Valg, several times now you have made a connection between poverty and crime, and more specifically between wealth disparity as a cause of crime. I willingly admit that you are most probably right (I can't be bothered to research it myself) on this connection. What I am curious about is: Assuming that wealth disparity causes crime, how do you eliminate wealth disparity? Does it take socialistic governments, or does that not work in practice? Have there been specific places in the past where a large amount of wealth disparity was lessened by changes to the underlying structure of the society. For instance, did theoretical country A have a large amount of crime and wealth disparity, undergo a fundamental change in government (revolution or whatever) and the gap lessen over time? I'm more asking if you know of such a place off the top of your head then being lazy and wanting you to research it for me.

As a related(ish) question, do you think that free-market capitalism fundamentally causes wealth disparity, erases wealth disparity, or is neutral toward it?

Free market capitalism does increase wealth disparity, or does not decrease it, like Valg said. High wealth disparity causes some to be poor(the total wealth of the state is assumed as constant) and some rich, while in a country with low disparity you have lower middle class and upper middle class and not so many rich or poor people.

Personally, I think that poverty does increase crime rates, as poor people don't have so much to lose when taking a risk compared to middle-classed people.

Some thoughts:

1. There's a difference between "wealth disparity" and "poverty". I can't be certain, but it doesn't seem like you're acknowledging that difference. If everyone in a given locale is "poor" (relative to some other locale, or to some previous time in history) then there is very little wealth disparity in that locale but widespread poverty. The question is whether it's the disparity that causes the crime or the poverty.

2. Crimes are ultimately committed by individuals, not demographics. An individual who commits a crime somehow had to rationalize that act. There are plenty of poor people who wouldn't even consider knocking over a 7-11 except in extreme circumstances (have to eat to live). The more interesting question for me is how an individual reaches the point where they're capable of violent crime outside of situations of dire need. In that sense, crime is as much a cultural/psychological problem as it is one of demographics. It's easy to see how someone who is very poor might start to envy those with more wealth, yet for many (most) poor people that envy (if it's even present) doesn't translate into violent crime. For some it does. Why?

If I had to guess, I'd say disparity is more relevant than poverty outside of 'fringe cases'. I'm basing this purely on my idea of common sense, so make of that what you will. The basis for that opinion derives from my opinions for what drives culture, which is fundamentally sex. To be blunt and extremely politically incorrect, a guy is only worth what he brings to the table *compared to other options for mating*. Hence, if a guy is competing with men who make much more money than him, he has to be more fanatical in his behavior to stand out.

That's my guess and I'd be surprised if the numbers didn't back that up somewhat. That means according to Valg's Gini index, there would be a higher crime rate in countries with an index between 40 and 60 than those between 0 & 40 and 60 & 100.

The second point of your post is highly relevant too because social engineering influences behavior. In many ways, Americans are 'engineered' in a certain way. Obviously that has to have some bearing on behavior.

If I definitively knew the answer, I'd be a very wealthy economist. I'm an amateur in the field, so take anything I write on this topic with a grain of salt. My girlfriend works in this field (consultant, Master's degree, all her job experience is on poverty and effects), and most of what I've learned is from her. She's pretty good at explaining to me what falls under "her opinion" and what falls under "textbook-type consensus opinion", and I'm mostly trying to relay the latter.

One of the more popular measures of wealth disparity is the Gini index-- the math is slightly messy, but a zero Gini index would mean that everyone in your country has the same wealth, a 100 Gini index would mean one guy has all the money, and most industrialized nations fall between 20 and 60. In many high-anarchy countries, no one really knows where the wealth is, and the Gini index isn't known.

For some quick comparisons, the U.S. is at 45, Sweden is at 25 (very heavy tax burden forces it), and more laissez-faire capitalist countries (2001 Hong Kong at 52) or countries with corrupt or ineffective central governments (Columbia at 54) can run somewhat higher than the US. In practice, I'd have to say that free-market capitalism increases wealth disparity, or at the very least fails to decrease it. (Socialist systems decrease it very bluntly by direct redistribution of wealth.)

You can look up some raw numbers here:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2172.html

Now, when you get to causal links with poverty, the arguments seem to start because people point to things like unemployment, disrupted families, etc. All of those things correlate well with wealth disparity, and it's hard to isolate one variable, but (local) wealth disparity seems to be a popular choice. (Local, as in if you live in a poor farming village many miles away from the thriving metropolis, your opportunity and motivation to profit from crime isn't necessarily high, especially if it's impractical for you to even get there.)

The second problem is the definition of crime rates. One country might have a low crime rate just because they have no effective police force (therefore, nothing gets reported), and another might have a low crime rate because the police force has unlimited power (therefore, people avoid crime out of fear). Overall crime rates also vary by how many things a country considers a crime, so you often have to pick one crime (murder, theft of at least one day's wages at the poverty line, etc.) and hope that's meaningful.

The technical papers on causation of crime try to stress case studies-- for example, one city before and after an economic transition, etc. I'll ask the resident expert when she gets back from yoga if she can point me towards some useful examples.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Addressing this specifically:

"In practice, I'd have to say that free-market capitalism increases wealth disparity, or at the very least fails to decrease it. (Socialist systems decrease it very bluntly by direct redistribution of wealth.)"

So do you favor socialistic blunt force redistribution of wealth, or do you think there are other options in a free-market capitalistic (which I would argue the US is not) society that would lead to lower wealth disparity. It seems to me that competition of the free-market variety almost always ends up as a win for the consumer, and since this affects the poor more than the rich (they spend more of what they make) wouldn't capitalism tend to help the poor in the general sense, if not decreasing wealth disparity in the specific sense?

It's hard to talk about these things in an idealized world because that doesn't exist, but it seems to me that free-market capitalism would ideally decrease wealth disparity over time due to competition, but I'm curious as to your thoughts.

Keep in mind that I think the US is a poor example of free-market principles in action, or at least in some industries.

The other thing about socialism decreasing wealth disparity seems to be at least a little counterintuitive to me. I'm having trouble verbalizing why it seems wrong to me, so I'll come back to it later.

I know this wasn't directed towards me, but I'd like to toss in a comment anyway.

>"In practice, I'd have to say that free-market capitalism
>increases wealth disparity, or at the very least fails to
>decrease it. (Socialist systems decrease it very bluntly by
>direct redistribution of wealth.)"
>
>So do you favor socialistic blunt force redistribution of
>wealth, or do you think there are other options in a
>free-market capitalistic (which I would argue the US is not)
>society that would lead to lower wealth disparity. It seems
>to me that competition of the free-market variety almost
>always ends up as a win for the consumer, and since this
>affects the poor more than the rich (they spend more of what
>they make) wouldn't capitalism tend to help the poor in the
>general sense, if not decreasing wealth disparity in the
>specific sense?

It can probably raise the general wealth / standard of living level of everyone, sure. People we'd consider poor now have some things that even the richest didn't have a hundred years ago. But in terms of wealth disparity, hell no. A capitalistic system is the very antithesis of decreasing wealth disparity -- getting more stuff than the other guy is exactly what the profit motive is about, more or less, right?

The ideal is that you'll do something in the market to increase your wealth -- work hard, make an innovative product, find a way to offer an equivalent service for less than the other guy, whatever. Problem is, at least from a wealth disparity -> crime perspective, is you might decide that with the resources or education or whatever you have to work with, your best move in the market is to become a drug dealer or pimp or knock over liquor stores.

Personally, I don't think either a pure capitalistic system or a pure socialistic system have all the answers. Either extreme breaks down, because of human nature, if nothing else.

I got pointed to this (PDF, reprint from Journal of Law and Economics, should be publicly available):

http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/LAC/LACInfoClient.nsf/5aaa39a87ab8daf985256cc6006f355b/1847253135d7608d85256c36006d3e67//Inequality%20and%20violent%20crime.pdf

From the abstract: "Crime rates and inequality are positively correlated within countries and, particularly, between countries, and this correlation reflects causation from inequality to crime rates, even after controlling for other crime determinants."

This doesn't resolve a lot of the policy issues, of course, but this type of study helps you set some ground rules for the bigger discussion. Notably, you can assume that increases in wealth disparity promote crime.

It's also worth noting that this link persists regardless of absolute wealth-- in other words, even if country X is poor overall, if only a few people have most of the money, you can expect more crime.

This suggests that if you took steps to lower wealth disparity (more progressive income tax, higher tax rates, more social programs, etc.), crime should decrease. Note that this says nothing about whether such steps are fair, just, or worth doing.

(For example, you could argue that a more capitalist economy would grow faster, and that the rising tide would lift all boats. In other words, even as disparity (and crime) increased, the poorest people could have more in their pockets at the end of the day in absolute terms. That's a much more complicated and speculative argument, and I don't feel competent enough to make or refute it.)

It's hard to talk about these things in an idealized world because that doesn't exist, but it seems to me that free-market capitalism would ideally decrease wealth disparity over time due to competition, but I'm curious as to your thoughts... The other thing about socialism decreasing wealth disparity seems to be at least a little counterintuitive to me. I'm having trouble verbalizing why it seems wrong to me, so I'll come back to it later.

Regardless of how it does or doesn't in an ideal world, it's hard to argue with a comparison of successful economies that are more socialist (Scandinavia, etc.) vs. more capitalist (Japan, US, etc.). In practice, successful economies with more socialist tendencies have ended up with less wealth disparity. This seems very intuitive to me, though I'll again stress that it says nothing about the effect on the overall economy, or whether or not such policies are fair.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com