Review: Regulating the Poor: An Essay Review

Author(s): Gordon Rose

Review by: Gordon Rose
Source: Social Service Review, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Dec., 1971), pp. 393-399
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30020631
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 THSOCwCALIL

volume 45 DECEMBER 1971 number four

REGULATING THE POOR: AN ESSAY REVIEW

GORDON ROSE

University of Manchester

Questions are raised about the thesis that governments respond to human need only
when forced to do so, as well as about the social objectives of relief systems (7).

Relief arrangements are ancillary to eco-
nomic arrangements. Their chief function is
to regulate labor, and they do that in two
general ways. First, when mass unemploy-
ment leads to outbreaks of turmoil, relief
programs are ordinarily initiated or ex-
panded to absorb and control enough of the
unemployed to restore order; then, as tur-
bulence subsides, the relief system contracts,
expelling those who are needed to populate
the labor market. Relief also performs a
labor-regulating function in this shrunken
state, however. Some of the aged, the dis-
abled, the insane, and others who are of no
use as workers are left on the relief rolls, and
their treatment is so degrading and punitive
as to instill in the laboring masses a fear of
the fate that awaits them should they relax
into beggary and pauperism. To demean
and punish those who do not work is to exalt
by contrast even the meanest labor at the
meanest wages. These regulative functions
of relief, and their periodic expansion and
contraction, are made necessary by several
strains toward instability inherent in capital-
ist economies.
So write Cloward and Piven on
the first page of their book. The
immediate reaction depends upon
393
one's political views, but for most the
heart sinks and a great sadness
descends. Not, surely not, another
one of those analyses in which his-
tory is conceived as a struggle
between the goodies and the bad-
dies; and in which the baddies, by
definition, have no shred of human-
ity but are so stupid as to be self-
defeating, and the goodies are
marching with history and therefore
are equally not required to be either
humane or sensible. As a model of
society this is not alluring, and one
winces at the prospect of having it
applied to the history of the poor
law.
Be comforted. Regulating the Poor
is undoubtedly affected by the view
that a capitalist government will do
nothing about poverty until its own
interests are threatened-a view one
would expect from the authors of
"A Strategy to End Poverty" (3)-
but they are too conscientious as

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 394 GORDON
scholars to allow it to do more than
produce a general gloss on the com-
plexity of the situation and a certain
degree of bias in the choice of words
and quotations. The danger of in-
terpreting historical events as a
struggle between the forces of good
and evil, and of finding rhythms in
history, is one of which historians
are extremely conscious. It is not,
however, Cloward and Piven's
objective to refute The Poverty of
Historicism (8)1 by insisting upon the
historicism of poverty. Their thesis
implies that even in a capitalist
democracy, there are mechanisms
that can force change. They could
not have expected that the Nixon
administration would have provided
a massive underpinning to their
strategy by energetically increasing
unemployment levels, but they were
in fact right. If one creates a big
enough crisis, governments tend to
respond, and the response to this
crisis has been, as they predicted, a
federal attempt to introduce a form
of guaranteed minimum income,
though one doubts if it is quite what
they had in mind. (We shall consider
later whether recent events confirm
or deny their thesis.)
Regulating the Poor is, in fact, doc-
umentation of the ideas put forward
in "A Strategy to End Poverty."
These are, basically, that improve-
ment in the state of the poor comes
only when the government is forced
into action by "turbulence"; and that
recently in America the voting
power of the poor has become rec-
ognized and that this has altered the
balance of forces and made it more
1A good general survey of historiography will
be found in Marwick (5).
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ROSE
possible for that success to be trans-
lated into legislation. It is clear that
the intention is to prove that the
former thesis has been historically
true over a long period, mainly in
England, since it is the English poor
law that is examined in detail. It is
less clear to me whether the authors
also want to argue that the second
part of it is a general, international,
and historical statement or whether
this is specifically related to the past
forty years in the United States. In
fact, their detailed argument is all
concerned with this limited area,
and they make no real attempt to
generalize.
In one sense, of course, these
arguments are incontrovertible. Pov-
erty and its accompanying hardships
have always led to public uprisings,
which have forced action on a num-
ber of occasions and particularly in
western democratic countries. One
does, however, wonder a bit about
the French Revolution, the revolu-
tions of 1848, and the 1871 com-
mune, none of which seems to have
done much good to the poor. Clow-
ard and Piven do not, in fact, dis-
cuss at all what sort of turbulence
they have in mind. Must it be speci-
fically related to poverty issues?
Must it be unrelated to war? Must it
take place in a society that has a
reasonably effective elected as-
sembly? Must it be untainted with
doctrines repugnant to the majority
of the inhabitants? They obviously
see the black riots of 1965 as part of
the process, so that they would not
exclude violence (although they do
not advocate it).
In any event, however, one gets
the impression, despite the lack of
general discussion of the thesis, that
 REGULATING THE POOR: AN ESSAY REVIEW 395
the authors are in favor of what
Smelser describes as norm-oriented
rather than value-oriented move-
ments (9). It is not uncommon for
American progressives to feel that
the values of American society are
badly awry, but that the system has
to be worked with. They are the
prisoners of their own society, and
their reaction is the same as that of
the prisoners at Ila in Norway; they
manipulate the authorities by bring-
ing them face to face with their own
sense of values. "Censoriousness" is
the prison counterpart to Alinsky-
type radicalism (6).
One concludes that this is a pecu-
liarly American thesis. The condi-
tions under which it is argued that it
works are (a) a system based upon a
generalized belief in equality of
treatment of individuals, (b) a gener-
ally held belief that poverty is due to
individual failure, correctable by act
of will, and (c) a governmental sys-
tem that operates upon a mass vote
and responds to changes in the bal-
ance of voting power.
It seems likely that the historical
overview in chapter 1 tends to stick
to nineteenth-century England in
the belief that the basic situation was
very similar to that in modern
America. Once the British experi-
ence begins to contradict the prop-
ositions that "the historical pattern
is clearly not one of progressive lib-
eralization; it is rather a record of
periodically expanding and con-
tracting relief rolls as the system
performs its two main functions:
maintaining civil order and enforc-
ing work" (p. xv), the scene is switched
to America in the 1930s, and not
surprisingly, because theses of this
kind do not allow for any possibility
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of a secular trend in the value sys-
tem.
If one holds such a thesis, one
cannot have a government which
earnestly wants to do well by its
poor; and if that is a basic tenet of
the welfare state, one cannot have a
welfare state. Concessions must al-
ways be wrung from the reluctant
authorities by the use of civil dis-
obedience and by playing upon their
own weaknesses. Even though the
argument is that the growing im-
portance of the marginal black vote
is changing the views of politicians,
there is no suggestion that any party
is likely to take a consistently liberal
view of poverty at any time in the
future. The only reason why it
would do so would presumably be a
longish period in which the parties
were so evenly balanced that the
marginal black vote counted con-
siderably, as in fact has happened
recently, combined with a lack of
clear commitment of that vote to
one side or the other. Since there
will not, in the foreseeable future, be
a black majority, except in some of
the central cities, there is no reason
why the gains made by pursuing
Cloward and Piven's strategy should
be maintained. Once turbulence
subsides, and the voting situation
becomes unfavorable, the screws will
be reapplied and things will be just
as bad for the poor as they ever
were. Clearly, that is not exactly a
message of hope; yet some countries
have managed to make some prog-
ress. Is the American value system
so permanently different from those
found everywhere else? Or is the
American combination of racism
and poverty too difficult to solve?
One could certainly argue that, if the
 396 GORDON ROSE
British or the Swedish systems had
to face something similar, they
might well revert to more punitive
and work-oriented systems-but
they might not.
We have not yet dealt with an-
other part of the Cloward and Piven
thesis-that the social objective of
relief systems is to keep the poor at
work. The underlying societal as-
sumption is that they will not work
unless forced to. This must, of
course, refer to the able-bodied, and
the authors are in immediate dif-
ficulty over the bulk of the pauper
population, which never was able-
bodied except in times of consider-
able depression. It is not really
necessary to misuse de Schweinitz
who, on the page previous to that
quoted by the authors, makes it
quite clear that the quotation applies
only to the able-bodied. The authors
in fact simply assume incorrectly
that the aged and disabled were
caught up in the workhouse system
because they were "degraded for
lacking economic value" (p. 33). It
was much more complicated than
that (10).
The comparison between the
growth of the workhouse system
and present-day America is, how-
ever, more valuable than they think.
The general mixed workhouse came
into existence for much the same
reasons that many American social
policies do not work-administra-
tive and political incompetence and
a failure to devote enough money to
carry out the original intentions, in
this case to have separate work-
houses. One might argue that the
non-able-bodied were victims of the
public distaste for the able-bodied
poor, but not that there was any
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deliberate policy to persecute them.
In the same way there is no deliber-
ate policy to persecute children, the
mentally ill, and the aged poor in
contemporary America. They also
are the innocent victims of the at-
tempt to force the able-bodied to
work. (It is an interesting anomaly in
HR1 that a female head of a family
with no child under three is employ-
able, but not a mother of a family all
over three whose husband meets the
work test. The effect of this is that
the children in large families who
are deprived of paternal care are
also to have a very much reduced
maternal care.)
It is undeniable that there is a
strong element of pressure to work
in all means-tested systems, but one
must be careful about how this is to
be interpreted. In the systems to
which Cloward and Piven pay atten-
tion, nineteenth-century England
and twentieth-century America, the
work ethic is particularly strong, but
there was also another common
problem-a large potential pool of
recipients that could put the cost up
dramatically, partly due to lack of an
adequate underpinning of other
services, partly due to lack of any
effective unemployment benefits,
and partly due to the low wages
available as an alternative. Given the
strong work ethic, it is inevitable in
these circumstances that there
would be strenuous efforts to get
people off the poor law (or welfare)
in order to keep down the cost.
Whether the measures should be
described as "forcing" the poor off
the rolls, in the language used by the
authors, which tends at times to the
dramatic, is a matter of opinion.
But this is a far cry from proving
 REGULATING THE POOR: AN ESSAY REVIEW 397
that the main reason for the giving
of relief is to maintain control over
the poor by forcing them to work. I
do not see why one should attempt
to deny that the main reason for
giving relief is in order that the
recipients should have something
rather than nothing; it is notable
that none of the innumerable state-
ments to that effect appear in the
book, although numerous punitive
statements are quoted. The real
problem is that no relief system will
work satisfactorily in a situation in
which the pool of recipients is much
greater than the willingness of the
community to provide funds. When
the two are very far apart, as in the
United States today, heroic mea-
sures have to be taken to keep down
the expenditure, and persecution of
the able-bodied, and of others, fol-
lows. And one does not need
Cloward and Piven's theory to see
this happening time and time again.
Let us consider an alternative set
of propositions, also confined to
contemporary America. Society is
unwilling or unable to find a way of
transferring either money or non-
money income (services) to those
who really need them. There are
several reasons for this-the histori-
cally strong work ethic based origi-
nally on the revolutionary situa-
tion;2 confrontation by what is in
effect an immigrant community, the
blacks, for whom the society will not
allow the work ethic to operate in
free competition, and which has pat-
terns of family relationships which
do not conform to those of the wider
society;3 a strong feeling of respon-
2Examined at length in Lipset (4).
3I do not accept Moynihan's argument that this
is largely due to unemployment. Certainly unem-
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sibility for the poor amongst in-
fluential sections of opinion and the
administration, leading to the set-
ting of highly visible poverty stan-
dards.
We must add to this the complexi-
ties of the federal system of govern-
ment. Although it is obvious that the
northern central cities are in serious
financial trouble, no system can be
devised for transferring adequate
funds to them, despite the fact that
federal categorical grants have risen
rapidly in recent years. When a crisis
in welfare arose, the federal govern-
ment, apart from these measures,
was able to take only three other
steps-demonstration projects part-
ly intended to put pressure on the
states and local authorities; transfer
of responsibility directly to the fed-
eral government (the Social Security
Administration and the proposed
partial takeover of welfare pay-
ments); and "partnership" projects,
somewhat similar to categorical
grants, but paid to nonpublic au-
thorities who are then controlled,
ineffectively, by numerous guide-
lines, regulations, and inspections
(the Nixon hospital plan is of this
type).
It is for these reasons that only
crisis situations tend to produce
results and that Cloward and Piven
were right in perceiving this. They
ployment increases the pressures, but, if it is true
that this actually leads to the roving male parent, a
considerable proportion of male parents should
have been roving all over Europe and America in
the interwar period. The studies of the unem-
ployed certainly suggest stress, but not widespread
breakdown. If the black community was less insu-
lated from the white, the differences would disap-
pear. However, an unemployment rate consistent-
ly double that of the whites over a long period
undoubtedly does not help.
398 GORDON
were also right in predicting a feder-
al takeover, but they underestimat-
ed the strength of the work ethic. It
may well follow that turbulence will
produce action, but there is no rea-
son, and Cloward and Piven pro-
duce none, why that action should
be in the interest of the poor. In-
deed, since what the government
mainly wants to do is to prevent an
increase in costs, it is much more
likely that action will tend to be
restrictive, at least in the first in-
stance. This is an implicit danger in
the Cloward and Piven strategy,
since one cannot assume that de-
mands for welfare rights will be ac-
companied by funds to cover them.
The result might then be a general
lowering of the actual standard,
which is very easy in America, where
states can get away with paying a
percentage only of their own stated,
and often low, standards. In the
long run political pressure may
count, but it took a very long time, as
the authors point out, to respond
to the interwar depression, un-
doubtedly a crisis of unprecedented
proportions.
The system, presently projected,
of having what are in effect two
welfare systems, one for the employ-
ables and one for the nonemploy-
ables, is much the same solution
suggested by the 1834 Poor Law
Commission, but not carried out.
Since then institutions have fallen
into disrepute, and outdoor relief
has become the common method.
This makes it very difficult to pro-
duce an adequate work test, and it is
necessary to fall back upon general
categorizations. The decisions of of-
ficials on marginal cases were always
of major importance. This will con-
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ROSE
tinue to be so, but in view of their
general instructions to get people
into work if humanly, or inhumane-
ly, possible, it is likely that there will
be a considerable number of cases of
what is, in effect, punitive action.
Neither system will get sufficient
funds to work properly, and both
will continue to maintain defensive
low levels to prevent their costs from
rising.
There are a number of detailed
criticisms which could be made of
Regulating the Poor, but it would in
fact be churlish to make them. The
book, although in my opinion some-
what spoiled by the authors' over-
simplified thesis, has many felicities.
It is well researched. The account of
the depression period is interesting
to read, and, though overemphasiz-
ing the role of some of the minor
political dissenting movements, tells
what appears to the nonexpert to be
a generally accurate story (even
though I just do not believe that
Roosevelt was ever much worried
by the Townsend movement, the
Coughlinites, and the followers of
Huey Long, as the authors claim).
Above all, however, there is an
excellent and much-needed detailed
account of the recent history of
AFDC, which is well worth having
on one's shelves, and which helps to
bring Josephine Brown (2) up to
date and is more generalized than
Winifred Bell (1).
And Cloward and Piven are not to
be criticized for having a theory and
setting out to prove it. There is little
enough useful theorizing in the
social policy field, and they are to be
commended for having some guns
to stick to. What is difficult, however,
is to produce a theoretical statement
 REGULATING THE POOR: AN ESSAY REVIEW 399

that is of sufficient generality, but motives play in relation to political

also of a complexity that covers the
known facts. Theories which arise
from criticism of the establishment
are not necessarily bad, but they
need to throw off their partisan
clothes if they are to achieve full
academic status. I remain unin-
formed and uncertain about the na-
ture of turbulence and the situations
in which it leads to the kind of action
that the authors want. I need to be
told what part obvious humanitarian
and economic forces. After all,
both the Americans and the British
stopped beating dogs, torturing
birds, and betting on cock fights
quite some time ago. I find no point
from which I could start to explain
this in the model of society adopted
by Cloward and Piven. Yet I salute
them. The job they did was worth
doing and they have done it well.
Received September 1, 1971

REFERENCES

1. Bell, Winifred. Aid to Dependent Chil-
dren. New York & London: Columbia
University Press, 1965.
2. Brown, Josephine C. Public Relief,
1929-1939. New York: Henry Holt &
Co., 1940.
3. Cloward, Richard A. and Piven, Frances
Fox. "A Strategy to End Poverty." Nation
202 (May 2, 1966): 510-17.
4. Lipset, Seymour M. The First New Na-
tion. New York: Basic Books, 1963.
5. Marwick, A. The Nature of History. Lon-
don: Macmillan & Co., 1970.
6. Mathieson, Thomas. The Defences of the
Weak. London: Tavistock, 1965.
7. Piven, Frances Fox, and Cloward,
Richard A. Regulating the Poor: The Func-
tions of Public Welfare. New York: Pan-
theon Books, 1971.
8. Popper, K. The Poverty of Historicism.
London: Routledge & Kegan-Paul,
1957.
9. Smelser, N. J. Theory of Collective Behav-
ior. London: Routledge & Kegan-Paul,
1962.
10. Webb, Sidney, and Webb, Beatrice. En-
glish Poor Law History, Part 2, Vol. 1: The
Last Hundred Years. London: Longmans,
Green & Co., 1929.

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