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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 9. Economic Inequality - 4. The Conflict of Valuations
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Chapter 9. Economic Inequality 217
On the other hand, it is said that the Negro is accustomed to live on
little. ‘^It is a marvel how these niggers can get along on almost nothing.”
This would actually imply that the Negro is a careful consumer—^but the
conclusion is never expressed that way.
This touches upon the second main logical bridge between equalitarianism
and economic discrimination: the cost-of-living and the standard-of-living
arguments. The first of these two popular theories is—again quoting the
already mentioned university publication—presented in the following way:
, . . observation alone would suggest to the unbiased observer that the negro teacher
will be able to purchase within her society a relatively higher standard of living than
the white teacher will be able to secure with the same amount of money.®
Statistical investigations are referred to which seem to indicate the remark-
able fact that Negro teachers with smaller salaries spend less money for
various items of the cost-of-living budget than better paid white teachers.
Scientifically, this is nonsense, of course. A cost-of-living comparison has
no meaning except when comparing costs for equivalent budget items and
total budgets. That poor people get along on less has nothing to do with
cost of living. They must get along on less, even when cost of living, in the
proper sense, is higher for them. We have quoted this statement only to
illustrate a popular theory which, though it now seldom gets into respectable
print, is widespread in the South and constitutes a most important rationali-
zation among even educated people.®
Sometimes an attempt is made to give the theory greater logical con-
sistency by inserting the idea that ^‘Negroes don^t have the same demands
on life as white people.” ^^They are satisfied with less.” It should be
remembered that equal pay for equal work to women has been objected
to by a similar popular theory in all countries. The underlying assumption
of a racial differential in psychic wants is, of course, entirely unfounded.
Others are heard expressing the theory of lower demands on life in the
following way: "Their cost of living is obviously lower since they have
a lower standard of living.” Lower wages and lower relief grants are
generally motivated in this way. A great number of more or less con-
fused notions are held together in such expressions. Having "a low standard
of living,” for one thing, means to many to be a "no-account” person, a
worthless individual. It also means that, being able to live as they are
• In relief work the popular theory of the Negroes* “lower cost of living’* as a motivation
for discrimination is often given in terms more directly and more honestly related to
actual customs and social policy. Some social workers in the Deep South explained to
Richard Sterner that the appropriation did not suffice for the full “budgetary deficiency** of
the clients, for they had to give each one just the barest minimum they could get along with.
Rents usually were lower for Negro clients, since they lived in the Negro sections. It was
readily admitted that this was so because housing was poorer in Negro neighborhoods. But
even so, money had to be saved on the small appropriations wherever possible.
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