{UAH} Analysis

Borrowed from Quora:

Why do Republican states have the highest poverty rate, and are the poorest states?

Erik Bjorn, Teacher of Rhetoric and Argument (2001-present)

Answered Nov 19

The short version:

• The South set itself up as a new aristocracy after the revolution, with wealthy landowners profiting off of their property and the poor being fed lines about freedom while essentially just working to enrich the landowners.
• The North basically did the same with a factory economy.
• The agrarian economy of the South required more and more land, was built upon slave labor, and was hindered by not being able to process their own materials — essentially they needed to ship off their cotton to the North or to Europe, where it would be turned into cloth, and then cloth-based goods, which were then sent back for them to buy. Market fluctuations, dangers of shipping, tariffs, and advances in manufacturing made this a volatile situation, which worked well for them short-term but was not going to last.
• In contrast, the industrial economy of the North slowly moved from its exploitative form to a more egalitarian form, where factory jobs were paid a living wage and factory advancements made the North able to reach a sort of economic stability.
• The Southern politicians, working exclusively for the wealthy families, only cared about protecting shipping lanes. The North, needing to move around goods and materials needed to invest in infrastructure -- which benefits the people as a side-effect. Thus, the quality of life for the non-wealthy rose yet again.
• The South devalued education — first banning slaves from being educated, then later wanting to retain a dedicated workforce that would not leave to pursue other endeavors. Thus, opportunity and earnings and skills remained low. The North implemented more and more educational initiatives, at first aimed specifically at participation in an industrial economy (how to sit, how to learn repetitively, how to read instructions, etc).
• When the Civil war happened, it is notable that most of the damage done to the physical parts of the country were sustained in the South.
• Due to the victory of the Union in the Civil war, the South (or at least their wealthy landowners that created the rifts in the nation, and drove the war and the secession in the first place) seems to have opted on a long-game: continue to not invest in the infrastructure and needs of their people. Either the North would foot the bill and help them take care of their own out of sympathy and morality at their own expense, or their lack of concern for the people would make them look like conquerors and fuel a later insurrection.
• The South bought into this plan. In response, Northern industrialists and reformers took advantage of the new markets and profited heavily off of setting up infrastructure in the South... but between local resistance and other limitations, it was not enough to solve the problems brought on by the oligarchical control of the ex-plantationeers and their disinterest to benefit the society as a whole.
• The South also continued its oppression of the former slaves — who by then were citizens, but were restricted from certain careers and opportunities and actions. Many social structures in the South were set up explicitly to keep non-whites and non-protestants from prosperity, but those also hindered development and prosperity (and education) for the people who were emerging into what was slowly becoming an industrial society itself.
• The North got its share of people moving up from the South, particularly African-Americans looking for work and better futures during the diaspora that happened in the early 1900s. This also depopulated some areas of the South, and led to prosperity in the North being shared. The first Black Millionaires appeared, such as Madam CJ Walker, after moving to areas like New York and DC where there was more opportunity. Jazz and Blues came North, the Harlem renaissance happened, and the World Wars changed the nation.

At the end of this time, we had oppression and poverty in the South virtually guaranteed for those who were not white protestants, and the likelihood of poverty and struggle for those who had not been able to shift up to the emerging Middle Class due to lack of education, lack of opportunity, hardship, or being out-competed for the resources available.

In contrast, general prosperity had elevated the North to functionally deal with its poverty better, and have less likelihood that someone would end up poor. The available infrastructure meant that it was easier to find opportunities. The better education meant that the citizens were more likely to succeed at their endeavors. And the lack of having to continually placate the wealthy landowners with concessions (which was what led to the Civil War in the first place) frees up more resources for the average citizen.

Even now, one of the biggest differences in mentality between the South and the North is taxes. The Northern states has higher average taxes, particularly in the Northeast and New York… but uses those taxes for the betterment of the society and the opportunity of all of their people. Thus, education is better — which correlates directly with lower incarceration rates, lower poverty rates, lower social issue rates (such as teen pregnancy, preventable health problems, divorce rates, and general drug abuse), and higher average earnings. Paradoxically, the only taxes that are high in many Southern states are property taxes — which prevents the poor from owning homes, in turn lowering their likelihood of escaping poverty.

One of the most telling statistics is the state's ratio of how much money do they pay into the federal budget, and how much do they get in return. Over the last decade, the face of that number has changed somewhat, with Texas sniping businesses from California, but in general the trend has been that Red States that aren't anomalies such as Utah, and Blue States that aren't anomalies such as New Mexico, can be predicted as suppliers of (or takers from) the Federal budget by their color alone, with Blue States paying most of the needed extras. Texas has altered that imbalance, but they are now closer than they've ever been to becoming a Swing State. But between military spending, farm subsidies, welfare programs (more protested by southern conservative politicians, more claimed by southern conservative citizens), infrastructure maintenance and expansion, disaster relief, and the like, it's largely the North that pays so that the South can continue functioning.

Much of the modern social divide is a product of this.

For one, a brilliant Australian Libertarian, married to a Chinese National (and suspected government agent), founded a news channel that would have a strong bias in favor of a new American narrative — the Conservative narrative that painted a picture of the rural areas as idyllic unspoiled paradises that needed to remain exactly as is, and with Country Music (the modern pop-country, not the good stuff) telling people just how they are supposed to live. It rolled Nationalism, restrictive religious norms, exclusivism (it was explicitly geared toward those aforementioned white Protestant men, later expanding to the women as well), and small-government pro-business sentiments. It claimed that the "real America" (or "'Murica" as the internet loves to refer to it) is one of tractor pulls, not museums… of NASCAR, not multiculturalism. It claims that we need a "simpler life" free from interference, a return to the agrarian roots of the nation, and heavily implies a protected position of power for those white protestant men. It also would somehow create this AND guard our place as a superior economy, AND our place as a leader in science and technology (that we would somehow NOT use and still remain on the cutting edge of agribusiness).

Now we even have the uninformed claiming that the Electoral College was created by the Founding Fathers to protect the rural from the Urban — creating an us-vs-them and a good-vs-evil matrix from a boldfaced lie, since at the time of the signing of the declaration, the population of most states was skewed dramatically toward the rural vote.

The overall result of this split, and the demonization that the victims of this split have created against the other side, is that the problems of poverty and lack of access to resources and education in our nation continue to create hardship for the people of the south, but their politicians use that and the resentment that comes from that poverty in order to implement policies that benefit those politicians — who are the modern versions of those wealthy landowners in the South that have existed solely off of the exploitation and maintenance of the state of southern poverty over the last near-200 years.

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Best Regards
Paul Ssemaluulu (PhD)
Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.
TOUGH times do not last but TOUGH people do.

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