The Breaking of the American Social Compact

Piven and Cloward (Why Americans Don't Vote) have made careers of arguing the case for the have-nots in our affluent society. In this collection of essays, the authors present an unabashedly left-of-center argument for social policies usually termed the welfare state. They describe the American social compact as a tacit arrangement whereby the better-off agree to shield the working classes from some of the worst hardships imposed by market economies, providing welfare benefits, for example. This arrangement, they maintain, has been shattered, most notably by the decline of progressive elements within the Democratic Party and pressure from business interests on both major parties to assert the law of the marketplace over most forms of government authority. The authors contend that so-called welfare reforms will only further exploit the weak. Their outlook for the future is grim, except for the possible mobilization of women--poor women uprooted from the protections of the welfare state, allied with better-educated, middle-class women seeking an end to gender discrimination. The authors' analysis of historical trends in such areas as race, trade unions and laissez-faire capitalism provides a thought-provoking antidote to currently popular theories of public policy. Occasionally, however, Piven and Cloward bog down in detail aimed at academic social scientists. (Nov.)