Crime and Poverty
It’s interesting to attempt a comparison between the Sept. 22 Column Right by David Horowitz (“A ‘60s Revival We Don’t Need: Black Panthers”) and the Column Left by Alexander Cockburn (“Feed a Vagrant, Go to Jail in San Francisco”).
Horowitz is right to criticize people who threaten mayhem unless the government gives them jobs. But it’s also wrong, as Cockburn points out, to have so criminalized poverty that Mayor Frank Jordan of San Francisco and petty bureaucrats across the country gain political capital by persecuting and harassing not only poor people, but those who attempt to alleviate their pain.
The real fault lies in an economic system that strives to eliminate jobs in the name of efficiency and profits. To the extent that labor-intensive production is eschewed, world poverty will increase, criminalized or not, and fear-mongers will incite people to do anything to change their circumstances.
ALAN L. WHITE
San Clemente
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