Sunday, September 01, 2013

The Welfare State is for the State

Race and Poverty, Fifty Years After the March : The New Yorker: "The trend is unsettling—hard to believe, even—particularly given the progress black Americans have seen on some fronts. In a 1961 poll, forty-one per cent of respondents said they wouldn’t vote for a “generally well-qualified man” from their party if he happened to be black; five years ago, Americans elected a black President. In 1964, white students graduated high school at almost double the rate of their black peers; today, graduation rates for blacks are only a couple of percentage points lower than for whites. Yet black Americans have moved ahead little—and by some measures have fallen behind—with regard to the one standard that matters most to Americans: making money. How did this happen?..."

I have a suggestion. The welfare state does not serve the poor, it serves the employees of the welfare state. The schools have not gotten better, they have gotten worse, but that have kept up employment for a loyal group of the state's supporters: teachers.

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