Many years ago, when I was one of the leaders of a campus Objectivist club at the University of Chicago, we organized a debate on capitalism versus socialism. This was in the Spring of 1991, which is about the last time you could really have a debate on the issue, before the question was settled conclusively by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
We co-sponsored the event with the university's Democratic Socialists and told them: you bring in the two best socialist intellectuals you can find, and we'll bring in our two best Objectivist intellectuals. That turned out to be Harry Binswanger and John Ridpath, and they pretty much cleaned up the floor with the two sad sacks the socialists brought in.
One of the best lines of the night came when one of the socialists mocked the idea of a "Lockean social contract"—his idea of the pro-capitalist view—in which "naked savages come running out of the woods" and form an orderly and prosperous society. Professor Ridpath got up and replied that if we did have such a Lockean social contract—a society based on individual rights—it would lead to such amazing progress that pretty soon we would have all of the modern cars and apartment buildings and the wealth of a developed capitalist society. "And if we follow the socialists' ideas," he concluded, "pretty soon we'll be naked again and running back into the woods."
I thought of that when Jack Wakeland sent me a few links about the latest "urban planning" idea for the city of Detroit.
The people of Detroit have followed the socialists' ideas, and they are naked again and running back into the woods.
Here is Jack's description:
"Detroit has 33,500 empty houses and 91,000 vacant residential lots. Mayor Dave Bing's plan is to demolish approximately 10,000 houses and turn approximately 35 square miles (22,000 acres) into contiguous green space areas that might be developed as orchards and vegetable farms.
"The government's plan to turn the land over to productive use will fail, of course. Only after the politically favored recipients of the seized land have left it to grow over with weeds and trees will it be possible for this abandoned land be occupied or put to any productive use—maybe in 20 or 40 years from now—but only if the cultural/political conditions in Detroit change.
"Nothing will be done with the abandoned land and it will remain fallow and overgrown—so long as the corrupt and collectivist city government administers it; so long as the more than 50% of the local population is dependent on government programs; so long as the population is teeming with criminals (approximately 20% of the male residents of Detroit are convicted felons).
"Absent radical political change—change that sweeps away oppressive government control—the rot in Detroit will continue. As the UAW sucks the last drops of blood out of the US auto industry and as the NEA and SEIU suck the last drops of tax money out of the pockets of the last few remaining productive residents of the city, things will get even worse in Detroit.
"Tearing down buildings is not the triage that Mayor Bing thinks it will be. It will change nothing.
"The tear downs of 10,000 homes will not reduce the number of residential properties abandoned because socialism, collectivism, corruption, and criminality made the city an unbearable place to live. With 33,000 abandoned homes plus 91,000 abandoned residential lots, there will still be a total of 125,000 abandoned residential properties within the Detroit city limits. Tearing down one quarter of the abandoned homes will not change that.
"The truly weird part of Mayor Bing's plan is that it is based on an 'innovative' plan implemented in Youngstown and Flint.
"The mayors of Youngstown, Flint, and Detroit—American cities that have been destroyed by compulsory unionization, environmental controls, and heavy-handed city land-use planning—share an unadmitted motive. They think that the people that are causing all of the cities' problems can be cleared off by scraping the city clear of its abandoned houses. Abandoned structures are, after all, often occupied by criminal squatters who turn them into 'crack houses' and heroin 'shooting galleries.'
"But the rampant drug addiction and widespread criminal behavior are not caused by the abandoned houses. The abandoned houses are caused by the mindset that easily turns to drugs and criminality: the mindset of men without a purpose; the mindset of unproductive men.
"And this is a mindset around which the governments of Detroit, Flint, and Youngstown have arranged themselves. These cities—majority black or majority white—are populated by overwhelming number of parasitical humans who have stopped supporting themselves. These cities are overwhelmed by a subpopulation—approximately half of the population—which looks solely to the government to legally take from others what they need to survive, or who look to robbery or theft by which they can illegally take it for themselves.
"I do not expect any of the other cities mentioned in these articles—Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Memphis—to follow the path toward the end of civilization that Detroit has taken. These cities are heavily burdened by a paristical sub-population, but that sub-population has not reached a critical mass. They don't constitute a working majority within the local political system. Unlike in Flint, Youngstown, and Detroit, the parasitical class doesn't run the cities that they have been working to ruin.
"But the Obama administration has launched a small program to promote the end of civilization. It is a part of the $2 billion in 'stimulus' spending that is being administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In January, HUD provided $223 million to fund tear-down programs in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, and several other cities in Michigan.
"Mayor Bing's plan to kill off one quarter of his dying city is exactly what HUD's 'stimulus' destruction program was intended to produce."
So the same administration that gave us "cash for clunkers" is now giving us "cash for crackhouses."
I would only add that this is a preview of our future—if we go further in the direction the current administration is taking us. It is the future to which socialism always leads, by destroying the respect for individual rights that is the foundation and pre-requisite of a civilized existence.
We'll be naked again, and we'll be running back into the woods.—RWT
TAKE THE FREE TOUR OF OBAMA'S VISION FOR AMERICA
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of "The Intellectual Activist (TIA)" and contributor to "The Freedom Fighter's Journal."
We co-sponsored the event with the university's Democratic Socialists and told them: you bring in the two best socialist intellectuals you can find, and we'll bring in our two best Objectivist intellectuals. That turned out to be Harry Binswanger and John Ridpath, and they pretty much cleaned up the floor with the two sad sacks the socialists brought in.
One of the best lines of the night came when one of the socialists mocked the idea of a "Lockean social contract"—his idea of the pro-capitalist view—in which "naked savages come running out of the woods" and form an orderly and prosperous society. Professor Ridpath got up and replied that if we did have such a Lockean social contract—a society based on individual rights—it would lead to such amazing progress that pretty soon we would have all of the modern cars and apartment buildings and the wealth of a developed capitalist society. "And if we follow the socialists' ideas," he concluded, "pretty soon we'll be naked again and running back into the woods."
I thought of that when Jack Wakeland sent me a few links about the latest "urban planning" idea for the city of Detroit.
The people of Detroit have followed the socialists' ideas, and they are naked again and running back into the woods.
Here is Jack's description:
"Detroit has 33,500 empty houses and 91,000 vacant residential lots. Mayor Dave Bing's plan is to demolish approximately 10,000 houses and turn approximately 35 square miles (22,000 acres) into contiguous green space areas that might be developed as orchards and vegetable farms.
"The government's plan to turn the land over to productive use will fail, of course. Only after the politically favored recipients of the seized land have left it to grow over with weeds and trees will it be possible for this abandoned land be occupied or put to any productive use—maybe in 20 or 40 years from now—but only if the cultural/political conditions in Detroit change.
"Nothing will be done with the abandoned land and it will remain fallow and overgrown—so long as the corrupt and collectivist city government administers it; so long as the more than 50% of the local population is dependent on government programs; so long as the population is teeming with criminals (approximately 20% of the male residents of Detroit are convicted felons).
"Absent radical political change—change that sweeps away oppressive government control—the rot in Detroit will continue. As the UAW sucks the last drops of blood out of the US auto industry and as the NEA and SEIU suck the last drops of tax money out of the pockets of the last few remaining productive residents of the city, things will get even worse in Detroit.
"Tearing down buildings is not the triage that Mayor Bing thinks it will be. It will change nothing.
"The tear downs of 10,000 homes will not reduce the number of residential properties abandoned because socialism, collectivism, corruption, and criminality made the city an unbearable place to live. With 33,000 abandoned homes plus 91,000 abandoned residential lots, there will still be a total of 125,000 abandoned residential properties within the Detroit city limits. Tearing down one quarter of the abandoned homes will not change that.
"The truly weird part of Mayor Bing's plan is that it is based on an 'innovative' plan implemented in Youngstown and Flint.
"The mayors of Youngstown, Flint, and Detroit—American cities that have been destroyed by compulsory unionization, environmental controls, and heavy-handed city land-use planning—share an unadmitted motive. They think that the people that are causing all of the cities' problems can be cleared off by scraping the city clear of its abandoned houses. Abandoned structures are, after all, often occupied by criminal squatters who turn them into 'crack houses' and heroin 'shooting galleries.'
"But the rampant drug addiction and widespread criminal behavior are not caused by the abandoned houses. The abandoned houses are caused by the mindset that easily turns to drugs and criminality: the mindset of men without a purpose; the mindset of unproductive men.
"And this is a mindset around which the governments of Detroit, Flint, and Youngstown have arranged themselves. These cities—majority black or majority white—are populated by overwhelming number of parasitical humans who have stopped supporting themselves. These cities are overwhelmed by a subpopulation—approximately half of the population—which looks solely to the government to legally take from others what they need to survive, or who look to robbery or theft by which they can illegally take it for themselves.
"I do not expect any of the other cities mentioned in these articles—Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Memphis—to follow the path toward the end of civilization that Detroit has taken. These cities are heavily burdened by a paristical sub-population, but that sub-population has not reached a critical mass. They don't constitute a working majority within the local political system. Unlike in Flint, Youngstown, and Detroit, the parasitical class doesn't run the cities that they have been working to ruin.
"But the Obama administration has launched a small program to promote the end of civilization. It is a part of the $2 billion in 'stimulus' spending that is being administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In January, HUD provided $223 million to fund tear-down programs in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, and several other cities in Michigan.
"Mayor Bing's plan to kill off one quarter of his dying city is exactly what HUD's 'stimulus' destruction program was intended to produce."
So the same administration that gave us "cash for clunkers" is now giving us "cash for crackhouses."
I would only add that this is a preview of our future—if we go further in the direction the current administration is taking us. It is the future to which socialism always leads, by destroying the respect for individual rights that is the foundation and pre-requisite of a civilized existence.
We'll be naked again, and we'll be running back into the woods.—RWT
TAKE THE FREE TOUR OF OBAMA'S VISION FOR AMERICA
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of "The Intellectual Activist (TIA)" and contributor to "The Freedom Fighter's Journal."
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