Behavioral poverty is more pervasive, more consequential and harder to address than resource poverty.

All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own wayFrom Behavior Matters by Matt DeLisi and John Paul Wright.  

My argument has long been that life outcomes are statistically predictable to an acceptable degree but based on a multi-causal model for multi-measure outcomes.  Specifically, to understand the parameters of outcomes, we need to look at Knowledge, Experience, Skills, Values, Behaviors, Motivation, Capability, Personality, etc. 

The popular though fruitless and divisive model is to examine life outcomes as a function of various forms of victimhood with a focus on how the state can change outcomes by changing the degree of victimhood whereas mine is anchored in Age of Enlightenment assumptions about universal humanism, rule of law, etc.

DeLisi and Wright are one-sided in their presentation of evidence (there are almost credible studies countering some of their arguments) and needlessly cast the argument in left-right terms which is unfortunate.  This is an empirical question (are behaviors predictive of life outcomes) and while there is a definite contrast between left and right, that is not the key issue.  However, I think they are directionally right and the preponderance of evidence is on their side.

More than 50 years of social-sciences evidence demonstrates that behavior is highly predictive of many important life outcomes. Children who are temperamental, fussy, and aggressive often cause their parents to withdraw affection and to limit supervision, which leads to further bad behavior later on, along with subsequent struggles and frustration. Adolescents who verbally accost or threaten their schoolteachers are more likely to be suspended or expelled, as well as to spend less time studying, working on homework, and attending classes. And adults who engage in crime are the same ones who not only frequently end up in jail and prison, of course, but also remain voluntarily unemployed, and often find themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder. Behavior is predictive from one setting to the next, and consequences snowball. The body of research linking bad behavior to negative and cumulative consequences is remarkably robust, extends across countries, and has been replicated across academic disciplines with diverse samples, methodologies, and analytical techniques. These findings provide the basis for a range of policies and cultural narratives that could, if embraced, help people avoid many of life’s costly pitfalls.

I had read of this study from New Zealand a couple of times but not in a while.

Protective factors and risk factors both have compelling predictive power well into adulthood, as shown compellingly by findings from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, which has tracked a birth cohort of 1,037 individuals in Dunedin, New Zealand, since 1972. Researchers found that just four factors present as early as age three—maltreatment, low IQ, low self-control, and low socioeconomic status—were significantly associated with life outcomes four decades later. They also compared the 22 percent of the cohort showing the greatest risk profiles with the 30 percent of the cohort showing the lowest risk profiles. The comparisons starkly revealed the relative societal burden that each group would go on to impose. The more severe 22 percent—those whom we assert exhibited behavioral poverty—accounted for 66 percent of the social-welfare spending, 77 percent of the prevalence of fatherless children, 54 percent of the prevalence of smoking, 40 percent of the prevalence of excess weight/obesity, 57 percent of hospital stays, 78 percent of prescription fills, 36 percent of injury claims, and 81 percent of crime. The lowest-risk 30 percent accounted for 6 percent of social-welfare spending, 3 percent of the prevalence of fatherless children, 7 percent of the prevalence of smoking, 1 percent of the prevalence of excess weight/obesity, 7 percent of hospital stays, 3 percent of prescription fills, 15 percent of injury claims—and 0 percent of crime.

Fascinating to see the Pareto Principle playing out as it does in so many fields of human behavior.  In this instance, those 22% in the greatest behavioral poverty being responsible for 81% of crime.   

In international economic development, post World-War II, we usually thought of development as a mere issue of resource absence.  Take a poor country, add resources in the form of aid and you would get a developing country.  We now know, though the old forms of thinking are still prevalent, that development is much more a matter of institutional practices, rule of law, culture, etc.  

Similarly, at a sociological level, we tend to think about poverty as an absence of resources issue.  In poverty?  Provide universal basic income or unemployment insurance!  Homeless?  Provide shelter!  Uneducated or unskilled?  Increase access!

All noble sentiments and yet for most, incomplete if not harmful strategies.  

It goes against the grain of the virtue signaling Mandarin Class in the mainstream media, academia and state bureaucracies but the real root cause to most persistent problems is behavior and not subjective victimization by discrimination (racial, sexual, religious, etc.).  

It is understandable why their is such resistance.  We can put on a diversity class which looks like something is being done even though we know that they are useless or actually harmful.  But changing behaviors?  That is a task both difficult and controversial.  We are asking people to adhere to what is known to work but it can be portrayed as cultural colonization.  Even though the treatment behaviors which work, work in all cultures and across all races.  

For those who have lived internationally, those who are upper middle class across countries tend to have much more in common with another across borders and cultures than they do with the bottom 20% or top 1% of their own countries.  

It is a variant of Tolstoy's observation of happy and unhappy families.  Something along the lines of:

All successful families are alike, but every unsuccessful family is unsuccessful in its own way.

There are thousand roads to ruin but the pathways to success are few and pretty clearly marked. 

Most our reform efforts today are still about providing resources, forgiving crimes, and lessening consequences.  Not necessarily bad, but certainly ineffective.  

The question is, if instead of blaming the system, we start focusing on reforming individual behaviors, can we find strategies which can be replicate successfully across cities and states?  We are doing resource reform but what might behavioral reform addressing those in behavioral poverty look like?