Quote:
Originally Posted by sinjefe
It seems to me that they are saying that politicians who are like this aren't doing it for nefarious reasons but because they want to stay in power and, in this case, they want their party to stay in power and the way to do it is to re-distribute wealth in what is really a vote buying effort. The second and third ordr effct happens to be poverty inducing.
At least, that was the way I read it.
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Has there ever been political party in American history that did not seek to stay in power and use patronage as a means to do so?
FWIW, my reading of the piece is that Glaeser has a myopic understanding of the roles race, ethnicity, and class have played in American political history. Moreover, he strikes me as a person who has accepted uncritically the notion of American Exceptionalism without engaging intensely the other sides of the dice. (Melting place for some, smelting furnace for others.)
Professor Glaeser also strikes me as something of a race baiter. By his account, Boston would never have had a race problem were it not for guys like Curley.* Moreover, Detroit, a American city populated by Americans, is comparable to a third world city because of the skin color of those Americans.
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* The opening vignette of the British soldier should raise twenty foot high flags for all readers. A foreign national attempted to convince Americans to violate American neutrality before the U.S. entered one of its least popular wars and yet somehow Curley is the bad guy. Balls.