Libertarian Peter Schiff on How to Fix Troubled Communities

If you're a person who was advising a president or a governor how to fix an economically disabled community, if you have a community that's always had a history of poverty and crime and you know, drug use and gang use and these communities, like what would you do? How do you use this idea of capitalism to fix something that clearly requires some charity? It requires effort, right? First of all, we can stop making the problem worse. We can decriminalize drugs and end the war on drugs. Just like the war on poverty, it's backfired. The war on drugs is a failure. Right? People, look, in a free society, people have a right to consume what they want to consume. Of course. If they want to do drugs, let them do drugs, right? Yeah. And even if those drugs are harmful, adults can make decisions and deal with the consequences of their decisions. Especially the legal alternatives are just as bad. Right. But the problem is when you have the war on drugs and you make it a crime, now you incentivize criminal activity. Because whenever something is illegal, it's much more expensive than it would be if it were legal. And now you create this huge profit opportunity for criminals to come in and fill that demand. Because people still want the drugs. They just can't buy them legally through a reputable source. The only way they can get them is illegally through a criminal. So this is the best example of what we've created in Mexico. The best example of that in Mexico, right? And then what you do is you increase the cost of the illegal drugs. So let's say there's a heroin addict. And now heroin is illegal. And so heroin is very expensive. Well where is this heroin addict going to get the money to buy that heroin? He goes out and steals. I mean most of the robbery is committed by drug addicts because they need the money to buy their expensive heroin. Well if heroin were legal, it would be much cheaper and they wouldn't have to steal. Of course. So you know, if we create all these other crimes, I'm not saying that people should do heroin, but they should be free to make a decision, but they shouldn't have to rob other people to support their habit. And when you have heroin, when it's illegal and there's all these profits, the drug guy, the pusher has an incentive to get you hooked on it. I think maybe you should have to go get a prescription for it where the doctor can try to talk you out of it. Hey, are you sure you want to use this stuff? This is going to really hurt you. I mean, do you really want to become an addict? Here's some movies. Watch what happens to you. I mean most people probably wouldn't necessarily make that decision if they were confronted with a lot of evidence that shows why it's a very disruptive way to live your life. But so we got to get rid of the war on drugs, get rid of the crime in that community. You know, that's number one. But then as far as if you've got a lot of poor people, why are people poor? Right? They're poor because they don't have the skills or they can't earn enough money. They're not productive enough to generate income above the poverty line. So if you have people who are poor, the way to make them less poor is to increase their productivity. Right? One way obviously is through education when they're young. But I don't think government education is the solution because I don't think government education is educating anybody. I think government schools are run for the benefit of the bureaucracy of the school districts, of the teachers unions. I want free enterprise. I want vouchers or private schools to compete for educational dollars just the way, you know, the cell phone companies are competing. You know, they want me to buy their cell phone instead of somebody else's. They have to make it better and they have to make it less expensive. So let's have schools that are competing to be the best to offer the best education at the best value. And we've got in these cities, we've got these poor kids trapped in these failed government schools. They waste their time. They learn nothing. A lot of these kids graduate. They're not even literate. I mean, they can't even do basic, basic arithmetic. Right. But in the current state of the world right now, but in the current state of the world right now, those people don't have any other options. Those people don't have any other options because the government has taken away that option. But what do you do for them in real time? But what do you do for them in real time? If you have a guy who's in a lower income family and he has a seven year old son and that kid is going to school right now, how do you fix that right now by making it open free market? If we had private schools, the kid could go there. They couldn't afford that. Right. What if they couldn't afford the private school? No, no, but private schools, for people who are really poor, private schools would give out scholarships to kids that have a lot of potential and their parents don't have the money. But when the private sector educates kids, it's cheaper. A lot of potential. A lot of potential. That bothers me because like what if a kid doesn't have a lot of potential, then he doesn't get an education because he can't afford a private school. Not every. But let's say let's say a kid doesn't have a lot of potential. A certain type of education might be a waste. That would be a better off learning a trade. Hold on. He might be better off learning how to do something. How would you know? You know, learn a trade. How would you know why the kid is seven? If the kid's in first grade and is seven, how do you know whether or not that kid has a lot of potential? That's crazy. Seven is I don't know. Seven might be a little young. How would I think before you pull the push on that kid? The tuition in first or second grade is probably going to be less than in high school because in order to teach a second grader, the teacher doesn't have to know as much as a teacher needs to know to teach a 10th grader. So you wouldn't have to pay a second grade teacher as much as a 10th grade teacher. See the problem. The problem in the government is everybody get paid the same, whether they're a lousy teacher or a good teacher, whether they're teaching a first grader or a high school, they get this all based on seniority. It's a crazy crackpot system that only the government could devise. And it's only because they have a captive audience. The people, the customers don't have a choice. And the parents aren't even involved. If the parents were actually writing a check and paying for the education, they would make sure the kids did the homework. They would make sure they were getting their money's work. When you get it for free, I mean, you just take it for granted. So we need real education for the kids that can benefit from it. We need to get rid of minimum wage law and all sorts of occupational licensing laws and other things that the government does that prevent people from getting jobs or starting businesses. The government is creating all sorts of barriers, artificial barriers that would not exist absent government.