What Causes Crime?

Well it's complicated. So let me ask a simpler question.  What causes homicidal feelings?

I can tell you quite simply what causes me to have homicidal feelings*....

A former student (of UMass and two of my courses) who answered the "what causes crime" question in an interview, in reference to the neighborhood we share, along the lines of;  "poor people are greedy and will do anything to have more".  If nothing else, I hope my Marxian economics course gave him the intellectual framework to be the best damn enabler of exploitation he can be! Unfortunately, my guess would be that section of the course was ignored as well.


*Not literally. 

Marginal Jackass

Just when I was beginning to think Tyler Cowen actually believed  Marginal Revolution's  tag line "small steps toward a much better world" we get this:
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/02/from-facebook.html

Is being a self promoting, arrogant, shit head part of blogging? 
Is it part of making a better world?  
I certainly enjoy self-promotion and being a shit head with this forum, so I hope so.  I doubt it, but I hope so. 

Is encouraging people to read another (same as all the others, methodologically dishonest, ideologically elitist, in support of dishonest hegemonic bourgeois ideals, etc.) neoclassical economics textbook, just because you are the author a "Small Step Towards A Much Better World"? 

It probably is for the shareholders of the publishing company. 

I expect this kind of arrogance and idiocy on the blog of N. Gregory Mankiw but not Tyler Cowen.  Generally speaking Marginal Revolution is worth reading, even for those of us who completely disagree with most of what is written there.  As opposed to Mankiw's blog which is usually just condescending nonsense.
Perhaps it is time for my colleagues at Anti-Mankiw to start becoming counter-margianl-revolutionary as well.  
A preemptive response to some of the comments this post will likely receive:
Yes I am tired on a Friday night and a little grumpy, Yes I am jealous of both Cowen and Mankiw's success, and yes I am angry that their success allows them to indoctrinate far more students than those of us who are "honest" about economics.  Perhaps I am wrong, and these servants of the bourgeois elite are good people, and have good intentions. 
... is there room for good intentions in rational self interest?