RSSPoor Production
I want to add a new word to your vocabulary. I was trying to figure out if the Military-Industrial Complex and the Prison-Industrial Complex were the same thing, or a different thing. And it hit me: They are both part of one larger “Industrial Complex.” And that is the “Poverty-Industrial Complex.”
For every Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy that ends up in prison (for doing unspeakably evil things), or for every John Kerry that enlists in the military (despite a position of privilege, he wanted to serve our country), there has to be untold thousands of good kids who were never given a fair shake.
It’s no secret that military recruiters always choose poor neighborhoods over affluent ones to find new recruits. After all, the poor have limited options. They can’t afford to go to college and get a legitimate high-paying job; and if they want to make serious money, the easiest option is to sell drugs, which, of course, puts them at risk to end up in prison.
The original G.I. Bill of 1944 paid for full college tuition, books, housing and living expenses, and as a result, a generation of young men got high-paying jobs and every dollar that was put into the G.I. Bill got a 7-to-1 return on the investment. Today’s G.I. Bill pays for about 6% of a college education. We are failing our soldiers. We are keeping them down even after they have served our country.
If we look at what works, we could have a much lower crime rate if we invested in policies like Head Start, or rehab clinics, or, readily available birth control and even access to abortions that have been shown to lower crime rate. We could also just stop incarcerating people for having the disease of being addicted to drugs, or stop locking up recreational marijuana users entirely, but, we don’t.
The goal of the government programs is not to help the most number of people, but for the elites to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, or distract us from knowing that wealth transfer is taking place. The Poverty-Industrial Complex thrives when poor people accept positions as cannon fodder, or button-pushers, or resort to crime to feed their family, and end up in prison.
Karl Marx said:
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers.
Or, as I would put it:
The working class is getting fucked. The reason they are getting fucked is that wages are being kept down because someone out there can always do the same job they do, and that second worker comes from an area with an even lower standard of living, and will accept wages that are lower than the first worker. Meanwhile, the boss, who at least claims that he can do the job that the laborer can’t, is getting rich.
So, we create the poor, and then we exploit them.
Why does this happen? The simple answer is that an industrialized economy needs the poor. Or, at least some versions of an industrialized economy need the poor.
The elites need the rest of us to be afraid of something, whether it’s fear for our safety and our lives, fear for our job and our ability to care for our family, or fear from some invented or exaggerated boogyman. That fear keeps us looking over our shoulder when we should be raising ourselves up.
8 Comments, Comment or Ping
Malia
Applause…applause!!!!! Marvelous piece R. Pepper!!!! Wow, thanks for enlightening all of us. We definitely are creating poverty and we are creating new and inventive crimes as well. This is definitely a global issue that then trickles down to governmental, community and lands right here on our own door step. Let’s not forget we are losing our homes!!!! The real estate bubble has burst and we’re in deep shyt!!! There are now millions of people holding notes on houses that are more expensive than their homes are worth. People gambled on borrowing more than they could pay because they thought in a year or two the house’s value would increase and they could “flip” the house and make a tidy little profit, as they were told by those sleazy, late-night TV, “get rich quick” schemes. Now they are paying mortgages way above their current liquid income. And hence there are more foreclosures than have been seen in a generation. And hence banks are holding notes to overpriced homes they’ll never be able to resell….
Hello, recession.
[Reply]
alwayswrite
I know, right, Malia? Good piece and hello recession. Poverty is created and maintained in order to perpetuate itself. And the military-industrial complex and prison-industrial complex stem from the poverty-industrial complex. I’ll say it again: “Money makes the world go ’round.”
[Reply]
troublsome
You are exactly right the economy definitely needs the poor. I can remember the army recruiters coming to my high school and attacking the minorities and because a good majority of the time we feel that there is no other outlet; we take the offer just to say that we are doing something. I wrote a piece some time ago on Troubl called “Home Sweet Homeless” putting emphasis on the amount of U.S citizens who fought for our country and end up homeless when they finish their term, and believe it or not the statistics are crazy.
We do create the poor, and then exploit them. “It’s a shame”
[Reply]
KV27
First of all, great article. The elite want to stretch their dollars out for every single penny by sending out tons of jobs to third world countries even if its at the expense of the economy and more importantly the working class. Then when the working class try to pull themselves out whether through legit means (military) or illegit means (crime). The elite find a way to keep them down either back sending them back out to war,by not offering the same benefits former Military vets were given, or by sending them to jail.
[Reply]
RBT
Fuck military recruiters, why do they always set up shop in poor neighborhoods such as the the bronx and of at atlantic ave in brooklyn where they know there are impoverished minority groups especially males I feel like a target they want us to fight their bullshit war with promises of money and a college education that they don’t fulfill. People need to realize they need to pimp the system instead of letting the system them It’s Possible!
[Reply]
Malia
RBT —–
I agree with what you are saying but I also have to say that the military has put four of my cousins through college. They fought for their country and they stayed out of prison, learned a trade and now have college degrees and well paying jobs. My family is poor, so the military was an option for them. I’m not condoning the military recruiting the black community and putting us on the front-line, but I do know that it gives a brother a better chance at life than surviving in the concrete jungle, polluted with MORE poverty, violence, drugs, gangs, etc. Alot of these boys (yes boys) have dropped out of high school so they have no education, they have no skill set, they have no family structure, they have no role models, so what options do they have?
[Reply]
RBT
Im not necessarily condoning the military I mean we do live n this country and we do need some form of protection history tells us that and it sounds like your cousins had limited option and used the ones they had to better their lives(thats pimpin the system) however they put too many poor young men of many colors on the front line for these bullshit wars putting their lifes on the line and often telling them to take innocent lives that doesnt sit well with me morally. The military isnt what it used to be like Rob said its now an industrial complex that we as americans have spent over a trillion dallars on in less than a decade.Everybody’s pockets feeling that except the small sector of society that owns all these companies that are fueling the thing.
[Reply]
Boosy
Unfortunately the military can go att youths of color because they are poor and in most cases already in the system..
[Reply]
Reply to “Poor Production”
SEE ALSO
♦ TROUBLsome - Home Sweet Homeless
November 13, 2007
♦ TROUBLMan - Bushy
March 6, 2008
♦ Lag - Crack Down
July 25, 2008
♦ Terry - Fuck the Troops
April 10, 2008
♦ Terry - Fuck the Troops pt.2
April 16, 2008