I love that you and Scott connected it with behavioral economics. That's low-hanging fruit but the fruit is hidden enough that I had never thought of it.
I've been a slumlord in north St. Louis since 2010. I've dealt with probably 300+ tenant groups, of which ~20% were evicted. I've noticed a pattern among the 2nd lowest quintile who perpetually struggle to barely avoid getting booted. Usually there is one marginally employed parent and one that is not just a drain but actively causing problems, and its about 50/50 on sex of the relatively responsible partner. I wish I had the temerity to introduce them to each other, and suggest dumping their respective dead weights and hooking up with someone else that can (mostly) pay rent, thus consolidating two mediocre tenants into one reliable.
These men certainly made bad choices (to the extant they made conscious “choices” at all as opposed to going with the flow). I think we need to keep in mind first that they are imitating the actions of their own fathers and all the other men in their milieu.
And second, they are responding to the incentives offered by the women in their lives. A typical man will ask himself, “What do I need to do in order to be attractive to women?” If the women he knows are seeking a long-term relationship with a man who will be a good husband and father, his question has one answer. If women seek short-term relationships based on superficial attraction, the answer is different.
Here is how Theodore Dalrymple describes a woman who was assaulted and blinded by a violent boyfriend:
“Not surprisingly, the question of fatherhood scarcely exists for her. She tells us early in the book that she is a single mother of two children. Speaking of her first child, she says, “I may have had [him] when I was very young but my kids mean the world to me and not for one moment did I regret becoming a mum at sixteen.” …
“The next sentence reads: “My choice in men, however, left a lot to be desired.” And when she reaches the beginning of the narrative of her blinding, she writes, “I had [moved back to my town of birth] with two sons by different dads and a series of dead-end relationships.” It is obvious that the suitability of men to be fathers to her children arose for her neither before nor after their births, because she deemed fathers inessential or even useless, as economically they obviously were, given her likely financial support from the state. That is why her choice in men “left a lot to be desired”: nothing of long-term significance for her hung on it, or seemed to hang on it, so that the only criterion of choice was immediate attraction—commonly known as lust.”
I buy “Low conscientiousness” as a decent description for how these low economic status men behave, but that doesn’t seem to be true of the women in this book, and doesn’t seem to be the conclusion of the previous book either.
I have racked my brain for years, trying to think of reasonable solutions to many of these issues. I'm still racking.
I once read a quote saying (paraphrased) that if you have explored all options and can still come up with nothing, then perhaps there is no real solution.
I love that you and Scott connected it with behavioral economics. That's low-hanging fruit but the fruit is hidden enough that I had never thought of it.
I've been a slumlord in north St. Louis since 2010. I've dealt with probably 300+ tenant groups, of which ~20% were evicted. I've noticed a pattern among the 2nd lowest quintile who perpetually struggle to barely avoid getting booted. Usually there is one marginally employed parent and one that is not just a drain but actively causing problems, and its about 50/50 on sex of the relatively responsible partner. I wish I had the temerity to introduce them to each other, and suggest dumping their respective dead weights and hooking up with someone else that can (mostly) pay rent, thus consolidating two mediocre tenants into one reliable.
These men certainly made bad choices (to the extant they made conscious “choices” at all as opposed to going with the flow). I think we need to keep in mind first that they are imitating the actions of their own fathers and all the other men in their milieu.
And second, they are responding to the incentives offered by the women in their lives. A typical man will ask himself, “What do I need to do in order to be attractive to women?” If the women he knows are seeking a long-term relationship with a man who will be a good husband and father, his question has one answer. If women seek short-term relationships based on superficial attraction, the answer is different.
Here is how Theodore Dalrymple describes a woman who was assaulted and blinded by a violent boyfriend:
“Not surprisingly, the question of fatherhood scarcely exists for her. She tells us early in the book that she is a single mother of two children. Speaking of her first child, she says, “I may have had [him] when I was very young but my kids mean the world to me and not for one moment did I regret becoming a mum at sixteen.” …
“The next sentence reads: “My choice in men, however, left a lot to be desired.” And when she reaches the beginning of the narrative of her blinding, she writes, “I had [moved back to my town of birth] with two sons by different dads and a series of dead-end relationships.” It is obvious that the suitability of men to be fathers to her children arose for her neither before nor after their births, because she deemed fathers inessential or even useless, as economically they obviously were, given her likely financial support from the state. That is why her choice in men “left a lot to be desired”: nothing of long-term significance for her hung on it, or seemed to hang on it, so that the only criterion of choice was immediate attraction—commonly known as lust.”
https://www.city-journal.org/article/into-darkness
I wouldn’t even say these men are “deviating from the rational actor model.” They are behaving rationally in pursuit of their (selfish) goals.
Very interesting! Both books look excellent!!
I buy “Low conscientiousness” as a decent description for how these low economic status men behave, but that doesn’t seem to be true of the women in this book, and doesn’t seem to be the conclusion of the previous book either.
This reminds me of the book Life at the Bottom.
I have racked my brain for years, trying to think of reasonable solutions to many of these issues. I'm still racking.
I once read a quote saying (paraphrased) that if you have explored all options and can still come up with nothing, then perhaps there is no real solution.