Alex Tabarrok on “The Lost Eden of Childhood. Not Lost. Not Eden.” Great comments, too. The more I learn about economic history, the more skeptical I am of nostalgic reminisces for “a simpler time” and complaints about “kids these years.” A couple of thoughts:
1. The “simpler time” for which you yearn was not so simple and probably not as good as you remember it. I had a friend once who said it would have been nice to live in the 1800s, when things were so much simpler. Yes, they were so simple that you would probably have the ennobling pleasure of watching one of your children die of a disease we can treat very easily today, and you would have been lucky to make it to age 40.
2. I’m especially skeptical of claims about idyllic childhood. You’re looking back at a process that ultimately produced your present circumstances, for better or for worse, while helping your own kids (or observing kids around you) deal with unique problems in real time.
3. I’m more skeptical of claims about how much better the world was in “the good old days.” I recall reading once something to the effect of “when I was growing up, you never heard about teen pregnancy or child abuse or [litany of modern transgressions].” Indeed, you probably didn’t, because you were a kid and because there are some things (like teen pregnancy) that adults don’t talk about in front of kids. This is where statistics are necessary and nostalgia can be most misleading.
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Renaissance Florence sucked. They didn’t have the Internet or antibiotics, much less Univision and hip-hop.
Indubitably! How could anyone be considered wealthy until within the last century?
Stephanie Coontz’s “The Way We Never Were” is particularly good on debunking the “good old days” nostalgia (warning: the economics gets worse and worse as you progress through the chapters).
For example, on teenage pregnancy, Coontz points out that in 1957 the birth rate for females 15-19 was 97 per 1,000, and today it is around 42 per 1,000 (2007 figure). Yes, some of those 15-19 were married, but some are today as well (and many were not in the 1950s).
Jeremy:
From the cited figures, you’ve derived what I’d call a distinct misimpression.
The birth rate was higher, as you note–I’m not disputing the figures. But the illegitimacy rate was much lower, especially among the majority (caucasian) population. What has happened over the years is that the TFR (total fertility rate) among both caucasan and asian at all economic levels people has dropped substantially (now below replacement) while the rate among blacks and mestizo-hispanics has remained substantially the same, while marriage rates have dropped.
The TFR for the US is only slightly below replacement (2.11) but for the caucasian and asian population, the rate is down at levels comparable to European averages (so that their proportion of total population is shrinking, while that of the two (previously-mentioned) demographics is increasing substantially–and in substantially unmarried-mother homes (72% a recent figure I saw).
I attended a relatively large (3-yr.) high school in the early ’50s: about 1600 total enrollment (virttually all white). During that time, I only even heard of a single gal who “had to get married” because of pregnancy; there were a few others who quit to get married but whether thay “had to” or not wasn’t a matter of discussion (as it would have normally been expected to be, if known).
Lots of things are better now: TV, cars, air conditioning, communications of all sorts, air travel, and the advent of computers. Some things are more or less open to opinion (such as general life in society.)
But there was certainly one thing that we, in the ’50s had much better than now: the future>
Your last sentence is particularly misleading, conflating “some” and “many” over the span between “then” and “now.” One reading your comment would get the impression that not much change is taking place, while the exact opposite is the case. The most important aspect of the process is sociopolitical, I’d suppose, but there”s also a large component of cognitive decline taking place (in the total population); the plain fact is that, with few (and notable) exceptions, the average intelligence of a population is a very reliable indicator of their economic status (and potential). Even the percentage (within a population) of those able to function at slightly-higher levels than “average” is a reliable indicator of the standard of living to be expected, Both of those figures are in decline, due to (accomplished and continuing) demographic and behavioral change. “Things” can always turn around for the better but I predict we’ve got “much worse” already “locked in” for quite some time to come.
“the illegitimacy rate was much lower, especially among the majority (caucasian) population.”
I’m interested in your sources for all your comments, but especially this one. Coontz also cites a figure showing that the number of women pregnant at marriage more than doubled from the 1940s to the 1950s (I wish I could get more precision on this, anyone have another source?). She doesn’t give any racial breakdown, but perhaps you have that data? Or are you just relying on your own anecdotes?
From the article:
“Has safety decreased? It is true that one of the most horrible things we can imagine, homicide, is up. For kids aged 5-14 homicide mortality went from 0.5 per 100,000 in 1950 to 0.8 per 100,000 in 2005.”
So, parents are a lot more paranoid now, and yet the child homicide rate is about 60% higher.
For those who are trying to figure out what all the fuss is about, the underlying debate is not about technology, the safety of lawnmowers and the availability medical treatments. It’s about whether the the liberal left destroyed the bubble of safety where middle-class WASP Americans lived a few decades ago, especially before MLK, massive hispanic immigration, political correctness, affirmative action and so on.
If all you are concerned about is white Americans (a weird, tribalistic way of looking at the world, but to each his own), then the data are not as depressing as Tabarrok’s figures indicate. See (page 43):
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/MortFinal2005_WorktableOrig250R.pdf
While the overall homicide rate is 0.8 per 100,000 5-14 year-olds, the White rate is still at 0.5 per 100,000 (I’m using 2005 data, like Tabarrok). The black rate is an alarmingly high 2.3 per 100,000, while the Hispanic rate is much lower at 0.8 per 100,000.
Two conclusions follow. First, the “White bubble of safety” has not burst. White child homicide rates are still happily very low, as low as the 1950s (NB: I haven’t been able to find 1950s data by race). Second, Hispanic immigrants are not causing White rates to go up, and Hispanics in fact have a relatively low rate (roughly 1/3) compared with blacks.
So what caused the 60% increase in child homicide rates? My intuition is that it has a lot do with the Drug War. Not MLK. Not hispanics. Not political correctness or affirmative action (I would love to hear the causal chain which lead you to list these last two!).
No, I’m not just concerned about white Americans, I just think it’s one of the most unfairly treated groups in American legislation and jurisprudence, and the same happens in all Western countries. And, I just mentioned it as the topic of this thread, not as the most important topic in the world.
Good for your for getting the actual data, but I disagree with your conclusions.
First, the average crime rate is still 60% higher, so the sense of less security is justified.
Second, despite parents being much more careful now, despite children not being allowed to roam the streets on their own, the crime rates for white children did not go down. This may indicate that the actual threat is higher now. What we would need to know is whether the percentage of children who get killed in the street over the total of children who are allowed to be alone in the street went up, or down or stayed the same.
I agree that the drug war is a disgrace, but other countries, such as Finland, also have stict drug legislation, and not nearly the American crime rates.
The effect of all the politically correct environment is Hoppean forced integration. This is not a problem for the rich Ivy League liberals because they can keep their children safe with more subtle forms of segregation, but it forces lower middle class whites to coexist and interact with openly hostile neighbors from other cultures and ethnic groups. The legal system prevents them from building communities and work places where they would feel safer.
Also, massive immigration is a tool by which the liberal left transforms the democraphics of a country to get more votes and more popular support.
Most Mexicans I’ve ever met are better people then the average white man. The more of those people we can get into this country probably the better off we are.
What your missing here is that it’s not really a matter of race. It’s a matter of were you are at on the social totem pole. How close you are to the political center and also has a great deal to do with your geographical location.
If we can get rid of this social stigma attached to immigrating for work and get rid of the shitstain immigration laws that prevent people from legally come into this country then the influx of Mexican labor would probably be one of the best things that ever happened to this country.
That’s because parents are paranoid about their kids being victim of crimes. Most parents refuse to take into consideration that their children are the ones that are being criminals.
Actually it indicates that such preventative measures of not effective. These parents are not correctly identifying which risks and threats they need to worry about.
Finland is a ancient nation that is mostly heterogeneous in nature with a different set of problems to deal with. We are a relatively young country, much more diverse, with much more social movement, with a far more corrupt government. It’s not only what the drug laws are, but how they are enforced.
For example Finland does not have a the same notion that terrorizing minorities, attacking criminals with armed gangs, throwing men into prison, dehumanizing and humiliating them for 5-10 years… then releasing them back into public with no prospects and minimal supervision is a good idea.
So, you think Mexican hispanics are better than American whites (waycism!). And yet, Mexico is made of, and controlled by, Mexicans. People don’t change magically when they cross a border. If you fill America with Mexicans, it becomes Mexico. No, I don’t think race as a biological concept is the main factor here (but what if I did, that’s not a reason to be demonised), I think the issue is about group identity. Some immigrants embrace American values and want to be American, but many others don’t give a rat’s tail about those values. They just come for the money, and they would rather turn America into Mexico (or Somalia, or Pakistan, etc). Many of them say it openly, and the liberal left applauds them. Whether most immigrants are of the first kind or the second kind is debatable, but there’s no doubt about the folly of open borders. Realistically speaking, democracy is here to stay, and in democratic nations demographics is everything. Most of the economic benefits of immigration can be obtained through international trade, without the demographic risks.
Also, you say Finland is more homogeneous (I guess “heterogenous” was a typo). Correct, they have had a very small immigration rate for a long time. That’s the elephant in ballroom when everyone wonders about the key to their success as a society. Now they’ve had a taste of diversity and they didn’t like it, hence Timo Soini (no, it was not all about the bailouts; actually he has softened his position about Portugal these days).
No. Out of the cross section of people that I meat the percentage of decent Mexicans that I meat outweigh the number of decent white folks.
I also deal with a lot of Indians, Black people, Asians, and all sorts of other races. I can say without a doubt that having lots of different people from around the world makes my life more interesting and better.
I think that the mixture of races that this country will create for itself in the future will be the closest we will ever come to ‘the super race’.
With that logic if we fill America with Europeans it becomes Europe. I hope to God that doesn’t happen. Europe is going to be a cesspool in a few years.
I don’t give a rats ass about American values. Most of ‘American values’ are a result of bullshit propaganda from our schools, governments, and major media outlets. Many American values are based on the sort of crap hypocritical self-delusion BS that says it’s ok to go out and get stoned and do a little bit of cocaine, but god forbid you smoke crack because that means your soul it taken over by satan and your children will grow up to be sideways.
The sort of hypocritical reasoning that says it’s ok to cheat on skip out on sales taxes over the internet, speed down the highway, hire a prostitute/stripper for a bachelor party… but those damn illegal immigrants are criminals and need to be rounded up!
I want this country to improve and get better, not remain the same.
As long as they earn it, they deserve it.
If you don’t like them coming in to milk the system it’s the system that is the problem. Get rid of welfware.
The people that say it openly are people that are trying to turn into what the socialists in our government are now. They suck, but I wouldn’t condemn anybody but themselves.
I don’t know if you notice this or not but it’s the ‘White Americans’ that are purposely gaming the system and keeping illegal immigrates illegal in order to prevent them from ever being anything other then near slave labor.
Don’t like your pay? Don’t like your conditions? One call and your boss can your your life and ruin everything you’ve been working for.
Get rid of most of the laws preventing immigration and you get rid of the problem.
If you like it so much then go there.
Personally: I prefer wealth and freedom.
“No. Out of the cross section of people that I meat the percentage of decent Mexicans that I meat outweigh the number of decent white folks.”
I’m not sure I would agree with your concept of “decent”. I haven’t met so many Mexicans in person. The ones I did, some were funny party animals, some were creepy losers. If you look at Youtube comments by Mexicans, most seem to be vicious socialist haters of America and Europe. Yes, it’s all anecdotal, just like your experience.
“I think that the mixture of races that this country will create for itself in the future will be the closest we will ever come to ‘the super race’.”
Races don’t mix. I mean, they do, but not nearly fast enough and with no sign of accelerating. It’s not just “friction”, it’s cohesive forces that keep them from melting, otherwise they would have melted long ago. Instead, ethnical groups compete, and the most cutthroat competition happens when two or more which are largely hostile to each other share a democratic country.
By IQ and intellectual achievements, the closest thing to the “super race” are the Ashkenazi.
“With that logic if we fill America with Europeans it becomes Europe. I hope to God that doesn’t happen. Europe is going to be a cesspool in a few years.”
America IS Europe. They just happen to have declared independence. Europe seems to be bouncing back faster than America; in any case, both will be better than any thirld world country, unless we let the Bosnia scenario happen.
“I don’t give a rats ass about American values. ”
Then I guess you are part of the problem, but unless the ungrateful Mexican seditionists, you can’t (and shouldn’t) be kicked out.
“As long as they earn it, they deserve it.”
That’s not the point. The point is they are in America, and they are not as friends. They can earn the money from Mexico through international trade.
“If you don’t like them coming in to milk the system it’s the system that is the problem. Get rid of welfware.”
The main problem is not welfare. The main problem is democracy. So ‘get rid of democracy’, will you say? Yeah, right.
“Get rid of most of the laws preventing immigration and you get rid of the problem.”
Yes, if your “problem” is America.
“If you like it so much then go there.”
I did, for a few months. I liked it a lot, but my home is elsewhere. My informal impression about its renowned educational system is that it’s not so much the system, it’s the people.
Looking at the “end points” in a data series can be deceiving. Looking at the last 3 decades (sorry, can’t find good age-based data back to the 1950s), there is no safer time for children to be alive (in terms of murder rates) than today:
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/tables/vagetab.cfm
From the peak in 1993, the murder for children has dropped by 36%. Not only has the *rate* for children under 14 declined since the mid-1970s, the *absolute number* of murders for those under 14 declined! The only group where it is clearly higher is 18-24, but even these murder rates are down significantly from their peak in 1993, from 24.4 to 14.9 per 100,000. And this is despite all those “negative” trends, such as immigration, increasing since then.
The 1950s are a weird time for demographic statistics. See, for example, the long run murder rate on pages 38-39:
http://www.jrsa.org/programs/Historical.pdf
The least safe time to have been alive last century was the 1920s or the period 1975-1995. But how do we explain the 1950s being such an outlier? One plausible, partial explanation is that young men (18-34) are the most likely to commit murder, but many of these men were dead from WW2. Maybe throw in some other sociological explanations as well, but it is clear that this is a time in US history than can’t (and shouldn’t!) be replicated wholesale.
As for Finland, etc., my understanding is that the US has always had higher murder rates than Europe, on average. This is before the Drug War, before Gun Control, before Immigration, stretching back to the 18th century. I haven’t heard any good explanations for this fact, and I’m willing to have it rebutted with data, but that is my understanding.
(Aside: about 10 comments seem to have vanished from this thread. Jeff Tucker, any help?)
“So what caused the 60% increase in child homicide rates? My intuition is that it has a lot do with the Drug War. Not MLK. Not hispanics. Not political correctness or affirmative action (I would love to hear the causal chain which lead you to list these last two!).”
This begs a question. Drugs are illegal for everybody, but as per your thesis, black children are killed at higher rates as a result. I think you are probably right, but I think the cause is a greater percentage of high-T/low-IQ individuals with access to firearms.
Political correctness, which is the mandate of the welfare state, and affirmative action probably do contribute to the problem, as they endow the black community with a permanent sense of grievance and entitlement, blaming anybody but themselves for their condition. The welfare state rushes in to succor these poor victims of white oppression. Black illegitimacy skyrockets as the State displaces the black father, freeing black women from having to select for marketable skills in their breeding partners.
I find it ironic how libertarians become Panglossian progressives in this debate. The State was far smaller in earlier times. There were no civil rights laws, vagrants were chased out of town, no social safety net, no Commerce Department, no minimum wage, no laws against child labor, no Antitrust Division, and on and on. Carden, Tucker et al. are doing some very careful cherry-picking in declaiming the bad old days of limited government as opposed to our gloriously diverse future, presided over by a nuclear-armed central government with libraries full of egalitarian laws and trillions of dollars in transfer payments.
Bingo!
The welfare state was created to keep people subdued and let them life somewhat comfortable lives in near poverty. It was America’s answer to the race riots. Pay them off and they go away and hopefully you earn some more votes in the process.
If you create a system that rewards anti-social behavior and laziness, guess what your getting more of?
I’ve seen plenty of white people behave the same exact way after multiple generations of living off the state. Long term welfare is dehumanizing.
Actually, what the welfare state does to certain communities reminds me of is one of the major prongs in used to subdue the native American population.
“The welfare state was created to keep people subdued and let them life somewhat comfortable lives in near poverty.”
Yes. And further to that point, the welfare state creates a permanent middle class tax farm, raising huge barriers to entry from the middle to the upper classes. It is the elite’s weapon of choice against the bourgeoisie.
“I’ve seen plenty of white people behave the same exact way after multiple generations of living off the state. Long term welfare is dehumanizing.”
Britain is a good example of this, and they are doomed. Charles Murray points out the same thing in ‘The State of White America,’ and no it is not a white nationalist screed.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/04/charles-murray-state-of-white-america.html
The welfare state is nothing less than the warfare state turned in on itself. For Carden to overlook this entirely modern innovation which is responsible for so many of the changes he lauds is a huge blind spot.
Art, I’m with you on all three claims. For one thing, it seems that the claims of idyllic childhood/past have been made in all times and all places. You can read about this in the 1920s, the 1820s, the 1720s, and so on. In fact, you find the claim in medieval writers, and ancient writers too. It seems that morals have always been collapsing, the young are forever losing regard for their elders, the old values are always slipping away etc. I’m not saying that this never happens; on the contrary, I would say that this is always happening, that the course of manners, art, standards etc., is always a complex ebb and flow, in all times and places.
Parents are particularly subject to this as regards their own children and the amazing world they should have — which is a selection biased view of their own childhood plus every other amazing thing they can conjure up. But then there is the reality, and economic tradeoffs you have to consider.
A side anecdote: whenever I feel nostalgia for a more innocent time, a bit of looking shows otherwise. I recently watched a Dragnet episode from the 1960s (or maybe 50s?) and the subject matter shocked and embarrassed me. It was grim and horrible in the most alarming way, so much so that I wouldn’t even dare to report its contents on this blog. So much for family values of the past!
Our job is to live fully in our own times, embrace them and make them better as best we can.
Here’s one anecdote (which we all know is singular for data
.
When I was 6, I got in trouble for singing the “Gimme An F” song from the Woodstock album. My daughter, who is 6, one day after (not public!) school told me, “Little Johnny got in trouble for saying a bad word.” I asked, “What did he say?” She replied “fuh.” She doesn’t even know how to pronounce the f-word.
In my opinion, this is the most difficult thing for anyone to understand – I myself, even though I have read,I don’t know, 20-30 books on libertarianism, cannot properly explain.
Here is is, the summarized version: what the article calls “simpler times”, a time when people died young, worked from a very early age, there was no running water, etc., etc., was also a time when there was very little State intrusion in people’s lives. If you were a farmer in the 1800s, the only government figures you’d ever see were the sheriff, the tax collector, and possibly the mayor on election season.
Now, fast-forward 200 years, a very intrusive State, but every one gets flu shots and a bunch of other vaccines – but there are very few epidemics. There are mandated childcare regulations – children live longer and generally healthier lives. Government gives huge subsidies and tax “incentives” to many industries: every one has running water, electricity, and the newest ipod (or whatever the fashinable toy of the day is).
The standard argument I see is more or less as follows: yes, but in those days inventors and entrepreneurs were everywhere, and quality of life was actually improving. Unfortunately, politicians got in the way and ruined that. But… ruined exactly what? We do have all the amenities today, and many of them would probably not exist if it weren’t for direct government intervention.
Jeff Tucker for one loves to praise the internet and computers – but would we have them if it weren’t for the US goverment’s desire to calculate how to more efficiently drop bombs over its enemies heads? I sincerely don’t know.
Quite honestly, I haven’t really read a good argument (one that people can understand and agree with) to demolish the Hobbesian view – not from Mises, not from Rothbard, not from Hoppe.
You have cause and effects backwards.
Governments and their stoolie intellectuals strive to show how government is responsible for much of the civilization of the world. However they have it 180 degrees backwards.
Individuals working voluntarily create the civilization FIRST. AFTER that happens then the state swoops in, take over the individual’s accomplishments through threat of force, then claim to be responsible for the achievements and creates monuments for itself.
Like ancient times. Trade routes were profitable and were the mixing pots for civilizations. If you look back you will see that strategic areas along the trade routes there were the largest cities of their times. Also these are the centers of the most ancient and powerful states (aka kingdoms). However it was not the state that created the wealth. It was the explorers and merchants that went out and sought the wealth that created the basis for the great cities. The states took a portion of the wealth for themselves. The states were the parasites and used confiscated wealth created by others to build monuments to themselves.
That is we succeed despite the state, not because of it. It’s unfortunate, but true, the more successful we get as a country the bigger the state we can successfully support. The more laws we can afford to tolerate, the more foreign wars we can provide people and material for, and the more graft and corruption we can support. A society of the 200 years ago simply could not support the government we have today. The state will continue to swell until it’s weight destroys the economy.
Unfortunately history shows that the state will grow increasingly violent and despotic as it seeks to maintain itself with a ever shrinking tax base after the country begins it’s increasingly rapid decline. That is the rulers refused to adjust and will continue to use force to maintain the size and influence of the state regardless of the economic damage to society. Thus empires inevitably collapse back onto themselves and a ever deepening cycles of destruction set it.
@nate-m
Yep, you have it exactly right!
Thanx!
nate-m:
“With that logic if we fill America with Europeans it becomes Europe. I hope to God that doesn’t happen. Europe is going to be a cesspool in a few years.”
Secular, liberal Europe will be Muslim and patriarchal in a few years. But that’s if their lucky, because actually I don’t think the banlieues will do much for civil society when the Great Social Democratic Money Spigot goes dry.
What America was from its founding until the 1965 Immigration Reform Act was around 90% Anglo-Celt. America’s mother country had birthed the traditions of common law and lex rex, traditions which carried over into America’s founding. The Continent went in entirely the other direction: positive law and rex lex, culminating in Jacobinite rule.
I too don’t want to see America become more ‘European’ but that is where we are headed, and like Europe itself it gets worse from there.
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