What do you think of this quote from the Book, The Long Goodbye?

[Waffles731]

“Aw shut up!”

“Sure, shut me up. I’m just a private citizen. Get off it, Bernie. We don’t have mobs and crime syndicates and goon squads because we have crooked politicians and their stooges in the City Hall and the legislatures. Crime isn’t a disease, it’s a symptom. Cops are like a doctor that gives you aspirin for a brain tumor, except that the cop would rather cure it with a blackjack. We’re a big rough rich wild people and crime is the price we pay for it, and organized crime is the price we pay for organization. We’ll have it with us a long time. Organized crime is just the dirty side of the sharp dollar.”

“What’s the clean side?”

“I never saw it. Maybe Harlan Potter could tell you. Let’s have a drink.”

I've been listening to the Philip Marlow Series Audiobooks and they are EXTREMELY entertaining Hardboiled Detective stories but they are also at some points Social Crticism that gets its point across in a very entertaining way. This quote just really got to me.

[JRICHARDS1996]

It seems to be stating what I have said for a while now that crime is the result of poverty among other socioeconomic injustices. This is the TRUE racism of the world. Not the stupid Black jokes or other trivial matters that the PC police complain about, but the socioeconomic system itself.

[Waffles731]

You read the classics,
Have you read Raymond Chandler

[JRICHARDS1996]

A few of his short stories yes, and I believe one of his novels some years back. His use of real locations is something I admire.

[Waffles731]

He is SOOO GOOD
I'm also doing my yearly re-reading of Dracula

[JRICHARDS1996]

I recently reread Dracula. It was honestly a bit of a let down to me, at least the second half. I could not believe how rushed the ending felt. Frankenstein was far better, though the prose was never quite as good. It at least asked deeper philosophical questions.

[Waffles731]

I re-read Dracula every year around late setempter/ early octorber.
Frankenstein is a better philisophical novel, Dracula is a Far better Horror story.
That part with the ships log always manages to creep me out

[Waffles731]

I want you to know why you got MHO.
It was "It seems to be stating what I have said for a while now that crime is the result of poverty among other socioeconomic injustices. This is the TRUE racism of the world. Not the stupid Black jokes or other trivial matters that the PC police complain about, but the socioeconomic system itself."
You are completely correct and quite frankly, these people who complain about racism where there is none do make reasonable liberals look bad, like Ted Cruz makes reasonable conservatives look bad.

[Noxifer626]

Crime is a byproduct of the society of selfishness and poverty that capitalism creates.