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.cb A PREDATORY CULTURE?


	Here is an unpleasant hypothesis about the reason for the looting
during the New York blackout.  A predatory culture has developed
in the U.S.  It is strongest among blacks and apparently strongest
in New York, but it isn't exclusively black and exists to some
extent throughout the country.  Its members encourage each other
and the young to take whatever can be gotten regardless of property
rights or harm to others.  It is transmitted orally, especially
among teenagers and young men.  It is encouraged by liberal excuses
for crime and aided by laxness with criminals, but removing neither of these
would make it disappear.  Reducing poverty won't affect it much either.
It can be eliminated by successful law enforcement, but it might get
worse until it conquers the country, but this is unlikely, because
it will always involve a small minority of the population.
More probable is its eventual violent suppression at the cost of
killing many people involved in it.

	The essential observable features of a predatory culture
are perhaps the following:

	(i) Its members make no attempt to stop crime against outsiders.

	(ii) Many of its members live without providing any service
that anyone is willing to pay for.  A substantial fraction of their
income comes from predation.

	(iii) Many members won't accept ordinary work.

	(iv) In modern times, some kinds of
welfare cheating should count as predation.

	Let me re-iterate that the existence of a predatory culture,
impervious to social welfarism, is a hypothesis that requires testing.
Even it such a culture is shown to exist, its essential properties
probably aren't precisely as speculated above.

	Its full causation will probably be difficult to identify.
The experience of poverty, especially relative poverty, may have
be necessary, but isn't sufficient.  The decline of religion as
an influence and its non-replacement by secular morality is important.
Denigrating of middle class virtues probably played a some role.
The city environment was essential.  The hostility of blacks to
whites played a role.  The decline in the effectiveness of law
enforcement caused by civil libertarians was important.

	It is important to realize that predatory cultures have
existed in the past.  In fact, such cultures have been, over most
of human history, the main impediment to progress.  Time and again,
military cultures have invaded and conquered their neighbors.  Our
understanding of this is dimmed by the fact that the winners write
the history books.  One could argue that most European nobility
is based on predation.  The Northmen who invaded France, became
Normans, and conquered England seem to have been predators by
choice.  The robber barons of the middle ages were predators.
(Caveat: it seems to me unlikely that one can usefully identify
sharp business practices with predatory cultures of the kind
we are considering - even if it would help someone make a moral
point).

	If I am right, poverty has little to do with the matter,
especially after the predatory way of life has developed.  Some
of the historical predatory cultures have been richer than their
victims and some have been poorer.

	A predatory culture can meet one of two fates.  It can
provoke a stronger force and be destroyed.  Historically, this
has meant large scale killing or exile.  On the other hand,
predatory cultures have often conquered their neighbors.
They then exploit their conquest, grow old, and institutionalize
their rule.  After a number of generations, a culture can lose
its predatory character.

	A predatory culture may or may not have internal morality,
but it is usually completely impervious to moral argument on
behalf of outsiders.

	If I am right that a predatory culture has developed in the
"ghettoes", then the dominant middle class culture will eventually
have to break it up.  This can be done more humanely or less so,
but it almost certainly can't be done with any kind of kindness.
It probably cannot be done in a way that will meet with the approval
of the ACLU.  The more technology is used, the less suffering
will be - both among predators and their prey.  Here are some
measures that will eventually be taken.

1. Long jail sentences or the death penalty.

2. A return to earlier standards of evidence which may produce some
increase in the rate of conviction of the innocent.

3. Considerable use of the death penalty - at least for a time.

4. Administrative identification and coercion of people believed
to be members of the predatory culture.  They will be required
to accept jobs (not good or meaningful jobs) and conform to
an approved life style.

5. Identification of "respectable" people and reserving for them
certain privileges like that of cashing checks or renting cars.

	I don't know how far in this direction society will have to go,
but the choice may be either coercion or conquest by the predators.
Some people will say that a society that cannot do without coercion
of the unfortunate
doesn't deserve to survive, but I think this view will not prevail.
A majority will choose to preserve its culture - at whatever cost.

	The amount of suffering can be reduced by the use of
certain technology accepting some risk that the technology may
be misused.  Some people think that the use of some of this
technology, e.g for surveillance, would lead to dictatorship, but
I think they are mistaken.  There will be abuses, but dictatorship
does not fundamentally depend on technology.  It depends on the
posession of force by a group unwilling to subject its decisions
to a majority.

	The fundamental trade-off is that the more technology is
available to determine the facts of a crime, the higher can be
the standards of proof required.

1. An extreme is that everyone wears a transponder.  There are gates
everywhere, and they let people pass only when they get suitable
signals from the transponders.  The location of each person at
each time period is recorded automatically.  When a crime occurs,
it can be determined who was in the vicinity at the time.

2. Much less obtrusive is a proposal to mark each gun, each bullet,
and each batch of explosive with radio-isotopes in such a way
that if a crime is committed with any of these, it will be known
who purchased the bullet, gun or explosive.

3. Cash can be eliminated.  All money transfers go through a computer
system.  A robber cannot profit by forcing a victim to transfer
funds to his account, because whether the victim survives or not,
transfers out of his account will be traced.

4. More property can be registered like cars.  When it is transferred,
its registry must be transferred - say by a telephone call.  It is
illegal to repair or buy property without checking ownership.

	All these measures are unpleasant to some degree.  However,
they will probably work, and society will employ them rather than
be destroyed by a predatory culture.  Perhaps there is a better way,
certainly the obtrusiveness of the technology can be reduced, but
if the culture has become truly predatory, there may no way but
suppression to correct it.

	Perhaps there is another way to cure a predatory culture.
Perhaps history will give a clue.  However, I will bet that until
we recognize that we are dealing with a predatory culture analogous
to those of the past, the situation will get worse and worse.
Some people will say that the hypothesis that a predatory culture
is responsible for the blackout should not be considered because
it has "racist" consequences.  I value an honest search for the
truth, whereever the search may lead, more than I value their
good opinion.