AH UTOPIA!! How we wish you were real. We all do, honestly, but only some of us know that you don't, and can't, exist. Others, well, not so much.
If you've ever read Karl Marx',"The Communist Manifesto," or Saul Alinsky's, "Rules for Radicals," you already know that the only acceptable end is "Utopia;" however, if you've never read Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations," or Paul Krugman's, "Economics," you don't really understand why it's unachievable. And that is where we find ourselves as a society.
Our educational system has been teaching out of the first two for decades at this point, but have been almost fully neglecting the latter, and we wonder why we have such economic illiteracy in our country, but I digress. This is why so many young people today believe that the Utopian society is just around the corner. Just like so many Russians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Venezuelans, and North Koreans did prior to their Marxist takeovers.
You see, even a Kenesian economist know that there are certain human factors that come into play in the world of economics. That's why the fully socialist utopia will never be achievable. You simply cannot remove from some people the desire to be ahead and from others the desire to do as little as possible in order to enjoy life. They are contradictory ideas, and they are just as much responsible for life situations as the economic model.
Now, why am I even writing this? Those who will likely read this already know these things, and those who don't, likely won't read it. Well, we can always hope can't we?
Lost in one of the latest "controversies" over Trump's tweet about protecting the suburban areas from the onslaught of low income housing is an inconvenient political truth that no one wants to talk about, and one that the politically correct crowd reject with loud vocal torrents. That is, that since the introduction of low income housing, and the forcing of it into "better neighborhoods," we have witnessed time and again the killing of whatever neighborhood it is introduced into. It's not hard to find the truth, but no one, on either side, really wants to talk about it. It's a political poison pill with no good outcomes.
That is why there is such an outcry against Trump's statement. He dared to talk about that which neither side wants to talk about. The decay of neighborhoods and the fear that those who live in those neighborhoods feel when they hear that their neighborhood is being targeted for a new "development." They know history, even if they don't want to talk about it out loud or in public.
In fact, the entire reason why there ARE suburbs is in response to the low income housing projects, which started in New York City, in the 1930s. By the time the 1940s rolled around, the movement of the middle class out of these neighborhoods was in full swing, and by the 1950s, most of those neighborhoods were completely filled with low income residents. Property values were decimated and many people lost much of their life's savings as, for many of them like us, most of their wealth was tied up in their home equity, which disappeared right before their eyes.
As someone who's been involved in social services for the majority of my life, I've seen what often comes with these movements of people. Low income housing comes in, crime rates go up, property values go down, and since people know that it's coming, and they have the means to do so, they attempt to move as quickly as possible rendering a neighborhood unable to sustain the things that made it an attractive neighborhood to begin with such as local businesses, better schools, better funded police / fire services, or better funded parks et al.
It's no different than what's happening in California or New York right now, you continue to press on the wealthy, or in this case middle class, and then you're shocked when they move out. It continues to happen, people continue to move, while others continue to be shocked. At some point, you wonder why people continue to be shocked. You know, we only have 70 YEARS of history to show us what happens. But you see, that leads us to the biggest problem with the continued moving of low income housing into, "better neighborhoods." It deals with the symptoms because dealing with the illness is not politically correct. Rather than helping low income communities with things like property restoration grants, targeted business stimulus packages, entrepreneurship classes, and financial literacy seminars, we decide that that's too much to burden them with, it's just easier to move them into a better neighborhood.
Except it doesn't stay that way. History has shown us that for 70 years now. And yet, we keep trying it, keep having the same result, and then wonder why. That is literal insanity, yet, recommend that we try something else and you're a horrible evil racist who just wants to hate on the poor and downtrodden. I know many people don't like Trump, as I've said before I don't, but my personal dislike for the man doesn't make him wrong, and an inability to see that is going to hurt the left, and badly.
You see, Trump isn't wrong. The majority of those suburban dwelling Americans are in fact terrified of seeing this happen to them. They don't want to move, they don't want their lives upended, but yet that's what will happen to them, and they know it. So yes, he is speaking the truth. He will "save" them, even if you don't consider such an action salvation.
You see, the utopian dream of rich and poor living together, in houses right next to each other, rubbing elbows, and inviting each other over for dinner? Yeah, it's just that, a dream. If all of those countries couldn't do it, why would they think we can? But it doesn't matter, the only thing that matter is that we can say that we tried in a politically correct way. Outcomes and consequences be darned.
You see, Utopia is impossible, because you can't change people. You can move them, rearrange them, take from some and give to others, but all of these actions are just a band-aid on that gushing wound (if you see it as a wound). The only way to suture it and to really heal it would be to solve the inequity of persons, not conditions, and you can't do that without admitting first that there's a difference in them and their actions. In admitting that there's a difference, you admit that there is a personal responsibility component to the situation, and then you're right back where you started. Needing to fix that.
I could write a pile of books on how the human condition makes Utopia untenable, but then again, why would I when there is already so much good literature out there on the subject that is time tested and proven over and over again. Marxism doesn't work, it never has, and it never will, because Marxism can't change people, it can only attempt to change the situations in which they find themselves.
And that never lasts, because people are stubborn, and a people do as a person does. So the cycle repeats, unending, unbroken, for 70 years. To the point where these cities are "revitalizing" downtown because they've moved all of these low income projects out to the suburbs and now the middle class and wealthy are moving back into downtowns and revitalizing them.
Yet now there's talk of these low income housing ares being too far, too run down, with too little access to the things that they need. So they're looking to bring the low income projects back downtown. And the cycle continues.
And it will. It's never ending because we won't accept the reality of human differences leading to different outcomes. This box waltz that we've been doing since the 1930s hasn't changed. We'll keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. It's Insanity, pure and simple.
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