This excerpt from an 1890 article in The Arena seems relevant as we look at gun violence and other contemporary problems created by lack of employment and income -- and hope.
It would be far better for society if instead of speculating on the
forms of punishment we turned our attention to the means of preventing
the crimes for which we punish the offenders. It has been observed that
most of the murders occur among the poor people, and upon the top floors
of tenement houses; that is to say, among the poorest of the poor. The
connection between poverty and the crime of murder, like the connection
between poverty and all other crime, is demonstrably close. If we could
cure the social disease of poverty, the seeds of crime would be
destroyed. The people rarely think of this. They think it is our
business to punish crime; but it is our best business to prevent it. Our
present organization of society manufactures criminals faster than we
can possibly take care of them. Poverty degrades men; it robs them of
leisure, which is absolutely necessary for the development of mind, and
the proper control of the passions; it keeps the people hungry and
fierce; it imbrutes them; it makes Ishmaels of them — their hand is
against society as the hand of society is against them. Plant a
generation of paupers, and you will reap a crop of criminals.
If we are wise we will turn our attention to the most important problem
of this or any age: how to so enrich the people that the temptations to
crime will be minified to the last possible degree. The solution of the
problem is as simple as it is important. For every millionaire we shall
have a thousand tramps; for every monopolist we shall have a hundred
burglars; for every woman who lives in idleness upon the fruit of
others’ toil, filched from them under the name of interest or rent, we shall have a score of prostitutes; for
every vacant land owner and money limiter — the twin man-starvers — we
shall have a murderer. One is the seed from which the other grows.
Eliminate your monopolists, the king of whom is the owner of vacant
land, and your problem of crime is settled. With open opportunities for
men to apply their labor to natural wealth productions, tenfold more
wealth would be produced and equitably distributed; and with wealth many
times multiplied and equitably distributed, a criminal would be more of
a curiosity than the original three-toed horse.
If memory serves, Hugh Pentecost was an Episcopal priest, perhaps in Newark. The title of the article from which these paragraphs come is "The Crime of Capital Punishment."
I like the word "minified." Maybe there is a useful slogan there: Minify Taxation! ("To make smaller or less significant; reduce.") We could collect the revenue we need with lower taxes were we to concentrate our taxes on land value, in all its manifestations. And in the process, we would reduce poverty, reduce the cost of living, reduce wealth concentration, reverse sprawl, naturally create employment and self-employment opportunities, and stabilize our economy. It seems to me that any one of these goals is worthy, and if this reform would move us closer to any of these goals, it is worth pursuing.
And, importantly, with less need to rely on a social safety net, spending could be signficantly reduced.
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