Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Frustrations
Chris Blattman, an Assistant Professor of Political Science & Economics at Princeton who writes a blog about poverty, political participation, & the causes and consequences of violence in developing countries, yesterday published a piece about his own frustrations with law & bureaucracy in New York.
He & his wife are attempting to find a legal nanny (ie not an illegal immigrant) for their new daughter. He has a strong personal incentive – quite apart from principle - to do it properly; he doesn’t want to be barred from the possibility of working in US government one day.
The bureaucracy requires him to pay taxes for the nanny to no less than seven different agencies at different levels of government; a friend who accidentally missed just one payment got fined $10,000 for the misdemeanour.
The complexity itself means that there is a huge element of chance in whether any failure or wrongdoing on your part brings punishment or sanction. Ninety eight per cent of families in New York don’t even try to go by the book when they want a nanny – presumably most of them simply get away with it. Another friend might find that his late payment gets met with a ‘Oh, that’s OK- you remembered eventually.’ Or even perhaps just pass unnoticed by an overburdened administration.
If the system can so frustrate someone with his level of education (& income) who can actually afford to pay hundreds of dollars a year to a firm to manage the process for him, how much worse must it be if you struggle to understand even the basics.
Of course Blattman is unlikely to see all this as an excuse – still less a reason – for even a little light vandalism, but there are reasons for the current outbreaks in England, & we need t be very clear that our response takes these reasons appropriately into account.
I am not clear who David Cameron thinks is his audience for assertions that all the looters should be very afraid because we know who they are & they will be punished.
The children know that that is not true. Of course some will be, but whether or nor it is you depends on a large element of chance.
They are used to this. There are an awful lot of young men around whose daily routines mean that sometimes somebody – social worker, police, council worker, teacher, whoever – will collar him for it.
But most of the time they just don’t. Even when they are crying out for someone, who has power, to do something about it.
I should be surprised if those who are seizing the chance to profit from all this – the family allegedly seen driving up to load the boot of their car from a looted Salford supermarket, or the men in vehicles with darkened windows spotted near some of the mayhem, will be brought before a court.
On a more cheering note – it is I think no thanks to the government, that we are now seeing lots of examples of the Big Society in action – clean up crews, donations. Hopeless Haringey seems to be doing a pretty good job of providing emergency support.
I was almost in tears myself this morning, listening to a young man who was burned out of his flat above the burned out carpet store – especially when he said there were lots of questions he needed to ask right away. Such as whether he should continue to pay his mortgage on a flat which no longer exists.
He has nothing but the clothes he stands in plus the few items he grabbed as the fire took hold. He was clearly in shock but calm & coherent, talking to Victoria Derbyshire, until he was taken in to see the room packed with all the individual donations, delivered in carrier bags – shower gel, clothes, tea towels, toys – which filled the room in which they were being sorted by council workers. Then he simply broke down in tears at this evidence that people out there really do think about & care for those left in his position.
