Detroit: a vision of the future?

By Neil Patrick

Not many people know that in the 1950’s Detroit was the fourth largest city in the US.

But almost everyone knows that the city is now bankrupt.

The mainstream media is focused on the crazy legal merry go round that has ensued in the wake of this collapse.

But a city is not really an entity on its own, although bureaucrats may find it more convenient to organize it that way. A city is the sum of all the people and lives it contains. And in the case of Detroit, these lives have been wrecked in varying degrees, not only directly by the bankruptcy, but also by the massive collapse of the government services which resulted from it.

I wonder if in the late 20th century, we had presented people with the reality of the condition of Detroit today, anyone would have taken it seriously? I rather suspect that the majority view would be something like, ‘Oh, that could never happen here’.

But it has and to my mind it presents a terrifying premonition of what the future might look like for many other cities in the US and other western countries. The UK already has what I would call it’s own ‘mini-Detroits’.

The bottom line is that if you worked or are working for any Detroit public organisation, you are unlikely to ever see more than a tiny fraction of your pension rights actually materialize.

But this isn’t just an issue in Detroit.

You may be surprised to discover that 61 other cities in the US have a gap of more than $217bn in unfunded pension liabilities. That's right $217 billion!

And I’d like someone to tell us where that money is going to be found.

You might be tempted to think along the lines of, ‘Oh yes , my city is different, because…’ (add your excuse(s) of choice here). But is it really? Really?

The collapse of Detroit is multi-faceted. Of course it all began with the decline in the fortunes of the US car manufacturing giants based there. And there was corruption, and racial tensions, and a vicious circle of increasing government spending to try and prop things up, delivering worse and worse results, leading to yet more spending. And an exodus of the middle classes, in other words, the ones who contributed the biggest slice of the revenues that government uses to pay for things.

What can we do to protect ourselves from this type of risk to our lives? Well there are three groups of people who are not only unscathed, they are actually doing rather well in Detroit right now.

That’s urban redevelopment bosses, politicians. And lawyers.

Choose your poison.

And if you’re not scared enough already, just watch this to see the full HD version of a really scary movie about the tragedy of Detroit courtesy of Stefan Molyneux at Freedomainradio.com

Why you are unemployed

By Neil Patrick

This morning, I have been catching up with Stefan Molyneux. In case you don’t know him, he is the host of Freedomain Radio, which is billed as ‘the most popular philosophy show in the world’.

Here is part 2 of his series of broadcasts, entitled, ‘Why you are unemployed’.

If you are unemployed, you may not care very much why, just what you can do to change it. So, if this is how you feel, I’ll save you wasting your time and suggest you don’t watch the film below (or even bother to read the rest of this post). There are no solutions or tips here about how you can change your situation. I've posted plenty of more practical advice about this elsewhere on this blog.

But if you want to get some thought provoking ideas about why jobs are getting scarcer and why the US is struggling to create well paid jobs, there are answers, or at the very least hypotheses to be found here.

And these are not the usual suspects like greed and corruption. Or QE and state subsidies of banks. Or even the damaging effects of low cost overseas labor. Stefan makes the point and it’s persuasive I think, that greed and corruption have always been part of human behaviour and they are no more prevalent today than they were in previous generations when professional working people in the US could expect a much better standard of living. It seems fair to assume that something else is at work today.

Stefan Molyneux
 Credit: Frank Licorice

I certainly agree with him that the idea that we live in freedom is a complete myth. If we were truly free, would we be sent to jail if we didn't pay our taxes? If we were free, would we be forced to adhere to the endless rules that our governments impose upon every aspect of the lives of honest hard working people?

Stefan has been described as an anarcho-capitalist philosopher. This means that he supports the free market as the best way of efficiently (and fairly) distributing wealth throughout society. The anarcho bit relates to his beliefs that state interventions in people’s live should be minimized and that the roots of all our problems today lie in over-extended state power and its endless appetite to extract wealth from citizens in the form of taxation and control. He sees this as a vicious circle that has got completely out of hand. He believes that our governments in the US and the west in general have become defacto fascist empires. And like all empires, they exert control and protect their power through the exertion of violence. Not necessarily bloody violence within their borders, but repression nevertheless in the form of taxes, coercion and the threat of imprisonment.

So watching this won’t help you get a job. It might though give you some new ideas about WHY you can’t get one and help you appreciate why it really isn't your fault.

Stefan claims that philosophers are not interested in supporting any political position. That they are only interested in finding the truth. I’ll let you decide for yourself whether or not you think THIS is the truth.