Regulating the Poor : The Functions of Public Welfare

Rating:
Summary: A revealing examination of an insidious system
Review: Authors Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven blew the cover off the public welfare system with this book over thirty years ago. I have yet to read any satisfactory rebuttal to their theory over the intervening decades. How best to keep the poor poor? How best to placate them? How best to control the labor pool of American society? Not with riot gear and tear gas (although we haven't been above using that). The best way is with money. Just a little, of course.

As the title suggests, the welfare system has played many roles. Certainly, there were good intentions. But Cloward and Piven, as good historians and theoreticians, examined its cumulative effects. Their determination is, in essence, that the American welfare system has served as a stabilizing force--as in retaining the status quo--of that class who relies on it.

I am way oversimplifying the case here: there is a lot more to it.

No matter which side of the fence you're on regarding the welfare system, Cloward and Piven's REGULATING THE POOR has a solid base in history, statistics, and policy-making that makes their thesis unshakeable. Like I said, over thirty years later, no one has even put a dent in it.

Rating:
Summary: For anyone who is not afraid of the REAL TRUTH about Welfare
Review: When I first read this book several years ago, it was like learning that there's no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. It completely shook my sense of social and political reality. It is a completely fact-based, objective, and unbelievably insightful explanation for the economic, and therefore social, realities of this country. It was a true epiphany. Everything finally made sense as the layers of years of schooling and media indoctrination melted away, and the truth about what's really going on in this country became amazingly clear.

If you read this book, you should be ready to give up any common preconceptions on the topic of poverty and the social "welfare" systems. It is only for those who seek the truth out of political reality. Although I recommend it for anyone who is involved in any sort of discussion on the topic.

Rating:
Summary: For anyone who is not afraid of the REAL TRUTH about Welfare
Review: When I first read this book several years ago, it was like learning that there's no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. It completely shook my sense of social and political reality. It is a completely fact-based, objective, and unbelievably insightful explanation for the economic, and therefore social, realities of this country. It was a true epiphany. Everything finally made sense as the layers of years of schooling and media indoctrination melted away, and the truth about what's really going on in this country became amazingly clear.

If you read this book, you should be ready to give up any common preconceptions on the topic of poverty and the social "welfare" systems. It is only for those who seek the truth out of political reality. Although I recommend it for anyone who is involved in any sort of discussion on the topic.