Thursday, December 18, 2014

power structures at the urban level...,


ucsc |  Power structures at the city level are different from the national power structure. They are not junior editions of the national corporate community.

That's because local power structures are land-based growth coalitions. They seek to intensify land use. They are opposed by the neighborhoods they invade or pollute, and by environmentalists.

To the shock and dismay of land-based elites, the workers who poured into the cities between 1870 and 1920 challenged elite rule through Democratic Party machines and the Socialist Party. So the growth elites created a "good government" ideology and a set of "reforms" that literally changed the nature of local governments and took them out of the reach of the upstarts.

The theory presented here explains all the key case studies of the past, including the most important ones, such as Atlanta and San Francisco, and the one that had the most impact, political scientist Robert A. Dahl's study of New Haven, which turns out to be wrong on almost every key point.

The city-level pluralists (who have now morphed into public-choice theorists in some cases) have an inadequate theory of city power because they rely on classical free-market economics, ignore the fact that growth does not benefit everyone in the city, and downplay or ignore the genuine conflicts that exist between growth elites and neighborhoods. There is little or no concern with power in their theory.

Marxist theory fails at the local level because it does not take its own distinction between "exchange value" and "use value" seriously, focuses almost entirely on finance and industrial capital, treats neighborhood as a residual category (merely a place to reproduce the working class), and interprets every conflict as a "class conflict" even though the primary battle in cities is between land-based growth coalitions trying to increase "rents" and neighborhoods that are trying to defend their use values.

29 comments:

ken said...

The Wikipedia author's theory is interesting. I think the only problem is the out of wedlock rate in 1960 for blacks was 22% and made a steady incline to 60% by 1980. The war on drugs had not started yet. The out of wedlock birth rate finally topped off and flattened around 70% in the early 1990's which of course is very early into the drug war where the numbers of incarcerated are nearly what they finally climbed to. It would appear the breaking up of the black family had already taken root way before the drug war. Now as for the rest of the article on what happens to a generation with an absent parent[s], I am in agreement with.

CNu said...

Once again, or should I just automate "as usual" - you are mistaken. Both the expression and the institutional infrastructure to prosecute the "war on drugs" was inaugurated in 1971 by the GOP criminal president Richard Millhouse Nixon. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/the-war-on-drugs-how-president-nixon-tied-addiction-to-crime/254319/

ken said...

Pretty sure the numbers is what your anchor article is talking about. And by 1980 the numbers to reinforce the article's theory just isn't there when the out of wedlock rates already rose.

http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Trends_in_Corrections_Fact_sheet.pdf



And then the rates leveled in the early 90's why the prison populations still had most of their growth in numbers.

Tom said...

Ken,
When the central point of your argument is a date, and your date turns out to be off by 20 years, that argument needs some work. I know you're insane, but have some mercy on those of us who aren't yet.

BigDonOne said...

Hardwired genetic tendencies towards FTO-lack, helplessness, and sheeplification also play into this....

ken said...

I'll have mercy on you Tom, I suspect most others could figure out the thrust of the argument. I'll try to see if I can bring you along. In 1960 the out of wedlock rate for blacks was around 20% by 1990 it is 70% and then stays stable around that rate. On a graph it was a pretty straight line ascent to the 1990 70% stat.


Now the article argues heavy numbers of incarceration drove the out of wedlock marriage rates to the high figures. It appears the article and conservatives agree the shortage of parenting resources contributes greatly to the problems the article cites like gang activity, which likely means more violence, theft, school dropouts, higher drug use, violence, and homicides and general depreciation of the neighborhood.


While I agreed with what is causing the problem today, I didn't agree with the numbers argument from incarceration on how we got to this situation. I wasn't arguing dates as you have wrongly determined, but numbers. If you notice from the graph of incarceration I provided in 1960 there was 200,000 or so incarcerated and by 1980 when the out of wedlock rate was 60% there was 350,000 incarcerated. If you go by today's percentages of who is in for drug related offenses (it was probably less back then) we can figure 20% of the 350,000 are in for drug offense. And then about 35% of those drug offenses were black. It doesn't make sense to think that a change of 10,000 more black incarcerated for drug offenses between 1960 and 1980 caused a change from 20% to 60% in a population segment of 40 million people.

Tom said...

You say the drug war's early days were the early 1990s, and point out that the deterioration of conditions in the Black community began a decade or two before that.


Simple argument, but the actual war on drugs began in 1971. So except for a thin layer of weird self-congratulatory insanity and denial, you're arguing CNu's point for him.

ken said...

No I say the numbers of incarcerations began to grow significantly around 1990. Although I did say the drug war started around 1990, I should have clarified "in earnest". I pointed to the numbers as the thrust of my argument that the rise of out of wedlock births had very little to do with the drug war. I have no illusions like you do that this was a point Cnu was attempting to make.

ken said...

Or to make sure I am accurate for you Tom, the drug war had very little to do with the rise in out of wedlock births.

rohan said...

Does anybody else know or care wtf Ken calls himself "fitna" talk about? He been fitna say something for 24 hours now and still ain't said shit!

Tom said...

You say everything under the sun in your usual windmilling style, Ken, but everybody can read the original thread for themselves.

Tom said...

lol @ Jeffersonian first-responder

ken said...

Dares to bring it? I don't know what I would find consistent in what Charles Murray offers in what I think to be the truth. Right now if the anchor post you posted above is something you believe, it is you who is putting forth the notion that there are problems unique to the black community, and a major factor is insufficient parental resources to raise the children properly. The claim is the parental structure was decimated by the war on drugs. One would conclude from the theory a way to stop the bleeding would be to stop the war on drugs and legalize them; with of course adding support programs to get us over the wounds that the war on drugs has caused.


I am of course one who would like to see all drugs become legal, but its pretty clear the war on drugs did not cause runaway increases in out of wedlock child birth. To solve a problem, it is right to identify it and then from there figure out what caused it. It seems many more now are agreeing that maybe a strict father as you call it, or a fatherly presence would make a difference. This is a big step, to finally have wider agreement on what a major factor of the problem is. I suspect having wide range agreement on what caused it and continues to cause it won't be as easy.


Certainly, the drug war didn't cause the increase in out of wedlock births, but I wonder if we can still solve the problem without agreeing what caused it. Why not just start now with promoting traditional 2 parent families that we know are statistically more successful than the single family homes statistically do not do as well as traditional family structures.

ken said...

Tom, I've only said one thing, the Wikipedia's author theory doesn't add up with the numbers. The logic I have used has been pretty straight forward. Whether you want to cry original post or not, you haven't provided any challenge to the numbers I have posted in this thread. The logic is clear, and it explains the war on drugs did not cause the stark increase in black out wedlock births that took place from 1960 to 1980.

rohan said...

Bro. CNu, puh-leeeeze ban' nis muhphukka!


He's clowned on this thread for 24+ hours. He states that the argument in the article is mistaken, but refuses to set forth his own argument and his nuts are tooo small for him to come out and make the Charles Murray argument, but he's desperate for your agreement on the solution going forward.


Tom is right. Ken is either insane, or so deceitful that he's embarrassed to admit his own underlying logic and argumentation.

CNu said...

lol, what.is.the.rush.brah...?

You and Dale both act like this is a scorched-earth, zero-sum game with definitive winners and losers. C'mon magne, live and let live! Be patient, let Ken show himself. There're not gonna be any surprises. So, just let him play out his distinctive nature, the same way you should let BD play out his distinctive nature - and reap the reward of unintended self-disclosure that must inevitably ensue given a little patience and time.

ken said...

Rohan, is the theory at the top of this post wrong or right? I haven't seen you drop one way or another. In fact I haven't seen any of you defend this theory If you want to argue what is correct, why don't you first exclude what isn't. If you think this theory here at the top is right, bring it on and tell us.

CNu said...

Ken, the article addresses the effect of the War on Drugs on African American communities, it also served, and was intended to serve, as a compact segue to the concept of necropolitics.

In your ideological flatland, this is somehow conflated/confused with out of wedlock birth rates. Nowhere in the anchor article is any mention made of out of wedlock birth rates. So...,Pretty sure the numbers is what your anchor article is talking about.does very much make you come across as insane ________________?

Since you showed up this thread pulling a classic Bro.Con.Feed maneuver and just talking about whatever you wanted to talk about without any reference to the anchor article, and, you argumentatively pulled a start date for the War on Drugs out of your neck, and, you've insisted that others talk about what you want to talk about without meeting basic obligations for proof and/or standing, i.e., explaining to us all what you believe the root cause of exploding OOW is - I hope you understand why you've effectively been ignored.

If you don't understand, that's quite alright, as with my now dismissed racist poster-child, I would encourage you to start a blog of your own where you can discuss flatlander concerns with all the contextualizing nuance you feel the subjects deserve. There, you will be understood by those interested in flatlander perspectives on consensus reality. I've sent an author invitation to your kjm email address, it should be in your inbox right now. I selected the simple template to get you started. http://subjectively2-d.blogspot.com/

ken said...

Sorry my bad, I just considered this to be talking about out of wedlock...

"The War on Drugs has incarcerated disproportionately high numbers of African-Americans. However, the damage has compounded beyond individuals and their families to affect African-American communities as a whole.

African-American children are over-represented in juvenile hall and family court cases, and as a result, they are removed from their families in droves, and placed in the federal system.[15] This is due to two reasons.

First, the high incarceration rate has not ignored families: mothers and fathers are incarcerated as well. This leads to a lack of a parental (mother or father incarcerated) figure to provide a good role model and stabilize a household. The impacts on their children are severe. African-American youths are becoming highly involved in gangs in order to generate income for their families lacking a primary breadwinner; with the War on Drugs having made the drug trade lucrative, it is a far more profitable for them to work for a dangerous drug gang than at a safe entry-level job.[16] The second-hand consequences of this are African-American youths dropping out of school, being tried for drug-related crime, and acquiring AIDS at disparate levels.[16]"

I read into the article that it seemed to be saying the drug war caused children to be without parental role models and lacking primary breadwinners. I somehow made a poor assumption this was talking about parents missing in the children's life. It still sort of has that appearance, but that might just be my argumentative insanity in me. And where I messed up really bucking the system around here was when I read this at the beginning of the article that you didn't include here but did provide the link which in the past it seemed to be encouraged to click on the link get the full context of the article:

"In 1986, the U.S. Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 which, amongst other things, created a 100 to 1 sentencing disparity for crack vs. powder cocaine possession, which some people consider to be a racist law which discriminates against minorities,[1][2][3] who are more likely to use crack than powder cocaine. People convicted in federal court of possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine will receive a minimum mandatory sentence of 5 years in federal prison. On the other hand, possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine carries the same sentence.[1][2] Some other authors, however, have pointed out that the Congressional Black Caucus backed the law, which they say implies that the law cannot be racist.[4][5][6]"

I just wrongly and stupidly thought the law and the date the law was passed cited at the beginning of the article was going to talk about how this law beginning at this time effected the race the article highlighted. I do believe I accepted your correction of the beginning of the drug war rather quickly, but still find myself wondering if maybe the article you cited and linked to might be referring to this time it actually cited as to when the drug war became more intense in the late 1980's and around 1990 where I picked as a measurement of time instead of the time you provided in the early 70's. Again very likely its just me being stubborn and argumentative... thanks for crossing out insane, it really shows how much grace you truly have.

I know I am treading on thin ground here even opposing you on one more point, I really did not feel effectively ignored. Oh and thanks for the link/blog, I don't want to jump to conclusions...I am a little less confident after blowing it so thoroughly on the link you provided as the anchor post, was that trying to be cute and funny, or was that serious?

CNu said...

Sorry my bad, I just considered this to be talking about out of wedlock...

1. Nah, you're not sorry at all.
2. You came talking about out of wedlock - without having read the anchor article.

you've insisted that others talk about what you want to talk about without meeting basic obligations for proof and/or standing, i.e.,
explaining to us all what you believe the root cause of exploding OOW is?


The way I know you're not sorry, is that you made yet another verbose and self-justifying comment, without explaining to us what you believe the root cause of exploding OOW is?

I know I am treading on thin ground here even opposing you on one more point, I really did not feel effectively ignored.


Your story's so touching Ken..., I have no problem what.so.ever with oppositional points of view. I do, however, have a real problem with keyboard warriors showing-out and shouting-down. If you wouldn't dare do it person, why try it in text?



You pretended upthread to want to advance toward solution proposals while ignoring the root causes of the problem you cite as determinative of the negative outcomes. Without addressing the root causes, there's no prospect for proposing meaningful solutions.

ken said...

Duh, of course I am not sorry at all. I honestly don't believe you read the anchor article. My most recent post if you haven't been able to tell is all sarcasm. For you to say with a straight face that " Nowhere in the anchor article is any mention made of out of wedlock birth rates". When an article says, "this leads to a lack of parental..." we are talking about parents not with children, maybe out of wedlock, maybe taken away later, but to write the whole thing off as not even mentioned is dishonest. I don't care what dimension you come from, its dishonest. And then when you totally disregard the article's mention of the law that passed in 1986 and what effect it had, and in place brow beat me for not considering the drug war started in 1971, its pretty clear you're not interested in a transparent discussion. Again I can see that from the 3 dimensional world where your actions sometimes intersect.

Not one of your posters here have enough honesty to say---You know it does talk about a law passed in 1986....and then can't even say if they believe the article is right or wrong on what it claims. Yet without knowing if these claims are true we want to use this article as a building block to your next subject of necropolitics. And somehow I am so to push onward with a discussion about the many factors that all came together to cause the spike in the lack of a parental (mother or father) figure to provide a good role model and stabilize a household.

CNu said...

http://subrealism.blogspot.com/2014/12/necropolitics-hypersegregation.html

You gonna man up and offer the root cause explanation, or, just continue listening to the voices in your own head? If the latter, you may want to let those out. Feel free to use the lance I've put up for you to drain the stupid out of your boil. http://subjectively2-d.blogspot.com/

Dale Asberry said...

Nah, not any more. Let go of that a bit while back. However, I do believe that dipshits deserve a thump on the head.

ken said...

As soon as you man up and say the article was talking about the crack cocaine laws passed in 1986 and that it claimed this law is a major factor that leads to a lack of either a mother or father parental figure and reduces good role models for a household. When you admit that was a point made in this article and if you agree with it or disagree with it, I'll give you the what I think the causes are. However as a hint, I don't think there is one root cause, but a number of factors that caused more blacks to be without the advantage of both parents.

Otherwise I don't see a point in producing honest points of view for you.

Saw this and didn't address this: " I do, however, have a real problem with keyboard warriors showing-out and shouting-down. If you wouldn't dare do it person, why try it in text?"



Wouldn't dare do...You thinking I don't argue in person? Although I will say this, there are a lot more resources with a keyboard to make points and absorb what the other person is trying to say. But I have no idea where you think I wouldn't dare call somebody out in person, or to have an energetic argument. I actually enjoy it.

CNu said...

Otherwise I don't see a point in producing honest points of view for you.


rotflmbao..., I have exactly zero recollection of you ever producing either an honest or an objectively well-informed and thus approximately-valid point of view.


Now having admitted what's long been conspicuously obvious to the casual observer, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out...,

Tom said...

Otherwise I don't see a point in producing honest points of view for you.




You revealed a little too much here Ken. Remember, you're not supposed to admit that you're using CNu and the rest of us as lifeless proxies for your circular obsessive self-validating internal dialog. You're supposed to keep us thinking that this is a discussion you're having with fellow human beings, while treating us as if we were cheap inflatables from the Adult Store.


Ken, you're a real-life C.S. Lewis bad-guy. Reading the books it seems as if Lewis is making exaggerated composites of bad qualities all combined in one character for a mixture of frightening and comedic effects. Reading your insane comments, it seems like he deserves a lot less credit -- he just knew someone like you.

CNu said...

ole wrecked'em said "the ends justify the means" - winning hearts and minds for _______________ is what a patriot's gotta do! everything else is merely conversation....,

ken said...

Very good Tom, I want you to know I do see growth and more substance to your comments. I can sense your feeling of accomplishment and pride in this comment and I don't want to take away the joy your received from this.

ken said...

Again, any casual honest observer would understand we are talking about the questions put forth on this thread here and now. And if somehow you couldn't pick that up, consider this post here a correction. My wording might have been poor, but I will explain my reasoning. I believe the wording of the Wikipedia link you linked to is clear, and the connections they made in the article between the drug war and children being without one or two parents in the black community is obvious. The date the article cited is front and center. If you can't bring yourself to challenge why that clarity I feel is there is wrong or agree its correct, and then take it a step further to say this is a position you also hold. Why should I offer what would be a pretty significant time sacrifice with what I think are the factors involved with what changed to increase out of wedlock pregnancies as a proportion of all pregnancies for blacks, and then ultimately whites.

You ask much more of me when you start talking about the Gurdjieff and the Fourth way. You have read me books, and ask me to go to the library. Or study this or that before you think it worth while for you to put the effort in to answer the question, I admit I don't go the library, but do try to read whatever is allowed to read of the book[s] online. So I guess I am surprised you are so deflective on this rather effortless ask of you. I believe I might understand so I will let this one go as you requested.

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