3 comments

1. 
   

   Does not say much about the book – what is its content?

   As for the lessons for America of a post apartheid South Africa……. Well the first lesson that springs to mind is try to avoid a bunch like the ANC coming to power, the statism of the National Party (denounced by W.H. Hutt in the “Economics of the Colour Bar” back in the 1950s – and going back to the “Rand Revolt” when the racists went to the gallows singing the “Red Flag” and the Communists were still saying “workers unite and save a white South Africa” before they switched to backing the blacks in the late 1920s) was replaced by the statism of the ANC – true not the full on socialism of the Orwellian named “Freedom Charter” of 1950s (which made even the National Party look like the lesser evil – in spite of its hatred of the “English” “capitalists”), but a horribly corrupt statist mess.

   In America this was never likely (regardless of how black people voted) – in the 1960s blacks were about 10% of the population, not 80% or 90% as they were in South Africa in the 1980s. Also the legal situation was different – for example officially blacks did have the vote, even in the South, there were just lots and lots of hidden barriers “you want to vote – read and explain these sections of the Constitution of Tennessee” – “but those white people were not asked this question” “it is a random test – it just happens that we have picked you, we can not test everyone……” and if anyone said “you do not allow black people to vote” local governments could always find a few black people they had allowed to vote (say the professors at the local black university, or the local ministers of religion) and say “yes we have – here are the black voters”.

   As for “Jim Crow” (separate toilets, hotels and so on) this had only really become popular in the 1890s in some Southern States (and not just Southern ones) and was part of the Populist (south) and Progressive (north) movement – people knew that Jim Crow had not always existed and the sky would not fall if it no longer existed.

   As for the cities…….

   Here there have been problems, partly because the black population have CULTURALLY changed (nothing to do with “race”). The conservative population of the 1940s and 1950s (most blacks were Republicans – half the black vote went for Nixon even as late as 1960, and that includes areas where there were no barriers to black voting, it was not a “class” thing) was replaced by a radicalised culture of the 1960s (which continues to this day) obsessed with slavery (it had ended a century before) and feeling that every problem was the fault of “oppression”, the collapse of such cultural institutions as the family (now happening among white Americans – and white British people) happened among blacks some decades before – in the 1940s blacks had strong families, in the 1960s there was full on cultural breakdown (this can NOT be explained by genetics, by biological race, a couple of decades is simply not long enough to for biological evolution to have a real effect). The real problem was a change in culture – Marxists (normally white – at first, till they had trained up black Marxists) had gone out into the “black community” over a period of years, pushing as much hatred and social and cultural collapse as they could. And in the 1960s the Federal government actually started to subsidise the Marxist “community organisers” (and so on) – blissfully unaware that the people they were paying in, say, New York City had the same ideology as the forces they were fighting in Vietnam.

   The chief targets of organisations as the “Black Panthers” in the 1960s were not white – they were local black businessmen and so on (the old leadership of the community in various cities). The media utterly missed the real story – who the primary targets of the riots in northern cities in the 1960s really were.

   Have cities such as Birmingham Alabama benefitted from the political reality? Did Detroit (in the north) benefit from it?

   Sadly it is impossible to discuss these questions honestly – without false charges that one supports Jim Crow and so on.

   My position is simple – voters must be responsible for their own actions, regardless of the skin colour of the voters.

   If voters (or whatever “race”) vote for wild spending policies in a city – that city must be allowed to collapse, to go bankrupt (to really go bankrupt). No bailouts, and no “regional policy” – as, for example, “Al Jazeera” (oh yes they stick their nose in – the natural gas pipe that calls itself a country has strongly “Progressive” “Social Justice” views that it pushes about all parts of the world) demands.

   “But then the people will have no public services”.

   Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

   Only then will voters learn to be responsible – when they suffer the consequences of their own folly. And this applies to voters of any “race”.

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   • 
     

     I’ve got one bone to pick with Mr. Marks:
     “If voters (or whatever “race”) vote for wild spending policies in a city – that city must be allowed to collapse, to go bankrupt (to really go bankrupt).”

     Collapse is fine, but not bankruptcy. Whatever our corrupt courts may say, the application of the federal bankruptcy statutes to municipal corporations is clearly unconstitutional. Yes, the Constitution delegates to Congress the power to make uniform national rules for bankruptcy; but it doesn’t even do that, allowing such matters as “homestead exemptions” to be a matter under control of the several states.

     To be part of a uniform rule, the national legislation would have to treat municipal corporations like any other corporation. Instead, the federal law says that a municipal corporation can be brought under the bankruptcy laws only when the state which chatered it will permit. There is no power of the state to cover any other form of corporation with its immunity from bankruptcy proceedings. Of course, the national legislation cannot treat municipal corporations as mere corporations because it is settled law that such corporations are, with respect to the national government, mere extensions of the states and not truly independent subjects of national legislative power.

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     • 
       

       O.K. then – cities and States can not legally go bankrupt. But if they can not pay their debts no one will lend them money any more.

       Indeed, if it was not for the special tax treatment of local, State and Federal debt paper, I doubt any private person would lend them money in the first place.

       Invest in a productive enterprise and you get taxed through the nose. Lend money to government to blow in wild spending – and you do not get taxed (not in the same way).

       Sound fair to you?

       And whilst we are on the subject…..

       Why should all these rich “liberals” in New York City and California be able to offset their State and local taxes, so they only pay Federal income tax on what income is left?

       If they like high taxes (and they say they DO) then they should pay them – all of them.

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