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I remember seeing dealers selling crack in plain sight on 9th and mission every day. Cops would drive by and the dealers wouldn’t even try to hide. It really se
by ta1234567890 6y ago
I remember seeing dealers selling crack in plain sight on 9th and mission every day. Cops would drive by and the dealers wouldn’t even try to hide. It really seemed like there was some sort of arrangement going on there. But what would I know.
On a side note, those dealers had pretty long hours, they’d be there from before 7am some times (and people buying too). It was also sad to see that most of their customers seemed to be residents of the nearby affordable housing buildings.
- dcolkitt 6y agoThere was a great book called Gang Leader for a Day, about a UChicago sociologist that spends time inside a Southside drug crew. His research showed that the average low-level street dealer made less than minimum wage. Almost all the profit accrued to the guys high up in the supply chain or gang hierarchy.
- edoceo 6y agoDrug dealing is a facinating experiment of full-free-market capitalism. The experience certainly inspired me further on the path of entrepreneurship.
- galuggus 6y agoI think it's often monopolies enforced by violence and corruption.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoMany people argue that's the inevitable result of fully free market capitalism too.
- vagrantJin 6y agoI have to agree with the sentiment. Free markets aren't operated by reasonable people.
- rayhendricks 6y agoExactly, assuming that we are operating in a non-lawful space would that not enable the most “pure” result of free market capitalism?
- marvin 6y agoRecommend the book Narconomics for an in-depth look at the «free-market» ideas that drug organizations use in South America. Gang tattoos to limit the mobility of their labor, duopolies to minimize conflict but maintain most of the benefits of a monopoly, squeezing upstream suppliers by playing them off each other, geographically-differentiated pricing and much more. The violence is obviously the biggest difference, but even the rest serves as a warning not to drop regulation entirely.
- rayiner 6y agoWhat makes you think that? Free market capitalism is premised on the existence of a “market.” A “market” is not something that exists in the state of nature. In particular, you need some sort of property rights. If you can kill people and take their stuff, as in the state of nature, or use violence to coerce labor, then you don’t have “markets.” You don’t need a government necessarily to enforce those rights, but free exchange of goods and labor cannot exist if violence is possible to coerce those exchanges.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoSo for free market capitalism you need these "markets" that eliminate the ability for money to be used for violence. Anytime violence is involved, it's automatically not free market capitalism, so any negative result does not reflect the ideology.
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoThere is still violence, it’s just centralized in the government instead of distributed in the gangs.
- 6y ago
- imtringued 6y agoWell, it is true because a fully free market would imply lawlessness and no government.
- gherkinnn 6y agoAnarchists aside, I have yet to meet an extreme free-marketeer, libertarian or whatever who did not see the point of having some degree of governmental intervention. Enforcing legally binding contracts, for example. In doing so, you no longer need to keep business within a tightly controlled group (family?) or enforce it with chainsaws. Neither apply to selling heroin on the street.
- hntrader 6y ago> full-free-market capitalism It's illegal, so it's hardly a free market.
- blululu 6y agoThat research was from 25 years ago. Rent has ballooned since then and wages at the bottom have dropped (minimum wage is lower now relative to CPI). Would be curious if this result holds up if we adjusted for inflation.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago> It was also sad to see that most of their customers seemed to be residents of the nearby affordable housing buildings. I'm no expert on the subject, but it seems that the way we manage affordable housing in the US contributes to the problem. Vienna and Singapore can teach us a lot about how to do this better: https://www.shareable.net/public-housing-works-lessons-from-vienna-and-singapore/ https://www.shareable.net/public-housing-works-lessons-from-...
- abalaji 6y agoSounds like Hamsterdam from the Wire haha
- runawaybottle 6y agoGot that WMD
- pengaru 6y ago> It really seemed like there was some sort of arrangement going on there. There's no arrangement needed, the entire state of CA has effectively decriminalized drug possession. Getting busted for dealing with just a small stash sufficient to support a few hours of selling amounts to a slap on the wrist. So unless the dealer is A Problem, there's not really any interest in wasting time on it. You're not putting them behind bars by catching them, you're just generating busy work for yourself as a cop, and wasting resources in general. The same scene can be observed in any CA urban center. There is still some enforcement in the lesser populated/rural parts where police are bored and looking for reasons to mess with the lives of poor addicts though.
- 4ggr0 6y agoThat's why I absolutely dislike the concept of decriminalization. Just seems like an unnecessary, ineffective step instead of legalization. With legalization, you get rid of black markets and dealers, taxes flow and product quality rises. Decriminalization just means that addicts and dealers don't get fucked as hard when caught.
- gnopgnip 6y agoThe police presence is not uniform across every city, they prioritize areas they get the most complaints
- anonymoushn 6y agoMy knowledge is a couple years dated here, but afaik SFPD has a policy of not enforcing or investigating nonviolent offenses.
- sargun 6y agoPre-Chesa at least, SFPD brought several cases in that were dealers at Civic Center station and Montgomery. I know that at least some of these cases folks were found guilty. At that time at least, SFPD targeted dealers.
- monadic8 6y agoYea, the arrangement is to create enough poverty via expensive drug enforcement to lower labor prices for the private sector.