Business to the Rescue

The old myths die slowly, especially the liberal social myths. But as the problems of the cities continue unmitigated despite massive doses of federal money and as one porkbarrel program after another collapses into corruption or inanity, defenders of the liberal mythology are hard pressed to point to any centralized federal program which has solved a single urban problem. Liberals are increasingly being forced to embrace the ultimate collectivist heresy: business, big and little, has proved itself more capable of dealing with the problems of the cities than has government. Listen, for instance, to Murray Kempton, one of the best and brightest heirs to the philosophy of the old New Deal: “Only business cares any longer . . . NAM puzzles over programs to train the poor for jobs. The life insurance industry offers a billion dollars to attack slum housing. The last refuge of the social conscience turns out to be those institutions which official liberalism has instructed us for fifty years were the most antisocial we had.”

Kempton’s point is well taken. For every breakdown of a flaccid federal program, there is a sometimes small but usually encouraging success in the private sector. Business assistance to the ghetto takes many forms—loans, contracts, housing renewal, training courses—both direct and indirect, but the aim of each is similar: to foster a sense of involvement in social problems among those people most involved, and by so doing to encourage ghetto dwellers to work for the betterment of their communities and the society of which these communities are a part. What business is trying to do, in short, is to help people help themselves, to teach them to rely on their own abilities rather than on the creaky federal deus ex machina.

JR

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John R. Coyne Jr.

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The old myths die slowly, especially the liberal social myths. But as the problems of the cities continue unmitigated despite massive doses of federal money and as one porkbarrel program after another collapses into corruption or inanity, defenders of the liberal mythology are hard pressed to point to any centralized federal program which has solved a single urban problem. Liberals are increasingly being forced to embrace the ultimate collectivist heresy: business, big and little, has proved itself more capable of dealing with the problems of the cities than has government. Listen, for instance, to Murray Kempton, one of the best and brightest heirs to the philosophy of the old New Deal: “Only business cares any longer . . . NAM puzzles over programs to train the poor for jobs. The life insurance industry offers a billion dollars to attack slum housing. The last refuge of the social conscience turns out to be those institutions which official liberalism has instructed us for fifty years were the most antisocial we had.”

Kempton’s point is well taken. For every breakdown of a flaccid federal program, there is a sometimes small but usually encouraging success in the private sector. Business assistance to the ghetto takes many forms—loans, contracts, housing renewal, training courses—both direct and indirect, but the aim of each is similar: to foster a sense of involvement in social problems among those people most involved, and by so doing to encourage ghetto dwellers to work for the betterment of their communities and the society of which these communities are a part. What business is trying to do, in short, is to help people help themselves, to teach them to rely on their own abilities rather than on the creaky federal deus ex machina.