Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare [Paperback]

Frances Fox Piven (Author), Richard Cloward (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Originally published in 1971, this social science classic outlines the social functions of welfare programs.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Uncompromising and provocative....By mixing history, political interpretation and sociological analysis, Piven and Cloward provide the best explanation to date of our present situation...no future discussion of welfare can afford to ignore them."--Peter Steinfels, The New York Times Book Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 2 Upd Sub edition (September 28, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679745165
• ISBN-13: 978-0679745167
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #46,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #96 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Current Events > Poverty > Social Services & Welfare

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Welfare as a Government Tool of Control, March 26, 2006

By 

Dindy Robinson (Arlington, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (Paperback)

i can pretty much guarantee that after reading this book, one will never quite look at welfare in the same way as before. The main premise of this book is that government provides aid for the poor to control political unrest and to control labor.

The book starts off by tracing the history and development of welfare in western civilization. Prior to the early 16th century, caring for the poor was considered to be primarily the responsibility of the church or of those of the more prosperous who tried to purchase their salvation through almsgiving. Leaving charity to the church meant that few received aid and those not necessarily according to their need. This increased social unrest so governments began to be involved in providing for the poor. This was done for two primary reasons: 1.) To control social order and 2.) To extol the virtue of labor even at the lowest wages by making the treatment of the destitute so punitive and degrading that the no one wants to descend into beggary and pauperism.

The book details such early government programs as workhouses, labor yards, and poor law subsidies whereby parish churches were required to care for the poor in their area.

In the united States, welfare was addressed somewhat differently. Poverty in the U.S. was regarded as the obvious consequence of sloth and sinfulness. Relief was scattered and fragmentary-each township or county provided for its hungry in whatever manner it saw fit-giving of food, incarceration in almshouses, or indentured service. Poor relief was a local, not a state or national responsibility.

During the great Depression, unemployment became so widespread that the government was forced to develop programs to assist the poor and the unemployed. At first the government focused on direct relief, but as imm4ediate needs were satisfied, the government moved on to work relief which, interestingly, was opposed by business leaders because it was felt that government was encroaching on areas that had been primarily reserved for private enterprise.

As conditions stabilized, US policies changed to conform with the earlier view of poverty as being the rsult of sloth and sinfulness. Relief programs excluded able-bodied men. Man-in-the-house rules excluded aid to a mother who was in any way associated with a man, particularly if the man lived in her house. Women and/or children were given aid but at the same time assigned to private entrepreneurs who were told to use them in any way possible.

With the growing mechanization of southern agriculture, blacks migrated into the cities, particularly the northern cities where relief rules were not as restrictive. Four million blacks came to cities in less than three decades-congregated in largest cities in the north-New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington. Industry required an increasingly skilled labor force just as unskilled blacks reached cities in large numbers from the fields of the south, consequently, unemployment rose. Unrest mounted among poor blacks, culminating in the Civil Rights demonstrations of the early 60's.

Then was born the Great society as Democrats realized that blacks were located in states of the most strategic importance in presidential contests. Democrats were losing traditional support in the South, so they needed the support of the northern cities. Service programs were developed for inner city as part of LBJ's "War on Poverty". According to the book, the true objective of the "War on Poverty" was to reach blacks and integrate them into urban political system. Method was to offer federal funds for the ghettoes and to use federal funds to create pressure for reallocation of municipal services.

This book is eminently readable. I was assigned to read it for a college class and did not approach it with much enthusiasm, but I ended up thanking my professor for assigning it to me. Whether or not one buys into the book's overall premise, it certainly stimulates discussion about the overall treatment of poverty in the U.S. interrelationship of government welfare policies, racial politics, and politcal power plays.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to get a view of how society has responded to the needs of the poor in history, and how we continue to repond to the needs of the poor today.

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A revealing examination of an insidious system, March 9, 2004

By 

Rocco Dormarunno (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (Paperback)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No Flies On Frank, September 24, 2007

By 

Leanna Loomer "oldawnie" (Newington CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare (Paperback)

A widespread view today identifies the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt as responsible for creating a permanent welfare state in America. Priven and Cloward demonstrate that FDR's social programs created to assist the poor were part of a long line of programs that in fact exercised social control of the chronically poor and the destitute, and that each one has maintained this stratum of society as a constant in an otherwise economically sound society. The authors look back to Colonial times and then on through the FDR administration to circa 1980 (when this book was published) examining each governmental program both on its successes and failures. This is a damning indictment of the results of them all. It uses scholarly methodology to support its message and conclusions. It should be required reading for all public and private entities engaged in social assistance programs at every level, and for the governmental authorities creating and regulating them. I unequivocally recommend this book.