… “That we hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”…
This paragraph is the heart and soul of what it means to be
an American… that “all men are created equal” and within this
proposition, lies the basis of the entire American experiment…
that we are equal, legally, politically, and socially…
but most importantly, we are not equal economically…
that income inequality is one of the greatest problems
facing America and the world… that the great wealth
inequality faced by American’s are part and parcel the reason
that America faces many of its challenges… income inequality leads
Americans to committing acts of violence, and thefts and murder…
you want to reduce violence and reduce crime in America?
reduce the income inequality in America…
that the rising crime rate comes from income inequality cannot be disputed…
poverty leads to crime… now because conservatives don’t engage in reality,
they try to tie crime with all kinds of social issues, like for example,
they have tried to suggesting that the crime rate is tied into the rise of
secularism in America or the increasing decline of patriotism in
America…but the fact is crime and poverty are inexorably linked…
we can agree that Sweden has less poverty then the U.S… and
the intentional homicide for Sweden is 0.86 ranked 41st,
and in the US, 4.7 ranked 7th, 5 times more than Sweden…
and opiates use, 0.1 % for Sweden ranked 16, and for the US,
0.57 ranked 3rd. 6 times more than Sweden…
Crime levels for Sweden 43.49 ranked 51 and for the US.
55.84 ranked 30th, 28% times more then Sweden…
to kind of put income inequality into perspective,
the Gini coefficient of Sweden in 2018 was 30…
which is much higher then it was in 2000 and
the Gini coefficient for the U.S was 41.1… much higher then in Sweden…
and the crime rate reflects that…BTW the lowest gini rate in the world
was in 2018 was in Slovenia at 24.6 with the Czech Republic next at
25.00 tied with Slovakia… you can then compare crime rates between
these better gini coefficints with countries with higher gini rates and see
the higher crime rates come with countries with higher gini rates…
for example, the country with the highest gini coefficients is
South Africa at 63.00 and Namibia at 59.1 and Suriname 57.9,
(these numbers are from 2014, 2015 and 1999…look at each country
crime rate compared to their gini and see what poverty does to people…
South Africa crime rate for example in crime levels is 86.27 or 54% more
crime then in the U.S… murder rate. for south Africa is 34 and for the U.S… 5…
TOTAL crimes per 1000. for south Africa is 58.94 or ranked 15th, 43% higher then
the U.S… which is at 41.29 which is ranked 22…
Intentional homicide rate for South Africa is 31 or ranked 4th,
which is 7 times higher than the U.S which ranked 7th at 4.7
you get the picture… poverty leads to crime… reduced poverty and
reduce crime…
So, in our lifetime, perhaps the greatest issue we face is
income inequality…
So, what is your solution?
Kropotkin