I recently discussed how the lessons of Adam Smith are still being learned by major corporations like Disney on the 300th anniversary of his birth. One person not celebrating Smith’s birthday is San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston who has blamed capitalism for the city’s homelessness problems. It appears that the invisible hand behind the rapid decline of the city is not the policies of Preston and his colleagues but the teachings of this cursed Scottish economist.
Preston explained that the problems in the city are “absolutely the result of capitalism.” Preston continues to push to defund the police and to limit law enforcement in the area.
What is striking is that Preston, a Democratic Socialist, represents District 5 including the Tenderloin District. That area was once a major tourist draw. It is now over-run by drugs and homeless persons as stores close. The city is watching the flight of businesses from various areas. Even the famed farmer’s market has been lost to the rampant crime and drug use.
Preston represents a rapid rise of Democratic Socialists in Congress and other cities, including the new mayor of Chicago who has pushed to open city-owned grocery stores and other socialist measures.
The city-owned stores are based on the model of a store in Erie, Kansas, which opened in 2021. The Wall Street Journal looked into how that store was doing and found that it has lost money almost every month. In 2022, it posted only one month in the black and has lost $132,000. However, the value for city leaders is to preserve the myth that state or city-run businesses are superior to capitalism.
It does not matter that the invisible hand is giving your store or your city the finger as citizens go elsewhere.
These policies prove Milton Friedman’s observation that “if you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”
Capitalism remains the greatest generator of wealth in the history of the world. Socialist and communist nations have had to turn to capitalist enterprises in nations like China because of the failure of Marxist economic theories.
That is clearly not the view of Preston, who graduated from Bowdoin College with a degree in anthropology and economics. He is also a lawyer.
Nevertheless, Preston shows how politicians responsible for the demise of our major cities will cite their own failures to double down on these policies. The loss is being felt by not just these citizens, but the nation as our great cities become urban hellscapes.
There was a time when people “left their heart in San Francisco.” Now they are just leaving.
An anthropologist, an economist, and a lawyer walk into a bar. Tell me that’s not the beginning of a terrible joke.
It’s truly amazing to see how far someone, especially a politician, will go to blame others for their failures and never accept responsibility for anything. Ever…..
January 20th, 2025. Do you Donald Trump solemnly swear to uphold the office of President of the United States of America? “I do”! Congratulations Mr. President.
Up by 10 points in MICHIGAN
Trump once again taking the oath of office equals a nightmare scenario.🤮
If Trump takes office sanity will be returned and the pathological personalities will return to the asylums or mom’s basement.
Are the “pathological” personalities anyone we know?
If Trump takes office Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell will be the first to be released from the asylum so they can kiss the orangutan’s butt and take their places.🐵
Excellent piece. The absurdity and arrogance at work in the minds of these privileged a-holes is something to see, that’s for sure. Two things are undeniable: yes, our institutions have been infiltrated by real, honest to goodness Marxists; and our formerly great urban centers are irredeemable toast. They do not exist in a vacuum, and they will ultimately fail – San Fran is mighty close to it. Anyone denying these things at this point, or not caring, is either delusional or an a-hole of equal arrogance, absurdity, and likely privilege.
Enough. It’s time to take it back, vote accordingly. We are fortunate our country is so vast. Let these rotting places rot. It isn’t too late to preserve the other parts, let them be isolated object lessons. Freeze them out.
James,
Dont just freeze them out. Make life intolerable to them. Have American flags everywhere. Open carry. Youth shooting clubs. Celebrate Christmas full out. Support your local PD day.
@Upstate
Very much agreed, though they seem to be doing a phenomenal job of that themselves. The crime of it is they are making the lives of those less privileged than themselves so, so much worse, and the people they are hurting don’t have a whole lot of recourse. That they purport to be ‘helping’ is the laugh of the century, and there is no solution but to get them the *bleep* out of public life altogether. That is up to us. Reforming norms is up to us. This has only been going on in earnest, as in blatantly out in public, for less than 15 years – it isn’t too late. But people have to care, and they have to be willing to put aside old prejudices that hold no water in modern times. They have to lose their addiction to money or the illusion of status or relevance and start being human again.
Those like us seem to be the only ones prepared to do that. 🤷🏻♂️ I wish we could form a coalition ourselves, because there are people like the Professor, like us, and like many center-oriented Conservatives. It’s a no-brainer at this point, but prejudice can be a powerful thing. I pray we do not need to sharpen up the guillotines again.
James,
People the purport to be helping, reminds me of the Oakland CA pro-police rally held by people from that zip code.
And then a bunch of pasty white antifa in all black bloc showed up in counter-protest. They definitely were not from that zip code.
Reforming norms. I recall the rhetoric of all the “norms” and the “adults back in the room” when the Democrats retook the WH. What a joke.
I mentioned in another comment about MAGA is not a new idea as the idea of America First has always been around. Trump just made it into a nifty campaign slogan. Regardless it is an idea that appeals to many. And it is an idea that many on the left fear as it has the power to galvanize many people into a real coalition of people outside of DC. Not a bad thing.
Ah, yeah, no guillotines please. Would not mind seeing more than a few of the swamp creatures get knocked down a peg or three but not the off with their eds kinda thing.
As many center, right and right/center people flee blue cities and blue states the remaining population ends up being even more liberal/radical and they end up doubling down on the failed policies making the “doom loop” deeper, faster and more ruinous.
People with companies, people with good jobs, people with 401Ks and retired people with state pensions (like cops, fire and teachers) will be cashing their NY, IL and CA state paid retirement checks in FL and TX. The doom loop is accelerating and there is a reason they call it DOOM.
A recent study showed that a great % of the people leaving CA for Idaho are not taking left wing politics with them and they are voting or leaning red. We will have blue states losing population (and congresscritters) with red states gaining both. Biden may win CA and NY by 20% but the Dems have lost FL, TX and other red “swing” states for the foreseeable future.
HullBobby,
Well said.
Crime, high taxes, high cost of living, high cost of doing business/regulations in CA are all reasons why people are leaving in droves.
OT: the Harvard Corporation just announced its support for Claudine Gay. In the course of doing so it acknowledged that Gay had erred in her testimony before Congress and had engaged in plagiarism to some degree. Yet she is still the best person for the job. Penny Pritzger is the Chairman of the Corporation.
So the DEI reign of terror at Harvard will continue.
The problem is that Gay is not sustainable. What are they going to do when students start calling her out publicly?
“The problem is that Gay is not sustainable.” Not in any context.
Preston is not a Democratic socialist, he’s a communist.
Please explain the difference.
Well, capitalism is a system for sure. I make my living these days writing for capital reward and by trading markets. Having said that, the one thing that’s a definite is that capital grows capital and is totally subject to the whims of those who control capital. To that end, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in the capital model. It’s by no means a perfect model by and of itself. It needs to hybrid itself out to function optimally.
Bug
Said nobody ever.
Said me a little over an hour ago.
Look, when I’m on this blog I’m waiting out the emotional set ups that lead to ‘price shocks’ in the grain and currency markets so I’m quite familiar with how markets are driven by emotion and whim. Those emotionally driven shocks would crush markets without regulation to keep them in check. Capital is incapable of regulating itself, it just wants more capital. Non hybrided capitalism is basically an addiction model.
“To that end, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in the capital model.”
That is historically inaccurate.
It is capitalism, starting in the late 19th century, that created the middle class. As the producers created more wealth, the poor got richer.
In observing this person’s consideration/perception of the problem we are given additional clues (considering the testimony of 3 ivy league officers just last week) as to just how deep the rotten indoctrination of many generations has been and an even more perilous view of our future – should we attempt to take back America and its culture. I think we have waited too long and now meaningful communication with these dupes is useless.
Whimsicalmama,
Dont take it back.
There is no having meaningful communication with the dupes.
Form up two separate parallel societies and cultures and may they never meet.
I guess that this gentleman has never heard the axiom of “Starve failure but reinforce success”. It is truly breathtaking about the rampant stupidity that permeates so much of the political scene in California. These idiots will continue to be elected because the people that have sense enough to vote them out have left.
Anthropology, Economics and the Law. Obviously a lethal combination in California, especially for cities. I do not look for any salvation for that state or San Francisco soon. They have not fallen far enough yet to threaten outright collapse. The same could be said of Portland and Seattle. They have both stopped growing and likely will start to follow San Francisco as they slide into the sea and oblivion.
I heard described, in the last few days, that the appalling testimony of the Presidents of Harvard, M.I.T, and U. Penn were a testament to DEI and the turn away from Merit. Seems to have affected California in a terrible way. And President Biden is trying to impose this lack of thought process on the rest of the United States.
As Joseph Schumpeter tried to explain over a century ago, Capitalism is just free enterprise using borrowed money. Because the lenders of the money don’t have to be rich, or elite, or privileged this becomes an extremely democratic way for everyone to enjoy the wealth-producing benefits of freedom. The Dean Prestons of the world will never understand.
I don’t like anonymous commentary, and have no idea how I become such upon occasion.
Successful societies have a government really representing the people in charge of the society and economy, which ISN’T capitalism. However, the government should not directly run most things; it should use capitalism and capitalists to do that. The government in China, for example, is in overall charge (and 80+% of Chinese are happy with how they’re doing) but allows private capitalist enterprises to run most of the exonomy.
I’d like to know how you know that 80% of people in China are happy with their lot in life and approve of government policy. As far as I know the CCP does not allow elections of any kind. I’d like to see a fair test of this claim.
It’s obvious, look at the economic data, and been reported in Western opinion polls conducted in China. But the economic data is False! And the opinion polls are False! Anyway, stay in your propaganda stew if you want, I don’t care and neither does China. Just stay off their lawn.
Professor Turley, that closing line was A++. This is not the result of grade inflation.
Dean Preston “The child of immigrant refugees, his father and grandparents were kicked out of Germany by the Nazis during World War II,..” bay area reporter
LOOKS LIKE THE NAZIS GOT THAT ONE RIGHT. Or did they ?
Gosh they forgot to final solution them. They went for the kicked out option…. wow I guess reporting is always short on that. “Hitler kicked em out of germany” A REPORT ONE HAS NEVER HEARD BEFORE. Isn’t that special.
“Preston was born in New York City.[2] His father and grandparents were refugees from Nazi Germany during World War II.[3] ” wiki
Like I’ve said before, we have obviously more than 6 million escaped from Auschwitz and refugees, and the kicked out of nazi germany, and the children of those who died at the concentration camps – it’s every single one every time, it’s amazing !
Decline starts with handouts.
He is one of the new class of socialist millionaires. His home is worth nearly 3 million and he has nearly 5 million in stocks, mostly in the capitalist Apple, which is known for human exploitation of the Chinese workers. The elite enjoy the fruits of capitalism while preaching against it to us mere mortals. Perhaps he can take the locks off his home and tear down the fence. Haven’t you heard? Walls are racist. Better yet, he can move to Cuba.
In my line of work, I meet people fairly frequently who have fled California. Some are sad as they miss its physical beauty, but they cannot continue due to prices, taxes, and out of control crime. The current governor inherited nearly a hundred billion dollar surplus and the state is now deep in the red. Those who pay the taxes are heading toward greener pastures.
@E.M. RE:”He is one of the new class of socialist millionaires..” Merely one of the many Orwellian animals, more equal than others.
Anyone who has ever dealt with a government agency at any level knows how inefficient and frustrating governments are. Yet idiots on the left keep voting for more government, and any failings, of course, can only be solved by more government. I forget, what is the definition of insanity again?
The hands that are destroying cities like San Francisco are not invisible. They are attached to the arms of voters who elect idiots like Dean Preston.
Capitalism is a misnomer. Free enterprise is the only economic model that does not coerce people to make choices they would not make but for fear of punishment by government.
@kaufmann1948
Precisely. That distinction needs to be emphasized and emphasized again. An alarming number of people conflate cronyism and free market – and the fools tend to do it on an iPhone they freely chose because they didn’t want an Android phone, with free speech to freely broadcast their ignorant opinions, as free entrepreneurs allowed to pursue their own endeavors however they wish. Useful idiots, indeed.
People respond to incentives. The government knows this, but good little leftists ignore this truism
What the govt subsidizes it gets more of, What the govt regulates, you get less of.
Subsidize homelessness, and SURPRISE homeless numbers go up.
Dont punish shoplifting, shoplifting run rampant, and huge retailers close stores. Who could have predicted that?
Iowan2,
Sounds like common sense to me.
A trait not known in the woke leftist community.
Government does one thing extremely well. It grows.
The Tenderloin was once “the crown jewel of the city and a major tourist draw”? Really? Umm, how do you think it got the name “Tenderloin”?
It wasn’t because of its fine steaks.
I found that statement odd. Over a 10-year period but 20-30 years ago, I spend a lot of time there. I don’t remember the Tenderloin being a crown jewel or a tourist destination. Did that happen after 2000 or before 1980?