Third part of the book which is chapter 3 was all about conventional wisdom. The chapter starts out defining what conventional wisdom really is. It gives us the example of Mitch Snyder. Snyder was an advocate of the homeless and wanted to do everything within his power to bring attention to the issue and eradicate homelessness. The fact is that he had too much power and ended up fabricating some facts to help his cause. This ended up becoming conventional wisdom because the media and everyone else took it as fact. The numbers such as 3 million American homeless, and 45 homeless individuals die every second, are rather extreme. By not questioning this, it eventually ends up becoming conventional wisdom through channels such as the media. Why should we question it? These numbers come from an expert on the subject after all. The book however stresses that it should be questioned. It also examines how conventional wisdom is fabricated; this leads us into the next topic explained by the book, crack gangs.
The book examines the conventional wisdom a dealing crack in Chicago with a gang called the “Black Disciple Nation”. Preconceived notions would have been held that the drugs dealers were rich and that crack dealing was one of the most profitable jobs in America at the time. However, questioning the conventional wisdom the book decides to look deeper. A University of Chicago graduate student by the name of Sudhir Venkatesh was performing a survey in a poor black neighborhood when he came across some gang members of the “Black Disciple Nation” shooting dice. He tried to ask about his survey but was rejected. This moment in the book is where Venkatesh first encounters the gang and learns about their illustrious leader JT. JT was in fact a college graduate, and held a degree in business, and consequently running the gang as it were a business.
Venkatesh ended up spending a night in the hands of the gang and was released the next day. He ran home and was glad to be alive, although he felt a curiosity that had to be satisfied so he kept coming back to the gang. He worked out a deal with the gang or in this case JT, that he could publish some of what he found. Due to Venkatesh’s research on the gang we now know what the structure looked like, and how the gang was financed. We also understand how the crack trade worked economically. The “Black Disciple Nation” had a top management branch called the board of directors. These top managers ran the strategic gang chapters around the nation. They taxed the lower managers for a right to sell crack in certain areas if the country. They would take 20% of the revenue from the crack deals. The rest of the revenue they let the lower manager’s sort out. In the case of JT he paid himself well and his foot soldiers got little next to nothing maybe $3 an hour at most. Several reasons are given for why there is such a low wage paid to the foot soldiers. The first economical reason would be that workers willing to work the job are plentiful and that the work is scarce. This drives a very competitive field for crack dealing and explains away the question that the book asks, which is “Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?” The gang recognizes that JT is getting paid big, and that he needs to because he is the leader, this is the second rationale behind the pay discrepancy.
A lot of poor black men see crack dealing as an opportunity that is within their reach. So they take a chance that they could make it to the top and make a lot of money. This is a dangerous proposition and often ends in prison or death. The book highlights that 1 in 4 gang members will die when dealing crack. That is an extremely high number when compared to other legitimate industries. The risk it worth it in this case and can be explained away by the lure of big profits. The “Black Disciple Nation” ended up getting a federal indictment placed against it and the gang was shut down by the authorities. JT was arrested and the gang was wiped out in the end. The conventional wisdom was questioned here and the facts were attained. It showed us that not everything should be taken at face value, and that conventional wisdom should always be questioned in order to get to the truth of things.
Work Cited
Levitt D. Steven, Dubner J. Stephen. “Freakonomics”. 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022: HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 2005, Print.
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