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ZorbaTHut  3yr ago (text post)   37078 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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The "irredeemable criminal" hypothesis may be interesting to discuss, but "drug dealers" are very, very bad example for that category. Most of low-level dealers aren't different from grocery store clerks - they just find whatever work they can get that pays their wages. Yes, the stuff they sell is illegal, but so what? It's just circular logic - it's bad because it's illegal, and illegal because it's bad. They are certainly not "impossible to reform" - in fact, for most of them there's not much to reform, if they had any other hustle that as available and profitable as this, but safer, they'd switch in a minute and never look back. They're certainly not "lifelong criminals" you're looking for, even though in fact they could very well spend the life on the wrong side of the law. They don't do it because of love of violence, they do it because it's the easy way - or at least one that looks easy.

Many drugs are bad because they cause addiction and death, there's nothing circular about that at all.

Many substances can cause addiction and death. They are arbitrarily classified into categories, without any regard to their actual danger (marijuana/THC/CBD is considered more dangerous than barbiturates, alcohol and nicotine, for example) and "societal danger" is assigned on the basis of that arbitrary classification, which is subsequently erased from consideration by using umbrella term "drugs" to cover the whole spectrum as if it were all the same and contained category.

While drug dealing is more common in deprived areas, drug dealers tend to earn slightly less than the average wage iirc. Agreed that drug dealers are a bad case of unredeemable criminals; it’s simply why the death penalty was on my mind. Just saying that becoming a drug dealer is not a rational economic decision.

The real issue is a culture of criminality, but the skin colour of those it originates with is enough to put that beyond the pale.

Just saying that becoming a drug dealer is not a rational economic decision.

You cannot conclude this just based on the fact that they are making less money that they could in a normal job -- unless, that is, "rational economic decision" is equated with "making the most money possible", preferences be damned.

Here's the thing: many people will simply find a job of dealing drugs to be more preferable than, say, cutting chicken all day long. I mean, think about what a typical drug dealer is actually doing when he's performing his job. If he's a street dealer, he just hangs out at a street corner all day long, shooting shit with his friends passing by, watching youtube on his phone when bored etc. If he deals out of his home, that's even better: you just hang out at your home, can play XBox all day long, you just have to answer the door every now and then. If you're delivering, it's basically same as dealing out of home, but answering calls just takes longer. In any case, either of the above is way more preferable than having your hands elbow deep in animal guts eight hours a day, or hustling in McD kitchen. Think about it: assume that legal risk is negligible. Would you prefer to serve an occasional customer from out of your home for $7/hour, or stock shelves for $8?

Now, I assume that the studies finding that drug-dealing income is often below minimum wage actually do it after taxes and transfers: note that you don't have to pay Social Security on income made from drug dealing, and it's easier to qualify for and get higher payouts from SNAP/TANF/SSI etc if your over-the-counter income is zero. This is minimum level of competency I'd expect from researchers in academia. Now that I think of, however, I am reminded of the fact that the entire notion of growing income inequality in US in recent decades is entirely false, built upon foundation of ignoring taxes and transfers, which tremendously reduce actual consumption inequality. If they can fail (or, less charitably, lie) at something so basic, they can also be similarly full of shit here as well.

Very good point as well.

I, too, have read that street dealers make minimum wage or less (don't know if that factors in taxes). But whether it is a rational economic decision depends on whether there are opportunities for legitimate work available. The unemployment rate for African Americans 16-19, for example, is substantially higher than that of the country as a whole, and of course that only includes those in the labor force; discouraged workers are additional.

How much externalities does drug dealing impose? Increased crime in vicinity? Probably not that much unless there are turf wars. This is why making drugs legal can fix this, by eliminating that problem of competing drug dealers/gangs. But then you end up with the increased costs such as healthcare of dealing with people who take too many drugs and either overdose or cannot function in society.

increased costs such as healthcare of dealing with people who take too many drugs

That'd be a valid argument if those people didn't do exactly the same right now. It's not like it's completely impossible to get drugs - any major city, like San Francisco, has open and well-known drug markets operating, and the authorities pretty much has long ago given up on doing something about it. They still can arbitrarily arrest people for it, but nobody is under an illusion that anything will make any dent into the availability of any drugs.

Do you consider overdose deaths a negative externality of drug dealing? Overdose death is the number one cause of death for Americans aged 18-49. Do the drug dealers who cut their products with imprecise amounts of fentanyl have any responsibility there?

Yes, the stuff they sell is illegal, but so what? It's just circular logic - it's bad because it's illegal, and illegal because it's bad.

Agree more broadly, but I don't think this is true. Most people can articulate why selling heroin is worse than selling sandwiches.

Can they articulate why selling marijuana is worse than selling vodka?

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