America is 250 years old today, and we’re far from exceptional. We have a dark history of colonialism and imperialism. We’re currently funding Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, starving Cuba with a military blockade, and our President is a rapist (Pengelly, 2023). Despite all that, I still love my country. That’s why I make these posts and engage in other forms political activism: to improve the United States (US).

Before we can start improving, we need to know where America stands.

All these graphs will focus on the thirty-seven countries classified by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to be advanced economies (International Monetary Fund, 2023, 2026). They’re also developed countries by the United Nation’s (UN’s) Human Development Index (HDI). I omitted Puerto Rico, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. While they’re classified as advanced economies, they’re part of other countries (the US and China, respectively).

I chose these countries to try to be as fair as possible. It’s easy to make any developed country look good when comparing it to a developing one, but how does America rank among its peers?

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I will only be providing national rankings and benchmarks for this article. My goal is simply to show where America stands, not to perform a deep-dive bivariate analysis. The US will be red, every other country will be blue. The black dotted line going through each graph represents the median of all the measured countries. Without further delay, on to the data!

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is the “universal” benchmark for a country. GDP per capita measures the economic output per citizen by dividing a nation’s GDP by its population, thus eliminating the latter as a variable. Large countries like the US, India, and China can be compared to small countries like Andorra, Singapore, and San Marino. Economists, sociologists, statisticians, and health professionals consider this a best-all-around indicator of a country’s prosperity. That said, it’s not a perfect measurement. The GDP doesn’t account for economic inequality within a country or give a complete picture of the quality of life (Ball, 2023). For example, all other things being equal, a country where people work twelve hours a day will have a higher GDP per capita than a country where people work eight hours a day, but most would argue the people working only eight hours have a higher quality of life than those working twelve (Mankiw, 2024).

The HDI addresses some of the shortfalls with GDP per capita. As stated above, the HDI is a UN metric that takes education, life expectancy, and Gross National Income (GNI) and scales it to a number between 0 and 1 (United Nations Development Programme, 2026). The higher the number, the more developed a country.

Instead of looking purely at economic output, the HDI factors in quality-of-life measurements like education and life expectancy. It uses GNI instead of GDP because that focuses only on the revenue a country generates from its citizens/residents and not the money brought in from people using that nation as a tax haven. Despite these improvements, the HDI fails to address income inequality. That’s where the Gini coefficient comes in.

The Gini coefficient measures income equality within a country on a decimal scale from 0 to 1. The lower the number, the more equal the country (Hasell, 2023).

As shown in the chart, America is the most unequal of the advanced economies.

The Gini has its own set of limitations. It doesn’t consider a country’s development level, and it can’t explain why inequality exists. Two nations could have the same Gini coefficient with different levels of prosperity. That’s why it’s important to examine more than one metric when determining a country’s global stance!

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One thing I’ve always heard growing up is taxes are bad. High taxes lead to lower economic output, a lower quality of life, and less economic freedom. Our low taxes were described as the reason why we had the “best economy in the world” and why we “far surpassed Europe” in quality of life. As shown by the GDP and HDI graphs above, those claims are questionable at best. But at least we have lower taxes than everyone else! Well, almost…

One of the pitfalls of the “low taxes” argument is people fixate on marginal tax rates. I include myself in this because until I started doing the research for this series, I was one of them! In reality, marginal tax rates don’t tell us how much a country is collecting. For example, America’s maximum tax rate was above 90% in the 1950s, but very few people actually paid that amount due to loopholes and deductions. That’s why tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is important: it explains how much money the government collects from taxes. As shown above, America is towards the bottom. As I will explain in my upcoming article on taxation, that’s not inherently a bad thing.

This is the part where people on the right will say, “Exactly! America’s low tax rate is why we have the highest annual income in the world!” But do we really?

Ouch! But at least everyone has home. Wait, don’t tell me…

America is in the bottom third for homeownership. This one surprised me a little. As I will cover more in depth in a later article in the series, America has the cheapest homes of any advanced economy. This provides another example of why looking at more than one metric is important. Looking solely at GDP per capita, America is one of the richest nations in the world. I plan to dive deeper into it in another article, but this shows America doesn’t have a wealth generation problem. We have a wealth distribution problem, which is exactly the kind of problem socialists like me wish to solve!

So far we’ve learned America isn’t the richest, isn’t the most developed, isn’t the most equal, isn’t the country with the lowest taxes, isn’t the highest annual income per capita, and isn’t the country with the highest percentage of homeownership. But we still have the most economic freedom, right? Right? I’m sorry…

This one is probably going to get me in trouble. As shown above, the Heritage Foundation created the Economic Freedom Index. Yes, the reactionaries who invented Project 2025 are considered a global authority on economic freedom. (Yay, capitalism!) They based their assessment on twelve different measurements grouped into four categories: rule of law, government size, regulatory efficiency, and market openness (The Heritage Foundation, 2026). As shown in the chart above, we’re not even in the top ten among advanced economies.

Before I get to the last part of this article, I want to address something I hinted at in the second paragraph. I’m not using this article to make any moral judgements about America’s actions. The First Principle of Unitarian Universalism is respecting “the inherent worth and dignity of every person” (Unitarian Universalist Association, 2026). I believe America’s actions, both internationally and domestically, are in violation of this principle. While I have moral disagreements with the way the country is being/has been run, this article isn’t meant to justify that position. Conversely, some will argue that America is the greatest country in the world because of [insert moral value(s) here]. They’re entitled to their opinions, but this is about the data. The data states, based on multiple objectives measures, America is not the best country in the world. Again, some people may argue the metrics I picked are irrelevant, but the burden of proof would be on them to explain why they believe those metrics are useless.

Finally, as some might have guessed, each graph I posted has a twist. The US is red and all the other countries are blue. While that makes where America stands more obvious, that’s not the only reason I chose to make the US a different color. In every graph, the US is the only country that doesn’t have universal healthcare. (San Marino has full access to Italy’s system.) My next article will explain, using data and bivariate analysis, how not having universal healthcare negatively impacts our rankings.

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Sources:

Ball, J. A. (2023). The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power: Media, Race, Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, an imprint of Springer.

Hasell, J. (2023, June 30). Measuring inequality: What is the Gini coefficient?. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-gini-coefficient

The Heritage Foundation. (2026, February). Index of Economic Freedom: The 12 Economic Freedoms. Index of Economic Freedom. https://economicfreedom.heritage.org/pages/report#indexTwelveFreedoms

International Monetary Fund. (2023, April). World Economic Outlook Database - Groups and Aggregate Information. World Economic Outlook Database. https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo/weo-database/2023/april/groups-and-aggregates

International Monetary Fund. (2026). World Economic Outlook (WEO) - Frequently Asked Questions. World Economic Outlook (WEO). https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo/frequently-asked-questions#4q2

Mankiw, N. G. (2024). Principles of Economics. Cengage.

Pengelly, M. (2023, August 7). Judge says E Jean Carroll allegation Trump raped her is ‘substantially true’ in court dismissal. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/07/donald-trump-rape-language-e-jean-carroll

Unitarian Universalist Association. (2026). Seven UU Principles. Unitarian Universalist Association. https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/principles

United Nations Development Programme. (2026). Human development index (HDI). UNDP. https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index

Chart data sources are listed on the charts themselves.

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It’s always nice to read a book that ends up confirming what I already suspected to be true (like Nomadland), but this time I got more than I bargained for. They say the truth hurts and this book stung!

Don’t Talk About Politics by Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano is about changing minds. But it’s not a traditional book about how to persuade people. It’s a book about how humans process information, handle cognitive dissonance, and how the traditional ways of persuading people to change their political views are broken. She discusses what doesn’t work, what does work, and provides suggestions for how we can reorganize society to make it easier for people to adopt new ideas. It’s a short read—just under 250 pages—and packed with many hard truths, but it also leaves a few unanswered questions.

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Lubrano’s first two chapters talk about why the “marketplace of ideas” and debate are nonsense.

People who’ve come here from my Facebook know I love to argue/debate. Some people watch sports, I argue with people. I don’t debate subjects like whether gay people have the right to exist (they do). That’s an automatic block because I don’t platform bigots, but I will debate economics and certain other social issues with people all day long. Whether I win or lose, it’s fun for me. This book says I shouldn’t be doing that—and it’s right!

While now I only do it for fun, I used to be a true believer in marketplace of ideas and debate. I believed over time good (more factual) ideas would win out over bad (less factual) ones because people would choose the better ideas voluntarily. I believed if I only argued well enough, people would adopt my ideas because they would see they were closer to truth. Then I got older.

Without going into too many details, I learned very quickly having “good” ideas doesn’t matter because the viability of an idea depends more on what people want to be true and/or confirms what they already believe vs. how true that idea is. “Winning” an argument didn’t mean much because most people (myself including, I’m mature enough to admit) hold on to their beliefs for mostly irrational reasons. In other words, feelings mattered more than facts when it came to accepting new ideas. Multiple books I’ve read over the years confirmed that, and Lubrano took it one step further. Even without our inherent biases, there are multiple obstacles an idea must overcome before it even reaches our ears! I would go into more detail, but I don’t want to spoil what I believe to be one of the best parts of the book!

Lubrano then goes on to argue protests aren’t effective method of political change. Most politicians don’t care about them, and they don’t change the minds of the people who don’t agree with them (most of the time). My first instinct was to argue that the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 were evidence she was wrong. She anticipated that. Her book showed that while Black Lives Matter protests were very effective at changing people’s opinions, it was the exception and not the rule. As someone who has participated in many protests and advocates for protesting as a means of affecting change, this was a hard lesson for me to learn.

Does that mean protests are pointless? No. Lubrano argued protests are very effective at changing the minds of the people who participate in them. Many of the people who participated in the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 went on to move into other forms of political activism. Their participation in one event paved the way for them to do other social/racial justice work. So while protests themselves are not effective for changing minds, they help create the next generation of activists who will. This brings me to one of my favorite points Lubrano made: people act first and think later.

Humans hate cognitive dissonance, especially when it comes to something as deeply part of their identity as their political beliefs. What do we do to avoid this cognitive dissonance? Usually change our beliefs to reflect our actions. For example, let’s assume a guy, Bob, is against helping the poor. For one reason or another, he visits a mutual aid station or soup kitchen. His actions cause him to soften his beliefs about helping the poor. It doesn’t matter if he’s a volunteer or a user. He will do whatever it takes to avoid cognitive dissonance. The takeaway? To change someone’s mind, don’t try to argue with them, bring them to protest or a mutual aid station.

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Another good point Lubrano made was humans think with their friends. The story of the lone philosopher sitting on top of a mountain and coming back with wisdom is usually just that: a story. While small doses of isolation can help people deal with information overload, that’s not how humans do most of their thinking. Humans are social creatures designed to cooperate. This includes hunting, gathering, working, living, and thinking. We often change our ideas to reflect the groups we are with, and groups frequently evaluate new ideas brought to that group together. Even in the case of the isolated philosopher, they will eventually share their beliefs with other people and collaboratively revise them. That’s because who you live with affects how you think.

People are affected by who they see in their daily lives. Even if they don’t directly interact with those people, simply seeing them around raises their tolerance for them. People who live diverse areas with people of multiple races, religions, beliefs, and sexual orientations are more likely to be tolerant of those people and have beliefs reflecting that. This is another effect of our desire to avoid cognitive dissonance. It’s hard to keep believing Muslims are dangerous if the woman you buy apples from at the farmer’s market every couple of weeks is a Muslim. This is why many of the most racist people are ones who live in communities with only members of their same race. Lubrano connects this to one another one of her points: isolation is dangerous.

It’s no secret that capitalism is isolating us from each other. Most of us are overworked, underpaid, leaving us too exhausted to do anything when we get home. The few of us who still want to go out find ourselves with fewer third spaces available to meet and interact with other people. Parks, libraries, and civic centers have been replaced with bars, clubs, and other places we need to pay to access. Lubrano argues this is dangerous.

According to Lubrano’s research, isolation is horrible for humans. Not only does it make us more miserable (at first), it makes us more sensitive. The enhanced sensitivity makes us worry about and dread social interactions and causes us to take events personally when they may have nothing to do with us. It increases our paranoia and makes us distrust other human beings, which leads directly to adopting reactionary views. Even worse, prolonged isolation makes us no longer feel like we need other people so we stop trying. Despite no longer feeling the pain of loneliness, isolation will still continue to damage us. Isolation literally shrinks our brains, specifically the parts use for social interaction. This, in my opinion and hers, is what’s most dangerous about isolation.

Two topics I felt Lubrano could’ve done a better job covering were the spectrum of allies and deep canvassing.

The spectrum of allies is the idea that everyone you meet exists on a scale from “strongly aligned” to “strongly opposed.” Lubrano asserted the people you have the best chance of convincing just by exposing them to ideas are “weakly aligned” or “neutral” to your position. As someone who has learned this through almost thirty years of experience, I would have liked to hear more about the political theories and research surrounding this idea.

Deep canvassing was the other hard truth for me. It’s the way you reach people on the opposite end of the spectrum of allies. Deep canvassing is when you knock on someone’s door and instead of handing out fliers or talking briefly about a political candidate, you sit them for a long time (at least thirty minutes) and have a conversation about a political issue. To summarize an example Lubrano used in the book, two people visit the house of someone who has bigoted views against trans people. The two people sit down and have a conversation about why the person is hostile to trans people and towards the end of the conversation, one person, who happens to be trans, asks, “Well, I’m trans. Do you still feel that way about trans people?” Sounds ridiculous, right? Well it works! Most of the time this causes people to soften their stance. Why is this a hard truth? Because this is what Daryl Davis does with KKK members, and those who have read my other article know how I feel about him. Deep canvassing being effective means Daryl Davis’s methods are more effective than I would like to believe.

Does that mean we all need to start talking to KKK members? No! Lubrano stated although deep canvassing was effective at the individual level, it was time-consuming and people were still studying its long-term impact. Indeed, at least one of the people Daryl Davis “converted” was arrested for shooting at counterprotesters at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville. While I understand deep canvassing was still being researched, I would’ve liked to learn about its second and third order consequences.

While I understand the main point of Lubrano’s book was trying to win people over with arguments is inefficient at best, I still would’ve liked to learn more about the above concepts.

My main disappointment with her book was Lubrano’s failure to mention how racism played a big role in the disappearance of public third spaces—especially in the South. While I understand this wasn’t the case for most other democratic nations, the focus of her book was the US. In the US the main reasons third spaces started disappearing was because white people refused to integrate. That’s the reason public pools disappeared from the South, for example. In the north this took the form of Black people being confined to neighborhood with low-quality housing and very little funding for public spaces like parks. Lubrano correctly points out the reduction in both third spaces and associations like bowling clubs happened because of the economic crash in the 1970s and the subsequent election of Ronald Reagan. Reagan forced Neoliberalism on the United States, which resulted in the privatization of many public spaces. What Lubrano failed to point out is how Reagan won his election by campaigning on racism (e.g. “welfare queens”).

Last but not least, I want to commend Lubrano for going out of her way to condemn Israel’s genocide of Palestine. During her section about identity, she mentions she is Jewish but she’s also a leftist. She talks about her willingness to speak out against what Israel is doing to the Palestinians creates friction between her and some of the Jewish people in her community. Overall point of the segment was to discuss how identity isn’t best way to form associations that are conducive to adopting new ideas. In my opinion, she could’ve done this perfectly without talking about what Israel did to Palestine. There were multiple other examples she could’ve used, but she chose that one. When I read this book in the spring of 2026, public opinion had thankfully shifted in favor of Palestine. She couldn’t have known that when she published the book in mid-2024. She stood up for what she believed was right even though it meant taking a risk. I respect that!

I give Don’t Talk About Politics by Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano an 8.5/10. The book is a great read, and I’m not just saying that because the first few chapters confirmed what I already believed. It delivers many well-researched hard truths and Lubrano both cites her sources and provides a list of material for “further reading.” The book loses a point for not discussing how racism led to the erosion of the third space—and could very well again if we’re not careful. The other half-point lost is because I felt like there were some good topics she just left hanging. At less than 250 pages, this is still a must read for those who wish to understand why changing minds is about building better systems instead of making better arguments.

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Treating coding as both a hobby and tool for data analysis, I use Python for statistical modeling and data visualization. Not long after launching this publication, I began engaging with readers across the political spectrum. Being a socialist, most of the criticism came from the right. While the conversations frequently devolved into superficial insults and logical fallacies, I occasionally entered good-faith discussions with people who were interested in evidence.

To ground those debates in reality, I began pulling macro-level statistics directly from primary global databases like the World Bank, the OECD, and the IMF. While the data told one story in dense, sprawling spreadsheet form, plotting the variables in Python told a completely different one. That’s when I realized what originally started as a tool for personal use could benefit everyone.

That structural story is what I plan to share.

“But What Does the Data Say?” will apply rigorous data analytics to our most common, high-stakes policy debates. We will cut through the partisan talking points and simply let the regressions point the way. Let’s go where the data takes us!

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Below will be a list of each entry in the series.

1. But What Does the Data Say? Where America Stands

Universal Healthcare has been a popular idea in the US for over a decade. I remember reading during the 2016 election cycle that over half of the country supported universal healthcare. As of late 2025, it is up to 64% (Daniller, 2025). While not as high as its peak in 2006, support for universal healthcare has been steadily rising for the past decade (Daniller, 2025). “Universal healthcare” can mean different things to different people. It could mean guaranteed health insurance for all Americans, or it could be a single-payer system like the UK, Canada, or Taiwan. For the rest of this article, I will be using “universal healthcare” to mean a single-payer system like Medicare-for-All.

What is universal healthcare/Medicare-for-All?

Universal healthcare/Medicare-For-All is “a single-payer, government-run health care program in which all Americans are covered and which replaces almost all other existing public and private plans” (Sarlin & Kimelman, 2019). Single-payer is when “a single public or quasi-public agency takes responsibility for financing healthcare for all residents” (Sylvie, 2016). In other words, government pays the hospital bill instead of the patient. While each country implements it a little differently, the above remains the same. Most of the hospitals in the UK are government owned. The proposed single payer model in the US would keep hospitals private, but they would bill the government instead of the patient and/or the patient’s insurance. No more copays, no more worrying about whether treatment is covered by insurance, no more fighting with insurance companies to get them to pay what their policy claims they’ll pay. Best of all, no more medical debt! Easy and cheap!

But just because universal healthcare is easy and cheap doesn’t mean it’s good. What are the benefits of universal healthcare and why is it better than our current system?

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Lower Costs

Universal Healthcare is cheaper. Between 2023 and 2033, Americans are projected to spend $42.9T ($55T in 2025 dollars) on healthcare (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2026; Public Citizen, 2025). That includes both private a federal spending. According to Public Citizen (2025), “Medicare for All spending would be approximately $37.8 trillion between 2017 and 2026.” Converting that to 2025 dollars, that’s $49.6T (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2026). Still less than what we’re projected to spend on the current system.

Why the decrease? Private expenditures mostly disappear with universal healthcare. People no longer have to worry about the copays, insurance premiums, and/or out-of-network expenses they currently pay. Most American families will save thousands of dollars a year. A family making $75,000/year could save over $9000 (Flannery, 2026)! That would be like getting a 12% raise! This is consistent with another study stating universal healthcare “likely to lead to a 13% savings in national healthcare expenditure” (Galvani et al., 2021).

The right-wing, Koch-funded Mercatus Center stated in 2018 that single-payer healthcare would cost us $32.6T between 2022 and 2031(Balhous, 2018). That’s around $42T in 2025 dollars (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2026). So even the most conservative (pun intended) estimates show universal healthcare saving us money!

But what about taxes?

One of the main criticisms of universal healthcare is it will increase our taxes. Some economists argue it would cut taxes for most Americans, but for the sake of discussion let’s assume it will raise them (Saez & Zucman, 2019). Senator Bernie Sanders has stated multiple times universal healthcare will increase our taxes (Thomas & Regan, 2016). Indeed, his proposed bill does contain a tax increase, but an increase in taxes doesn’t mean Americans will pay more. According to National Nurses United (2024), “even with the tax increase proposed by legislators, 95% of Americans will pay less than they do now. The taxes would replace premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.” So even with higher taxes, universal healthcare will be cheaper for almost all Americans than the current model.

Increased Bargaining Power

Over 65% of Americans are dependent on private health insurance to cover the costs of care (Keisler-Starkey & Bunch, 2024). That insurance is usually provided through employers, which reduces the cost of the insurance for the employees. While this may sound like a good deal for employees, it’s actually a good deal for employers. Employers get tax breaks for providing their employees with insurance and it gives them an important bargaining chip against unions (Delaney, 2020; Desmond, 2023).

Even with Obamacare, most people can’t afford the quality of health insurance they receive without their employers. Corporations know this and use health insurance when negotiating with unions. This makes it harder for unions to secure better pay, improved working conditions, and better benefits for their employees. Universal healthcare would shift power away from corporations (Delaney, 2020).

With universal healthcare, employees would no longer depend on their employers for health insurance. Employees will have more leverage at the negotiating table both as individuals and as unions. It also improves the economy by allowing for greater employee mobility. This brings me to another problem caused by our existing healthcare system: job lock.

Universal Healthcare Reduces Job Lock

Job lock is when people choose to stay in a job because they’re afraid of losing their health insurance. While it other benefits can also cause job lock, it’s usually health insurance.

When employers know their employees won’t relocate due to health insurance, it allows them to make cuts in other areas. Employees receive lower pay and worse working conditions. It also leads to lower earning potential because the employee is stuck at a job that refuses to give them raise when they could be moving to new jobs that offer better pay and/or better fit their skills.

According to Teirlinck & Stoilova (n.d.), job lock hurts the overall economy by lowering productivity and stifling innovation. It’s exactly what I learned in business school. Labor mobility to essential for increasing economic growth (raising GDP). People need to be able to go where they’re needed so they can find positions that better use their skills and increase their earning potential. People being unable to change jobs stifles economic growth. Slower economic growth contributes to a lower quality of life for a country.

Reduced Poverty

The cost of medical treatment and the impact of medical debt on US households have been topics of discussion for decades. Even people who don’t support universal healthcare understand how expensive healthcare is. Despite having insurance, most Americans have had to pay hundreds—or even thousands—of dollars for a medical expense (myself included). According to GoFundMe’s CEO, a third ($650M) of all the website’s payouts go to healthcare costs (Martinez, 2023). Even with that, 40% of Americans still have some form of medical debt (Sparks et al., 2026). That debt has pushed some of them into poverty. Universal healthcare would reduce poverty by preventing further medical debt. In my opinion, any universal healthcare bill should come with medical debt forgiveness.

While the cost of medical debt is a problem, another issue not frequently discussed is how sickness impacts income. Sick people earn less money and are less able to gain and maintain employment. It’s not because they’re “lazy” or “weak,” it’s because many of them don’t have sufficient access to the medicine and/or treatment they need. Worse, if people go without treatment long enough, manageable conditions can turn into more serious ones. For example, Type II Diabetes can lead to kidney failure or limb amputations if it goes untreated (Desmond, 2023). Universal healthcare allows people with certain health conditions to gain the treatment they need and remain healthy enough to maintain employment. Access to medical treatment is one of the reasons why poverty rates in countries with universal healthcare like the Canada and the UK are lower than they are here in the US.

Before I move on, I want to go on record saying I don’t think people who are sick—or anyone, really—should be forced to work. I don’t believe one of the advantages of universal healthcare is being able to push people with chronic conditions into the workforce “because now they can afford treatment.” This is one of the many reasons why I support Universal Basic Income. The only reason I’m discussing this at all is because there are many people who want to work but can’t because their inability to get treatment for their medical conditions prevents them from doing so. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the biggest obstacle people with medical conditions face is employment discrimination (Harris et al., 2019). No amount of medicine is going to cure bigotry. We need to do better as a society on that front!

Better Quality of Care

Most importantly, universal healthcare improves the quality of care. The Centers for Medicare and Medicare (2025) define quality of outcome as “the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge.” A healthcare outcome “is defined as the results or consequences of treatment or healthcare” (Klose, 2016). Putting these two together, the quality of care is measured by positive health outcomes.

The US is the only developed country without universal healthcare and has the worst care. Compared to ten other countries, including Canada and the UK, the US ranked last in overall healthcare and specifically in access to care and healthcare outcomes (Blumental et al., 2024). Most notably, our life expectancy is lower than those of the other countries and this is despite spending more on healthcare than they do (see above chart). Our infant mortality rate is also the highest in the developed world and is especially bad for Black children (Jang & Lee, 2022; Petrullo, 2023).

Not having universal healthcare significantly hindered our ability to response to COVID-19. “If the U.S. had had a single-payer universal health care system in 2020, nearly 212,000 American lives would have been saved that year, according to a new study” (Blair, 2022). It also would’ve been cheaper. With universal healthcare, “the country would have saved $105 billion in COVID-19 hospitalization expenses alone” (Blair, 2022). Even worse, the US saw a larger dip in life expectancy because of the pandemic vs. the UK and Canada (World Bank Group, 2026).

Additionally, the US has fewer doctors per 1000 people than many other developed nations (Telesford et al., 2025). This shortage of doctors has hit rural areas in the US extra hard because populations are smaller and people are poorer (Horstman et al., 2025; Kettles, 2025). Fewer hospitals can afford to operate in these areas, leading to monopolies. Even metropolitan areas face increased healthcare costs due to monopolization (AHIP, 2026). On top of this, many US doctors are moving to countries like Canada. While Trump was the reason many doctors were fleeing north in 2025, this has been a problem since before Trump won in 2016 (Glauser, 2014; Kelman, 2025). Another reason they’re moving north is Canada pays their doctors better than America does. “Increased pay is the main driver of this interest. Philpott said family physicians, pediatricians and psychiatrists can make $100000 more annually in Canada, on average, compared to the US” (Glauser, 2014). With private healthcare, profits determine how much a medical facility can pay their physicians. A public system creates opportunities for them to be paid more since profit is no longer the goal. This contradicts the claim made by critics that universal healthcare will lead to doctor shortages in the US. If the other countries are an indicator, universal healthcare will increase the number of doctors available in the US!

One problem not discussed often is how healthcare costs and medical debt make our health worse. This is mainly due to people delaying treatment because it’s too expensive. Even people with insurance have this problem:

Many insured adults said they or a family member had delayed or skipped needed health care or prescription drugs because they couldn’t afford it in the past 12 months: 29 percent of those with employer coverage, 37 percent covered by marketplace or individual-market plans, 39 percent enrolled in Medicaid, and 42 percent with Medicare (Collins et al., 2023).

As mentioned in the previous section, not being able to afford treatment can make health problems worse. And as health problems get worse, they get more expensive to treat. Buying medications for Type II Diabetes is less expensive than dialysis for kidney failure due to diabetic nephropathy. Medicare-4-All would remove the costs associated with healthcare and allow people to get diagnosed with and treated for diseases while they’re easier and less expensive to manage. To quote Tay Zonday, “Poverty charges interest.”

But what about “wait times?”

Critics of universal healthcare love to bring up “wait times” as a reason to not to implement it. There are multiple different problems with this criticism, but I’m only going to focus on three.

First, “wait times” is a weasel phrase. It has different meanings depending on who you ask, but it’s treated as if it has only one. This is also known as an equivocation fallacy. What specific wait times are critics discussing? Wait times for elective surgery? Wait times to see their primary care physicians or other forms of preventative medicine? Wait times for to see a specialist? Wait times for emergency room visits? It could mean waiting for any number of different parts of the medical system, some of which people may care about less than others. So when people talk about wait times, they need to specify which wait time they’re discussing. Then they need to provide evidence supporting that wait time and why that wait time means the US shouldn’t adopt universal healthcare.

Second, there’s one wait time critics never discuss: the wait times of people who can’t afford medical treatment. Regardless of what “wait time” is being discussed, their wait is infinite! While the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has reduced this number of people, there are still millions of Americans per year who go without treatment because they can’t afford the costs of medical treatment (USAFacts Team, 2026). Over 68,000 of those Americans will die (Office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, 2023).

Finally, depending on which wait times we’re discussing, they could be shorter under universal healthcare! Under Medicare only 21% of seniors wait more than 4 weeks to see a specialist (National Nurses United, 2020). Many European countries have shorter wait times to see a primary care physician/general practitioner. “According to a recent study by the Consumer Choice Center, the average wait for a GP appointment in the United States in 2023 was around three weeks, two to ten times longer than in Europe” (Fleck & Richter, 2024).

Down with Private Healthcare!

In conclusion, our current healthcare system is garbage. Not only is it more expensive than universal healthcare, but it provides worse service too. Critics of universal healthcare like to mock the Canadian system, but our doctors are lining up to work there! While Canada’s system is far from perfect, it still provides more benefits at lower costs than our system. They live longer than we do, for example. Additionally, they don’t have to worry about losing their healthcare when their boss lays them off to do stock buybacks. America faces multiple problems due to economic inequality. In addition to improving people’s health, universal healthcare would be a great first step in combatting them!

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Sources:

AHIP. (2026, March 30). Rise of hospital monopolies causing ‘elevated concerns’ of ‘increased…. AHIP. https://www.ahip.org/news/articles/rise-of-hospital-monopolies-causing-elevated-concerns-of-increased-prices-less-access-to-care-worries-about-patient-safety-quality

Balhous, C. (2018, July 30). The costs of a national single-payer healthcare system. Mercatus Center. https://www.mercatus.org/research/working-papers/costs-national-single-payer-healthcare-system

Blair, J. (2022, June 20). Study: More than 335,000 lives could have been saved during pandemic if U.S. had Universal Health Care. Yale School of Public Health. https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/yale-study-more-than-335000-lives-could-have-been-saved-during-pandemic-if-us-had-universal-health-care/

Blumenthal, D., Gumas, E. D., Shah, A., Gunja, M. Z., & Williams, R. D. (2024, September 19). Health care by country 2024 report | commonwealth fund. The Commonwealth Fund. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2024/sep/mirror-mirror-2024

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2025, February 27). Quality of Care. CMS.gov. https://www.cms.gov/priorities/innovation/key-concepts/quality-care

Collins, S. R., Roy, S., & Masitha, R. (2023, October 26). Paying for it: How health care costs and medical debt are making Americans sicker and poorer. The Commonwealth Fund. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/surveys/2023/oct/paying-for-it-costs-debt-americans-sicker-poorer-2023-affordability-survey

Daniller, A. (2025, December 10). Is ensuring health care coverage a government responsibility? what Americans think. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/12/10/most-americans-say-government-has-a-responsibility-to-ensure-health-care-coverage/

Delaney, J. (2020, February 14). Medicare for all helps unions by taking health care off the bargaining table [truthout]. Health Care For Us. https://hc4us.org/medicare-for-all-helps-unions-by-taking-health-care-off-the-bargaining-table-truthout/

Desmond, M. (2023). Poverty, by America. Crown.

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. (2026). Inflation Calculator. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator

Flannery, M. E. (2026, May 12). The education case for single-payer healthcare systems. NEA. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/education-case-single-payer-healthcare-systems

Fleck, A., & Richter, F. (2024, September 17). Infographic: Healthcare: How long do patients have to wait?. Statista Daily Data. https://www.statista.com/chart/33079/average-waiting-times-for-a-doctors-appointment/?srsltid=AfmBOooFprQl5SyrASayXsUC2n9_AwzaQWrhDw_4b2LDV4iazjqUijBX

Galvani, A. P., Parpia, A. S., Foster, E. M., Singer, B. H., & Fitzpatrick, M. C. (2020). Improving the prognosis of health care in the USA. The Lancet, 395(10223), 524–533. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(19)33019-3

Glauser, W. (2014). US doctors migrating north. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 186(11). https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.109-4805

Harris, S. P., Gould, R., & Mullin, C. (2019). Research brief: Experience of discrimination and the ada. Research Brief: Experience of Discrimination and the ADA | ADA National Network. https://adata.org/research_brief/experience-discrimination-and-ada

Horstman, C., & Shah, A. (2025, November 17). The state of Rural Primary Care in the United States. The Commonwealth Fund. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2025/nov/state-rural-primary-care-united-states

Jang, C., & Lee, H. (2022). A review of racial disparities in infant mortality in the US. Children, 9(2), 257. https://doi.org/10.3390/children9020257

Keisler-Starkey, K., & Bunch, L. N. (2024, September 11). Health insurance coverage in the United States: 2023. Census.gov. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p60-284.html

Kelman, B. (2025, May 29). American doctors look to relocate to Canada to avoid the Trump administration. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/05/29/nx-s1-5414345/american-doctors-look-to-relocate-to-canada-to-avoid-the-trump-administration

Kettles, M. (2025, May 16). Op-ed: Market failures and the cost of Rural Health Inequality. Michigan Journal of Economics. https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2025/05/16/op-ed-market-failures-and-the-cost-of-rural-health-inequality/

Klose, K., Kreimeier, S., Tangermann, U., Aumann, I., & Damm, K. (2016). Patient- and person-reports on healthcare: Preferences, outcomes, experiences, and satisfaction – an essay. Health Economics Review, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13561-016-0094-6

Martinez, G. (2023, December 12). GoFundMe CEO: One-third of fundraisers are for medical costs | time. TIME. https://time.com/5516037/gofundme-medical-bills-one-third-ceo/

National Nurses United. (2020, January 25). Frequently Asked Questions. Medicare For All. https://medicare4all.org/about/#1579909967320-c582ff39-dcc8

National Nurses United. (2024, September 9). Flyers. Medicare For All. https://medicare4all.org/flyers-2/

Office of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. (2023). Fact Sheet Medicare for All 2023. Martin Heinrich. https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/download/fact-sheet-medicare-for-all-2023

Petrullo, J. (2023, January 31). US Has Highest Infant, Maternal Mortality Rates Despite the Most Health Care Spending. AJMC. https://www.ajmc.com/view/us-has-highest-infant-maternal-mortality-rates-despite-the-most-health-care-spending

Public Citizen. (2025, November 3). Fact check: Medicare for all would save the U.S. trillions; public option would leave millions uninsured, not Garner Savings. Public Citizen. https://www.citizen.org/news/fact-check-medicare-for-all-would-save-the-u-s-trillions-public-option-would-leave-millions-uninsured-not-garner-savings/

Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (2019, October 25). Make no mistake: Medicare for all would cut taxes for most Americans | Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/25/medicare-for-all-taxes-saez-zucman

Sarlin, B., & Kimelman, J. (2019, June 20). What is “medicare for all” and how would it work? NBCNews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/what-medicare-all-how-would-it-work-n1014256

Sparks, G., Lopes, L., Montero, A., Presiado, M., & Hamel, L. (2026, April 30). Americans’ challenges with health care costs. KFF. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/americans-challenges-with-health-care-costs/

Sylvie, A. (2016, June 27). Single Payer Healthcare: Pluses, minuses, and what it means for you. Harvard Health. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/single-payer-healthcare-pluses-minuses-means-201606279835

Teirlinck, B., & Stoilova, D. (n.d.). Portable benefits: Unlocking innovation and job mobility | NYCEDC. NYCEDC. https://edc.nyc/research-insights/portable-benefits-unlocking-innovation-job-mobility

Telesford, I., Wagner, E., & Cox, C. (2025, October 6). How does the quality of the U.S. health system compare to other countries?. Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality-u-s-healthcare-system-compare-countries/#health-system-capacity

Thomas, K., & Regan, M. D. (2016, January 18). Sanders pitches tax hike to pay for Universal Health Care Plan. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/sanders-pitches-tax-hike-to-pay-for-universal-health-care-plan

USAFacts Team. (2026, May 18). How many people in America skip medical treatment due to healthcare costs?. USAFacts. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-skip-medical-treatment-due-to-healthcare-costs/

World Bank Group. (2026). Life expectancy at birth, total (years) - United States, United Kingdom, Canada. World Bank Open Data. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?end=2024&locations=US-GB-CA&start=2000

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Yes, you read that right: house everyone!

The United States (US) is currently in a housing crisis. As of 2024, median home prices have more than doubled in America since 1965—and that’s after adjusting for inflation (Winters, 2024)! Meanwhile, median household income has only risen by about 22% over that same period (United States Census Bureau, 2021; Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 2025). The results are longer commutes (people having to buy homes further away), skyrocketing rental prices (because no one can afford a home near where they work), increased private debt (mortgages, credit cards to cover income gaps), and a record number of homeless people! While there are many possible ways to mitigate these issues, there’s only one way to solve them completely: give people homes.

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When I say “give people homes” I don’t mean give them a low-interest loan, a grant for a down payment, or some sort of split-payment program (the individual pays X, the government pays Y), I mean give people homes. The government should supply every adult with a place to live free of charge. We could call it something catchy like “Universal Basic Housing.” Universal Basic Income (UBI) would give everyone a check to cover their basic needs, Universal Basic Housing (UBH) would give everyone basic lodging.

I want to emphasize “basic.” I’m not saying Uncle Sam should give everyone a mansion, I’m saying every adult should be guaranteed at least a one-bedroom, one bathroom apartment. The size could be adjusted to accommodate single people with kids, married couples/families, or adults caring for other adults, but they still wouldn’t be luxury accommodations. This would give everyone a starting point from which to (if they choose) launch their careers and/or save enough to buy better homes!

Why everyone and not only homeless people? Because it works better that way. One of the reasons public housing has declined in quality here in the US is because it wasn’t offered to everyone. Since only homeless people and the very poor, people who are underrepresented in politics, had access to it, there were few people to speak out against funding cuts to Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The other reason was people who wanted to cut HUD’s funding spread propaganda racializing public housing (the same way they did/are doing with welfare) knowing white people would oppose it if they thought only Black people were benefitting from it (Chow, 2018; Stanford University, 2018). When everyone has access to it, more people are invested in maintaining it. This is why Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend remains popular across the state (Widerquist, 2024). More importantly providing everyone would homes would be more beneficial to all working-class Americans.

It would lower the costs of both homes and apartments. If everyone is guaranteed housing, paying rent/having a mortgage becomes a want instead of a need. This will lower the demand for housing, which will reduce prices. People who want more than just the basics will be better able to afford it. A side benefit of this will be lower interest rates. With fewer people needing loans, banks will need to lower interest rates to incentivize people to take them. The same goes for credit cards. Cheaper homes mean less debt (Zimmerman & Hoffman, 2024)!

UBH would improve the quality of non-government homes and apartments. Public options create choice. Free options mean anyone looking to sell homes or rent out a place to live will have to either improve their services or raise the quality of their living spaces to attract customers. Why would someone pay to live in a rundown apartment with no hot water and questionable electrical wiring when they can get a decent apartment for free? Why would someone buy a rat-infested home with foundation issues when they can have a clean, safe place to live for free?

What if the owners can’t afford to fix those properties? My first instinct is to ask why they’re trying to charge people for subpar living spaces, but I understand for some people it may be their only option. The government could purchase these properties from the owners and either repair them or bulldoze them to build better housing (discussed more later).

Guaranteed housing raises wages. Safety nets give people options. It’s easier for people to advocate for higher wages when they don’t have to worry about being homeless if their boss retaliates. This same logic can be applied to improving working conditions and combatting interpersonal issues such as sexual harassment. Like with UBI, some people will take advantage of stable housing to go back to school, take care of their children, or quit work to start their own business or project (Widerquist, 2024). With fewer people working jobs they hate just to make rent, companies will need to make those jobs more desirable. The quickest way to do this would be to raise wages.

Everyone is just safer this way. Stable housing lowers crime and helps people beat addiction—which lowers crimes even further (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2021). In the case of homeless people, it will save us money. Giving them homes is cheaper than letting them sleep on the streets (Miles, 2014; Yglesias, 2019). It will also remedy situations where people stay in unhappy and/or abusive relationships because they can’t afford to live on their own. Additionally, housing security reduces domestic violence and is gives survivors a safe space to heal (Clough et al., 2013; Austin et al., 2022; Jaleel, 2025).

How would do we do it? There are multiple ways, but I will focus on three: universal housing vouchers, buying up existing properties, and new construction.

Matthew Desmond proposed universal housing vouchers as a method of giving everyone a place to live in his book Evicted. Instead of giving people a place to live, the government would provide them with a voucher for X amount of money. For example, a voucher for $1000/month would mean the government would pay for rent up to that amount. In the book, Wisconsin provided this service to people who are qualified for the program. One advantage is it lowered the cost of housing (Desmond, 2016). Landlords would lower the price of rent to match the amount on the voucher. Most of them would rather have a guaranteed $1000 from Uncle Sam than $1200 from a renter who may not pay (Desmond, 2016). It would also require the least amount of change. Management of the houses/apartments would remain the job of the landlords (or managers) just like it now. The only difference would be the government covering rent instead of the tenant. A disadvantage is it would require money for monitoring/inspection to make sure the apartments people are living in are up to code/meet the minimum requirements established by the government. Another problem is the voucher would be dependent on how well the government is able to keep up with inflation. Giving people $1000/month for rent may work for the first couple of years, but eventually that’s not going to be enough (Minimum wage, anyone?). One way to address this is to have the voucher amount automatically adjusted for inflation. Additional adjustments in price would need to be made for areas with higher costs of living (e.g. San Francisco).

Instead of giving tenants a check and inspecting local apartments, the government could buy and maintain the apartments themselves. While this has a much higher upfront cost, it could save the government money in the long run. Private landlords still need to make a profit, meaning housing vouchers would need to be adjusted for both inflation and opportunity costs. The government doesn’t have that constraint. The government could operate public housing at a “loss” if it wanted to, providing housing at no cost and paying the necessary maintenance fees. Additionally, the government owning the apartments/housing cuts out the middle person. Instead of pressuring landlords to do repairs or upgrade housing units, the government can do it themselves. Unfortunately, this approach is far from perfect. When buying apartments and other forms of housing, the government has to work with what’s already there. As Desmond described in Evicted, and Mamdani has shown in recent videos of New York City, many of the places available are subpar. They’re moldy, have non-functions systems (e.g. no heat), or are falling apart (sometimes literally). It may be more economical for the government to bulldoze them and start over. Finally, the most obvious problem is landlords may not be willing to sell. The government can’t buy what isn’t for sale.

The government could build new. The government could purchase land and build modern living spaces designed for durability and longevity. Like buying existing housing, there is a higher upfront cost, but it has more advantages. Because the government is starting from scratch, they could design living spaces based on what’s best for the communities. This could mean designing living spaces that encourage people to meet their neighbors, like including courtyards and parks. Adding commercial spaces into these areas like miniature grocery stores to combat food deserts or dry-cleaning places for professionals requiring uniforms and suits would also be an option. Hired architects could design buildings to reduce mold accumulation and use materials less susceptible to rust and corrosion. In places known for extreme weather, they could factor this into construction (e.g. tornado shelters). Like with buying apartments, the government doesn’t have to worry about making a profit. The main disadvantage to this would be much higher upfront costs. Building something from scratch costs much more than buying something that’s already been constructed, but it might be worth it!

Personally, I believe the best solution would be mix of all three. The government should start with housing vouchers since it’s the fastest way to address the problem of housing. While providing housing vouchers, the government should focus on buying and building housing.

What about the people who already own homes? Since 1965 homeownership in America has remained between 60 – 70% (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 2026). These people are the least likely to benefit from UBH because they already have better homes than what the program will offer. Additionally, it’s likely they will suffer from declining home values due to decreased demand—like what happened in 2008. What can be done about this? One solution is providing homeowners with a check to compensate them for the loss in value. They could either invest this money or apply it towards their mortgages. Homeowners could get a chance to refinance their homes based on the decreased interest rates and a reduced loan amount based on the decrease in value of their homes. The government could compensate banks for their losses in the form of tax write-offs. Even though they’re not getting housing, the government can still ensure existing homeowners benefit from UBH!

Last but not least, I want to address an argument that keeps coming up in discussions about homelessness: what about the people who choose to be homeless? Okay, what about them? This demographic only represents less than 20% of homeless people, and most of the people who would benefit from UBH are not homeless anyway (Bowers, 2019). Depending on the reasons they want to be homeless, alternative arrangements could be made for them. Maybe they want to be part of a camp on a piece of land, for example. We can’t force them to be housed if they don’t want to, but we can still provide housing for everyone else in the country!

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Sources:

Austin, A. E., Durrance, C. P., Runyan, C. W., Runyan, D. K., Martin, S. L., Mercer, J., & Shanahan, M. E. (2022). Affordable housing through the low-income housing tax credit program and intimate partner violence-related homicide. Preventive Medicine, 155, 106950. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2021.106950

Bowers, C. (2019, November 17). Myth #2: People choose to be homeless and most decline services when offered. United To End Homelessness. https://unitedtoendhomelessness.org/blog/myth-people-choose-to-be-homeless-and-most-decline-services-when-offered/

Chow, K. (2018, June 8). Why more white Americans are opposing government welfare programs. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/06/08/616684259/why-more-white-americans-are-opposing-government-welfare-programs

Clough, A., Draughon, J. E., Njie-Carr, V., Rollins, C., & Glass, N. (2013). ‘having housing made everything else possible’: Affordable, safe and stable housing for women survivors of violence. Qualitative Social Work, 13(5), 671–688. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325013503003

Desmond, M. (2016). Evicted. Crown/Archetype.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. (2025, September 9). Real Median Household Income in the United States. FRED. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. (2026, April 28). Homeownership Rate in the United States. FRED. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

Jaleel, S. (2025, October 24). Turning housing into freedom: How affordable housing can empower survivors of domestic violence. Housing Up. https://housingup.org/2025/10/24/turning-housing-into-freedom-how-affordable-housing-can-empower-survivors-of-domestic-violence/

Miles, K. (2014, March 25). Housing the homeless not only saves lives - it’s actually cheaper than doing nothing. NOEMA. https://www.noemamag.com/housing-the-homeless-not-only-saves-lives-its-actually-cheaper-than-doing-nothing/

National Low Income Housing Coalition. (2021, July 12). New Study Finds that Providing People Experiencing Homelessness with Housing has Positive Impacts on Health, Crime, and Employment. National Low Income Housing Coalition. https://nlihc.org/resource/new-study-finds-providing-people-experiencing-homelessness-housing-has-positive-impacts

Stanford University. (2018, May 31). Perceived threat to racial status leads to opposition of welfare among white Americans, Stanford sociologist finds. Stanford Report. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2018/05/welfare-opposition-linked-threats-racial-standing

United States Census Bureau. (2021, October 8). Income in 1965 of families and persons in the United States. Census.gov. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1967/demo/p60-051.html

Widerquist, K. (2024). Universal Basic Income. The MIT Press.

Winters, M. (2024, May 13). Here’s how much housing prices have skyrocketed over the last 50 years. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/13/how-much-more-expensive-homes-are-since-1965.html

Yglesias, M. (2019, February 20). The most cost-effective way to help the homeless is to give them homes. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2014/5/30/5764096/homeless-shelter-housing-help-solutions

Zimmerman, R., & Hoffman, L. (2024, July 24). Increasingly debt-strapped consumers concerned about rising housing-related costs. Fannie Mae. https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/increasingly-debt-strapped-consumers-concerned-about-rising-housing-related-costs

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With income inequality continuing to grow and the election of Mayor Mamdani in NYC, we’re hearing more people talk about capitalism, socialism, and communism [1][2]. Unfortunately for us, however, few people talking about these economic systems seem to understand what they are. To provide some clear definitions, I will be writing an article about each one. The articles will describe what they are, what they’re not, how I feel about them. My previous articles covered capitalism and socialism. This article will be about communism.

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What is communism?

Communism is a little different from the previous two words I discussed. First, it’s not just an economic system. Communism is form of social organization. Second, its definition changes whether you’re talking about “communism (little ‘c’)” as a system or “Communism (big ‘C’)” as a form of government. This is important because they have two different, and opposing, definitions (more on this later). Let’s start with communism. According to the dictionary, communism is “a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state” [3]. To expand on this further, communism is a moneyless, classless and stateless society [4][5]. When Marx and Engels wrote about communism, this is what they meant. When left-wingers talk about “communism,” this is what they mean.

Okay, then what is Communism?

According to the dictionary, Communism is a form of government where “(often initial capital letter) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party” [3]. This is the exact opposite of a moneyless, class, and stateless society. Communist (big “C”) are forms of state capitalism (the means of production are privately controlled by the state) with the intention of transitioning to socialism and eventually communism. The idea is a strong state is needed to protect against the violence and exploitation of “free market” capitalism and Western Imperialism. Once these forces had been defeated worldwide, the world could start to transition toward communism. Examples of Communist countries are the former USSR, China, and Cuba. All of these countries currently have autocratic states that privately control the means of production. While these countries are nominally Communist, they’re really totalitarian governments using capitalism as their economic system. Ostensibly, they are directing capitalism in a way that benefits most citizens as opposed to a select few, but its effectiveness at that is debatable. Just to remove any ambiguity, these countries are neither socialist nor communist. When right-wingers talk about “communism,” what they’re actually thinking of is “Communism” (a.k.a. state capitalism).

For the rest of this article, I will be discussing communism.

What isn’t communism?

State Capitalism. As stated above and in my previous article, state capitalism is when the means of production are privately controlled by the state. Communism requires socialism, which is mutually exclusive to capitalism. While countries like China and Cuba wish to be communist and are actively working towards that goal, they are not there yet. They currently function under state capitalism.

Any form of government or hierarchical society. Communism is stateless. There’s no such thing as a communist country because countries are a type of state. It’s also classless so there can’t by a tiered system of people. There are no “owners” and “workers” in communism. There are also no “rich” and “poor” because money doesn’t exist and all private property is collectively owned.

“Not having your own house, car, toothbrush, etc.” These are all forms of personal property. Communism distinguishes between personal and private property. These are personal property because you use them. You live in your house, you drive your car, you use your toothbrush to clean your teeth. Private property would be land, extra houses, factories, farms, etc. used to generate profits. While communism allows people to have personal property, it doesn’t allow people to have private property. Ownership of private property is designated and enforced by the state. If there’s no state, who is going to enforce your claim on a piece of land that doesn’t contain your house? Why would you need private property in a moneyless society, anyway?

“No iPhone!” The implication here is that without free market capitalism, the iPhone (or any other piece of technology) wouldn’t exist. In other words, no one would’ve been inspired to invent the smartphone without the profit motive present in the “free market.” This is ridiculous for two reasons:

First, the USSR and China have proved free market capitalism isn’t necessary for technological advances. There was a point in time where the USSR was more advanced than the US technologically (Remember Sputnik?). At the time of the Russian Revolution, it was an agrarian society behind most of Western Europe. Currently, Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) outperform US ones and were 70% of all EVs manufactured in 2024 [6]. The reason you’ve probably never heard of them is the US government put high tariffs on them—so much for the “free market!”

Second, most of the technologies used in the iPhone were invented in government labs. One of these technologies was the multiple-touch touchscreen. When touchscreens were first invented, they could only register one touch at a time. It was impossible to do mundane things like zoom in and out on photos using your fingers, because that required the screen being able to reach multiple touches at the same time. Universities figured out how to do it through federal-funded research [7]. Apple just used the technology in their iPhone. In other words, without taxpayer-funded research, there would be no iPhone [8].

Socialism (kind of). This one is a bit complicated. All forms of communism are socialist, but not all forms of socialism are communist. Socialism is when workers control the means of production. A moneyless, classless, and stateless society would have to be socialist by default. If certain people have control over the means of production and others don’t, you are back to having two classes: owners and workers. However, not all socialist societies have to be moneyless and stateless. Communism requires all three.

How do I feel about it?

It’s complicated. I like idea of communism, but I don’t think it’s achievable. I believe the US could become socialist in a generation. I even believe we could build a moneyless and classless society within 100 – 200 years. What I’m skeptical about is statelessness.

The reason countries like the former USSR, China, Cuba had/have autocratic states with limited civil liberties was Western Imperialism. The argument was if they allowed free speech, Western nations would exploit that freedom to inundate the people with in anti-state propaganda or plant the seeds of revolution. The United States especially has a long history of causing and funding coups in South and Central America [9]. Not even Europe was safe from US interventions. Cuba has been subject to many atrocities at the hand of the US. The US tried multiple times to assassinate Fidel Castro, has a decades-old embargo against Cuba, and is currently starving Cuba with a military blockade. Why did the US do this to all these countries? Because they are/were “communist.”

For communism to work, all countries in the world would have to be working towards communism and be willing to dissolve their states. If half the countries on the planet decide to become communist and dissolve their state governments, there will be nothing to protect them from the capitalist half of the world. They will see the communist half of the planet as easy targets for exploitation. Some will point to how Vietnam was able to successfully defeat the United States, but Vietnam had a functioning state government capable of organizing military resistance. That would not be the case under communism.

While I don’t want to completely rule it out, I don’t see a situation where enough of the world embraces communism that capitalism peacefully dissolves. If the violent history of capitalism is any indicator, a state of some kind would still be needed to organize defenses against it. And if there’s state, it’s not communism.

Full Disclosure

I’ve had this article finished for over month, but it’s taken me so long to publish because I don’t like how I ended it. I don’t like to talk about problems without offering possible solutions, but I don’t have a possible solution. I can’t think of a way for communism to peacefully defeat capitalism. So I’m asking for your help. Let me know in the comments if there’s a way to get enough of the world to embrace communism that capitalism peacefully dissolves.

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Sources:

[1] https://www.epi.org/multimedia/unequal-states-of-america/

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/economic-inequality

[3] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/communism

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_society

[5] https://www.britannica.com/topic/classless-society

[6] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/20/chinas-evs-dominate-the-world-why-not-in-the-us-and

[7] https://www1.udel.edu/udaily/2015/oct/university-research-100814.html

[8] https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/the-iphone-and-the-invisible-hand-of-government

[9] https://www.npr.org/2026/01/02/nx-s1-5652133/us-venezuela-interventionism-caribbean-latin-america-history-trump

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All property is force. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, I’m saying there’s no such thing as a fully voluntary property arrangement. What do I mean? Property is a restriction. More than it says what the owner can do, it says what non-owners can’t do. Take land, for example. If Person A owns a piece of land, Person A can bar anyone else from entering or occupying that land. Their right to decide who can occupy that land exists regardless of whether everyone else agrees with them. This is not a voluntary arrangement because everyone else is forced to abide by whatever rules Person A sets up for the land. Since it’s not voluntary, some person or entity is going to need to enforce this restriction. An entity like the government.

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In the US, the government determines property rights. When someone buys a house, they’re issued a deed. That deed is a legal document describing who owns that home. If someone else tries to claim they own that house, they have no standing. If both parties claim to have a deed, the government decides which one of their claims is valid. Property rights exist because the government can universally resolve disputes and has the authority to enforce that resolution. If the losing party disagrees with the ruling, they either have to suck it up or find some other way to resolve the dispute. Even in the case of the latter, the government will usually still need to be involved.

Even though the government represents a universal force, this force allows for more peaceful resolutions. Property disputes can happen in courts where conflicts are resolved with words and evidence instead of bloodshed. Without the government or some other third party, who has the biggest guns defines property rights. In a capitalist society, that’s usually the person with the most money. They have the resources to afford the best weapons and to hire people to use them. If people don’t give up their resources willingly, the wealthy can deploy their private armies to take them by force. This is why anarcho-capitalism (an oxymoron, but that’s another conversation) and other forms of government based solely on “voluntary exchange” ultimately result in dictatorships of capital.

While allowing a third party to determine property rights has its advantages, it’s not a perfect system. That third party is vulnerable to corruption. Take the US, for example. The owner class in the US amassed so much wealth it was able to buy the government. What was supposed to be a neutral third party now rules in ways that favor its benefactors. One example of this was the Citizens United v. FEC (2010) ruling, which removed limits on corporate spending in politics under the guise of “free speech.” The five Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor removing the limits on corporate spending were appointed by presidents who favored the interest of the owner class—the same owner class that contributed to their campaigns. This happened again last month with the Supreme Court ruling against the Voting Rights Act—a ruling made by Justices appointed by a President favoring the owner class.

So, what can be done? Some people have proposed, and campaigned on, a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United v. FEC [1]. Others have argued states can circumvent the ruling completely by redefining what corporations are [2]. In my opinion, these are good for treating the symptoms but not curing the disease. The disease is corporations making too much money. If they had lower profits, they wouldn’t be able to spend money on SuperPACs to bribe politicians. How do we lower their profits? The best way would be to force them to pay their workers more. Unionization is the most accessible method to people now. In my opinion, the best way to reduce corporate money in politics is to democratize the workplace. Let the workers decide what’s done with companies’ profits. I’m sure bribing politicians will be the last item on the list!

Sources:

[1] https://www.npr.org/2016/02/14/466668949/presidential-candidates-pledge-to-undo-citizens-united-but-can-they

[2] https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-corporate-power-reset-that-makes-citizens-united-irrelevant/

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I couldn’t end Black History Month without talking about the Montgomery Riverfront Brawl!

It goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway: I do not condone violence! I am recounting these events for strictly comedic purposes and am not saying this is how people should behave when facing racism.

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You can read all the boring details in the article linked below [1]. In summary, a racist white family illegally parked their boat in a dock meant for steamboats, preventing one of the boats coming in from docking. With people stranded in the water, one of the dock workers (who was Black) politely asked the family to move and they refused. The family attacked the worker, leading to a brawl where family got into a fight with multiple other Black workers from the company, culminating in one of the family members being hit with a folding chair. The family was arrested, leading to some hilarious mugshots.

Unfortunately for the Black workers who were attacked, the police didn’t charge any of the family members with a hate crime. It did lead to bunch of great memes, though.

Over 100 years ago, Black inventor Nathaniel Alexander patented the folding chair [2]. Though he’s no longer alive today, I’m sure he would smile at the thought of his invention being used in the defense of his people!

Sources:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Riverfront_brawl

[2] https://hyperallergic.com/the-black-history-of-the-montgomery-brawl-folding-chair/

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Our ability to think far surpasses those of any other creature. Starting with the control of fire, it has allowed us to invent tools to overcome most of our natural disadvantages. We built machines to make up for our lack of strength and invented medicines to extend our lives, to name a couple of examples. Doing this required pattern recognition, data analysis, judgement, and the ability to share this information with others. That said, our skills aren’t perfect.

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When we are in a crisis or reacting to events around us, our brains often use shortcuts to make decisions quickly. While this was/is necessary to ensure our survival, it can often cause us to make mistakes. This is especially true if we use the same shortcuts when trying to make rational decisions or persuade others. These mistakes are known as logical fallacies.

What are logical fallacies? According to Purdue University, logical fallacies “are common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument” [1]. In other words, arguments containing logical fallacies are usually invalid and therefore not worth any further consideration. While they are often committed accidentally, some people intentionally use logical fallacies to deceive, persuade, or scam others. Advertisements are notorious for using logical fallacies like appealing to popularity (discussed below) to get people to buy their products. Blatantly lying to people in advertisements is illegal, but using bad arguments is not. This is just one of many reasons why it’s important to be able to understand and recognize logical fallacies. There are dozens of logical fallacies out there, but here are six of the most common ones:

Ad Hominem

Attacking the person instead of the argument and then claiming the person’s argument is invalid because of it. I encountered this fallacy quite often back in my hardcore atheist/anti-theist days (for the record, I am now an agnostic Unitarian Universalist). Conservative Christians would often claim my arguments against their religion were invalid because I was a “christophobe” or a “God-hater.” Whether or not that was true (for the record, it wasn’t) that by itself didn’t mean the arguments I made were invalid. Another version of this is attacking a person’s motivations instead of their argument. Someone’s motivation for making an argument doesn’t mean that argument is invalid.

Affirmation of the Consequent

In my deductive reasoning article, I explained principles (p) and consequences (q). If “p” implies “q,” then the presence of “p” means “q” is also present. The affirmation of the consequent fallacy is when someone argues that the presence of “q” means “p” is also present. This is commonly used as justification for tone-policing/concern trolling. A Black person says, “Black Lives Matter” and the concern troll responds with, “This is why Trump won!” (Another common version of concern-trolling argument is the one in the image above.) While Trump did win in 2024 (q), there’s no evidence it was because people were saying “Black Lives Matter” (p). In fact, it could very well be true Trump won because people didn’t say “Black Lives Matter” enough!

Anecdotal Fallacy

I’m sure we’ve all seen this fallacy at least once. Person A shares scientific evidence supporting point XYZ and Person B responds by saying their personal experience refutes Person A’s evidence. This is fallacy because one incident doesn’t negate statistical significance. Another reason is there’s no way to verify the accuracy of Person B’s statement. I’m not calling them a liar (though they could be), I’m saying they could be confusing correlation with causation or misremembering the details. That said, there are times when anecdotes are fine to use. If someone claims your lived experiences are wrong because it contradicts their unsubstantiated opinions, no one will fault you for trusting your experiences over the other person’s opinions.

Burden of Proof Reversal

“Prove me wrong!” “Change my mind!” “You can’t prove that I don’t!” All of these are examples of burden of proof reversal. Someone makes a strong positive or negative claim and then demands you prove them wrong. This is a fallacy because the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. If they can’t provide evidence to support their claims, you have no obligation to provide evidence refuting them.

Divine Fallacy

“It’s true because I said so/want it be so!” Some alternate versions of this are people claiming statements are “self-evident,” “common sense,” or “reality.” Claiming something doesn’t need evidence doesn’t make it so. You can dismantle this fallacy by simply asking, “What makes it self-evident?” If you’re feeling feisty, another way to dismantle this argument is to make the opposite claim, state it’s also self-evident, and then ask them why their claim is more valid than yours. You’d think it would be obvious to most adults that saying something is true doesn’t make it so, but here we are.

Naked Assertion/Unsubstantiated Claim

This is when someone makes a claim without proof. The easy answer to this is to ask them for a source, proof, or evidence of their claim. If they refuse, you can tell them, “Claims without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” The one caveat to this is some claims are very difficult, if not impossible, to prove. For example, certain personal experiences. A person may claim a helmet saved their life as a kid because they ran into something and the collision sheared off a piece of their helmet instead of their head. Unless they still have that helmet, there’s no way to “prove” that story is true. People will either believe them or they won’t. While this is technically still a naked assertion, the reason behind why the person is telling the story likely makes it a better fit for a different logical fallacy. (For the record, I strongly believe helmets save lives.)

BONUS: The Fallacy Fallacy

This is a controversial one. The fallacy fallacy is when someone claims a person’s conclusion is wrong because the argument they made to support it contains a logical fallacy. The reason this fallacy is controversial is because many people misunderstand what logical fallacies are. While it’s true arguments containing logical fallacies are invalid, that doesn’t mean the conclusion of said arguments are wrong. It means the arguments don’t support the conclusion and better arguments are needed. Otherwise, it’s an unsubstantiated claim.

These are only six (Plus a bonus one!) of the most common fallacies. There are dozens of logical fallacies out there. I plan to cover more of the common ones in a later article.

Finally, some people will get upset with you for pointing out the logical fallacies in their statements. Let them. Their anger doesn’t make you wrong. In fact, that’s another logical fallacy: appeal to emotion.

Sources:

[1] https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/logic_in_argumentative_writing/fallacies.html

The rest comes from the knowledge I acquired through the logic classes I took for my engineering degree, the ethics classes I took for my MBA, and decades of talking politics.

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Being an artist doesn’t make racism okay. There are ways to draw Black people without turning them into racist caricatures. There are ways to cosplay Black characters without adopting Black hairstyles (e.g. cornrows) or engaging in Blackface.

Additionally, you can’t use the excuse “I’m just trying to get in character/trying to be authentic” for dressing up in a racist way or drawing Black people in a racist way. There are plenty of ways to portray racism against Black people in art without creating racist art!

Image Artist, Michelle Olens:

https://community.wacom.com/en-us/drawing-while-black-2023/

https://www.artstation.com/m-olens

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Let’s make something clear: Black Republicans are practically nonexistent. They’re a fraction of a fraction of a fraction.

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What do I mean? Black people make up about 14% of eligible voters [1]. Only 64% of eligible voters, regardless of race, showed up in 2024 (this is high for America, unfortunately) [2]. That comes out to 155M people [2]. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to assume all races voted evenly. That means about 9% (14% x 0.64) people who voted in 2024 were Black (it was actually less). So about 14M people. Of that 9%, only 15% of them voted for Trump (83% voted for Harris). That gives us 2.1M Black Republicans, if we assume that every Black person who voted for Trump identified as Republican. There are about 34.5M Black eligible voters [1]. This means only 6% of Black voters are Republicans.

If Black Republicans such a small percentage, why do they get so much attention? Because Republicans love to use them as shields! Republicans point to the Black people, especially the high-profile ones like Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell, in their party and say, “See? We aren’t racist! If we were racist, why would Clarence Thomas be in our party? Why would Thomas Sowell be a popular conservative author?” It’s pretty much the “I can’t be racist because I have Black friends!” defense, but for the whole party. That’s why the Republican Party continues to elevate Black conservatives.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/01/10/key-facts-about-black-eligible-voters-in-2024/

[2] https://goodauthority.org/news/2024-brought-high-voter-turnout-but-a-growing-racial-gap/

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For those who can’t read the small text, the guy in the first panel is asking, “Why are there Black people in *insert fantasy that doesn’t exist in real life*?”

There’s zero reason there can’t be Black elves, Black mermaids, or Black vampires. It’s FANTASY. It’s MADE-UP. It’s NOT REAL. How do you know there couldn’t be elves who come from areas where they needed more melanin in their skin? I didn’t realize there was a Grand Council of Fantasy that met periodically and decided what an elf was supposed to look like.

There’s nothing wrong with Black characters in fantasy. You’re just racist.

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Before I proceed, I want to mention what others have already stated: only a small percentage of people Tourette’s Syndrome uncontrollably shout obscenities. People trying to defend this guy by saying this happened because of his Tourette’s Syndrome are arguably being ableist by painting everyone with Tourette’s with a broad brush. Okay, on with the post!

Being disabled isn’t an excuse for racism. Even if we assume the man had the form of Tourette’s that made him shout obscenities uncontrollably, it doesn’t make his actions okay. It also doesn’t make it okay to invalidate the feelings of people who were hurt by him using the N-word. Whether we like it or not, words have power. The N-word has centuries of racism, violence, degradation, and humiliation behind it. That’s not going to go away just because the man who shouted it had a disability.

This is a case of intent vs. impact. Under the most “innocent until proven guilty” assumption, this was an unfortunate accident. While the man didn’t intend to shout the N-word at a couple of Black people, he still did it. That means there is now a problem that must be addressed. If you accidentally stepped on someone’s foot, you still caused an injury that needs to be addressed. You should at least apologize to the person you hurt. Likewise, the man should apologize for using the N-word.

And while I’m talking about the N-word, there’s no such thing as an “N-word Pass.” One Black person giving you permission to use the N-word (doesn’t matter if it’s soft-a or hard-r) around them doesn’t stop it from being racial slur. It doesn’t prevent you from being racist, either. Even if every single Black person you know gives you permission to use it, there’s the fact that you STILL WANT TO USE IT despite knowing what the word means and how hurtful it is. Maybe you should unpack that.

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I’ve been politically active for over twenty-five years and one of the recurring themes with the Right is lying about being offended. When a right-winger claims they became right-wing because “liberals hurt their feelings,” many people will scramble to find out how they can make their message less “offensive.” My question is this: how do we know they were telling the truth?

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I frequently encounter this behavior from the Right. How do I know? Because they will fight tooth and nail against me over something like universal healthcare only for me to find them agreeing a day earlier with a post about universal healthcare made by a wh1te person. Unless they had a change of heart overnight, they weren’t fighting me because of honest disagreement. This is why I don’t believe most of the things right-wingers tell me.

Even though it happens to me often, I don’t believe it’s a race issue. I’ve seen the Right direct their fake outrage at anyone who espouses a view to the left of Ronald Reagan. I’ve seen them do it women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, disabled people, poor people, and even cishet wh1te men. No one is safe! The Right will specifically seek out left-leaning people and try to weaponize their crocodile tears against them.

It’s the oldest trick in the book. Humans are social creatures built for cooperation. This means most people don’t like offending other people. People on the Right take advantage of this by acting offended when someone speaks about an issue that’s important to them. This often leads to the person dialing back what they said and/or being more hesitant to speak up again. That’s what the Right really wants: to silence their opposition.

So, what can we do? Show a bit of skepticism. Make them work for it. If someone on the Right claims saying, “Black Lives Matter” is deeply racist, ask them to prove it. Or, if you’re feeling frisky, ask them why you should care about what they think. If they try to claim you’re just pushing them further to the right, ask them why you should care. Seriously. Are there lasting effects of one person moving further to the right? Probably not!

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Adding to what’s said in the meme, there are three other reasons why this phrase is ridiculous:

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1. This phrase is only used on the victims of hate and not the perpetrators. No one is telling racists they shouldn’t fight what (they perceive as) hate with hate. Why aren’t these people telling Klansmen they should combat the Great Replacement with love and that burning crosses is “not a productive way to express yourself?” Because that would be ridiculous, and they know it’s ridiculous. The reason they say this kind of stuff to marginalized people is they hope we’re gullible/foolish enough to fall for it. This is especially true of the phrase’s close cousin, “Hate only breeds hate!”

2. What makes pushing back against racism “hateful?” Why should we listen to someone who considers pushing back against racism “hateful?” In my opinion, them calling your righteous anger at being discriminated against “hate” says way more about them than it does about you.

3. Most of the people who use this phrase will quote MLK Jr. out of context when they receive pushback. MLK Jr.’s definition of “love” included holding people accountable for their actions, especially their racism. In fact, he would consider being silent about their bigotry an act of hate. To MLK Jr. “fighting hate with hate” would be staying silent while those around you face discrimination. You can read more about this in his book, “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community.”

Bonus for the spirited contrarian: Why not fight hate with hate? Let’s say for the sake of argument that you are fighting hate with hate and these people are telling you stop. Why should you? What proof do they have that fighting hate with hate is a bad strategy? If it’s working, what reason do you have to stop doing it? The burden of proof is on the person telling you not to do it!

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Some examples of environmental racism are chemical plants being build in predominantly Black neighborhoods, oil and gas pipelines being build on Indigenous land, and neglected infrastructure in predominantly BIPOC areas leading to drinking water being contaminated with either sewage or other toxins. In all these cases, the people who are forced to deal with the negative effects are BIPOCs. Most of the time, like in the case of the lead-contaminated water Flint, MI, the predominantly wh1te state officials looked the other way [2][3]. Incidents like these are far too common here in the US, but there’s another, more prevalent example that needs more attention: food deserts.

Food deserts are form of environmental racism where people in a certain area don’t have access to healthy/fresh food due to corporate divestment. While these food deserts are often in urban areas, rural areas also suffer from the same problem. Food deserts are common on Native American reservations, for example [4]. The result is people in these areas being forced to rely on unhealthy options for food. Instead, they must rely on whatever food they can get at a gas station or liquor store. This leads to them buying high-calorie foods optimized for taste instead of nutrition (e.g. potato chips), raising their chances of becoming obese and/or getting diabetes. Even in places where healthier options are available, these foods are more expensive than unhealthy options (e.g. fast food) [5]. A poor person who needs to feed their family for the day will likely choose the latter because they’re more affordable.

What can be done? Zoning laws. One of the reasons people build chemical plants in Black neighborhoods is because they’re allowed to do so. Changing zoning laws to keep these polluters away from where people live and/or where they get their water would significantly reduce their harm. For food deserts, we could have the government step in where private companies will not. Since the government doesn’t need to make a profit, it could build stores and/or food banks where people can access healthier options at affordable prices. Mayor Mamdani wants to put some of these in New York City [6]. The United States is the richest, most powerful country in the world. There’s no reason for environmental racism of any kind to exist here!

Sources:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_racism

[2] https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-environmental-racism

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

[4] https://doi.org/10.7275/best_text.3250

[5] https://socialwork.tulane.edu/blog/food-deserts-in-america/

[6] https://economicsecurityproject.org/news/cnn-zohran-mamdani-wants-to-build-government-supermarkets-america-already-has-them/

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This is going to be a short one, but it still needs to be said. Both intent and impact matter. Intent is what you were trying to accomplish with your words and/or actions. Impact is the result.

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For example, let’s say you accidentally ran into someone on the way to the store and caused them to drop their groceries. While you didn’t INTEND to run into a person, the IMPACT was that you did run into them and now their groceries are all over the ground. Even though it was an accident, your actions created a problem that needs to be addressed.

Racism works in the same way, especially microaggressions. According to Merriam-Webster, a microaggression is “a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority) [1].” Note the word “unintentionally.” While you didn’t INTEND to say something discriminatory, the IMPACT is you accidentally hurt someone. That hurt needs to be addressed. In many cases, a simple apology is enough. Microaggressions don’t make you a bad person. Instead of getting defensive, try to understand the mistake you made and do better next time.

That’s is just one of many examples of why intent vs. impact is important. The photo above is another. While she may not have intended to pull the focus away from Black people with her post, the impact was her post being another way of saying “all lives matter.”

Source:

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/microaggression

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A common stereotype of Black men is we’re terrible fathers. It’s simply not true. While it is true many Black fathers aren’t married to the mothers of their children, we still show up for our kids! Multiple studies have confirmed Black fathers are the most present in their children’s life (see the images).

The one of the reasons racists have perpetuated this negative stereotype about Black fathers is allows them to dismiss systemic racism as individual failures. For example, when the Ferguson protests happened in 2014, many anti-Black/pro-cop racists claimed Black people were being shot due to a “failure in the Black family structure.” A “failure” that doesn’t actually exist.

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I really don’t like talking about Darryl Davis. The only reason I’m talking about him is because every time Black people protests, there’s always someone who brings him up as the “right” way to combat racism. Like MLK Jr., he’s often used as a club to beat Black people into silence/compliance.

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For those who don’t know who Davis is, he’s a Black man who has supposedly convinced 200 people to leave the KKK since the 1990s [1]. While the only proof we have of this specific number is his own words, he does have the robes of over twenty klansmen he’s convinced to leave [2]. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the number doesn’t matter. I will get to that.

Davis is popular because he satisfies a fantasy. Many people believe in the “Marketplace of Ideas.” This is a belief that when two ideas collide, the more factually correct idea will always win. In the case of Darryl Davis, he “proves” the superior idea of anti-racism beats the inferior idea of racism. It’s a nice thought, but’s not grounded in science. The reality is people’s willingness to accept an idea has little to do with how true it is. People are more willing to accept ideas that make them feel good, support what they already believe, or reflect what they want to be true [3]. You can convince some people by asking them, “What evidence can I provide that will change you mind?” but many people will claim nothing will change their mind [3]. In this case, polite thing to do would be to move on, or…you can shock them.

That’s right, one way to convince people to accept a new idea is to shock them into it [4]. As proof of concept, the shock of the Great Depression allowed FDR to implement the New Deal. The shock of the economic crash of the 1970s allowed Reagan and Thatcher to (unfortunately) make the fringe idea of Neoliberalism mainstream [4]. This brings me back to protests.

Protests are meant to shock people. It’s to show people a situation is so bad, others are willing to take to the streets to express their dissatisfaction. They’re so upset with the status quo they are willing to disrupt “business as usual” to make their point. Protesting is a very effective way to make people aware of an issue and convince them to take action. Davis may have been able to convince 200 people to leave the KKK in thirty years, but Black Lives Matter convinced MILLIONS of people police brutality was a problem in only a decade. Between the two, it’s clear which one was more effective.

Sources:

[1] https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis

[3] “Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know” by Adam Grant

[4] “Utopia for Realists” by Rutger Bregman

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There have been a couple of good books written on why “Black Capitalism” is a bad idea (posted below), but this meme pretty much sums it up.

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The only point I would add is there’s a misconception among some Black people that Black people in power will treat us better than white people in power. As Michelle Alexander discusses in her book, “The New Jim Crow,” this causes Black people to give more leeway to Black people who obtain positions of power, but that leeway isn’t mutual. There’s no proof Black police chiefs, prosecutors, and judges treat Black people better than white ones.

Both “Black Bourgeoisie” by E. Franklin Frazier and “The Myth of Black Capitalism” by Earl Ofari Hutchinson discuss the idea of Black Capitalism. I would recommend reading “Black Bourgeoisie” first because “The Myth of Black Capitalism” criticizes some of the points Frazier makes in his book. I’d also recommend reading “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander. It’s not about Black Capitalism, but it does discuss the racism in the criminal justice system.

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