×
POVERTY HEARTS NYC. All the way out there in New Yawk City, Mayor Mike Bloomberg is apparently getting serious about poverty. He's giving pay-for-responsibility policies a serious try, creating obvious and immediate financial incentives positive behavior among the poor. So folks will get paid for showing up to school, making medical appointments, getting good grades, and all the rest. It's an approach with pretty genuine promise and a long and successful track record. Richer folks, for instance, use it all the time. But they call it an allowance, and no one bats an eye. Heather Mac Donald, however, has apparently forgotten this, and has a rather pessimistic take on Bloomberg's plans, praising them for finally admitting that the poor are at fault, but fretting that:
It will inevitably set up an expectation among the underclass that they have a right to cash for simply conforming to the norms of civil society. The list of responsible behaviors for which bounties will be offered will inevitably grow. Not just attending classes, but refraining from hitting your teacher, not bringing a gun to school, showing up for an exam, taking your child to be vaccinated, bathing your kids and feeding them - all will be candidates for a bribe.And what is the end-game? The mayor has not said how he proposes to wean off the subsidized poor from the inevitable pay-me-or-else mentality, nor how he'll determine who gets paid for behaving in personally responsible ways and who has to act responsibly "for free."Yikes. That's some confidence in good behavior Mac Donald has, to believe that once folks are socialized into being functioning members of the working class, they'll find the rewards inadequate and lapse into ghetto pathologies absent the lure of paltry financial prizes. If acting in a fashion consistent with the expectations of society doesn't produce a better life and rapid rewards, maybe there's a problem with our economy and culture that's not, in fact, the fault of the poor but is nevertheless denying them the incentives that made, say, my efforts to work hard and make appointments worthwhile.Mac Donald then goes on the tired tear about how subversive and totally taboo it is to promote marriage, blah blah blah. Maybe that was the case a few decades ago, but as she notes, Bloomberg's panel actually recommended promoting marriage. John Edwards routinely makes it a part of his stump speeches. Brookings releases endless papers on the subject. There's nothing sadder than someone still seeking rebel cred by backing a now-mainstream idea.
