Experiments like this expose a really fundamental problem with how Americans approach the issue of poverty. We're convinced that the solution to poverty is education and funding education, because it has to be to validate our political assumptions. For a liberal, it would be tough to swallow the idea that cultural dysfunction (fatherless kids and the gangs that fill that power vacuum) is a root cause. For conservatives, it would be tough to swallow the idea that free market globalization has simply left places like Newark to die. So we pump ever more money into education, and blame teachers for not solving problems that are totally outside the scope of their ability to solve.
I was with you until "free market globalization has simply left places like Newark to die."
Can you explain that in more detail? Detroit is the counterexample where the firms did not offshore the jobs, but the city still got decimated. I'm not sure how "free market globalization" is the root cause. Maybe you could say as "other countries industrializing has simply left places like Newark to die" but I don't think our economic policies could slow or reverse that trend.
Detroit was decimated because Americans started buying Japanese and Korean cars. That was possible because of free-market globalization.
Now, I'm not saying that on the whole the world isn't better off as a result of free-market globalization. On the net, the gain to consumers in Phoenix from cheaper foreign goods might well outweigh the loss to workers in Newark. But I don't think it's controversial to say that alternative policies could have left Newark better off than it is now, even if they are globally less efficient, or that economic conservatives tend not to highlight the downsides of pro-globalization policies. Nobody comes out and says: "more competition means more efficiency, but it also means there will be winners and losers, and lower-skilled workers in America are likely to be the losers."
Agreed on your quote, but of course no one will win elections with that kind of truth.
But I still don't think there was any policy the US could have taken to prevent the rise of industrial Korea and Japan, and the downfall of Newark and Detroit.
