Don't Eat Your Dog: The Surprising Moral Case for Free Enterprise

Dr. Mr. Brooks,

Just watched your presentation on "don't eat your dog." Several presumptions underlie your argument, namely. everyone starts the same and has the same chance; and if you work hard, you will succeed (I propose the cartoon student in your presentation wtih the "F" grade is working 1. 7 jobs and trying to go to school---not a lazy free loader). You discuss true fairness, hard work and earned success. I would love to provide a different perspective. I come from the deepest poverty in America, generational poverty. My grandparents and my parents were cotton pickers who worked 16 hour days in temporary, seasonal, minimum wage jobs until their bodies gave out. In spite of working hard, they never "earned success." We were constantly evicted, laid off about the time they were due a raise, hungry, and without health care. In the U.S. the belief is that if you work hard, you will move up. Bureau of labor statistics say otherwise. A person who takes a minimum wage job as an uneducated, unskilled worker is found earning on average $2.00 more after working 10 years. If they work another 15 years, the average increase in their income will be 25 cents. That's 25 years of working hard and still getting evicted. Hard work is not a variable listed on the labor statistics site for what increases income. If it were, we would have to explain who works harder, the person cleaning the hotel rooms or the person teaching a class. A migrant laborer or a person in their cubicle. Children and adults living in poverty are the LEAST likely to get an education or a skill. They do not have the luxury of stability, nutrition, and mentors to guide them through an educational system. Everyone knows you can go to any town in America and ask a realitor where they good schools are. That means we know there are children not getting a "FAIR" shot.

You discuss welfare being shoved in the faces of people in poverty derailing them from leading productive lives. My welfare check for myself, a six year old and a two year old in 1986, was $408. My rent in a house that was broke into five times in a four month period, where my car was hit and run and my cousin nearly raped in one of the breakdowns, was $395. When I got an eviction notice, welfare notified me I was being mandated to a money management class. Today, the national average welfare check for one adult and two children is $478. HUD did a housing affordability study and found NO where in the U.S. can a person earning minimum wage afford a modest two bedroom apartment (national average rent for two bedroom apt. $750). The average disability check is $650 per month. If you have an additional child while on welfare, 23 states offer zero cash assistance for newborn babies. The states that do offer support for a new baby give on average $60 per month. The average disability check is $650 per month. People simply do not have the capacity or luxury to learn a skill, get an education, start a business. They can't ask their parents, because they too are out of salt and butter.

I do agree that people feel better when they are earning their way. Most people living in poverty in our contry are working (accordint to Census 2/3 are working more than one job). What the definition of fair? I love the quote, the greatest injustice is to treat unequals, equal. Some people are born to educated, land owning parents. Others are born without a pillow to lay their head on. We have enough land, food, and resources to ensure all our citizens develop to their fullest potential (at the height of the recession, we spent 72 billion on hand sanitzers...we spent 33 billion on pet toys...we spend 34k per person to cage humans for one year (we are now number one in the world for putting humans in cages and guess what...most can not read at 8th grade level--poverty poverty poverty).

check out my book for authentic ways to assist our neighbors in moving out and staying out of the war zone of poverty...www.combarriers.com