"Both Sides of Inequality -- David Brooks"

David Brooks has an interesting article on the NY Times' op-ed section. Unfortunately, without NY Times select, you won't be able to read it.

The basic premise is that, if you think about this particular study he cites, working class parents are actually better "Traditional" parents than upper-middle class parents. They do not allow their children to talk back and they allow them to freely come up with their play rather than shuffle them back and forth between appointments. However, ten years later, the study finds that the upper-middle class kids had better educations, better habits (?), and better career job prospects, while the working-class kids where left out. The working class kids said they were often intimidated by adults who were more "verbally dextrous", while the rich kids were comfortable presenting counter-arguments to other adults, and were able to present themselves better.

Brooks then reasons that a tax-credit to the poor will alleviate some of the economic burden, but also that maybe some paradigm shift in parenting should take place as well. And he ends with this, "But the core issue is that today's rich don't exploit the poor; they just outcompete them."

And this is where he lost me.

He had me until the last paragraph. I feel richer kids cheat, not compete, but we now equate the two. That's unfortunate, and eventually it'll bite us. Just look at the effect on corruption in the market. A lot of people seem to think that ignoring Enron, or WorldCom, or even AIG will just go away because corruption is a key component to effecient capitalism. However, corruption leads to empty promises, which leads to empty loans, which when cashed in leads to financial trouble.

Like the big oil crash in the late 70's, early 80's, when countries believed that supply for oil was infinite. Therefore bonds were issued ad infinitum (almost anyways), and when other countries tried to collect on debts that no one could pay, the entire system suffered a severe shock. I still don't think we've fully felt the effects of our current crisis in confidence because many companies have been lying on their balance sheet for a long time now (yes, Bush-conservatives, even before Clinton!). The theory behind it is that there is more money to make in over-promising (and under-delivering); enough so that you could make up the difference between what you have and the lie.

But back to the article. There are other problems that are associated with being poor. Like that part how working class adults are intimidated by people who are verbally dextrous? Well, they're not simply intimidating to poor people, but we have a culture of bullying people. That's different than competing. Or at least, it's not fair competition. It's a culture of getting ahead in a race, and then either a) putting objects in the way where they were none for you; or b) during the next race, making sure your competitors is wearing a 10-pound vest. It's an acceptable part of our culture, but we would be much more efficient as a democracy and as a capitalist nation if we gave up our propensity of violence against those that are more vulnerable than ourselves.

And a tax credit won't decrease their long-term burden. Tax credits almost always benefit the richer more, which place a burden on social services since that taxes from the wealthy pay a majority of the service (I think). Changing the system will hurt the working class more because they have to use more of their tax credits to pay for services; Leaving them in the same place they were at to begin with.

And by services I don't mean just healthcare or social security, but I mean everything the government does, from administrating laws to fixing our roads (and hopefully levees--POOR JOKE!).

Just think about it, if you have money in this country it's because of two reasons: you either inherited it, or you worked for it. However, at no time did you ever not benefited from our tax-system. If you inherited your money, there was a point where you benefitted from a system where poorer people were a cheap source of labor, and you easily able to afford whatever you needed. And if you couldn't, then you could take it from the poor. (Have you seen some of the shady life insurances they used to sell? Some guy would point to someone and say, "that person is a key component to my revenue stream. If he dies, I'll lose this much money." And then they would collect TONS of money off someone they had no real connection to. back to my story.) Furthermore, it was the poor who administer the services you most need, like garbage collection, tending the garden, looking after your children, fixing your car, delivering your mail...etc.

And if you weren't from money, but came into money, then you benefitted from other people paying taxes which paid for your services. But then you have all these noveau riche (Lexington, I'm looking at YOU!), who want to climb the ladder, and then kick it off so that no one else can climb up with them. It's destroying the system that made you to create a darker, more sinister system of fiefdoms and inequity.

Oops. I'm preaching again. I'll stop now and get back to work. Here's the article. Enjoy!

March 9, 2006
Ny Times Op-Ed Columnist
Both Sides of Inequality
By DAVID BROOKS

For the past two decades, Annette Lareau has embedded herself in American families. She and her researchers have sat on living room floors as families went about their business, ridden in back seats as families drove hither and yon.

Lareau's work is well known among sociologists, but neglected by the popular media. And that's a shame because through her close observations and careful writings — in books like "Unequal Childhoods" — Lareau has been able to capture the texture of inequality in America. She's described how radically child-rearing techniques in upper-middle-class homes differ from those in working-class and poor homes, and what this means for the prospects of the kids inside.

The thing you learn from her work is that it's wrong to say good parents raise successful kids and bad parents raise unsuccessful ones. The story is more complicated than that.

Looking at upper-middle-class homes, Lareau describes a parenting style that many of us ridicule but do not renounce. This involves enrolling kids in large numbers of adult-supervised activities and driving them from place to place. Parents are deeply involved in all aspects of their children's lives. They make concerted efforts to provide learning experiences.

Home life involves a lot of talk and verbal jousting. Parents tend to reason with their children, not give them orders. They present "choices" and then subtly influence the decisions their kids make. Kids feel free to pass judgment on adults, express themselves and even tell their siblings they hate them when they're angry.

The pace is exhausting. Fights about homework can be titanic. But children raised in this way know how to navigate the world of organized institutions. They know how to talk casually with adults, how to use words to shape how people view them, how to perform before audiences and look people in the eye to make a good first impression.

Working-class child-rearing is different, Lareau writes. In these homes, there tends to be a much starker boundary between the adult world and the children's world. Parents think that the cares of adulthood will come soon enough and that children should be left alone to organize their own playtime. When a girl asks her mother to help her build a dollhouse out of boxes, the mother says no, "casually and without guilt," because playtime is deemed to be inconsequential — a child's sphere, not an adult's.

Lareau says working-class children seem more relaxed and vibrant, and have more intimate contact with their extended families. "Whining, which was pervasive in middle-class homes, was rare in working-class and poor ones," she writes.

But these children were not as well prepared for the world of organizations and adulthood. There was much less talk in the working-class homes. Parents were more likely to issue brusque orders, not give explanations. Children, like their parents, were easily intimidated by and pushed around by verbally dexterous teachers and doctors. Middle-class kids felt entitled to individual treatment when entering the wider world, but working-class kids felt constrained and tongue-tied.

The children Lareau describes in her book were playful 10-year-olds. Now they're in their early 20's, and their destinies are as you'd have predicted. The perhaps overprogrammed middle-class kids got into good colleges and are heading for careers as doctors and other professionals. The working-class kids are not doing well. The little girl who built dollhouses had a severe drug problem from ages 12 to 17. She had a child outside wedlock, a baby she gave away because she was afraid she would hurt the child. She now cleans houses with her mother.

Lareau told me that when she was doing the book, the working-class kids seemed younger; they got more excited by things like going out for pizza. Now the working-class kids seem older; they've seen and suffered more.

But the point is that the working-class parents were not bad parents. In a perhaps more old-fashioned manner, they were attentive. They taught right from wrong. In some ways they raised their kids in a healthier atmosphere. (When presented with the schedules of the more affluent families, they thought such a life would just make kids sad.)

But they did not prepare their kids for a world in which verbal skills and the ability to thrive in organizations are so important. To help the worse-off parents, we should raise the earned-income tax credit to lessen their economic stress. But the core issue is that today's rich don't exploit the poor; they just outcompete them.