tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35248477.post5573825960945657935..comments2024-03-27T14:20:05.905-04:00Comments on Montclair SocioBlog: Class and VirtueJay Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06652075579940313964noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35248477.post-88654940752814742552012-02-14T14:24:38.911-05:002012-02-14T14:24:38.911-05:00Jake, I don’t think that liberals disdain efforts ...Jake, I don’t think that liberals disdain efforts like the ones you mention. Liberals are all descended from Saul Alinsky, and giving people a greater sense of agency is what Alinsky was all about. And the Kenyan Socialist was himself, like Alinsky, a Chicago-based community organizer.<br /><br />Murray is probably right that poor people would be better off if they were more virtuous. That was probably true in Dickensian London. But there’s also the question of how steep the gradient of rewards for virtue is. If a whole lot of virtue makes you only slightly better off than your unvirtuous peers, you may decide that it’s not worth it.<br /><br />I also wonder about which is more important – the effect of virtue on economic situation or the effect of economics on virtue. In the 1990s, unemployment was low, and wages were rising. So was virtue. Crime, illegitimacy, and other indicators of lack of virtue were declining. (I know only about national data. I’m not sure if this was applied to the white working class, but I would expect the trends to be the same there.) Could Murray have written this same book in 2000?Jay Livingstonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06652075579940313964noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35248477.post-89172813866812990512012-02-13T19:16:56.787-05:002012-02-13T19:16:56.787-05:00The "pay no mind to stagnant wages" part...The "pay no mind to stagnant wages" part of Murray's argument is wrongheaded, but liberal commentators on his book have consistently overshot the mark. Norms matter. People repond to immaterial incentives as surely as they do to material ones, and moral entrepreneurship has a role to play in empowering people to fight for what's theirs. Consider the Nation of Islam or Harlem Children's Zone. Both seek to undo some of the cultural damage done by the market and racist oppression, and in the process give formerly disempowered people a greater sense of agency. This is a necessary precondition for people to stand up to oppression. Unless it's just liberal academics and elites who'll be storming the barricades, we should be taking seriously the useful parts of Murray's book rather than just dismissing it wholesale as reactionary claptrap.Jakenoreply@blogger.com