The Price of Paradise, by David Dante Troutt

Rutgers law professor David Dante Troutt has a dream.  He has a dream that the American dream, and Martin Luther King's dream can coalesce "to stabilize economic life for many more Americans and to discover along the way our common good. . . . A beloved community may be within a generation's reach."  In The Price of Paradise: The Costs of Inequality and a Vision for a More Equitable America, Troutt argues that in pursuit of the American dream, middle-class Americans and the U.S. government have left behind large swaths of poor minorities.

The American middle class holds self-sufficiency and self-determination as central values.  But Troutt argues that much of the foundation of the middle class is built on preferential government policies and subsidies.  The list is lengthy: suburbanization spurred by the National Highway Act; redlining, which made home loans difficult or impossible to obtain, and which was endorsed by the Home Owners Loan Corporation; urban renewal, which razed or broke up poor and immigrant neighborhoods; and, of course, segregation.  (I was reminded of Eric Schansberg's arguments in his book, Poor Policy: How Government Harms the Poor.)  These policies, among others, achieved the goal of "preserving middle-class stability by keeping the poor at a distance." 

For a remedy, Troutt looks to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s idea of mutuality,which he expands to "progressive mutuality, the kind that recognizes that interdependency is not neutral if it rests in part on exclusion and must account for our effects on others." But interdependency has not been the norm.  To the contrary, whites, as a rule, did all they could to live separately from poor blacks.  "White homeowners were enjoying a culture of beneficial government assistance in the form of mortgage subsidization, yet public housing for blacks . . . was perceived as a threat if it was within distant sight of a white neighborhood."

Poor blacks are disproportionately concentrated in pockets of poverty.  They are subjected to "environmental racism, . . . predatory mortgage lending, and the self- and community-diminishing effects of our criminal justice policies," which all perpetuate their plight.  As the black experience has shown, "segregation typically indicates a grow that is captive to its vulnerabilities, with weak institutions, scarce political pull, and little market power in the regional context."

Turning to "progressive mutuality," Troutt calls for integration: "mixing income, increasing equitable arrangements, and decreasing local inequities."  I was reminded of John Perkins's 3 Rs, relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution.  Troutt doesn't refer to Perkins, but their ideas certainly have much in common.  Personally, I find Perkins's arguments much more compelling, but Troutt does provide a solid legal, academic complement to Perkins.

As a white man, I have to admit that I was put off by some of Troutt's arguments.  But it's hard to deny that I have benefited, indirectly and directly, from decades of horribly racist government policies.  We can come up with plenty of anecdotal examples to contradict Troutt (our black president, for example), but society-wide, on a large scale, the effects of racism continue.  Whether Troutt's proposals and solutions would be entertained, much less embraced, is the question.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!