusses is private ownership of streets and roads. Ownership of streets and roads would do more to solve the problem of street crime than just about anything else. Drug dealing usually heavily involves the streets. Dealers perform transactions on the streets, crack fiends hang out on the streets. What if the streets were privatized? How many of you would allow a drug dealer to make sales in your living room? How about allow crack heads to hang out in the kitchen? Then why would you allow them to do the same on your street? Well, the problem is that the streets are not owned by those who live along them. They are owned by government, and government is usually an absentee landlord. The famous cases of the Nation of Islam chasing drug dealers out of neighborhoods are simply examples of them treating the streets as private property. While they are brave enough to aggressively approach drug dealers without weapons, few others would be, and, even if the citizens hired security, that security wouldn’t be able to be armed as they would on private property, at least in a free society (though many inner cities, through gun control laws, are anything but that when it comes to self-defense). They also would not have the right to remove people who are just hanging on the streets, since they would have no authority to simply tell someone to leave. The streets are accessible to anyone, whether or not that person has been invited. This is not the case with private property.
By privatizing the streets, the most appropriate solutions to benefit people are far more likely to be found. Since the government owns them now, I suggest simply turning them over the people who live along them. After that, the owners can decide what to do with the street. Perhaps the residents of a neighborhood would form a company to handle security and upkeep. Perhaps corporations would purchase the street from them and charge fees for upkeep and security. Perhaps charities would purchase them. We can't know that in advance any more than we can know in advance which television program will be the new hit next year. But, we know that the market will find something that people will want to buy. Easements would be a necessary part of such street purchases, obviously; as no one could lawfully deny a homeowner (or renter) access to property they have a lawful right to access and have historically had such access. Acceptable uses of even private property do not occur in a vacuum, and contracts and courts have always recognized that fact. Concerns such as this need not be a deterrent to privatizing the streets.
The effects of the lack of private property and the obvious increase in street crimes actually cause the drug problems to get worse. As a result of both the profits made from the drug trade, profits which are only possible due to its illegality, and the lowered property values caused by the crime associated with it in various neighborhoods, dealers often buy a house which they then use as a base of operations for the distribution of drugs. Such a house is called a “trap." After a short time of selling, before law enforcement can infiltrate and arrest everyone, the house is usually abandoned. The junkies still hang around it, and some of them take up residence. This is no way to improve a neighborhood. Now, I have known several drug dealers. I am of an age and am from a social circle which makes it difficult to avoid knowing drug dealers. The drug dealers I know are not sociopaths. They are actually rather smart, and surprisingly responsible. They followed the money. Most of them don’t even make most of their money from people hanging out on the streets. They sell to regular, everyday people. And they make a good living selling to the dancers at strip clubs. Drug laws routinely lock these people up, sometimes for the rest of their lives for engaging in what are voluntary transactions. As a result, the most violent drug dealers, the ones willing to kill to keep people quiet and to intimidate others, are becoming more common. The war on drugs often locks up the most ambitious of people, engaged in nonviolent activity. I’ve often found that, in many neighborhoods, drug dealers are the men who are most likely to actually care for their own children. Taking them out makes some of the effects of welfare that much worse.
Political parties all try to offer solutions to these problems. They fail not so much because they are bad people, or unintelligent, but because they are using the wrong tool for the job. In as much as I have been able to tell, government is only good at two things, taking money and killing people. These two things are mutually supportive. When it comes to actual productive human labor, which provides real human benefit, trade, along with genuine human compassion, has been far more effective than any government program. It is clear to me that neither political party has much to offer the bulk of black people. They support policies which bring power to themselves, usually with few of the intended results, and many unintended ones. Most of the black people I talk to about politics don’t really believe either major party can solve problems in the black community. They think Democrats are well meaning, but have no real clue, nor sufficient power, to actually help out those who need help, and they believe that too many Republicans are closet racists and can’t be trusted with power over black people. The truth is that no one can be trusted with the power of government. The right to violate persons and property is always a problem, no matter who is in power. We all act in our own self-interests, and there is no magic switch which causes government officials to do any differently.
For me, one of the most troubling aspects of government is how government is always the exception. How many moral codes permit stealing? Yet government taxes are somehow different. How many moral codes permit the killing of children? Yet, government wars are somehow different. How many moral codes permit someone to storm a person’s house in the middle of the night for something they are doing in the privacy of their own homes? Yet government is somehow different. It is always the exception. I often wonder how many ostensibly religious people aren't simply idol worshipers in the most literal sense, considering how many exceptions they allow government. If there are exceptions that you are willing to allow for in the case for freedom here and there, what exceptions will be allowed in the future? In the history of freedom in this country, blacks have often been "the exception" and many are very suspicious that somehow, blacks will be the exceptions again. This is a powerful argument in favor of libertarianism in its purest form. Eliminate the exceptions to freedom.
August 8, 2006
