You'll be happy to know that I'll be talking not about my own tragedy, but other people's tragedy. It's a lot easier to be lighthearted about other people's tragedy than your own, and I want to keep it in the spirit of the conference.
Biti ćete sretni znati da neću pričati o svojoj tragediji, već o tragediji drugih ljudi. Puno je lakše biti vedar pričajući o tuđoj nesreći, nego o svojoj, a ja želim očuvati pozitivan naboj ove konferencije. Ako vjerujete medijskom izvještavanju,
So, if you believe the media accounts, being a drug dealer in the height of the crack cocaine epidemic was a very glamorous life, in the words of Virginia Postrel. There was money, there was drugs, guns, women, you know, you name it -- jewelry, bling-bling -- it had it all.
biti diler droge u srcu epidemije crack-kokaina je bio luksuzan život, po riječima Virginie Postrel. Bilo je novca, droge, pištolja, žena, znate, samo nabrajajte -- nakit, bling-bling -- bilo je svega.
What I'm going to tell you today is that, in fact, based on 10 years of research, a unique opportunity to go inside a gang -- to see the actual books, the financial records of the gang -- that the answer turns out not to be that being in the gang was a glamorous life. But I think, more realistically, that being in a gang -- selling drugs for a gang -- is perhaps the worst job in all of America. And that's what I'd like to convince you of today.
Što ću vam ja danas reći je temeljeno na 10 godina istraživanja, jedinstvenoj prilici ući unutar bande -- vidjeti prave knjige, poslovne knjige bandi -- koji govore da biti u bandi nije bio luksuzan život. Ja mislim, realno, da biti u bandi -- prodavati drogu za bandu -- je možda najgori posao u cijeloj Americi. I to je ono u što bih vas htio uvjeriti danas.
So there are three things I want to do. First, I want to explain how and why crack cocaine had such a profound influence on inner-city gangs. Secondly, I want to tell you how somebody like me came to be able to see the inner workings of a gang -- an interesting story, I think. And then third, I want to tell you, in a very superficial way, about some of the things we found when we actually got to look at the financial records, the books, of the gang.
Imam tri stvari koje želim učiniti. Prvo, želim objasniti kako i zašto je crack kokain imao tako dubok utjecaj na bande geta. Drugo, želim vam reći kako je netko poput mene dobio priliku vidjeti unutrašnjost posla bandi. To je interesantna priča, mislim. I onda treće, želim vam reći, vrlo površnim načinom o nekim drugim stvarima koje smo otkrili kada smo pogledali poslovne knjige -- knjige -- bandi.
So before I do that, just one warning, which is that this presentation has been rated 'R' by the Motion Picture Association of America. It contains adult themes, adult language. Given who is up on the stage, you'll be delighted to know that, in fact, there'll be no nudity --
Pa, prije nego to napravim, jedno upozorenje, a to je da je ova prezentacija ocjenjena sa "R" od strane američkog Udruženja za igrani film. Sadrži teme za odrasle, rječnik odraslih. Sad kada znate tko je na pozornici, biti ćete oduševljeni saznanjem da neće biti golotinje,
(Laughter)
osim --
Unexpected wardrobe malfunctions aside.
(Smijeh) -- neočekivanih promjena u garderobi.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So let me start by talking about crack cocaine, and how it transformed the gang. To do that, you have to actually go back to a time before crack cocaine, in the early '80s, and look at it from the perspective of a gang leader. Being a gang leader in the inner city wasn't such a bad deal in the mid-'80s -- the early '80s, let me say.
Početi ću pričati o crack kokainu, i kako je promijenio bande. I da bih to napravio, morati ćete se vratiti u vrijeme prije crack kokaina, u rane 80-te i pogledati na to iz perspektive vođe bande. Biti vođa bande u getu i nije bila tako loša pozicija sredinom 80-ih. Ranih 80-ih, neki bi rekli.
Now, you had a lot of power, and you got to beat people up -- you got a lot of prestige, a lot of respect. But the thing is, there was no money in it. The gang had no way to make money. You couldn't charge dues to the people in the gang, because the people in the gang didn't have any money. You couldn't really make any money selling marijuana -- marijuana's too cheap, it turns out. You can't get rich selling marijuana. You couldn't sell cocaine; cocaine's a great product -- powdered cocaine -- but you've got to know rich white people. And most of the inner-city gang members didn't know any rich white people, so couldn't sell to that market. You couldn't really do petty crime, either. Turns out, petty crime's a terrible way to make a living.
Imaš moć i moraš pretući neke ljude -- imaš prestiž, puno poštivanja. Ali u tome nije bilo novaca, OK? Banda nije imala načina kako zaraditi novac. I nisu mogli naplaćivati dugove od članova unutar bande, jer članovi bande nisu imali novce. Niste mogli zaraditi novce prodavajući marihuanu. Marihuana je prejeftina, ispada. Ne možete se obogatiti prodavajući marihuanu. Niste mogli prodati kokain. Kokain je odličan prozivod -- kokain u prahu -- ali morate znati bogate bijelce. A većina getovskih članova bandi nije znala niti jednog bogatog bijelca -- nisu mogli prodavati na tom tržištu. Niste mogli raditi niti sitni kriminal. Ispada, sitni kriminal je grozan način zarade za preživjeti.
Za rezultat,
As a result, as a gang leader, you had, you know, power -- it's a pretty good life -- but the thing was, in the end, you were living at home with your mother. And so it wasn't really a career. There were limits to how powerful and important you could be if you had to live at home with your mother.
kao vođa bande, imali ste moć. To je prilično dobar život. Ali problem je što ste na kraju živjeli doma sa majkom. A to i nije bila baš neka karijera. To je bilo nešto što -- je samo pokazivalo gdje su granice tome kako moćni i važni možete biti ako morate živjeti doma sa majkom.
Then along comes crack cocaine. And in the words of Malcolm Gladwell, crack cocaine was the extra-chunky version of tomato sauce for the inner city.
Onda dolazi crack kokain. Prema riječima Malcolma Gladwella, crack kokain je bio ekstra kalorična verzija umaka od rajčice za geto. (Smijeh)
(Laughter)
Because crack cocaine was an unbelievable innovation. I don't have time to talk about it today, but if you think about it, I would say that in the last 25 years, of every invention or innovation that's occurred in this country, the biggest one in terms of impact on the well-being of people who live in the inner city, was crack cocaine. And for the worse -- not for the better, but for the worse. It had a huge impact on life.
Jer je crack kokain bio nevjerojatna inovacija. Nemam vremena pričati o tome danas. Ali, ako razmislite o tome, rekao bih da u zadnjih 25 godina, od bilo kojeg izuma ili inovacije koji su se pojavili u ovoj državi, najveća, u odnosima utjecaja na dobrobit ljudi koji žive u getu jest crack kokain. Utjecaju na loše -- ne na dobro -- već na loše. Imalo je ogroman utjecaj na život.
So what was it about crack cocaine? It was a brilliant way of getting the brain high. Because you could smoke crack cocaine -- you can't smoke powdered cocaine -- and smoking is a much more efficient mechanism of delivering a high than snorting it. And it turned out there was this audience that didn't know it wanted crack cocaine, but when it came, it really did. And it was a perfect drug; you could buy the cocaine that went into it for a dollar, sell it for five dollars. Highly addictive -- the high was very short. So for fifteen minutes, you get this great high, and then when you come down, all you want to do is get high again.
O čemu se zapravo radi kad govorimo o crack kokainu? Bio je to odličan način za ušlagirati se. Zato što ste mogli pušiti crack -- niste mogli pušiti kokain u prahu -- a pušenje je puno efikasniji način dolaska do ušlagiranosti nego šmrkanje. Pokazalo se da je postojala publika koja nije znala da želi crack kokain, ali, kada je došao, saznala je da ga stvarno želi. Bio ja savršena droga kupiti kokain koji ide u njega za dolar, pa ga prodati za pet dolara. Stvara veliku ovisnost -- ušlagiranost je bila kratka. Petnaest minuta si super ušlagiran. A onda, kada ušlagiranost prestane, sve što želiš jest ponovo se ušlagirati.
It created a wonderful market. And for the people who were there running the gang, it was a great way, seemingly, to make a lot of money. At least for the people on the top.
Napravilo je odlično tržište. A za ljude koji su vodili bande, to je bio odličan način da naizgled zarade mnogo novaca. Barem za ljude na vrhu.
So this is where we enter the picture. Not really me -- I'm really a bit player in all this. My co-author, Sudhir Venkatesh, is the main character. He was a math major in college who had a good heart, and decided he wanted to get a sociology PhD, came to the University of Chicago. Now, the three months before he came to Chicago, he had spent following the Grateful Dead. And in his own words, he "looked like a freak." He's a South Asian -- very dark-skinned South Asian. Big man, and he had hair, in his words, "down to his ass." Defied all kinds of boundaries: Was he black or white? Was he man or woman? He was really a curious sight to be seen.
Tu ulazimo u ovu priču. Ne ja -- ja stvarno igram malu ulogu u svemu ovome. Moj suradnik, Sudhir Venkatesh, je glavni glumac. On je matematičar, dobra je osoba, i odlučio je da želi doktorirati sociologiju. Došao je na Sveučilište u Chicagu. Tri mjeseca prije nego što je došao u Chicago proveo je prateći The Greatful Dead. Kako zna sebe opisati, izgledao je kao "freak". Podrijetlom je iz južne Azije -- vrlo tamnoputi južno Azijac. Veliki čovjek, imao je dugu kosu, kako on kaže "do stražnjice". Prkosio je svim granicama: Je li bijelac ili crnac? Je li muško ili žensko? Bio je zanimljiv prizor za gledati.
So he showed up at the University of Chicago, and the famous sociologist William Julius Wilson was doing a book that involved surveying people all across Chicago. He took one look at Sudhir, who was going to go do some surveys for him, and decided he knew exactly the place to send him, which was to one of the toughest, most notorious housing projects not just in Chicago, but in the entire United States.
I tako se pojavio na Sveučilištu u Chicagu. Poznati sociolog, William Julius Wilson, je pisao knjigu koja je uključivala anketiranje ljudi iz cijelog Chicaga. I pogledao je Sudhira, koji je krenuo prikupiti neke ankete za njega, i odlučio da zna točno mjesto gdje će ga poslati -- a to je u jednan od najtežih, najozloglašenijih kvartova. Ne samo u Chicagu, već u cijelim Sjedinjenim Američkim Državama.
So Sudhir, the suburban boy who had never really been in the inner city, dutifully took his clipboard and walked down to this housing project, gets to the first building. The first building? Well, there's nobody there. But he hears some voices up in the stairwell, so he climbs up the stairwell, comes around the corner, and finds a group of young African-American men playing dice.
Tako je Sudhir -- prigradski dečko koji nikada nije bio u getu -- pokorno uzeo svoju fasciklu i otišao u taj kvart. Došao je do prve zgrade. Prva zgrada? Pa, nema nikoga ovdje. Ali čuje nekakve glasove na stepenicama, pa se popne uz stepenice. Dođe kraj kuta -- pronađe grupu mladih Afroameriknaca kako bacaju kockice.
This is about 1990, peak of the crack epidemic. This is a very dangerous job, being in a gang. You don't like to be surprised. You don't like to be surprised by people who come around the corner. And the mantra was: shoot first; ask questions later. Now, Sudhir was lucky -- he was such a freak, and that clipboard probably saved his life, because they figured no other rival gang member would be coming up to shoot at them with a clipboard.
Ovo je bilo negdje 1990 -- na vrhuncu crack epidemije. Ovo je jako opasan posao, kada ste u bandi -- ne želite biti iznenađeni. Ne želite biti iznenađeni ljudima koji iskoče iza ugla. A mantra je bila: prvo pucaj, pa onda postavljaj pitanja. Sudhir je imao sreće. Bio je takav freak -- a fascikla mu je vjerojatno spasila život, jer su shvatili niti jedan član protivničke bande ne bi došao upucati ih s fasciklom. (Smijeh)
(Laughter)
Doček mu nije bio previše topao, ali su rekli,
So his greeting was not particularly warm, but they did say, well, OK -- let's hear your questions on your survey. So -- I kid you not -- the first question on the survey that he was sent to ask was: "How do you feel about being poor and Black in America?"
pa, OK -- da čujemo tvoja pitanja na anketi. I sad, ne zafrkavam se, prvo pitanje na anketi je bilo, "Kako se osjećate kao siromašan crnac u Americi?"
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Makes you wonder about academics.
Zapitate ste o sastavljačima ankete, OK?
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So the choice of answers were:
Ponuđeni odgovori su bili: vrlo dobro, dobro, loše i vrlo loše.
[A) Very Good B) Good C) Bad D) Very Bad]
(Laughter)
What Sudhir found out is, in fact, that the real answer was the following: [A) Very Good B) Good C) Bad D) Very Bad E) Fuck you]
Što je Sudhir otkrio jest da je pravi odgovor na pitanje -- (Smijeh)
(Laughter)
The survey was not, in the end, going to be what got Sudhir off the hook. He was held hostage overnight in the stairwell. There was a lot of gunfire, there were a lot of philosophical discussions he had with the gang members. By morning, the gang leader arrived, checked out Sudhir, decided he was no threat, and they let him go home. So Sudhir went home, took a shower, took a nap.
Anketa neće na kraju, biti kako se Sudhir nadao. Držali su ga kao taoca preko noći na stubištu. Bilo je puno pucnjave -- bilo je dosta filozofske rasprave njega sa članovima bande. Ujutro je stigao vođa bande. Pogledao Sudhira -- ocijenio da nije prijetnja, pa su ga pustili doma. Tako je Sudhir otišao doma, Otuširao se, odspavao.
And you and I, probably, faced with the situation, would think, "I guess I'm going to write my dissertation on The Grateful Dead, I've been following them for the last three months."
I vi i ja, bi vjerojatno, suočeni sa situacijom pomislili, pa, pretpostavljam da ću pisati disertaciju o "The Greatful Dead". Pratio sam ih zadnja tri mjeseca. (Smijeh)
(Laughter)
Sudhir sa druge strane, se vratio -- otišao do kvarta.
Sudhir, on the other hand, got right back, walked down to the housing project, went up to the second floor, and said: "Hey, guys, I had so much fun hanging out with you last night, I wonder if I could do it again tonight." And that was the beginning of what turned out to be a beautiful relationship that involved Sudhir living in the housing project on and off for 10 years, hanging out in crack houses, going to jail with the gang members, having the windows shot out of his car, having the police break into his apartment and steal his computer disks -- you name it. But ultimately, the story has a happy ending for Sudhir, who became one of the most respected sociologists in the country. And especially for me, as I sat in my office with my Excel spreadsheet open, waiting for Sudhir to come and deliver to me the latest load of data that he would get from the gang.
Otišao na drugi kat i rekao : "Ej, ljudi baš mi je bilo odlično s vama prošlu večer, mogu li prespavati još jednu večer." To je bio početak jednog prekrasnog prijateljstva radi kojeg je Sudhir živio u kvartu s prekidima deset godina: družio se u kućama s ovisnicima, išao je u zatvor sa članovima bande, pucali su mu na auto, policija mu je provalila u stan i ukrala mu disk sa računala -- i razni drugi doživljaji. U konačnici, priča ima sretan završetak za Sudhira, koji je postao jedan od najpoštovanijih sociologa u državi. A posebno za mene, sjedeći u uredu s otvorenim tablicama Excela, čekajući da Sudhir dođe do mene i donose najnovije informacije -- -- koje bi izvukao od bande.
(Laughter)
It was one of the most unequal co-authoring relationships ever --
Bilo je to jedno od najneujednačenijih suradništva ikad --
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
But I was glad to be the beneficiary of it.
-- ali mi je bilo drago izvuči korist iz svega.
So what did we find? What did we find in the gang? Well, let me say one thing: We really got access to everybody in the gang. We got an inside look at the gang, from the very bottom up to the very top. They trusted Sudhir, in ways that really no academic has ever -- or really anybody, any outsider -- has ever earned the trust of these gangs, to the point where they actually opened up what was most interesting for me -- their books, the financial records they kept. They made them available to us, and we not only could study them, but we could ask them questions about what was in them.
Što smo našli? Što smo našli u bandi? Pa, da vam kažem jednu stvar. Stvarno smo dobili pristup svakome u bandi. Dobili smo unutarnji pogled na bandu, od vrha do dna. Oni su vjerovali Sudhiru -- na način na koji stvarno niti jedan akademik nije ikada -- ili bilo tko, bilo koji stranac -- zadobio toliko povjerenja od tih bandi, do točke u kojoj se oni otvaraju što je meni najzanimljivije: njihove knjige, financijske izvještaje koje čuvaju. I omogućili su nam njihovo korištenje. I ne samo da smo ih mogli proučavati, već smo ih mogli pitati pitanja o tome što je u njima.
So if I have to kind of summarize very quickly in the short time I have what the bottom line of what I take away from the gang is, it's that, if I had to draw a parallel between the gang and any other organization, it would be that the gang is just like McDonald's, in a lot of different respects -- the restaurant McDonald's.
Ako moram to sažeti vrlo brzo kroz kratko vrijeme koje mi je na raspolaganju najniži dio bande jest ono zanimljivo pa, ako trebam napraviti paralelu između bande i bilo koje druge organizacije rekao bih da je banda baš kao i McDonald's. U različitim dimnezijama -- restoran McDonald's.
So first, in one way, which isn't maybe the most interesting way, but it's a good way to start -- is in the way it's organized, the hierarchy of the gang, the way it looks. So here's what the org chart of the gang looks like. I don't know if you know much about org charts, but if you were to assign a stripped-down and simplified McDonald's org chart, this is exactly what it would look like. It's amazing, but the top level of the gang, they actually call themselves the "Board of Directors."
Kao prvo -- što nije možda najinteresantnija sličnost, ali je dobra za početak -- način na koji je organizirana. Hijerarhija bande; kako izgleda. Ovako izgleda organizacijska struktura bande. Ne znam koliko znate o organizacijskoj strukturi, ali ako biste pojednostavili McDonald's-ovu organizacijsku strukturu, izgledala bih upravo ovako. Ono što je zanimljivo jest vrhovna razina bande, oni sebe zovu "upravni odbor".
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And Sudhir says it's not like these guys had a very sophisticated view of what happened in American corporate life, but they had seen movies like "Wall Street," and they had learned a little bit about what it was like to be in the real world. Now, below that board of directors, you've got essentially what are regional VPs -- people who control, say, the South Side of Chicago, or the West Side of Chicago.
Sudhir kaže da ovi frajeri nisu imali jako profinjeno viđenje o tome, što se dogodilo u američkom korporativnom životu. Ali su gledali filmove kao Wall Street, i naučili su malo o tome kako je živjeti u stvarnom svijetu. Ispod tog upravnog odbora, imate u biti ono što su regionalni potpredsjednici -- ljudi koji kontroliraju, recimo, južnu stranu Chicaga, ili zapadnu stranu Chicaga.
Sudhir got to know very well the guy who had the unfortunate assignment of trying to take the Iowa franchise, which, it turned out, for this black gang, was not one of the more brilliant financial endeavors they undertook.
Sudhit je upoznao vrlo dobro dečka, koji je ima nesreću dobiti zadatak preuzeti franšizu za Iowu. (Smijeh) Koja, kako je ispalo, za ovu crnu bandu, nije bila jedna od najpametnijih
(Laughter)
nastojanja kad govorimo o financijskom poduhvatu.
But the thing that really makes the gang seem like McDonald's is its franchisees.
(Smijeh)
The guys who are running the local gangs -- the four-square-block by four-square-block areas -- they're just like the guys, in some sense, who are running the McDonald's. They are the entrepreneurs. They get the exclusive property rights to control the drug-selling. They get the name of the gang behind them, for merchandising and marketing. And they're the ones who basically make the profit or lose a profit, depending on how good they are at running the business.
Ali ono što stvarno čini bandu sličnu McDonald's-u jest njena franšiza. Frajeri koji su vodili lokalne bande -- kvart za kvart -- su bili baš kao oni frajeri, po nekoj logici, koji su vodili McDonald's. Oni su poduzetnici. Imaju ekskluzivna imovinska prava kontrolirati prodaju droge. Dobiju ime bande koja stoji iza njih, za prodaju i marketing. A oni su zapravo oni koji imaju dobit ili gubitak, ovisno koliko su dobri u vođenju posla.
Now, the group I really want you to think about, though, are the ones at the bottom -- the foot soldiers. These are the teenagers, typically, who'd be standing out on the street corner, selling the drugs. Extremely dangerous work. And important to note is that almost all of the weight, all of the people in this organization are at the bottom -- just like McDonald's. So in some sense, the foot soldiers are a lot like the people who are taking your order at McDonald's, and it's not just by chance that they're like them. In fact, in these neighborhoods, they'd be the same people. So the same kids who are working in the gang were actually, at the very same time, typically working part-time at a place like McDonald's. Which already foreshadows the main result that I've talked about, about what a crappy job it was, being in the gang. Because obviously, if being in the gang were such a wonderful, lucrative job, why in the world would these guys moonlight at McDonald's?
Grupa o kojoj stvarno želim pričati jest ona na dnu, pješaci. Ovo su obično tinejđeri, koji bi stajali na uglu ulice i prodavali drogu. Vrlo opasan posao. Bitno je napomenuti da je gotovo cijela težina, svi ljudi u ovoj organizaciju su na dnu. OK, baš kao McDonald's. Po nekoj logici, pješaci su vrlo slični ljudima koji primaju vašu narudžbu u McDonald's-u. I stvarno, nije slučajnost da su oni poput njih. Činjenica jest, u ovim kvartovima, oni bi bili isti ljudi. Tako bi neka djeca koja su radila u bandi, zapravo -- u isto vrijeme, radila honorarno na radnom mjestu kao McDonald's. Koje već, po mom mišljenju, nagovješćuje rezultat o kojemu sam pričao, o tome kako je loš posao biti u bandi. Jer očito, da je raditi u bandi tako krasan, unosan posao, zašto bi ovi momci mjesečarili u McDonald's-u?
So what do the wages look like? You might be surprised. But based on being able to talk to them and to see their records, this is what it looks like in terms of the wages. The hourly wage the foot soldiers were earning was $3.50 an hour. It was below the minimum wage. And this is well-documented. It's easy to see by the patterns of consumption they have. It really is not fiction -- it's fact. There was very little money in the gang, especially at the bottom.
Kako plaće izgledaju? Mogli biste se iznenaditi. Ali prema stvarnosti -- znate, imajući priliku razgovarati s njima, te vidjeti njihovu dokumentaciju, ovako to izgleda u odnosima plaća. Pješaci bi zarađivali oko 3,50 dolara po satu. To je bilo ispod minimalca, OK? A ovo je dobro dokumentirano. Jednostavno je za vidjeti iz obrazaca potrošnje koje imaju. Ovo nije fikcija -- ovo je činjenica. Bilo je jako malo novaca u bandi, posebice na dnu.
Now if you managed to rise up, say, and be that local leader, the guy who's the equivalent of the McDonald's franchisee, you'd be making 100,000 dollars a year. And that, in some ways, was the best job you could hope to get if you were growing up in one of these neighborhoods as a young black male. If you managed to rise to the very top, 200,000 or 400,000 dollars a year is what you'd hope to make. Truly, you would be a great success story.
Ako se uspijete probiti -- i recimo postanete lokalni vođa, frajer koji je jednak McDonald's-ovom korisniku franšize -- zarađivali biste 100.000 dolara godišnje. A to je najbolji posao kojemu se možete nadati ako ste odrastali u jednom ovakvom kvartu kao mladi crnac. Ako se uspijete probiti do vrha, 200.000 ili 400.000 dolara godišnje je ono čemu se možete nadati. Bili biste velika priča o uspjehu.
And one of the sad parts of this is that, indeed, among the many other ramifications of crack cocaine is that the most talented individuals in these communities -- this is what they were striving for. They weren't trying to make it in legitimate ways, because there were no legitimate channels out. This was the best way out. And it actually was the right choice, probably, to try to make it out this way.
Tužan dio ovoga je, da među mnogim posljedicama crack-a, jest i ona da većina talentiranih individualaca u ovim zajednicama -- žele doći do ovih pozicija. Nisu pokušavali uspjeti legalnim putem, jer nije bilo legalnog izlaza. Ovo je bio najbolji izlaz. I ovo je zapravo bio pravi izbor, vjerojatno, za pokušati uspjeti -- ovim putem. Pogledate ovo.
You look at this, the relationship to McDonald's breaks down here. The money looks about the same. Why is it such a bad job? Well, the reason it's such a bad job is that there's somebody shooting at you a lot of the time. So, with shooting at you, what are the death rates? We found, in our gang -- and admittedly, this was not really a standard situation; this was a time of intense violence, of a lot of gang wars, as this gang actually became quite successful. But there were costs. And so the death rate -- not to mention the rate of being arrested, sent to prison, being wounded -- the death rate in our sample was seven percent per person per year. You're in the gang for four years, you expect to die with about a 25 percent likelihood. That is about as high as you can get.
Veza s McDonald's-om završava ovdje. Novac je isti. Zašto je tako loš posao? Pa, razlog zbog kojeg je loš posao jest da netko puca na tebe previše puta. Kolike su stope smrtnosti ako netko puca na tebe? Pronašli smo da u našoj bandi -- doduše, ovo nije bila standardna situacija. Ovo je bilo doba intenzivnog kriminala -- puno ratova bandi -- a ova banda je postala vrlo uspješna. Ali su platili cijenu. Tako je stopa smrtnosti -- da ne spominjemo stopu uhićenja, slanja u zatvor, ranjavanja -- stopa smrtnosti je u našem primjer bila sedam posto po osobi godišnje. Ako ste u bandi četiri godine, šanse da poginete su oko 25 posto. A to je vrlo visoko.
So for comparison's purposes, let's think about some other walk of life you may expect might be extremely risky. Let's say that you were a murderer and you were convicted of murder, and you're sent to death row. It turns out, the death rates on death row from all causes, including execution: two percent a year.
Usporedbe radi, razmislimo o nekim drugim primjerima u životu u kojima možete očekivati visoke rizike. Recimo da ste ubojica i da ste osuđeni za ubojstvo, te poslani na smrtnu kaznu. Ispada, da su stope smrtnosti na smrtnoj kazni -- svih tipova, uključujući smaknuće -- dva posto godišnje.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So it's a lot safer being on death row than it is selling drugs out on the street.
Tako da je puno sigurnije biti na smrtnoj kazni, nego prodavati drogu na ulici.
That gives you some pause, for those of you who believe that a death penalty's going to have an enormous deterrent effect on crime. To give you a sense of just how bad the inner city was during crack -- and I'm not really focusing on the negatives, but really, there's another story to tell you there -- if you look at the death rates just of random, young black males growing up in the inner city in the United States, the death rates during crack were about one percent. That's extremely high. And this is violent death -- it's unbelievable, in some sense.
Zbog ovog ćete malo zastati -- barem malo -- vi koji vjerujete da će smrtna kazna imati veliki utjecaj na kriminal. Da vam objasnim koliko je loše bilo u getu tijekom crack epidemije -- a neću se usmjeriti na negativno, ali stvarno, postoji još jedna priča koji vam moram ispričati -- ako pogledate stope smrtnosti -- slučajno odaberite, mladi crnac odrasta u getu u Sjedinjenim Državama -- stope smrtnosti tijekom crack epidemije su bile oko jedan posto. To je ektremno visoko. A ovo je nasilna smrt -- nevjerojatno je, na neki način.
To put it into perspective: if you compare this to the soldiers in Iraq, for instance, right now fighting the war: 0.5 percent. So in some very literal way, the young black men who were growing up in this country were living in a war zone, very much in the sense that the soldiers over in Iraq are fighting in a war.
Ako ovo usporedite s vojnicima u Iraku, na primjer, koji se sad bore u ratu: 0,5 posto. Tako da doslovno, mladi crnac koji je odrastao u ovoj državi je živio u ratnoj zoni, vrlo slično vojnicima u Iraku koji su bili u ratu.
So why in the world, you might ask, would anybody be willing to stand out on a street corner selling drugs for $3.50 an hour, with a 25 percent chance of dying over the next four years? Why would they do that? And I think there are a couple answers.
Pa zašto bi onda, pitali bi se, itko htio stajati na uglu ulice i prodavati drogu za 3,50 za sat, sa 25 postotnom šansom umiranja u sljedeće četiri godine? Zašto bi to radili? Mislim da postoji nekoliko odgovora.
I think the first one is that they got fooled by history. It used to be the gang was a rite of passage; that the young people controlled the gang; that as you got older, you dropped out of the gang. So what happened was, the people who happened to be in the right place at the right time -- the people who happened to be leading the gang in the mid-to-late-'80s -- became very, very wealthy. And so the logical thing to think was that they are going to age out of the gang like everybody else has, and the next generation is going to take over and get the wealth.
Kao prvo mislim da ih je povijest prevarila. Prije je banda bila normalan put. U kojemu mladi ljudi kontroliraju bandu -- a, kako odrastaš, izlaziš iz bande. Što se dogodilo jest, da su ljudi koji su bili u pravo vrijeme na pravom mjestu -- ljudi koji su vodili bande sredinom i krajem 80-ih -- postali jako, jako bogati. Tako je logično razmišljanje bilo: "Pa, slijedeća generacija -- oni će doći u godine kada će izići iz bande, kao i svi drugi, a slijedeća generacija će preuzeti bandu i steći bogatstvo."
There are striking similarities, I think, to the Internet boom. The first set of people in Silicon Valley got very, very rich. And then all of my friends said, "Maybe I should go do that, too." And they were willing to work very cheap for stock options that never came. In some sense, that's what happened, exactly, to the set of people we were looking at. They were willing to start at the bottom, just like, say, a first-year lawyer at a law firm is willing to start at the bottom, work 80-hour weeks for not that much money, because they think they're going to make partner. But the rules changed, and they never got to make partner.
Nevjerojatne sličnosti, s recimo, Internet bumom, zar ne? Prvi ljudi u Silicijskoj dolini su postali vrlo, vrlo bogati. A onda su svi moji prijatelji rekli: "Možda bih i ja trebao to raditi." Bili su spremni raditi za jako malo novaca, zbog prilike koja nikada nije došla. Što se dogodilo, jest da su određeni ljudi koje razmatramo, bili spremni početi od nule. Recimo kao odvjetnici u odvjetničkim uredima -- odvjetnici koji rade svoju prvu godinu počinju od dna, rade osamdeset sati za ne tako puno novaca, jer smatraju da će tako steći partnere. Ali što se događa jest da su se pravila promijenila, te oni ne steknu partnere.
Indeed, the same people who were running all of the major gangs in the late 1980s are still running the major gangs in Chicago today. They never passed on any of the wealth, So everybody got stuck at that $3.50-an-hour job, and it turned out to be a disaster.
Uistinu, neki ljudi koji su vodili sve veće bande kasnih osamdesetih vode još uvijek najveće bande u Chicagu danas. Nisu nikome ostavili svoje bogatstvo. Tako da je svatko tko je radio za 3,50 po satu, zapravo i ostao tamo, što je katatrofa.
The other thing the gang was very good at was marketing and trickery. And so for instance, one thing the gang would do is -- the gang leaders would have big entourages, and they'd drive fancy cars and have fancy jewelry. So what Sudhir eventually realized as he hung out with them more, is that, really, they didn't own those cars -- they just leased them, because they couldn't afford to own the fancy cars. And they didn't really have gold jewelry, they had gold-plated jewelry. It goes back to, you know, the real-real versus the fake-real.
Druga stvar u kojoj je banda bila jako dobra su marketing i varanje. Primjera radi, nešto što bi banda radila jest -- znate, vođe bande bi imali velike pratnje, vozili bi skupe aute i nosili skupi nakit. Ono što je Sudhir shvatio dok se družio s njima, jest, da oni zapravo nisu bili vlasnici auta. Oni bi ih samo iznajmili -- jer si nisu mogli kupiti tako skupa auta. Nisu imali ni zlatni nakit -- imali su pozlaćeni nakit. Vraća se sve to na, stvarno-stvarno naspram lažno-stvarno.
And really, they did all sorts of things to trick the young people into thinking what a great deal the gang was going to be. So for instance, they would give a 14-year-old kid a whole roll of bills to hold. That 14-year-old kid would say to his friends, "Hey, look at all the money I got in the gang." It wasn't his money -- until he spent it, and then he was in debt to the gang, and was sort of an indentured servant for a while. So I have a couple minutes.
I stvarno, radili su svakave stvari da prevare ove mlade ljude kako bi mislili da je dobra ideja biti u bandi. Tako bi recimo, četrnaestogodišnjaku -- dali cijeli, znate, svežanj novčanica. Taj četrnaestogodišnjak bih rekao "Pa, lijepo..." Znate, onda bi rekao svojim prijateljima, "Pogledajte sav novac koji sam dobio u bandi". Međutim to nije bio njegov novac, dok ga nije potrošio. A onda je bio dužan bandi, te postao njihov sluga na neko vrijeme. Imam još nekoliko minuta.
Let me do one last thing I hadn't thought I'd have time to do, which is to talk about what we learned more generally about economics, from the study of the gang.
Samo još jedna stvar za koju nisam znao da ću imati vremena, a to je što smo naučili o ekonomiji iz primjera bande.
So, economists tend to talk in technical words. Often, our theories fail quite miserably when we over the data, but what's kind of interesting is that in this setting, it turned out that some of the economic theories that worked not so well in the real economy worked very well in the drug economy, in some sense, because it's unfettered capitalism. Here's an economic principle. This is one of the basic ideas in labor economics, called a "compensating differential." It's the idea that the increment to wages that a worker requires to leave him indifferent between performing two tasks, one which is more unpleasant than the other. Compensating differential -- it's why we think garbagemen might be paid more than people who work in parks.
Ekonomisti vole pričati stručnim riječima. Često naše teorije propadnu kada dobijemo konkretne informacije. Ali ono što mi je interesantno je da u ovim okolnostima ispada da neke ekonomske teorije koje i nisu baš djelovale u stvarnoj ekonomiji, su zapravo funkcionirale vrlo dobro u ekonomiji droge -- možda zato što je to nesputani kapitalizam. Evo jedno ekonomsko načelo. Jedna od osnovnih ideja ekonomije rada, "kompenzacijska razlika". Ideja je u tome da povećanje plaće koji radnik zahtjeva kako bi ostao indiferentan u obavljanju dvaju zadataka -- od kojih je jedan neugodniji od drugog -- to se zove kompenzacijska razlika. Zato mislimo da je smetlar vjerojatno plaćen više nego vrtlari, OK?
The words of one of the members of the gang, I think, make this clear. So it turns out -- I'm sort of getting ahead of myself -- it turns out, in the gang, when there's a war going on, they actually pay the foot soldiers twice as much money. It's exactly this concept. Because they're not willing to be at risk. And the words of a gang member capture it quite nicely, he says: "Would you stand around here when all this shit ..." -- the shooting -- "... if all this shit's going on? No, right? So if I gonna be asked to put my life on the line, then front me the cash, man." I think the gang member says it much more articulately than the economist, about what's going on.
Prema riječima jednog od članova bande, "mislim da smo ovo riješili". Ispada da -- malo sam ubrzao. Ispada da ova banda, kada je u ratu, plaća svoje pješake duplo. To je upravo ovaj koncept. Jer nisu spremni riskirati. A riječi člana bande lijepo to objašnjavaju. On kaže, "Bi li bio u ovome kada sva ova sranja" -- misli na pucanje -- "ako se svo ovo sranje događa? Zar ne? Pa ako ćeš me pitati da riskiram svoj život, onda mi daj lovu, stari". Pa u suštini, mislim da član bande to govori puno jasnije što se događa, nego ekonomist.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Here's another one. Economists talk about game theory, that every two-person game has a Nash equilibrium. Here's the translation you get from the gang member. They're talking about the decision of why they don't go shoot -- One thing that turns out to be a great business tactic in the gang: if you go and just shoot guns in the air in the other gang's territory -- people are afraid to go buy drugs there, they're going to come into your neighborhood.
Evo još jedan. Ekonomist govori o teoriji igara -- da svaka igra s dvoje igrača ima Nash-ovu ravnotežu. Evo prijevoda koji dobijete od člana bande. Pričaju o tome zašto ne idu pucati -- potez koji je zapravo odlična poslovna taktika u bandi, ako odeš i jednostavno pucaš u zrak -- samo pucaš u zrak na teritoriju druge bande -- ljude će biti strah kupovati drogu kod njih. Doći će u vaš kvart.
Here's what he says about why they don't do that: "If we start shooting around there, the other gang's territory, nobody, I mean, you dig it, nobody gonna step on their turf. But we gotta be careful, 'cause they can shoot around here too and then we all fucked."
Ali evo što on kaže zašto oni ne idu to raditi. On kaže, "Ako počnemo pucati tamo," -- na teritoriju druge bande -- "nitko, i, mislim nitko, neće stupiti na njihov teritorij. Ali moramo biti oprezni, jer oni isto mogu pucati ovdje, a onda smo svi najebali". (Smijeh)
(Laughter)
A to je potpuno isti koncept.
So that's the same concept. Then again, sometimes economists get it wrong. One thing we observed in the data is that it looked like -- the gang leader always got paid. No matter how bad it was economically, he always got himself paid.
Ali opet, nekada ga ekonomisti krivo shvaćaju. Jedna stvar koju smo promatrali u podacima je da, izgleda... Vođa bande uvijek biva plaćen, OK? Bez obzira koliko je to ekonomski loše, on se uvijek namiri.
We had some theories related to cash flow, and lack of access to capital markets, and things like that. Then we asked the gang member, "Why is it you always get paid and your workers don't always get paid?" His response is, "You got all these niggers below you who want your job, you dig? If you start taking losses, they see you as weak and shit." And I thought about it and said, "CEOs often pay themselves million-dollar bonuses, even when companies are losing a lot of money. And it never would really occur to an economist that this idea of 'weak and shit' could really be important."
Imali smo neke teorije povezane s protokom novca, i nedostatkom pristupa tržištima kapitala, i stvarima poput tih. Ali onda smo smo pitali člana bande, "Pa, zašto ti uvijek dobiješ plaću, a tvoji radnici ne?" Njegov odgovor je, "Imaš sve ove crnčuge ispod sebe koji te žele pokopati i uzet tvoj posao? Ako počneš gubiti, oni vide da si slab i nikakav". Razmislio sam si, i rekao, "Izvršni direktori često sebi plaćaju bonuse od miljun dolara, čak i kada poduzeća gube puno novaca. Nikada se ekonomist ne bi sjetio da ova ideja o 'slabom i nikakvom' može stvarno biti važna".
(Laughter)
Ali možda -- možda 'slab i nikakav' --
Maybe "weak and shit" is an important hypothesis that needs more analysis.
možda je 'slab i nikakav' bitna pretpostavka koju treba više analizirati.
Thank you very much.
Hvala vam najljepša.
(Applause)