
The Gangster's Guide to Upward Mobility - dullcrisp
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/crooked-ladder
======
jorleif
This is a very interesting idea and has some good potential for social change.
So much energy, so misplaced. As a scandinavian my first thought is: Don't
Americans realize that there might a point where it is cheaper to provide (or
more exactly, force) better education and social security on those at risk,
than increasing the police force and incarceration rates?

There is something that is not quite right with this narrative that Gladwell
spins though. His past examples are about the winners of their era. On the
other hand, the contemporary examples are losers who end up killed and
squeezed by the police. Presumably, in the earlier mafia era there were also
plenty of losers, we just don't hear about them.

The main thesis which I think is sound, though, is that innovation often
(usually) involves a certain amount of breaking societal norms (which includes
laws). It can take violent forms, such as the mafia, but also less violent
law-breaking is often present. Think Napster, as a clear example but why not
include Uber and AirBnB as well? Often innovation is not just about new
technology, but rather re-negotiating social contracts. For this reason, when
technological or social change introduces new economic opportunity, often it
becomes populated by people who are willing to violate laws. I think as
societies, we should try to figure out how to better utilize the violent and
rebellious behvior of people, while limiting the detrimental effects. The same
adrenaline addict might kill himself and a few pedestrian on a motorcycle when
evading the police, but could instead be allowed to risk his life in some
space exploration program or why not a technology startup.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Don 't Americans realize that there might a point where it is cheaper to
provide (or more exactly, force) better education and social security on those
at risk, than increasing the police force and incarceration rates?_

That was the theory pushed fairly successfully by many social reformers in the
60's and early 70's. The net result, or at least the concurrent event, was a
massive crime wave.

The fact of the matter is that Americans are not Scandinavians. For homicides
where the offender is known, more than half are committed by a demographic
group that is pretty much nonexistent in Scandinavia.

[http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-
the-u.s/2012/c...](http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-
the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-
enforcement/expanded-
homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_3_murder_offenders_by_age_sex_and_race_2012.xls)

Further, within the US, people tend to behave more similarly to where they
come from (even if it was many generations back) than to some American
average. I don't have data for any Scandinavian nations, but Tino Sanandaji
has some data comparing Swedish Americans (a group which apparently self-
identifies enough to be statistically significant) to Swedes:

[http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy-
in-o...](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/03/super-economy-in-one-
picture.html)

So it's very unclear that a Scandinavian approach would work here.

~~~
rmxt
> For homicides where the offender is known, more than half are committed by a
> demographic group that is pretty much nonexistent in Scandinavia.

> Further, within the US, people tend to behave more similarly to where they
> come from (even if it was many generations back)

Is your implication _really_ that black/brown people everywhere are (or would
be) inherently more murderous? Perhaps I am incorrectly reading between your
lines.

~~~
ebfe
The average IQ among black Americans is 85, and the average testosterone level
among black males is 20% higher than it is among whites. Both of these traits
are strong predictors of violent behavior.

~~~
kamau
>The average IQ among black Americans is 85, and the average testosterone
level among black males is 20% higher than it is among whites. Both of these
traits are strong predictors of violent behavior.<

The racists have come out to play.

~~~
peterfirefly
Hopefully you agree that it is an empirical question?

If it isn't possible to go out and look at the world to see if the average IQ
is 85 then it isn't possible to see that it _isn 't_ 85.

Now, I wonder if somebody has done that and what the results were...

~~~
kamau
Spare me. Statements such as those are almost always concerned with promoting
and upholding white supremacy/racism. Would the statement been given any
legitimacy if it was stated that '...the average white IQ is 85...'? I doubt
it. The fact that a statements like these are made with no or dubious evidence
is bad enough. Asserting that there is an empirical question here, when said
dubious statement is refuted, is the icing on the cake.

P.S. I _do_ understand that this is an empirical statement/question. But so is
the assertion that there is a teapot on the moon.

~~~
ebfe
What exactly are you trying to say? The fact that the average black IQ in
America is 85 is an empirically proven fact. [1]

You can certainly argue that IQ is a flawed measurement of intelligence, or
that the IQ gap stems solely from environmental factors, but just flat out
plugging your ears and denying that studies have found the mean black IQ to be
85 is an absurd display of intellectual dishonesty.

[1][http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf](http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf)

~~~
kamau
You cant say that it is an empirically proven fact, anc then concede that it
is a possibly flawed measurement. I'm all too familiar with racists, and you
sir/mam look familiar.

[http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/jason-richwine-race-
iq...](http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/jason-richwine-race-iq-
genetics-95765.html)

~~~
IkmoIkmo
> I'm all too familiar with racists

You must be familiar with Rushton then, the author of the study he cited. I'd
be hard pressed to name a more blatant racist than Rushton in academia... I
really can't take that study seriously.

~~~
ebfe
"The belief that there are biological differences between ethnic populations
is wrong because the belief that there are biological differences between
ethnic populations is wrong."

I apologize if I'm misinterpreting you, but do you not see something
incredibly tautological with that line of reasoning?

~~~
vidarh
The belief that there are biological differences between ethnic populations is
on its face obviously true, unless one were to postulate that skin colour is
not a genetic trait.

As such it becomes at best disingenuous to interpret the fact that he called
Rushton a blatant racist as implying merely a belief in biological differences
in general.

Further he did not say it is wrong. He said he can't take the study seriously
when coming from a blatant racist. Presumably because he does not trust that
Rushton is able to put aside that bias and treat the subject seriously and
honestly. While one can try to let the work stand on its own, the problem with
that if you don't trust the intentions of the researcher is that it is
tremendously easy to fudge data, or be selective with your data, to get
whatever result you want.

------
bjourne
I don't believe more than a small fraction of all gangsters and criminals ever
made it. Most were poor, stayed poor and had children that also grew up to be
poor. Focusing on the few who became millionaires is an extreme form of
survival bias. It's writing history so that it fits the rich.

What they had in common with others in the upper classes is that they found a
way to make other peoples labour work for them. Maybe that's called "working
hard" but it could also be called "getting others to work hard for you." It's
how wealth is amassed and it doesn't matter whether it's on the legal or
illegal side of the law.

~~~
vidarh
> "getting others to work hard for you." It's how wealth is amassed and it
> doesn't matter whether it's on the legal or illegal side of the law.

It would seem the point of the article was exactly to make the point that many
of these people were not gangster to be gangsters, but to build wealth and
gain social respectability. And so becoming gangsters was something many of
them chose because they found other avenues inaccessible, and for some of them
once they had sufficient success that meant looking for ways to legitimise
their businesses to various degrees.

~~~
bjourne
No, the point of the article was to claim that it was easier for some groups
to get rich using criminal means than lawful ones.

My point was that it is roughly equally hard no matter which side of the law -
you need to be able to exploit someone elses labour. The average hourly wage
of a crack dealer (according to Freakonomics) is $3.30, so obviously, not
everyone is going to get rich of it.

------
mercurial
Interesting. I think the article downplays the brutality of the mafia, but the
takeaway I've gotten from it is simple: if you want to lower organized crime,
offer genuine, legal opportunities of advancement to those who currently don't
have them.

~~~
tomp
I think this lesson can be applied to many conflicts in the modern world. Why
are EU youth joining the ISIS? They don't have any other opportunities in
life. Why are Palestinians attacking Israelis? They have no other means of
achieving anything meaningful in life. Why are people protesting in Occupy
Wall Street? Their lives have turned to shit, and they can't improve them.

The most dangerous people are those who have nothing to lose. Give them
something to lose, (their hopes, their future), and you will not only improve
their lives, but also avoid revolutions.

~~~
firasd
This is very facile I'm afraid. Did George Washington not have anything to
lose? Osama bin Laden, born to an incredibly rich family? No, sometimes people
actually risk losing what they have to struggle for what they believe in.

~~~
tomp
Osama didn't do it alone. Hitler didn't do it alone. They both had a number of
people that were disillusioned with their lives, hopeless about their future,
looking for someone to hate, and wanted to be a part of a cause.

(I'm not sure how George Washington is relevant, though.)

~~~
firasd
You don't see how George Washington is relevant to analysis of motivations
behind conflicts and revolutions?

~~~
tomp
No; probably because I don't know enough about the history of the US (AFAIK,
he was one of the founding fathers).

~~~
firasd
Ah ok. Well, the founding fathers did their founding after a pretty momentous
revolutionary war as you may know. And the British subjects settled in America
weren't doing so badly that they had to rise up in desperation for hope or a
future. They wanted political independence and self-determination (in much the
same way Palestinians want today, although different factions among
Palestinians have varying territorial and other desires.) I agree with you
that many of the restless and unhappy masses become the actual front-line
fighters in conflicts; I just disagree that providing people with financial
and social stability would necessarily avoid a conflict. Sometimes people just
won't stand for something.

~~~
tomp
But wasn't the problem also the fact that US (whatever it was back then) was
basically a UK colony, which meant that the UK was basically levying lots of
tax and taking whatever they could back to the UK? Also, it's not like the
people of the US attacked another country... they just thought that they would
do better without a foreign overlord. Probably, if the UK let them go (like
they would let Scotland go), there would be no war. Or am I mistaken?

~~~
firasd
Yeah they were a colony. And that's sort of my point; they weren't hopeless
and desperate--in fact my understanding is that the average American (not
counting slaves) back then was better off than the average person in England--
but they were exploited and subjugated to some extent. And they decided the
final fix would be to change the whole political order of things, and to fight
a revolution over their desired new order.

------
supahfly_remix
This article is very similar to the thesis of Sudhir Venkatesh's "Floating
City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York City" which studies how
low level criminals (crack dealers, prostitutes) try to cross racial and
economic classes to expand their businesses in NYC. They aren't criminals by
nature but, as Gladwell writes, this is one of the few avenues open to them.

------
JacobAldridge
Like a lot of Gladwell yarns, it's a lovely theory with some nice stories (and
wonderfully written - a real _New Yorker_ burying of the lede). And he's more
hypothesising than suggesting this should be the case.

But still - 'except when they were killing people, the PSI was an example of
American exceptionalism' won't fly with me.

------
lordnacho1980
Interesting piece, and written in a compelling way.

However, some things don't fit the narrative. Gladwell mentions the various
waves of immigration (Irish, Jewish, Italian) and suggests that crime is a way
to get up the ladder.

But weren't the African-Americans there long before these groups? Shouldn't
they have been the first to do this journey?

He mentions Merton's 6 ways and suggests crime is innovation. But how
innovative is it really, crime? Is forming and running a cartel not something
that has occurred quite often in the minds of people who compete? Is
bootlegging innovative? To my mind, it's not innovative. It's just taking more
risk than the average person takes.

------
Decade
The presidential Bush family also gained some of their riches through slavery.
I'm not going to draw any conclusions from this right now.

I think a lot of African Americans are getting a bum deal out of life. Murder
and drug dealing are wrong, but society doesn't give them a lot of other
realistic options. But this is just feeding into the pessimism that David Brin
was complaining about.[0] There is no silver bullet.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8332614](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8332614)

~~~
nadam
"I think a lot of African Americans are getting a bum deal out of life. Murder
and drug dealing are wrong, but society doesn't give them a lot of other
realistic options."

I think this is bullshit. I am living in an eastern European country
(Hungary), do you think it is a place where poor people can advance more
easily than in the USA? And we don't have the kind of brutal gun violence that
is present in the USA. This is very much a cultural thing. It has nothing to
do with being poor, or having few opportunities to 'advance'.

These people are making their own life miserable due to very very bad cultural
influences from their peers. It is not the case that someone could starve in
the USA or anywhere in the first world. They could live a very modest but
relatively happy life with full of love (on a farm or in a small village) if
they would have that kind of culture...

Now avoiding the cultural influences of your environment is hard. Very very
hard.

~~~
lkrubner
> do you think it is a place where poor people > can advance more easily than
> in the USA?

If you go to a store to buy something, do the police gun you down because of
the product that you choose? That happens to black people in the USA:

[http://bearingarms.com/ex-marine-swatted-black-shopper-
death...](http://bearingarms.com/ex-marine-swatted-black-shopper-death-
walmart-changes-story/)

If you are walking down the street, do the police kill you because of the
color of your skin? That happens in the USA:

[http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/08/14/michael-
bro...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/08/14/michael-brown-
shooting-ferguson-missouri-police-editorials-debates/14086807/)

If your family owns a farm, does the government steal it from you whenever a
white-owned business wants your land? That happens to black people in the USA:

[http://www.ag.auburn.edu/auxiliary/srsa/pages/Articles/SRS%2...](http://www.ag.auburn.edu/auxiliary/srsa/pages/Articles/SRS%202002%2018%202%201-30.pdf)

If your family owns land, does the government steal your land because of the
color of your skin? That happens in the USA:

[http://www.castlecoalition.org/index.php?option=com_content&...](http://www.castlecoalition.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=226)

If you commit a crime, does the government lower or increase the years you
will spend in prison, based on the color of your skin? That happens in the
USA:

[http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2010/08/03/data-show-
rac...](http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2010/08/03/data-show-racial-
disparity-in-crack-sentencing)

If you peacefully walk down a street, and someone decides to kill you, are
they allowed to kill you based on the color of your skin? That happens in the
USA:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin)

When the government builds a school, does it offer more funding if the
children are white, and less funding if the children are black? That happens
in the USA:

[http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2011...](http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2011/07/05/9943/there-
still-be-dragons/)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/business/a-rich-childs-
edg...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/business/a-rich-childs-edge-in-
public-education.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

~~~
wisty
Warning - opinionated rant. I might be completely wrong.

I don't think this is helpful.

The big problem isn't oppression. It's a problem, but it hasn't been the main
one for a long time. The big problem is the poverty cycle.

White flight is another problem. Peer effects (black kids bullying black kids
who "act white") is a problem. These are not racial oppression.

Prejudice and oppression (from teachers, employers, police) is still a
problem, but it's not the big one. And pretending it is will encourage people
to fight black poverty in ways that probably won't actually work very well.

~~~
king_jester
> The big problem isn't oppression. It's a problem, but it hasn't been the
> main one for a long time. The big problem is the poverty cycle.

The poverty cycle IS a part of the continuum of oppression for black people.
Economic advancement has been denying and outright destroyed for these folks
ever since being forcefully brought to the US as slaves.

> White flight is another problem. Peer effects (black kids bullying black
> kids who "act white") is a problem. These are not racial oppression.

White flight is entirely about anti-blackness and racial oppression. Peer
effects are also entirely about anti-blackness and racial oppression. These
have been studied in such great detail.

> Prejudice and oppression (from teachers, employers, police) is still a
> problem, but it's not the big one. And pretending it is will encourage
> people to fight black poverty in ways that probably won't actually work very
> well.

This is total nonsense and is entirely divorced from the reality of racial
oppression in the United States, both in the past and today.

~~~
BugBrother
>> White flight is entirely about anti-blackness and racial oppression. [...]
These have been studied in such great detail.

Does international research _really_ support that middle class people leave
areas where the crime levels go up only where crime is from people of a
different colour?

Not American. I can tell you that the "white flight" efects in Sweden is at
least hard to distinguish from flight from bad areas; I lived in a couple of
those areas (Gottsunda and Akalla). The main differences were the food prices
and the crime levels. Not close to the US ghettos -- yet.

~~~
ceras
I don't know about internationally, but in the US it is absolutely about race.
White people simply do not feel comfortable living near a critical mass of
black people, and are even less comfortable sending their kids to school with
a critical mass of black people -- and that critical mass is low enough to
cause significant racial segregation throughout the nation.

------
zxcvvcxz
I found this interesting:

>Avellino’s mission was to rationalize the industry, to enforce what was
called a “property rights” system among the carters. Individual firms were
allowed to compete for new customers. But, once a carter won a customer, he
“owned” that business; the function of Avellino’s P.S.I. was to make sure that
no one else poached that customer.

It kind of reminded me of Peter Thiel's monopoly theory. At some point,
competition for certain things becomes counter-productive. If the need is
simple enough and adequately served, better to let it be served than waste
energy undercutting and re-negotiating customers. There's a bigger world out
there anyways. Obviously this colusion is all in the interest of the
businessmen, rather than the customer.

But the point stands in (at least how I interpret) Peter's mafia theory: don't
get into a line of business where it's easy to poach customers and competition
is incredibly fierce. Like the restaurant business in San Francisco. The
antithesis of this is something like Palantir I suppose, selling specialized
solutions to governments.

------
cheriot
I was really excited to see Malcolm Gladwell writing this just after I
finished reading one of the books he's talking about, On the Run: Fugitive
Life in an American City. I highly recommend it, especially if you enjoyed
Gang Leader for a Day.

The US is in desperate need of a mind shift from seeing all criminals as
hopelessly dangerous people that can only be dealt with by force. When the
same problems come up in every single poor community, it's a reflection of
deeper social issues. These sort of well written stories showing the humanity
involved can help with that.

I just searched for the other book mentioned in the article and the ONLY copy
available for sale (as in there's exactly one book) is $59 on amazon. The
publishing industry strikes again.

------
angersock
There's something deeply uncomfortable about one of the reported quotes:

 _I saw children give up running and simply stick their hands behind their
back, as if in handcuffs; push their body up against a car without being
asked; or lie flat on the ground and put their hands over their head. The
children yelled, “I’m going to lock you up! I’m going to lock you up, and you
ain’t never coming home!” I once saw a six-year-old pull another child’s pants
down to do a “cavity search.”_

Do we really want to be teaching this?

------
MrBuddyCasino
This is a slap in the face to everyone who tries to get ahead in life by, you
know, learning stuff (like programming) and improving their skills.

The gangster route is for people who don't like the modest work to reward
ratio that ordinary work brings - they want to risk more to get more. And by
doing that, they make other people's life miserable.

Malcolm Gladwell has just lost every respect I ever had for him. The way he
argues is like saying: "Yeah well, they were bad guys back then, but only
because weren't rich yet, so they kind of had to be gangsters".

~~~
recalibrator
Did you read the article? In almost every instance, most good jobs were
unavailable to immigrants and members of a cultural or racial minority.

These criminals only wanted respect and the same things other Americans had a
birthright to. They believed organized crime was the only way to achieve the
same standard of living.

~~~
meh_master
Perhaps he's a part of the "meritocracy" of Silicon Valley's start-up culture?

The ~99% white male meritocracy, apparently they're the only ones who are
where they are due to merit.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
I'm from Europe, and let me say we had very little money in our family.
Software devs in the US are apparently well paid and in high demand - are
people that racist they they wouldn't hire black devs? Of all lines of work, I
have the impression that IT is one of the most open and socially conscious
fields there is.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I also have the impression that "IT is one of the most open and socially
conscious fields there is", but I think it's only a temporary situation that
is happening only because the field _can 't afford_ to be less open.

IT sector is in a golden age, the times where there's more demand for
programmers than people available for the job. The field so desperate for even
mediocre workers that it _gets its recruiters to keep cold-calling and
spamming people_ in hope someone will change a job. It's extremely hard to
find talent, even harder to retain it, so companies just can't afford
stupidities like discrimination. Being socially conscious is actually a
signalling method - "yes, we don't discriminate; yes, we're that awesome! yes;
you should come to work at our place".

But wait a generation or two, when there will be more talent than jobs
available - IT will start looking like every other sector. Recruiters will
stop calling and we'll all be subject to the same amount of discrimination,
politics and overall workplace-abuse as everyone else.

~~~
jiggy2011
Based on my impression (as an outsider) of the tech scene in Silicon Valley
you are probably more likely to be discriminated against for having socially
conservative views than liberal ones.

