tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2080753006491117854.post4497912951339764796..comments2024-01-16T08:28:12.494-08:00Comments on I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE: Believe in Inequality? Why, I've Seen It Done!aimaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03956073425680585780noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2080753006491117854.post-38274050644357275522015-04-02T10:08:25.034-07:002015-04-02T10:08:25.034-07:00What's fascinating to me is just how naturaliz...What's fascinating to me is just how naturalized inequality is in the world of view of so many today. They cannot imagine a world that isn't a function of capital interests.northierthanthouhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04831362921459744537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2080753006491117854.post-20976663063321013962014-05-03T11:19:52.245-07:002014-05-03T11:19:52.245-07:00Yes, I didn't read that study but I remember w...Yes, I didn't read that study but I remember when it came out and I saw the back of the book blurbs and reviews. This rather goes to the point we are always arguing with libertarians--that you can't get back behind the stuff you inherited or the world you live in to really ever make the argument that you are a "self made" man who owes nothing to no one. Very small differences in wealth, or access to wealth, or education, or even safety can snowball over time and produce vast differences between descendants of groups of people who started out, seemingly, quite similar w/r/t these things. Let alone between groups of people who belong to identifiable ethnic, racial, or caste groups with different laws applying to them.aimaihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03956073425680585780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2080753006491117854.post-89637135160983410262014-05-03T08:51:17.731-07:002014-05-03T08:51:17.731-07:00I was just reading some work by Thomas Shapiro, a ...I was just reading some work by Thomas Shapiro, a Brandeis sociologist, that this reminded me of. Shapiro and Melvin Oliver looked at the black-white wealth gap in America in the late 20th century, and it's very relevant to this idea of capital on an individual/familial level.<br /><br />Basically, Shapiro's argument is that one huge reason whites have a huge financial advantage is housing: we know that various forms of housing discrimination (redlining, buying on installment, mortgage lending, tons of things) made housing unaffordable or more expensive; white flight from even not-very-high-minority black neighborhoods lowered home values and reduced equity. All together a huge destruction of potential wealth--Oliver and Shapiro, in 1996, calculated that black homeowners had lost $82 *billion* in wealth between slower appreciation, high interest rates, and mortgage unavailability. Slower appreciation was the big one: the typical black homeowner's home increased in value much less compared to the typical white family's house in the second half of the 20th century.<br /><br />We also know that the increase in housing prices during that period makes up a big portion of boomers' wealth. And Shapiro shows how big a difference that makes for the next generation. I forget the specific numbers, but it's something like one-half of white homeowners get assistance from their parents to buy a home, and something like one-fifth of black homeowners--there's just a lot less wealth to transfer to the next generation.<br /><br />So even if you assume that we took care of the whole housing discrimination thing (a bad assumption--see mortgage lending--though obviously there's been progress), that capital advantage gets handed down from when housing discrimination was a lot more prevalent and extreme.Whetstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10023702953449966191noreply@blogger.com