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 Eighth Edition

American Social Welfare Policy

A Pluralist Approach

Howard Jacob Karger

Hawai’i Pacific University, School of Social Work

David Stoesz
Flinders University/Carnegie Mellon University-Australia

330 Hudson Street, NY, NY 10013

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Karger, Howard Jacob, author. | Stoesz, David, author.

Title: American social welfare policy : a pluralist approach / Howard Jacob Karger,
Hawai’i Pacific University, School of Social Work, David Stoesz.
Description: Eighth Edition. | New York : Pearson, [2018] | Revised edition
of American social welfare policy, [2014] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016040802 | ISBN 9780134303192 (alk. paper) | ISBN 0134303199 (alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Public welfare—United States. | United States—Social
policy. | Welfare state—United States.
Classification: LCC HV95 .K354 2018 | DDC 361.973—dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016040802

1 16

ISBN 10: 0-13-462812-8

ISBN 13: 978-0-13-462812-7
P r e fac e
The years since the publication of the last full edi-
tion have been marked by dramatic events on the
domestic and international fronts. Although the
U.S. economy bounced back from the global finan-
cial crisis (GFC) of 2007 to 2008, the post-­recession
gains were largely realized by the top 1 percent of
U.S. wage earners who accounted for 85 percent
of total income growth from 2009 to 2013. By
2013, the 1.6 million families in the top 1 percent
earned 25 times more than the 161 million families
in the bottom 99 percent. It is little wonder that this
egregious income inequality led to large numbers of
angry people, which in turn, fueled the rise of presi-
dential candidate Donald Trump.
The international front was especially turbulent
as the Arab Spring toppled or destabilized govern-
ments in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria.
By 2016, at the same time, the war in Iraq and
­Afghanistan continued to drag on. By mid-2016, an
increasingly bloody civil war in Syria claimed more
than 400,000 lives and was largely responsible for
the 1 million immigrants that entered Europe in
2015.
The instability in the Middle East led to the
creation of ISIL (Islamic State), a militant group di-
rectly or indirectly responsible for numerous mas-
sacres, including the 2015 attack on the Bataclan
Theatre near Paris (130 dead and 368 injured); the
2015 Ankara, Turkey, bombing (102 dead and 400
injured); the 2015 San Bernardino attack (14 dead
and 24 injured); and the 2016 Orlando nightclub
attack (49 dead and 53 injured). Western nations
continue the struggle to find a balance between pro-
tecting privacy, civil liberties, and public safety.
Despite the domestic and international chal-
lenges, the way forward was stymied as the federal
government was virtually paralyzed by the Repub-
lican Party’s control of the Senate and the House of
Representatives. With the death of Antonin Scalia,
even the Supreme Court was divided between lib-
erals and conservatives. A divided government re-
sulted in a virtual standstill of policy options.
In the midst of this virtual paralysis, several
important policy developments emerged in the first
term of the Obama administration. Some of these
achievements include the Dodd–Frank Wall Street
Reform and Consumer Protection Act, one of the
most significant financial reform acts since the Great
Depression; the Patient ­Protection and ­Affordable
Care Act of 2010 (known as Obamacare); repeal
of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) rule;
the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and
Disclosure Act; and the Children’s Health Insurance
Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPS).
The presidential election of 2012 proved to be
one of the most acrimonious in recent memory. Ex-
treme Republican Party ideologues drove the party
far to the right in areas such as contraception, abor-
tion, health care, voter’s rights, and immigration. In
the end, President Obama’s moderate approach tri-
umphed as he won 303 electoral votes compared to
Mitt Romney’s 206 votes. The election illustrated
the sharp divisions in American society between the
more liberal Northeast, West Coast, some West-
ern and Midwestern states, and the more conser-
vative South and rural areas. These patterns reflect
differing perceptions of where America should be
­heading.
The acrimony of the 2012 presidential election
was far eclipsed by the 2016 presidential election, as
Republican candidates vied to outdo each other in
appealing to the white and increasingly conservative
base of the party. Extremist candidates like Ted Cruz
and Donald Trump handily defeated more moderate
candidates such as Jeb Bush and John K ­ asich.
On the Democratic side, Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders introduced a European-style democratic
socialist vision to mainstream American politics.
Defying all odds, Sanders won several primaries
against favored Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton,
including Oregon, North Dakota, Minnesota,
New Hampshire, Michigan, Indiana, and Vermont.
In the raw primary vote count, Sanders received
12 million votes compared to Clinton’s 15.8 million.
In one of the most shocking upsets in recent po-
litical history, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton
for the presidency, despite some polls showed her
chances for victory at between 70 and 99 percent.
Progressives of all ilk and Democrats were in shock,
disbelief, and fear.
Several changes will be required if human ser-
vice professionals are to reclaim a prominent role in
social policy that they had at the turn of the century
through luminaries such as Jane Addams, Lillian
iii
 iv P refac e
Wald, Grace and Edith Abbott, Mary Simkhovitch,
and others. Markets have been a primary means
of distributing goods and services to the non-poor,
and the application of market dynamics to low-­
income families should be evaluated on merit, not
discarded solely on ideological grounds. State and
local politics have been important arenas for intro-
ducing innovations in social welfare and for pro-
viding social workers a first step on the ladder of
public service. Such opportunities should be cele-
brated, not dismissed.
Public policy involves the kind of power that oc-
curs in three basic forms: money, votes, and networks.
Although these resources have been the staple of pol-
itics, the information age requires players to possess a
higher level of sophistication. To be competitive, one
must have command of information systems, large
data sets, and complex decision menus.
If social work can educate students about these
methods and begin to insert itself into the policy
environment, the profession will again become
an influential force in social policy. On the other
hand, if the profession rests on its historic laurels, it
will remain tangential in the policy arena. Such an
eventuality would essentially waste the substantial
assets that social work brings to social affairs: a dis-
tinguished legacy, the altruism of the young, and a
unique moral imperative.
This edition of American Social Welfare Policy
attempts to provide the information necessary for
understanding social welfare policy nationally and
internationally. In addition to discussing the basic
concepts, policies, and programs that comprise
American welfare state, the text includes infor-
mation on the voluntary nonprofit sector, the for-
profit corporate sector, and the new strategy in
social policy (i.e., tax policy and expenditures).
The penultimate chapter examines food policy, and
environmental and sustainability issues. The final
chapter examines the influence of global capital-
ism, a development that not only weds the devel-
oped nations to the undeveloped nations but also
in the process shifts capital and jobs in unprece-
dented numbers. In recognition of our increasingly
interconnected global environment, this edition has
put more emphasis on international social welfare
policy.
Acknowledgments
The reviewers of this and previous editions have
provided an invaluable service in identifying de-
ficiencies. Earlier editions were aided by Dr.
Stephen Thornton, Deanna Machin, Dr. Peter
Kindle, and Crystal Joyce. In addition, the follow-
ing reviewers contributed useful suggestions for
this e­ dition: Karen Tabb Dina, University of Illi-
nois at U ­ rbana-Champaign; Savvas Georgiades,
­University of North Carolina at Pembroke; Justine
­McGovern, Lehman College CUNY; and Clarence
Williams, Grambling State University. This edition
owes a debt to Elisa A­ rrington. In anticipation of
the next edition, comments by students and faculty
are welcome. The authors can be reached via email:
Howard Karger at Hkarger@gmail.com and David
Stoesz at ­Davestoesz@aol.com.
About the Authors

American Social Welfare Policy, they have

­c oauthored three other books: The Politics of
Child Abuse in America (with Lela Costin) (Ox-
ford ­University Press, 1996); Reconstructing the
American Welfare State (Rowman and Little-
field, 1992); and (with Terry Carrillo), A Dream
Deferred (­Aldine, 2010). Howard’s book, Short-
changed: Life and Debt in the Fringe ­E conomy
(Berret-Koehler, 2005) examines the financial
­p ractices and products that exploit millions of
American families. The book won the 2006 Inde-
pendent Publishers Award in Finance/Investment/
Economics. David’s book, Quixote’s Ghost: The
Howard Karger (right) is professor, Hawai’i ­Pacific Right, the Liberati, and the Future of Social Policy
University, School of Social Work. David Stoesz (Oxford University Press, 2005), explains how con-
(left) is professor, Flinders University/Carnegie servatives have assumed control of ­domestic policy
Mellon University-Australia. ­Howard and David and proposes a new framework for s­ ocial policy.
have been friends and colleagues for more than ­Q uixote’s Ghost won the 2006 Pro-­H umanitate
three decades. In addition to eight editions of Literary Award.

v
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Brief Content s

Part ONE American Social CHAPTER 10

Welfare Policy Social Insurance Programs 205
CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 11
Social Policy and the American Public Assistance Programs 227
Welfare State 1
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 2 The American Health Care System 247
A Brief History of the American Social
Welfare State 25 CHAPTER 13
Mental Health and Substance
CHAPTER 3 Abuse Policy 281
Social Welfare Policy Research 47
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 4 Criminal Justice 299
Discrimination in American Society 59
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 5 Child Welfare Policy 317
Poverty in America 101
CHAPTER 16
Part TWO The Voluntary and ­­ Housing Policies 333
For-Profit Social Sectors
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 6 The Politics of Food Policy and Rural Life 359
The Voluntary Sector Today 131

CHAPTER 7
Part FOUR The American Welfare
State in Perspective
Privatization and Human Service
Corporations 145 CHAPTER 18
The American Welfare State in
Part THREE The Government Sector International Perspective 389
CHAPTER 8
The Making of Governmental Policy 167

CHAPTER 9
Tax Policy and Income Distribution 187

vii
This page intentionally left blank
Content s

Part ONE American Social Conclusion  43

Discussion Questions   44 • Notes   45
Welfare Policy

CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 3
Social Policy and the Social Welfare Policy Research 47
American Welfare State 1 A Proposed Model for Policy Analysis 50
Historical Background of the Policy   51 •
Definitions of Social Welfare Policy 4
Problems That Necessitate the Policy   52 •
Social Problems and Social Welfare Policy 4 Policy Description   52 • Policy Analysis   52
Social Work and Social Policy 5 Researching and Analyzing a Social
Values, Ideology, and Social Welfare Policy 5 Policy Assignment 54
Social Policy Research and the Internet   55
The Political Economy of American Social Welfare 6
The U.S. Economic Continuum 7 Conclusion  56
Discussion Questions   56 • Notes   56
Keynesian Economics   7 • Conservative or
Free Market Economics   8 • The Global
Financial Crisis (GFC)   11 • Democratic CHAPTER 4
Socialism   11
Discrimination in American Society 59
The U.S. Political Continuum 12
Liberalism and Left-of-Center Movements   13 • Discrimination 60
Classical Conservatives and the Far Right   15 Racism 61
The Welfare Philosophers and the The Minority Middle Class 61
Neoconservative Think Tanks 17
African Americans 63
Conclusion 18 The Demography of African Americans   63 •
Discussion Questions   22 • Notes   22 African Americans in Poverty  63 • The
“Diswelfare” of African Americans  63
CHAPTER 2 Hispanic Americans 66
Hispanic Poverty and Income   67 • Diversity in
A Brief History of the American Social
the Hispanic Population   67
Welfare State 25
American Indians 67
Early Antecedents of Welfare Statism 26 Asian Americans 68
Judeo-Christian Doctrine and Social Welfare   26
Immigrants and Immigration 69
The English Poor Laws 27 Immigration-Based Discrimination in Europe   71
The Poor in Colonial America 28 Women and Society 73
Social Welfare in the Civil War Era 29 Violence and Sexism   73 • The Feminization
Industrialization and the Voluntary Sector 29 of Poverty   73 • Myths around Women and
Work   75 • Income and Job Disparities between
Social Darwinism   31 • Religion
Men and Women   76 • Day Care: A Barrier to
and Social Welfare   31 • Charity
Female Employment   76 • Other Obstacles
Organization Societies   32 • Settlement
Faced by Working Women   78 • Abortion and
Houses   33 • African American
Women’s Rights   79 • Gender Discrimination
Associations   35 • The Social Casework
and Violence in an International Context   80
Agency   36 • The Progressive Movement   37
The Great Depression and the Modern Gays and Lesbians: Two Populations at Risk 82
Welfare State 37 Gay Rights   84 • Gays and Lesbians in
the Military   84 • Gay and Lesbian
The Post-World War II Welfare State 39 Family Life   85 • AIDS and the Gay
The Languishing Social Welfare State 41 Community   86

ix
 x Con t e n t s

Ageism 87 The Future of the Voluntary Sector 138

Elderly Poverty and Social Programs   87 • Commercialization   138 •
Health Care and the Elderly   88 Faith-Based Social Services   139 •
Social Entrepreneurship   140 •
People with Disabilities 88
Issues Facing the Voluntary Sector   141
Legal Attempts to Remedy Discrimination 91
Conclusion  141
Desegregation and the Civil Rights
Discussion Questions   142 • Notes   142
Movement   91 • Affirmative Action   91
Conclusion  92
Discussion Questions   93 • Notes   93 CHAPTER 7
Privatization and Human Service
CHAPTER 5 Corporations 145
Poverty in America 101 Privatization Issues 147
Commercialization   148 • Preferential
Theories on Poverty 102
Selection   148 • Dual Levels of Care   149 •
Culture of Poverty   102 • Eugenics and Cost-Effectiveness   149 • Oligopolization   150
Poverty   103 • The Progressive
Understanding of Poverty   103 The Challenge of Privatization 150
Who Makes Up the Poor? 104 Unions and the Private Sector 151
Measuring Poverty 106 Social Contributions of Business 153
Measuring the Depth of Poverty   109 Corporate Influence on Social Welfare Policy 154
Families and Poverty 109 The Future of Corporate Involvement in
Child Support Enforcement   109 • Children Social Welfare 155
in Poverty   110 • Poverty and the Human Service Corporations 155
Elderly   110
Consolidation and Growth in New Human
The Rural Poor 110 Service Markets 157
Work and Poverty 111 Nursing Homes   157 • Hospital
A Profile of the Working Poor   111 • Why Are Management   157 • Health Maintenance
There Working Poor?   111 • Underemployment Organizations   157 • Child Care   159 •
and Unemployment   112 • Dual Labor Home Health Care   159 •
Markets   113 • Wages and Poverty   114 Corrections   159 • Public Welfare   159
Strategies Developed to Combat Poverty 116 Private Practice 160
IDAs   116 • Three Approaches to Combat The Future of Private Practice   162
Poverty   116 Conclusion  162
America’s Fringe Economy 118 Discussion Questions   163 • Notes   163
The Unbanked and the Functionally
Poor   119 • Credit and the
Poor   119 • Transportation in the Fringe Part THREE The Government Sector
Economy   122
World Poverty 123 CHAPTER 8
Conclusion  125 The Making of Governmental Policy 167
Discussion Questions   126 • Notes   126
Technical Aspects of the Policy Process 168
A Critical Analysis of the Policy Process 170
Part TWO The Voluntary and ­ The Policy Process 171
For-Profit Social Sectors Social Stratification   171 •
Formulation   172 • Legislation   173 •
CHAPTER 6 The Fiscal Cliff and Sequestration   177 •
Implementation   178 •
The Voluntary Sector Today 131 Evaluation   178 • Marginalization   179
Traditional Providers 132 Social Work and Advocacy Organizations 181
The Independent Sector 133 Advocacy Organizations and the New Policy
Institutes   182
Advancing Social Justice 135
Political Practice 183
The United Way   136 • Elite Philanthropy   136
 Content s xi

Conclusion  184 CHAPTER 11

Discussion Questions   185 • Notes   185
Public Assistance Programs 227
CHAPTER 9 Assumptions and Myths about Public
Assistance 228
Tax Policy and Income Distribution 187
Aid to Families with Dependent Children 231
History of U.S. Tax Policy 188 The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Federal Taxes 189 Reconciliation Act of 1996   232 • Has
the PRWORA Worked?   235 • Teenage
Taxes, Spending, and the Debt 190 Pregnancy   236
Tax Policy and Special Interests 192 Supplemental Security Income (SSI) 237
Income Distribution 193 Problems in SSI   238
State Tax Policy and the Poor 194 General Assistance 239
The Efficiency of Tax Policy in Reducing Poverty 195 Trends and Issues in Public Assistance 239
Tax Expenditures as AntiPoverty Policy   196 The Transformation of Welfare Policy into
The Anti-Tax Movement 197 Labor Policy   239 • Welfare to Work
(Workfare)   241 • Welfare Behaviorism   241
The Debate over Economic Inequality 198
Conclusion  242
Conclusion  201
Discussion Questions   243 • Notes   243
Discussion Questions   201 • Notes   202

CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 12
Social Insurance Programs 205 The American Health Care System 247
The Uninsured 248
Definition of Social Insurance 206
The Organization of Medical Services 248
The Background of Social Insurance 207
Major Public Health Programs: Medicare,
The Financial Organization of Social Insurance 207
Medicaid, and S-CHIP 250
Key Social Insurance Programs 208 Medicare   250 • Medicaid   254 •
OASDI   208 • Unemployment The Children’s Health Insurance Program
Compensation   210 • Workers’ (CHIP)   256
Compensation   212
The Health Care Crisis 256
The Social Security Dilemma 212 Overview of U.S. Health Care Expenditures   256
Arguments against the Current Social Security
System   213 • Arguments for the Current Explaining the High Cost of U.S. Health Care 258
Social Security System   213 • Social Security Hospital Costs   259 • Physicians’
in Trouble   214 • The Long-Term Prospects for Salaries   259 • The Pharmaceutical
Social Security   214 Industry   260
Medicare (Hospital Insurance and Supplementary Cutting Health care Costs 261
Medical Insurance) 216 Managed Care   261 • The Underinsured   263
Lingering Problems in the Social Security System 216 Gun Violence and Health Care Policy 263
Reforming Social Security 217 The Debate around Gun Control   264 •
What Can Be Done   266
Privatizing Social Security   217
U.S. Health Care in International Perspective 266
Pension Systems in Selected Industrialized
Countries 218 Comparative Analysis: Health Care in Canada,
the United Kingdom, and Australia   267
Canada’s Retirement Income System   218 •
Retirement in the United Kingdom   219 • The Reforming U.S. Health care 271
Chilean Experiment in Privatizing Social National Health Service   271 • National
Security   220 • Germany’s Social Security Health Insurance   271 • Incremental
System   220 • The Greek Pension Reform   272 • The Patient Protection and
System   221 • The Australian Retirement Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148)   273
System   221
Conclusion  274
Conclusion  222 Discussion Questions   275 • Notes   275
Discussion Questions   222 • Notes   222
 xii Con t e n t s

CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 16
Mental Health and Substance Housing Policies 333
Abuse Policy 281 Overview of Housing Legislation 334
Mental Health Reform 282 The Federal Government and Low-Income Housing
The Community Mental Health Centers Acts 283 Programs 336
Deinstitutionalization 283 Issues in Housing Policy 340
Trends in U.S. Housing   340 • Problems in
The Advent of Psychotropic Medication 285
Homeownership   341 • Homeownership and
The Psychopharmacological Scandal 286 the Subprime Mortgage Crisis   341 • The
Children’s Mental Health 288 Downside of Homeownership   342 • Problems
in Finding Affordable Rental Housing   343 •
Mental Health and Substance Abuse Gentrification   344 • Overcrowded and
Funding 289 Deficient Housing   345 • Other Factors
Parity for Mental Health Care 290 Affecting Housing   345
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 291 Homelessness 346
Substance Abuse 292 Characteristics of the Homeless
Population   346 • Trends in
Alcohol Abuse   292 • Drug Abuse   293
Homelessness   348 • Attempts to Address
Conclusion  294 Homelessness   349
Discussion Questions   294 • Notes   295 Housing Reform 350
Housing in an International Context 351
CHAPTER 14 Comparison of U.S. and European
Criminal Justice 299 Housing   351 • Public Housing   352
Conclusion 352
History of U.S. Criminal Justice 300
Discussion Questions   353 • Notes   353
The Criminal Justice System 301
Juvenile Justice 303
CHAPTER 17
The New Jim Crow 306
The Politics of Food Policy and
The War on Drugs 308
Rural Life 359
The Underclass and “Moral Poverty” 309
The Contradictions of American Food Policy 360
The Prison Industrial Complex 310
Hunger in the United States 361
Legalization of Drugs 312
Governmental Food Programs 362
Police Violence 313
SNAP (Formerly Called Food Stamps): A
Conclusion  313 Description of the Program   362 • SNAP:
Discussion Questions   314 • Notes   314 Who Is in the Program, and What Does It
Cost?   364 • Special Supplemental
Nutrition Program for Women, Infants,
CHAPTER 15 and Children (WIC)   364 • Other Food
Child Welfare Policy 317 Programs   366 • Have the Food Programs
Worked?   367
History of U.S. Child Welfare Policy 318
Farming in the United States 370
Protective Services for Children 320 Governmental Farm Policies   370 • Biofuels,
Foster Care for Children 323 Fracking, and Farming   371 • The Face of
U.S. Farming   372
Adoption 325
Head Start 326 Farmworkers 374

Emerging Issues in Child Welfare 326 Issues in American Farming 376

Day Care   327 • Maternal and Child
Health   327 • Teen Pregnancy   327
Conclusion 
Discussion Questions   329 • Notes   329
The Corporatization of American Farming   377 •
Genetic Engineering   377 • Global
Trade   378 • Food Safety   378 • Local
328 Selling   379 • Organic Farming   379 •
Sustainable Development   379 • Climate
Change   379
 Content s xiii

Conclusion  382 The Welfare State in Transition 393

Discussion Questions   382 • Notes   383 Ranking National Development 394
The Fourth World 395
Capability Poverty 397
Part FOUR The American Welfare
International Aid 399
State in Perspective
Global Capital 399
CHAPTER 18 The Future 401
The American Welfare State Conclusion  402
Discussion Questions   403 • Notes   403
in International Perspective 389
Typologies of Welfare States 390 Glossary 407
American Exceptionalism 391 Index 415
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 Chapter
1
Social Policy and the
American Welfare State

Source: Jeff Greenberg/The Image Works

1
 2 pa r t 1 American Social Welfare Policy
S ocial welfare policy is arguably best viewed
through the lens of political economy (i.e., the
interaction of economic, political, and ideological
forces). This chapter provides an overview of the
American welfare state through that lens. In par-
ticular, it examines various definitions of social
welfare policy, the relationship between social pol-
icy and social problems, and the values and ideol-
ogies that drive social welfare in the United States.
In addition, the chapter examines the effects of
ideology on the U.S. welfare state, including the
important roles played by conservatism and lib-
eralism (and their variations) in shaping welfare
policy. An understanding of social welfare policy
requires the ability to grasp the economic justi-
fications and consequences that underlie policy
decisions. As such, this chapter contains a brief
introduction to Keynesianism, free market eco-
nomics, socialism, and communitarianism, among
others.
American social welfare is in transition. Start-
ing with the Social Security Act of 1935, liberals
argued that federal social programs were the best
way to help the disadvantaged. Now, after 70 years
of experimenting with the welfare state, a discern-
ible shift has occurred. The conservatism of U.S.
­c ulture—so evident in the Reagan, Bush (both
Bushes), and even Clinton and Obama presiden-
cies—has left private institutions to shoulder more
of the welfare burden. For proponents of social jus-
tice, the suggestion that the private sector should
assume more responsibility for welfare represents a
retreat from the hard-won governmental, social leg-
islation that provided essential benefits to millions
of Americans. Justifiably, social advocates fear the
loss of basic goods and services during the transition
in social welfare.
The election of Barack Obama as the 44th
President of the United States in 2008 not only
broke a racial barrier but also promised to sweep
away the strident conservatism that had defined the
presidency of George W. Bush. The Obama victory,
with 52 percent of the vote and increased Demo-
cratic majorities in both chambers of Congress,
heartened liberals who had anticipated an expan-
sion of government social programs. However, the
euphoria among liberals soon gave way to despair
as the Democratic Party lost control of the House
of Representatives and barely held on to the Senate
in the midterm elections of 2010. Although Obama
won the presidency for a second term in 2012, the
midterm election of 2014 saw the Democratic Party
also losing control of the Senate.
While liberal pundits hailed the resurgence
of “a vast new progressive movement,” 1 struc-
tural limits and the emergence of a strong reac-
tive element would restrain Obama’s ambitions.
Massive deficits left by the Bush administration,
compounded by a severe global financial crisis
and two unfunded wars, meant that economic
issues would trump other priorities. Reduced tax
revenues would impede the ability of the govern-
ment to meet existing obligations, let alone expand
social programs. Obama’s centrist inclinations to
build bipartisan support for his legislative agenda
failed as newly elected extremist Tea Party legisla-
tors squashed most of his attempts at compromise.
Instead, ideologically driven legislators focused on
social issues such as abortion, and even resuscitated
previously long-dead issues like contraception.
Parts of the nation had not just turned right, but
hard right. The fires were further stoked by allega-
tions around Obama’s birth certificate, whether he
was a Muslim and a socialist, and so forth.
The 2012 presidential election was marked by
the often extreme positions taken by Republican
presidential contenders. Long-dormant issues resur-
faced as Republican candidates vied for the support
of the religious right and Tea Partiers. This politi-
cal climate led to an anti-science orientation, often
reflected in wildly unsubstantiated claims like birth
control pills can cause prostate cancer. Former Mis-
souri Republican congressperson Todd Akin stated
that doctors had told him it is extremely rare for
“legitimate” rape victim to become pregnant: “If
it’s a ‘legitimate’ rape, the female body has ways to
try to shut that whole thing down.”2 Despite the
lack of any medical evidence, former Republican
presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann warned
that mental retardation could occur from the HPV
(human papilloma virus) vaccine.
The 2016 presidential race continued the
Republican Party’s anti-science orientation. U.S.
Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz
compared himself to Galileo when he stated that
“Today, the global warming alarmists are the
equivalent of the flat-Earthers. It used to be [that]
it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and
this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier.”
For one, Galileo never argued against flat-Earthers;
instead he argued that the Earth revolved around the
sun. Second, he never disputed the scientific data
 C h a pte r 1
of his time. On the contrary, Galileo imposed sci-
entific data where there was none. 3 Presidential
candidates like former Texas Governor Rick Perry
and Rick Santorum believe that evolution is still
an open question. Virtually all 2016 Republican
presidential contenders argued that climate change
is either a hoax or unrelated to human activity.4
The same denial of climate change is also true for
Donald Trump who was elected in one of the most
­contentious political races in modern history.
Nowhere is the power of conservatives more evi-
dent than in gun control. Despite the spate of mass
shootings—no gun legislation has been passed. The
response by the National Rifle Association (NRA) is
to have more—not less—guns. The response of many
politicians was to pray for the families of the dead.
The harsh rhetoric illustrates the nation’s regional
fissures. For instance, a 2012 Public Policy poll of
registered Republican voters found that 45 percent of
Alabamians and 52 percent of M ­ ississippians believed
that Obama is a Muslim (the other 40 percent were
not sure). Only about 25 percent of those voters
believed in evolution.5 These fissures were the most
apparent in the surprise victory of Donald Trump
over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.
All told, the 2016 presidential campaigns cost
billions, much of that coming from super Political
Action committees (PACs). However, the final list
of 2016 expenditures might never be known since
some of the biggest spending groups were non-
profit organizations that were permitted to hide
their spending from public scrutiny.6 This spending
spree was spurred on by the U.S. Supreme Court
decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Com-
mission. The Court ruled that the First Amendment
­prohibited government from restricting independent
political expenditures by corporations and unions.7
This decision overturned a century-old precedent
allowing the government to regulate such spending.
Structural features of the American welfare
state militate against a major expansion of govern-
ment, per se. A pluralistic mix of private and pub-
lic services is an overriding feature of U.S. social
welfare. As in other realms, such as education, in
social welfare, private institutions coexist alongside
those of the public sector. U.S. social welfare has a
noble tradition of voluntary citizen groups taking
the initiative to solve local problems. Today, pri-
vate voluntary groups provide valuable services to
AIDS patients, the homeless, immigrants, victims of
domestic violence, and refugees.
Social Policy and the American Welfare State 3
Social welfare has become big business. During
the last 30 years, the number of human service cor-
porations—for-profit firms providing social welfare
through the marketplace—has increased dramati-
cally. Human service corporations are prominent in
long-term nursing care, health maintenance, child
day care, psychiatric and substance abuse services,
and even corrections. For many welfare profession-
als, the privatizing of social services is troubling,
occurring as it does at a time when government has
reduced its commitment to social programs. Yet,
human service corporations will likely continue to be
prominent players in shaping the nation’s social wel-
fare policies. As long as U.S. culture is democratic
and capitalistic, entrepreneurs will be free to estab-
lish social welfare services in the private sector, both
as nonprofit agencies and as for-profit corporations.
The mixed welfare economy of the United States,
in which the voluntary, governmental, and corporate
sectors coexist, poses serious questions for social wel-
fare policy. To what extent can ­voluntary groups be
held responsible for public ­welfare, given their lim-
ited fiscal resources? For which groups of people, if
any, should government divest itself of responsibil-
ity? Can human service corporations care for poor
and multiproblem clients while continuing to gen-
erate profits? Equally important, how can welfare
professionals shape coherent social welfare policies,
given the fragmentation inherent in such pluralism?
Clearly, the answers to these questions have much to
say about how social welfare programs are perceived
by human service professionals, their clients, and the
taxpayers who continue to subsidize social programs.
The multitude of questions posed by the transi-
tion of social welfare is daunting. Temporarily satis-
fied by the 1996 welfare reform bill, conservatives
have shifted their attention to advocating privat-
ization of social insurance programs such as Social
Security and Medicare. Past advocates of social jus-
tice such as Jane Addams, Whitney Young Jr., and
Wilbur Cohen, to name a few, interpreted the inad-
equacy of social welfare provision as an opportu-
nity to further social justice. It remains for another
generation of welfare professionals to demonstrate
the same imagination, perseverance, and courage
to advance social welfare in the years ahead. Those
accepting this challenge will need to be familiar with
the various meanings of social welfare policy, dif-
fering political and economic explanations of social
welfare, and the multiple interest groups that have
emerged within the U.S. social welfare system.
 4 pa r t 1 American Social Welfare Policy
Definitions of Social
Welfare Policy
The English social scientist Richard Titmuss defined
social services as “a series of collective interventions
that contribute to the general welfare by assigning
claims from one set of people who are said to pro-
duce or earn the national income to another set of
people who may merit compassion and charity.”8
Welfare policy, whether it is the product of gov-
ernmental, voluntary, or corporate institutions,
is concerned with allocating goods, services, and
opportunities to enhance social functioning.
William Epstein defined social policy as “social
action sanctioned by society.”9 Social policy can
also be defined as the formal and consistent order-
ing of human affairs. Social welfare policy, a subset
of social policy, regulates the provision of benefits to
people to meet basic life needs, such as employment,
income, food, housing, health care, and relationships.
Social welfare policy is influenced by the con-
text in which benefits are provided. For example,
social welfare is often associated with legislatively
mandated programs of the governmental sector,
such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
(TANF). In the TANF program, social welfare pol-
icy consists of the rules by which the federal and
state governments apportion cash benefits to an
economically disadvantaged population. TANF
benefits are derived from general revenue taxes
(often paid by citizens who are better-off). But this
is a simplification of benefits provided to those
deemed needy. Benefits provided through govern-
mental social welfare policy include cash, along
with noncash or in-kind benefits, including per-
sonal social services.10 Cash benefits can be further
divided into social insurance and public assistance
grants (discussed in depth in Chapters 10 and 11).
In-kind benefits (provided as proxies for cash)
include benefits such as food stamps; Medicaid;
housing vouchers; Women, Infants, and Children
(WIC) coupons; and low-income energy assistance.
Personal social services are designed to enhance
relationships between people as well as institutions,
such as individual, family, and mental health treat-
ment; child welfare services; rehabilitation coun-
seling; and so forth. Although complicated, this
classification reflects a common theme—the redis-
tribution of resources from the better-off to the
more disadvantaged. This redistributive aspect of
social welfare policy is generally accepted by those
who view social welfare as a legitimate function
of the state. Governmental social welfare policy is
often referred to as “public” policy because it is
the result of decisions reached through a legislative
process intended to represent the entire population.
But social welfare is also provided by nongov-
ernmental entities, in which case social welfare
policy is a manifestation of “private” policy. For
example, a nonprofit agency with a high demand
for its services and limited resources may establish a
waiting list as agency policy. As other agencies adopt
the same strategy for rationing services, clients begin
to pile up on waiting lists, and some are eventually
denied services. Or consider the practice of “dump-
ing,” a policy that has been used by some private
health care providers to abruptly transfer uninsured
patients to public hospitals while they are suffering
from traumatic injuries. Rescission refers to termi-
nating an insurance policy due to concealment, mis-
representation, or fraud. In health insurance, it refers
to terminating a policy following the diagnosis of an
expensive illness, with the insurance company claim-
ing the policyholder withheld relevant information
about a pre-existing medical condition. Although
partially limited by the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act of 2010, it continues in some
form by some insurance companies. Patients some-
times die as a result of private social welfare policy.
Because U.S. social welfare has been shaped by
policies of governmental and nonprofit agencies,
confusion exists about the role of for-profit social
service firms. The distinction between the public
and private sectors was traditionally marked by
the boundary between governmental and nonprofit
agencies. Profit-making firms are “private” nongov-
ernmental entities that differ from the traditional
private voluntary agencies because they operate on
a for-profit basis. Within private social welfare, it is
therefore necessary to distinguish between policies
of for-profit and nonprofit organizations. A logical
way to redraw the social welfare map is to adopt the
following definitions: Governmental social welfare
policy refers to decisions made by the state, volun-
tary social welfare policy refers to decisions reached
by nonprofit agencies, and corporate social welfare
policy refers to decisions made by for-profit firms.
Social Problems and Social
Welfare Policy
Social welfare policy often develops in response to
social problems. The relationship between social
problems and social welfare policy is not linear, and
 C h a pte r 1
not all social problems result in social welfare pol-
icies. Or, social welfare policies are funded at such
low levels that they are ineffectual. For example, the
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974
was designed to ameliorate the problem of child
abuse, yet underbudgeting left Child Protective
Service (CPS) workers unable to promptly investi-
gate the increase in child abuse reports, resulting in
many children dying or undergoing serious injury.
Social welfare is an expression of social altruism
that contributes to the maintenance and survival of
society by helping to hold together a society that
can fracture along social, political, and economic
stress lines. Social welfare policy is also useful in
enforcing social control, especially as a proxy for
more coercive law-based measures. 11 Simply put,
the poor are less likely to revolt against the unequal
distribution of wealth and privilege when their basic
needs are met. Social welfare benefits also subsidize
employers by supplementing low and non-livable
wages, thereby maintaining a work incentive. With-
out social welfare benefits like earned income tax
credit (EITC), employers would have to raise wages
and therefore consumer prices. Social welfare bene-
fits also support key industries, such as agriculture
(food stamps), housing (e.g., Section 8), and health
care (e.g., Medicaid and Medicare). If welfare ben-
efits were suddenly eliminated, several U.S. busi-
nesses would collapse, and prices for many goods
and services would rise. Social welfare benefits help
stabilize prices and maintain economic growth.
Social welfare policies also relieve the social and
economic dislocations caused by the uneven nature
of economic development under capitalism. For
example, one of the main features of capitalism is
a constantly changing economy where jobs are cre-
ated in one sector and lost (or exported) in another,
thereby resulting in large islands of unemployed
workers. Examples of this include closing Block-
buster, Borders, Radio Shack, Circuit City, and
other retail store outlets. The increased use of scan-
ners in supermarkets will result in fewer cashiers.
Myriad social welfare programs, such as unem-
ployment insurance and food stamps, help soften
the transition. Finally, social welfare policies are a
means for rectifying past and present injustices. For
example, affirmative action policies were designed
to remedy the historical discrimination that denied
large numbers of Americans access to economic
opportunities and power. Teacher incentive pay
and other educational policies are designed to help
ameliorate the unequal distribution of resources
Social Policy and the American Welfare State 5
between underfunded urban and b
­ etter-funded
s­ uburban school systems.
Social Work and Social Policy
Social work practice is driven by social policies that
dictate how the work is done, with whom, for how
much, and toward what ends. For example, a social
worker in a public mental health center may have
a caseload in excess of 200 clients. The size of that
caseload makes it unlikely that the worker will be
able to engage in any kind of sustained therapeutic
intervention beyond case management. Or consider
the case worker who—in the midst of high unem-
ployment—must find employment for recipient
mothers about to lose benefits due to mandatory
time limits. In these and other instances, economic
and political factors structure the work of agencies
and impede the ability of workers to succeed in
their job.
An ideological preference among policymak-
ers for private sector social services has resulted
in less funding for public agencies. In response to
diminishing revenues, public agencies adjust in pre-
dictable ways, such as cutting staff (or replacing
them with lower paid and less qualified workers)
and expecting existing staff to do more with less. In
addition, they promote short-term (or drug-based)
interventions to more cheaply process clients. Cuts
are made by freezing or reducing the salaries and
benefits of professional staff. In large part, the
accomplishments of social workers depend on
available agency resources.
Social workers in private practice that depend
on managed care experience similar constraints.
For instance, managed care plans dictate how much
a social worker will be paid and how many times
they will be permitted to see a client. Accordingly,
these plans structure the kinds of interventions that
can be realistically implemented in the allotted
time. Governmental and agency policies structure
the day-to-day work of social work.
Values, Ideology, and Social
Welfare Policy
Social welfare policies are shaped by a set of social
and personal values that reflect the preferences of
those in decision-making capacities. According
to David Gil, “choices in social welfare policy are
 6 pa r t 1 American Social Welfare Policy
heavily influenced by the dominant beliefs, values,
ideologies, customs, and traditions of the cultural
and political elites recruited mainly from among the
more powerful and privileged strata.”12 How these
values are played out in the realm of social welfare
is the domain of the policy analyst. As Chapter 3
illustrates, social welfare policy is rarely based on
a rational set of assumptions backed up by valid
research.
The Pareto Optimality is a state whereby mak-
ing one person or group better-off through the
allocation of resources is impossible without mak-
ing another person or group worse off. A Pareto
Improvement occurs when a person or group is
made better-off through the allocation of resources
without making another person or group worse off.
In the real world of social policy, the Pareto Opti-
mality is typically the dominant mode.
Social policy is typically a zero-sum game
whereby some people are advantaged at the expense
of others. Or, at least they perceive themselves as
being treated unfairly. For example, the upper
1 percent of Americans bring home nearly a q ­ uarter
of the U.S. income every year and control 40 percent
of the nation’s wealth.13 Despite their privilege,
many see increased taxes and regulation as an unfair
infringement and an attack on the most productive
members of society.14 Although not directly affected,
some groups see the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling
­legalizing gay marriage as an assault on their religious
freedom and principles.
Recent U.S. social welfare policy has been
largely shaped by values around self-sufficiency,
work, and the omniscience of the marketplace.
As policymakers expected disadvantaged people
to be more independent, support for government
social programs was cut to presumably discourage
dependency. Although these cuts saved money in
the short run, most of them fell squarely on the
shoulders of children. Eventually, cuts in social
programs can lead to greater expenditures as the
generation of children who have gone without
essential services begins to require programs to
remedy problems associated with poor maternal
and infant health care, poverty, illiteracy, and
family disorganization. In 2011, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) ranked the United States
32nd in public spending on family benefits, just
above Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Malta, Mexico,
Chile, and Korea.15
Social values are organized through the lens of
ideology. Simply put, an ideology is the framework
of commonly held beliefs through which we view
the world. It is a set of assumptions about how
the world works: what has value, what is worth
living and dying for, what is good and true, and
what is right. For the most part, these beliefs are
rarely examined and are simply assumed to be
true. Hence, the ideological tenets around which
society is organized exist as a collective social con-
sciousness that defines the world for its members.
All societies reproduce themselves partly by repro-
ducing their ideology; in this way, each generation
accepts the basic ideological suppositions of the
preceding one. When widely held ideological beliefs
are questioned, society often reacts with strong
sanctions. Ideological trends influence social wel-
fare when adherents of one orientation hold sway
in decision-making bodies.
The hold of ideology on social policy is espe-
cially strong in times of threat, such as the “War
on Terror.” In this instance, social welfare policy
fades into the background as the perceived need
for national security takes center stage. The social
history of the United States has seen periods where
oppressed groups assert their rights in the face of
mainstream norms. Sometimes social unrest is met
with force, such as in the labor strikes of 1877,
while at other times, such as the Great Depres-
sion, it is met with the expansion of social welfare
programs.
The Political Economy of
American Social Welfare
The term political economy refers to the interaction
of political and economic theories in understanding
society. The political economy of the United States
has been labeled democratic capitalism—a repre-
sentative form of government that coexists with
a market economy. Social welfare policy plays an
important role in stabilizing society by modifying
the play of market forces and softening the social
and economic inequalities generated by the market-
place.16 To that end, two sets of activities are nec-
essary: state provision of social services (benefits of
cash, in-kind benefits, and personal social services)
and state regulation of private activities to alter
(and sometimes improve) the lives of citizens. Social
welfare bolsters social stability by helping to miti-
gate the problems associated with economic dislo-
cation, thereby allowing society to remain in a state
of more or less controlled balance.
 C h a pte r 1
John Maynard Keynes is best known as the economic
architect of the modern welfare state.
Source: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo
Ideally, the political economy of the welfare
state should be an integrated fabric of politics and
economics; but in reality, some schools of thought
contain more political than economic content, and
vice versa. For example, most economic theories
contain sufficient political implications to qualify
them as both economic and political. Conversely,
most political schools of thought contain significant
economic content. It is therefore difficult to sepa-
rate political from economic schools of thought.
For the purposes of this chapter, we will organize
the political economy of U.S. welfare into two
separate categories: (1) predominantly economic
schools of thought and (2) predominantly political
schools of thought. Nevertheless, the reader will
find a significant overlap among and between these
categories.
The U.S. Economic Continuum
In large measure, economics forms the backbone
of the political system. For example, the modern
welfare state would not exist without the contri-
bution of economist John Maynard Keynes. Con-
versely, the conservative movement would be
Social Policy and the American Welfare State 7
weaker without the contribution of classical or free
­market economists such as Adam Smith and ­Milton
Friedman. Virtually every political movement is
somehow grounded in economic thought. The three
major schools that have traditionally dominated
American thought are Keynesian economics; classi-
cal or free market economics (and its variants); and
to a lesser degree, democratic socialism.
Keynesian Economics
Keynesian economics drives liberalism and most
welfare state ideologies. John Maynard Keynes’
economic theories formed the substructure and
foundation of the modern welfare state, and virtu-
ally all welfare societies are built along his princi-
ples. Sometimes called demand or consumer-side
economics, this model emerged from Keynes’s 1936
book, The General Theory of Employment, Inter-
est and Money.
An Englishman, Keynes took the classical
model of economic analysis (self-regulating mar-
kets, perfect competition, the laws of supply and
demand, etc.) and added the insight that macro-
economic stabilization by government is necessary
to keep the economic clock ticking smoothly.17 He
rejected the idea that a perfectly competitive econ-
omy tended automatically toward full employment
and that the government should not interfere in
the process. Keynes argued that instead of being
self-correcting and readily able to pull themselves
out of recessions, modern economies were recession
prone and had difficulty providing full employment.
According to Keynes, periodic and volatile eco-
nomic situations that cause high unemployment
are primarily caused by the instability in invest-
ment expenditures. The government can stabilize
and correct recessionary or inflationary trends by
increasing or decreasing total spending on output.
Governments can accomplish this by increasing or
decreasing taxes (thereby increasing or decreasing
consumption) and by the transfer of public goods
or services. For Keynes, a “good” government is
an activist government in economic matters, espe-
cially when the economy gets out of full employ-
ment mode. Keynesians believe that social welfare
expenditures are investments in human capital that
eventually increase the national wealth (e.g., by
increasing productivity) and thereby boost every-
one’s net income.
Keynes’s doctrine emerged from his attempt to
understand the nature of recessions and depressions.
 8 pa r t 1 American Social Welfare Policy
Specifically, he saw recessions and depressions as
emerging from businesses’ loss of confidence in
investments (e.g., focusing on risk rather than gain),
which in turn causes the hoarding of cash. This
loss of confidence eventually leads to a shortage of
money as everyone tries to hoard cash simultane-
ously. Keynes’s answer to this problem was that gov-
ernment should make it possible for people to satisfy
their economic needs without cutting their spending,
which prevents the spiral of shrinking incomes and
shrinking spending. Simply put, in a depression the
government should print more money and get it into
circulation.18
Keynes also understood that this monetary pol-
icy alone would not suffice if a recession spiraled
out of control, as in the Great Depression of the
1930s. He pointed to a liquidity trap whereby peo-
ple hoard cash because they expect deflation (a
decrease—extreme in a depression—in the price of
goods or services), insufficient consumer or indus-
try demand, or some catastrophe such as war. In
a depression, businesses and households fail to
increase spending regardless of how much cash they
have. To help an economy exit this trap, govern-
ment must do what the private sector will not—
namely, spend. This spending can take the form
of public works projects (financed by borrowing)
or direct governmental subsidization of demand
(welfare entitlements). To be fair, Keynes saw pub-
lic spending only as a last resort to be employed if
monetary expansion failed. Moreover, he sought
an economic balance: Print money and spend in a
recession; stop printing and stop spending once it
is over. Keynes understood that too much money in
circulation, especially in times of high production
and full employment, leads to inflation. Although
relatively simple, Keynes’s theories represent one
of the great insights of twentieth-century economic
thought.19 These ideas also formed the economic
basis for the modern welfare state.
Conservative or Free Market Economics
Whereas liberalism is guided by Keynesian econom-
ics, the conservative view of social welfare is guided
by free market economics.
Adam Smith is known as the father of mod-
ern capitalism, and conservative economics was
arguably born in The Wealth of Nations. Smith
believed in the “invisible hand” of the marketplace,
or in other words, the view that the economic sys-
tem was automatic, and when left undisturbed by
government or other forces, it would self-regulate,
thereby ensuring maximum economic efficiency.
This self-regulation, however, would be threatened
by monopolies, preferential tax structures, or other
treatment that favors one group over another. To
ensure efficiency, markets had to be left alone.
Smith believed the main measure of a nation’s
wealth was in the goods and services it produced
and traded (the forerunner of gross domestic prod-
uct), which would lead to further economic growth.
Within Smith’s economic paradigm, the proper
role of government was defense, the creation and
maintenance of public infrastructure, public safety
and education. In turn, these activities would be
financed by a fair system of taxation. 20
Although friends with John Maynard Keynes,
Friedrich Hayek was his intellectual adversary.
Representing the Austrian economic school, Hayek
focused on the business cycle. He believed that mar-
kets were organic, and any interference with their
spontaneous order would hamper their efficient
operation. Hayek argued that the major problem
for an economy is how people’s actions are coor-
dinated. He observed that free markets effectively
and spontaneously (i.e., not part of anyone’s plan)
coordinated people’s actions. Hayek believed that
the market evolved as the result of human actions
in the context of economic exchanges.21
Hayek was also a realist who understood that
markets are not necessarily perfect. One ­problem
he observed was based on the increase in the
money supply by central banks. In particular, the
increased money supply drives down interest rates
thereby making credit artificially cheap. This leads
to “­m alinvestments” (i.e., bad business invest-
ments) that would not occur without a distorted
price ­signal from the market. For instance, driven
by cheap credit, investors may build what turns out
to be half-filled shopping malls or new commercial
buildings in an already saturated market. The dot
.com and housing bubbles are examples of malin-
vestments. Hayek saw recessions and depressions as
part of a necessary readjustment. For him, the best
way to avoid busts was to avoid the booms that
cause them. In c­ ontrast
to the economic activism
of ­Keynesianism, Hayek’s
strategy for the Great
Depression was to allow
only ­minimal ­regulation
of m ­ arket functions
since the market is too
 C h a pte r 1
complex to engage in any serious forecasting.
Moreover, government interference not only wors-
ens the situation, but leads to further economic
chaos.22
Free market economics is predicated on a belief
in the existence of many small buyers and sellers
who exchange homogeneous products with per-
fect information in a setting in which each can
freely enter and exit the marketplace at will.23 As
an ideal type, none of these assumptions hold in
the real world of economics. For instance, the free
market model does not address the dominance
of distribution networks by a single retailer like
Walmart. There is nothing in the free market model
that addresses the lack of equitable distribution of
knowledge, experience, opportunity, and access to
resources enjoyed by buyers and sellers. The free
market model ignores theft, fraud, and deception
in cases like Enron, and it ignores the competi-
tive advantages that accrue through lobbying and
special interest negotiations like Halliburton’s no
competition bids for Iraq reconstruction projects.
It also ignores the power of large retailers to con-
trol the market by instituting late shopping hours
or 24/7 businesses that make it impossible for small
family-owned businesses to compete. In short, an
unregulated market economy becomes monopolis-
tic as more of the market is taken over by fewer
enterprises.
The ascendance of the conservative economic
(and social) argument accelerated after 1973, when
the rise in living standards began to slow for most
Americans. Conservatives blamed this economic
slowdown on governmental policies—specifically,
deficit spending, high taxes, and excessive regu-
lations.24 In a clever sleight of hand, government
went from having the responsibility to address eco-
nomic problems (à la Keynes) to being the cause of
them.
Milton Friedman, considered by some to be
the father of modern conservative economics, was
one of Keynes’s more ardent critics. In opposition
to Keynes, Friedman argued that using fiscal and
monetary policy to smooth out the business cycle
is harmful to the economy and worsens economic
instability.25 He contended that the Depression did
not occur because people were hoarding money;
rather, there was a fall in the quantity of money in
circulation. Friedman argued that Keynesian eco-
nomic policies must be replaced by simple mone-
tary rules (hence the term monetarism). In effect,
he believed that the role of government was to keep
Social Policy and the American Welfare State 9
the money supply growing steadily at a rate con-
sistent with stable prices and long-term economic
growth.26
Friedman counseled against active efforts to sta-
bilize the economy. Instead of pumping money into
the economy, government should simply make sure
enough cash is in circulation. He called for a rela-
tively inactive government in economic affairs that
did not try to manage or intervene in the business
cycle. For Friedman, welfare spending existed only
for altruistic rather than economic reasons.27 To the
right of Milton Friedman was Robert Lucas, 1994
Nobel Prize winner and developer of the “theory
of rational expectations.” Lucas argued that Fried-
man’s monetary policy was still too interventionist
and would invariably do more harm than good.28
Developing outside of conventional econom-
ics, supply-side economics enjoyed considerable
popularity during the early 1980s. Led by Robert
Barth, editorial page head of the Wall Street Jour-
nal, supply-siders were journalists, policymakers,
and maverick economists who argued that demand-
side policies and monetary policies were ineffec-
tive.29 They maintained that the incentive effects
of reduced taxation would be so large that tax cuts
would dramatically increase economic activity to
the point where tax revenues would rise rather than
fall. (Former President George H. W. Bush referred
to this as voodoo economics in 1980. 30) Specifi-
cally, supply-siders argued that tax cuts would lead
to a large increase in labor supply and investment
and therefore to a large expansion in economic out-
put. The budget deficit would evaporate because
taxes, increased savings, and higher economic out-
put would offset the deficit. In the early 1980s,
supply-siders seized power from the Keynesians
and mainstream conservative economists, many of
whom believed in the same things but wanted to
move more slowly.31
Although some supporters preferred to think
of supply-side economics as pure economics, the
theory contained enough political implications to
qualify as a political as well as an economic the-
ory. Popularized by supporters such as Jack Kemp,
Arthur Laffer, and Ronald Reagan, supply-side
economics provided the rationale for the dramatic
cuts in social programs executed under the Reagan
administration.
Despite their popularity in the early years of the
Reagan administration, the term supply-side eco-
nomics fell out of favor when it became ­evident that
massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations
 10 pa r t 1 American Social Welfare Policy
did not result in increased productivity. Instead, the
wealthy spent their tax savings on luxury items, and
corporations used tax savings to purchase other
companies in a merger mania that took Wall Street
by surprise. Some corporations took advantage of
temporary tax savings to transfer their operations
abroad, further reducing the supply of high-paying
industrial jobs in the United States. For these and
other reasons, the budget deficit grew from about
$50 billion a year in the Carter term to $352 billion
a year in 1992.32
Although the term supply-side economics fell
out of favor by the late 1980s, its basic tenets,
such as the belief that massive tax cuts for the rich
would increase productivity (and the necessity of
social welfare spending cuts), were adopted enthu-
siastically by the G.W. Bush administration in the
form of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Rec-
onciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) and the Jobs
and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003
(JGTRRA). Citizens for Tax Justice estimated that
more than $1 trillion has been lost to the U.S.
­Treasury as a result of the Bush tax cuts (later con-
tinued by the Obama administration).33 The result
of these policies mirrored the effects of the earlier
supply-side doctrine: huge federal and state budget
shortfalls, corporate hoarding, greater economic
inequality, and stagnant wages.34 The federal bud-
get deficit rose to $1.4 trillion in 2009. It stayed
above the $1 trillion mark until 2012, after which
it fell to $583 billion in 2015.35
Conservative economists argue that large social
welfare programs–including unemployment bene-
fits and public service jobs—are detrimental to the
society in two ways. First, government social pro-
grams erode the work ethic by supporting those not
in the labor force. Second, because they are funded
by taxes, public sector social welfare programs
divert money that could otherwise be invested in
the private sector. Conservative economists believe
that economic growth helps everyone because over-
all prosperity creates more jobs, income, and goods,
and these eventually filter down to the poor. For
conservative economists, investment is the key to
prosperity and the engine that drives the economic
machine. Accordingly, many conservative econ-
omists favor tax breaks for the wealthy based on
the premise that such breaks will result in more dis-
posable after-tax income freed up for investment.
In turn, high taxes are an impediment to economic
progress because they channel money into “public”
investments and away from “private” investments.
For conservatives, opportunity is based on
one’s relationship to the marketplace and legitimate
rewards can only occur only through that participa-
tion. In contrast to liberals who emphasize mutual
self-interest, interdependence, and social equity,
conservative economists argue that the highest
form of social good is realized by the maximiza-
tion of self-interest. In the conservative view (as
epitomized by author Ayn Rand36), the best society
is one in which everyone actively—and selfishly—
pursues their own good. Through a leap of faith,
the maximization of self-interest is somehow trans-
formed into a mutual good.
Conservative economists maintain not only
that high taxation and government regulation of
business serve as disincentives to investment but
also that individual claims on social insurance and
public welfare grants discourage work. Together
these factors lead to a decline in economic growth
and an increase in the expectations of beneficiaries
of welfare programs. The only way to correct the
irrationality of governmental social programs is to
eliminate them. Charles Murray has suggested that
the entire federal assistance and income support
structure for working-aged persons (Medicaid, the
former Aid to Families with Dependent C ­ hildren
[AFDC], food stamps, etc.) be scrapped. This would
leave working-aged persons no recourse except to
actively engage in the job market or turn to family,
friends, or privately funded services.37
Some conservative economists argue that
economic insecurity is an important part of the
entrepreneurial spirit. Unless people are com-
pelled to work, they will choose leisure over work.
­Conversely, providing economic security for large
numbers of people through welfare programs leads
to diminished ambition and fosters an unhealthy
dependence on the state. Social programs thereby
harm rather than help the most vulnerable mem-
bers of society. The belief in economic insecurity
formed the basis for the 1996 welfare reform bill
that included a maximum time limit on welfare
benefits (see Chapter 11).
The public choice school gained traction
among conservatives as faith ebbed in supply-side
theories. This theory was not widely known
­outside academic circles until James Buchanan was
awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 1986. In
effect, the public choice is predicted on the belief
that public sector bureaucrats are self-­interested
­u tility-maximizers and that strong i­ncentives
exist for interest groups to make demands on
 C h a pte r 1
government. The resulting concessions flow directly
to the interest group as their costs are spread
among all taxpayers. Initial concessions lead to
demands for further concessions, which are likely
to be forthcoming so long as interest groups are
vociferous in their demands. Under such an incen-
tive system, different interests are also encouraged
to band together to make demands since there
is no reason for one interest group to oppose the
demands of others. As demands for goods and
services increase, revenues tend to decrease. This
happens because interest groups resist paying taxes
directed specifically toward them and because no
interest group has much incentive to support gen-
eral taxes. The result of this scenario is predictable:
Strong demands for government benefits accom-
panied by declining revenues lead to government
borrowing, which in turn, results in large budget
deficits.38 Adherents of public choice theory view
social welfare as a series of endless concessions to
disadvantaged groups that will eventually bankrupt
the government. On the other hand, it would be
logical also to apply public choice theory to defense
industry interest groups who make similar demands
on government while not paying a fair share of
taxes.
The Global Financial Crisis (GFC)
Alan Greenspan, the former head of the Federal
Reserve, admitted that he “made a mistake” in
trusting free markets to regulate themselves with-
out governmental oversight. Greenspan further
admitted that “I made a mistake in presuming that
the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks
and others, were . . . capable of protecting their
own shareholders and their equity in the firms.”39
This was an amazing series of admissions from the
man known as the “oracle” in economic matters.
More importantly, he questioned the belief that
unregulated free markets inevitably yield superior
economic gain.
The initial event triggering the 2008 GFC was
the collapse of the U.S. housing market and the
realization that domestic and foreign banks, invest-
ment houses, and institutions were holding hun-
dreds of billions of dollars of subprime mortgages
(i.e., nonviable mortgages held by problematic
borrowers) that were little more than toxic debt
offering little hope for repayment. However, multi-
ple factors converged to create the crisis, including
the largely unregulated derivatives market and the
Social Policy and the American Welfare State 11
reliance on various forms of dodgy financial instru-
ments. Derivatives are used by banks and corpora-
tions to hedge risk or engage in speculation. They
are financial instruments whose value depends on
an underlying commodity, bond, equity, or cur-
rency. Investors purchase derivatives to bet on the
future (or as a hedge against the potential adverse
impacts of an investment), to mitigate a risk associ-
ated with an underlying security, to protect against
interest rate or stock market changes, and so forth.
Derivatives are used in several financial areas.
For example, credit derivatives can involve a con-
tract between two parties that allows one of them to
transfer their credit risk to the other. The party trans-
ferring the risk pays a fee to the party that assumes it.
These derivatives are risky investments because they
are basically bets made in large amounts, often in the
billions. Like all forms of gambling, derivatives only
work if the casino has the money to meet their obli-
gation to bettors. If the casino lacks the cash to pay
winners (i.e., it has a liquidity problem), the entire
system collapses. The 2008 GFC was partly based
on the failure of the derivatives market.
Various government bailouts—including
$25 billion to the U.S. auto industry—helped ease
the financial crisis. Much of the money to pay for
the bailouts came from foreign investors who pur-
chased U.S. Treasury bills.40 One unexpected out-
come of the GFC and the collapse of Wall Street
was that it temporarily chilled the debate on privat-
izing Social Security (see Chapter 10).
Democratic Socialism
Democratic socialism (as opposed to Soviet-style com-
munism) is based on the belief that radical economic
change is necessary and can be achieved within a dem-
ocratic context. They question the fundamental pre-
cepts of capitalism and its ability to meet the needs of
people. This view is at odds with both Keynesianism
and conservative economics. Specifically, Keynesians
basically believe in the market economy but want to
make it more responsive to human needs by smooth-
ing out the rough edges. Conservatives maintain that
the economy should be left alone except for a few
minor tweaks, such as regulating the money supply.
Others argue that the market should be left totally
alone. On balance, both Keynesians and economic
conservatives believe that capitalism is compatible
with the public good. Keynesians and economic con-
servatives have more in common with each other than
Keynesians have with socialists.
 12 pa r t 1 American Social Welfare Policy
Proponents of socialism argue that the funda-
mental nature of capitalism is anathema to advancing
the public good. They contend that a system predi-
cated on pursuing profit and individual self-interest
can only lead to greater inequality. The creation of
a just society requires a fundamental transformation
of the economic system, and the pursuit of profit
and self-interest must be replaced by the collective
pursuit of the common good. Not surprisingly, they
repudiate Keynes’s belief that economic problems
can be fixed by technicalities instead of sweeping
institutional change. In short, socialists criticize con-
servatives for the primary importance they place on
markets and their belief in subordinating social wel-
fare initiatives to market needs.
Left-wing theorists maintain that the failure of
capitalism has led to political movements that have
pressured institutions to respond with increased
social welfare services. They believe that real social
welfare must be structural and can only be accom-
plished by redistributing resources. In a just soci-
ety where goods, resources, and opportunities are
available to everyone, only the most basic forms
of social welfare (health care, rehabilitation, coun-
seling, etc.) would be necessary. In this worldview,
poverty is directly linked to structural inequality:
People need welfare because they are exploited and
denied access to resources. In an unjust society,
welfare functions as a substitute, albeit a puny one,
for social justice.41
Some socialists argue that social welfare is an
ingenious arrangement to have the public assume
the costs associated with the social and economic
dislocations inherent in capitalism. According to
these theorists, social welfare expenditures “social-
ize” the costs of capitalist production by making
public the costs of private enterprise. Thus, social
welfare serves both the needs of people and the
needs of capitalism. For other socialists, social wel-
fare programs support an unjust economic system
that continues to generate problems requiring yet
more programs. These radicals argue that social
welfare programs function like junk food for the
impoverished: They provide just enough sustenance
to discourage revolution but not enough to make
a real difference in anyone’s life. Social welfare is
simply viewed as a form of social control. Frances
Fox Piven and the late Richard Cloward summarize
the argument:
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 unemployment leads to
outbreaks of turmoil, relief programs are ordi-
narily initiated or expanded to absorb or con-
trol enough of the unemployed to restore order;
then, as turbulence subsides, the relief system
contracts, expelling those who are needed to
populate the labor markets.42
For radicals, real social welfare can occur only
in a socialist economic system.
The U.S. Political Continuum
Differing views on political economy produce dif-
fering conceptions of the public good. Competition
among ideas about the public good and the welfare
state has long been a knotty issue in the political
economy of the United States. Since governmental
policy is driven largely by an ideologically deter-
mined view of the public good, it will vary depend-
ing which political party is in power.
The major American ideologies, (neo)liber-
alism and (neo)conservatism, hold vastly differ-
ent views of social welfare and the public good.
Since conservatives believe that the public good
is best served through marketplace participation,
they prefer private sector approaches over govern-
mental welfare programs. Conservatives believe
that government should have a minimal role (via
a safety net) in ensuring the social welfare of citi-
zens. Traditional liberals, on the other hand, view
government as the primary institution capable of
bringing a measure of social justice to millions of
Americans who cannot fully participate because
of obstacles such as racism, poverty, and sexism.
Traditional liberals view government social welfare
programs as a key component in promoting the
public good. One of the major differences between
these orientations lies in their differing perceptions
of how the public good is enhanced or hurt by wel-
fare state programs.
The understanding of “the public good” is
lodged in the political and ideological continuum
that makes up the U.S. political economy. An
appreciation of this requires an understanding of
the interaction of schools of political thought and
how they evolved. These ideological tenets also
shape the platforms of the major political parties
and can be divided into two categories: (1) liberalism
and left-of-center movements and (2) traditional
conservatives and the far right.
 C h a pte r 1
Liberalism and Left-of-Center
Movements
Liberalism Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s
New Deal, liberal advocates have argued for
advancing the public good by promoting an expand-
ing economy coupled with the growth of universal,
non-means–tested social welfare and health care
programs. Traditional liberals used Keynesianism
as the economic justification for expanding the wel-
fare state, and as such, the general direction of pol-
icy from the 1930s to the early 1970s was for the
federal government to assume greater amounts of
responsibility for the public good.
American liberals established the welfare state
with the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935.
Harry Hopkins—a social worker, the head of the
Federal Emergency Relief Administration, a confi-
dant of President Roosevelt, a co-architect of the
New Deal, and a consummate political ­operative—
developed the calculus for American ­liberalism: “tax,
tax; spend, spend; elect, elect.”43 This approach
was elegant in its simplicity: The government taxes
the wealthy, thereby securing the necessary reve-
nues to fund social programs for workers and the
poor. This approach dominated social policy for
almost 50 years. In fact, it was so successful that by
1980 the social welfare accounted for 57 percent of
all federal expenditures.44
By the mid-1960s, the welfare state had become
a central fixture in America, and politicians sought
to expand its benefits to more constituents. Focus-
ing on the expansion of middle-class programs such
as Federal Housing Administration (FHA) home
mortgages, federally insured student loans, Medi-
care, and veterans’ pensions, liberal policymakers
secured the political loyalty of the middle class.
Even conservative politicians respected voter sup-
port for the welfare state, and not surprisingly, the
largest growth in social welfare spending occurred
under Republican president, Richard M. Nixon.
Despite such support, the promise of the U.S.
welfare state to provide social protection similar
to Western Europe never materialized. By the mid-
1970s, the hope of traditional liberals to build a
welfare state mirroring those of northern Europe
had been replaced by an incremental approach that
focused narrowly on consolidating and fine-tuning
the programs of the Social Security Act. One rea-
son for this failure was the ambivalence of many
­Americans toward centralized government. “The
emphasis consistently has been on the local, the
Social Policy and the American Welfare State 13
pluralistic, the voluntary, and the business-like over the
national, the universal, the legally entitled, and the gov-
ernmental,” observed policy analyst Marc Bendick.45
Liberalism lost ground for another reason.
The Social Security Act of 1935—the hallmark
of ­A merican liberalism—was primarily a self-­
financing social insurance program that rewarded
working people. Public assistance programs that
contained less political capital were therefore a bet-
ter measure of public compassion, were rigorously
means-tested, sparse in their benefits, and oper-
ated by the less than generous states. For example,
although Social Security benefits were indexed to
the cost of living in the mid-1970s, AFDC benefits
deteriorated so badly that about half its value was
lost between 1975 and 1992. At the same time that
Social Security reforms reduced the elderly poverty
rate by 50 percent, the plight of poor non-working
families worsened.
Neoliberalism By the late 1970s, the liberal belief
that the welfare state was the best mechanism
to advance the public good was in retreat. What
remained of traditional liberalism was replaced by a
neoliberalism that was more cautious of government,
less antagonistic toward big business, and more skep-
tical about the value of universal entitlements.
The defeat of Jimmy Carter and the election of
a Republican Senate in 1980 forced many liberal
Democrats to reevaluate their party’s traditional
position on domestic policy. This reexamination,
which Charles Peters christened “neoliberalism” to
differentiate it from old-style liberalism, attracted
only a small following in the early 1980s. 46 By
the mid-1990s, however, most leading Democrats
could be classified as neoliberal. Randall Rothen-
berg charted signs of the influence of neoliberal-
ism on the Democratic domestic policy platform
as early as 1982, when he observed that the party’s
midterm convention did not endorse a large-scale
federal jobs program, did not endorse a national
health insurance plan, and did not submit a plan
for a guaranteed annual income.47
In the late 1980s, a cadre of prominent main-
stream Democrats established the Democratic
Leadership Council (DLC). In part, their goal was
to wrest control of the Democratic Party from tradi-
tional liberals and to create a new Democratic Party
that was more attuned to the beliefs of traditional
core voters. In 1989, the DLC released The New
Orleans Declaration: A Democratic Agenda for the
 14 pa r t 1 American Social Welfare Policy
1990s, which promised that Democratic Party poli-
tics would shift toward a middle ground combining
a corporatist economic analysis with Democratic
compassion. Two of the founders of the DLC were
Al Gore and Bill Clinton, who chaired the DLC just
before announcing his candidacy.48
Compared to traditional liberals, neoliberals
were more forgiving of the behavior of large cor-
porations and were opposed to economic protec-
tionism. They were also opposed to strong financial
regulation, which helps explain why the repeal of
the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act (the act curbed spec-
ulation in commercial banking) was passed under
the neoliberal Clinton administration. Some
commentators partly attribute the 2007 global
financial crisis to the repeal of Glass-Steagall. 49
(Clinton later apologized for supporting the repeal
of Glass-Steagall.)
Grounded in realpolitik, neoliberals viewed
the New Deal approach as too expensive and
antiquated to address the mood of voters. They
distanced themselves from the large-scale govern-
mental welfare programs associated with Demo-
crats since the New Deal. Like their neoconservative
counterparts, they called for reliance on personal
responsibility, work, and thrift as an alternative to
governmental programs. Accordingly, their wel-
fare proposals mirrored conservative proposals by
emphasizing labor market participation (workfare),
personal responsibility (time-limited welfare ben-
efits), family obligations (child support enforce-
ment), and frugality in governmental spending.
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich advo-
cated a postliberal formulation that replaced social
welfare entitlements with investments in human
capital. Public spending was divided into “good”
and “bad” categories. Bad was unproductive
expenditures on welfare and price supports; good
was investments in human capital, such as educa-
tion, research, and job training.50
Neoliberalism altered the traditional liberal
concept of the public good. Instead of viewing the
interests of large corporations as antithetical to
the best interests of society, they argued for free
trade, less regulation, and a laissez-faire approach
to social problems. They also viewed labor unions
with caution. The new shapers of the public good
had systematically excluded key actors of the old
liberal coalition.
The neoliberal view of the public good reflects
a kind of postmodern perspective. For neoliberals,
the public good is elusive, and its form is fluid.
Obama Presidential Campaign 2008
Source: John Beam/Alamy Stock Photo
Definitions of the public good change as new power
relationships emerge. Hence, neoliberals view the
public good in the context of a postindustrial soci-
ety composed of new opportunities and new insti-
tutional forms.
Neoliberalism is largely a political strategy and
pragmatic mode of operation rather than a politi-
cal philosophy with a firm position on the public
good. That is both its strength and weakness. The
strength of neoliberalism is its ability to compro-
mise and change to accomplish goals. Its weakness
is that when faced with an ideological critique, it
is incapable of formulating a cogent ideological
response. President Obama fits squarely within
the pragmatic neoliberal orientation, which partly
explains his refusal to enact strong banking regula-
tions in the aftermath of the global financial crisis
and his support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership
trade deal.
The Self-Reliance School A perspective gaining
influence in economically distressed areas and in
developing countries is the self-reliance school.51
This school maintains that industrial economic
models are irrelevant to the economic needs of poor
communities and are often damaging to the spiri-
tual life of people.52 Adherents of self-reliance reject
the emphasis of Western economies on economic
growth and the belief that the quality of life can
be measured by material acquisitions. These econ-
omists stress a balanced economy based on the real
needs of people, production designed for internal
consumption rather than export, productive tech-
nologies that are congruent with the culture and
background of the population, the use of appropriate
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of the eastern coast, if I remember right; their chawats here are often
absurdly small, not even answering the purpose for which they are
intended: one or two have head-dresses of bark, ornamented with
little cowrie-shells, the breadth being sometimes five inches, differing
from the padded helmets we saw on the wax seekers; heavy
necklaces of beads are worn by the men as well as by the women; a
few of the young girls have petticoats composed entirely of beads,
on a groundwork of cloth or perhaps bark.
As I have advanced into the country I have noticed many
clearings on the ridges of the highest hills—perhaps fifty yards in
length. It is in these places that the bones of their chief men rest. As
far as I understand their ways, they place the corpse in a sort of box,
fashioned sometimes like the body of a deer, or what a Murut fancies
is a resemblance, until all the flesh is dissolved from the bones;
these are then placed in a jar, and left on the lofty spots I have
mentioned. I noticed many of these jars in my forced march from
Molu, above the sites of the old Tabun villages, and to the intense
disgust of my guide they were found broken, and the skulls extracted
by the marauding Kayans.
I lately, also, discovered one near my house with the bones nearly
dissolved. It was most probably buried there before the Borneans
turned Mahomedans, as no Muruts have lived on the hills near the
capital since, at least so says tradition. It was found a couple of
hundred yards from the site of the old East India Company’s factory,
which was abandoned about eighty or ninety years ago. The poor
men are said to have their bones buried, while the chiefs have theirs
added to those of their ancestors. I hear the Millanaus follow a
custom somewhat similar. When a chief dies, they place the body in
a shed with a raised floor, and cover it over with sand: they leave it
there, till all the dissolvable parts have run through the open flooring,
and when the remains are perfectly dry, they collect and place them
in a jar. All the relations and friends are then summoned, and they
feast and rejoice for seven days.
I have procured some honey to-day, as I strongly suspect I shall
have little but plain boiled rice to live on during the journey back.
 CHAPTER VI.
MY LIMBANG JOURNAL—Continued.

Commence the return Journey—Kayan Embassy—Indian Corn—

Confidence of the People—Ophthalmia—Old Jar—Gratitude
rarely shown—Anecdote—Warning to Amateur Doctors—Bezoar
Stones—Arrangements at Si Lopong’s—A Nightcap—Desertion
of our Guides—Murut Music—Start for the Adang—Warned of
Difficulties—Abundance of Rice—Cross the Adang Mountains—
Active Girls—The Anœctochilus—Attack of Fever—Arrangements
in case of its continuance—Loss of Chamber to Revolver—Reach
the Adang—Legend—Construct four Rafts—Pleasant Movement
—Trying Position of one of the Men—The first Rapid passed—
Difficulties at the second—Bold Swimmer—A Whirlpool—Danger
of Drowning—Our Raft tested—Abandoned—The rest wrecked—
Pass the Umur—Reach the Limbang—Construct fresh Rafts—
Uneasy Anticipations—Heavy Fresh—Fine Specimen of a Raft—
Push off—Dangers and Troubles—The Rafts ungovernable—The
Roaring of Waters—Overhanging Cliffs—The Cataract—Awe of
the Men—Shoot the Cataract—Narrow Escape—Its Height—The
Men recover their Voice—Ineffectual Attempts to stop the Raft—
Caught in a Whirlpool—Safety—Arrival of the other Rafts—
Dangers ahead—Walk—Abandon the Rafts—State of Provisions
—Nearly all consumed—Ahtan’s Secret Store—Rocks—Advance
over the Kalio Hills—Sparing the Food—Exhausting climbing
—“Jog on”—Feed on the Cabbages of the Bengkala Palm—
Almost a Mutiny—Facing the Difficulty—Reach the Summit of the
Paya Paya, or “very difficult” Hills—Night on the Summit—Our
Tent—The last Fowl—Molu—The greatest Difficulties passed—
Country more open—Follow the Banks of the River—Distress of
the Men—Improvidence—Curious Sounds in the old Forest—Cry
of the Argus Pheasant—of the Jelatuk—Rending of a Mighty Tree
—Danger from Decaying Trees—Cock-fights among the Argus
Pheasants.
27th.—Returned by a new path, and a shorter one, to Tabari’s
house. Again Lawi was so covered with clouds that nothing but his
base could be seen: it appeared about fifteen miles off in a S.W.
direction. I hear that the Limbang rises in that mountain. There are
houses at its base, two of which were lately attacked by the Kayans
and destroyed. Just before my arrival the Kayans sent over six men
to inquire whether the Muruts of the upper Trusan would submit to
them and pay tribute; if they would do so all attacks should cease. It
is very probable that these men came over as spies, to find out the
easiest way of reaching the upper country. I missed them by a
couple of days.
We stopped to breakfast about half a mile before we reached
Tabari’s village, at a house that was literally overflowing with Indian
corn. We should have laid in a stock but that they asked absurd
prices. Everywhere the people of the country were busy planting,
and we continually came upon parties working in the fields. They
showed no fear whatever, the news having spread very rapidly
through the country that our objects were friendly. From Tabari’s we
followed the old path to Ballang Palo’s, where we rested the night. In
passing through this village, I had given a man afflicted with sore
eyes a little sulphate of zinc: he already had found, or fancied he
found, some benefit from the medicine, and in remembrance brought
me a jar of arrack, containing about three quarts, which he insisted I
must drink. The old jar was a curious specimen of former Chinese
work, which had most probably been with the Muruts for many
generations. It was blue, with numerous figures of dragons upon it.
As the sulphate of zinc had once acted well, I found numerous
customers for it, a great many being troubled with sore eyes,
perhaps from crowding over their smoky fires during the cold nights.
I mention the circumstance of the poor fellow bringing the arrack, as,
how grateful soever they may be in their hearts for a kindness, they
seldom show it. I have not known half a dozen instances during my
whole residence in the East. It is not always quite safe to administer
medicine, particularly when the amateur doctor promises that a cure
will result from his exertions, as the following story will show. A Bukar
Dayak had a son, who fell ill of the small-pox, and a native doctor
offered his services, assuring the father he could cure his child;
unfortunately for him, however, notwithstanding all the medicine he
administered, the child died, when the father, accusing him of having
wilfully caused the death of his son, drew his sword and killed him on
the spot. As this event took place while the Bukar tribe was still
under the authority of the Sultan of Brunei, a fine only was inflicted
for this summary act of vengeance. We sat up rather late, but as we
had no man with us, who could freely converse in their language, the
Orang Kaya Upit having stayed behind on a trading speculation, we
could only drink together, and look very solemn. I have noticed the
very few marketable articles these people have for sale, but one of
them brought me to-day a very large bezoar stone, an inch and a
half in length, and two and a half in circumference. They say they
procure them from the monkeys, whom they kill to seek for this
stone, and while some affirm they find them in the head, others
declare they take them from the bladder. The ones I have seen are
of a clear brown, highly polished, and not heavier than a similar
piece of very light wood.
28th.—On to Si Lopong’s. I found that even Murut arrack is a very
bad assistant to exertion. I stayed this night at the house preparatory
to a start in the morning. We are in great hopes that some of the
Muruts will walk with us as far as the spot where we intend to
construct rafts, and thus give us a good stock of provisions to
commence operations upon; but nothing could be arranged on
account of Si Lopong’s absence. In the evening he came home, and
immediately brought out two basins of arrack, one of which he
handed to me, and said we must drink in remembrance of our
friendship. Having complied with his desire, I began to enter into our
business, but before I could utter a dozen words he lay back on his
mat and was fast asleep. He had arrived drunk, as no doubt, at
every village, he had been feasted; and the last bowl of arrack was
the night-cap. Seeing that it was hopeless to attempt to wake him, I
put off our conversation till the morning.
The men I had left behind I found tolerably recovered, and all
were ready for a start; that is, if anybody could be found to carry the
baggage. Most of the guides had given up their intention to return: Si
Nuri intended to spend a month or two with his first wife; Kadayan
was kept by his family, and Luñgenong would not start without the
Orang Kaya Upit; so that unless I wait here some time, we must trust
entirely to ourselves. The way to the Adang is not very difficult to
find. Waking during the night, I heard some sounds almost as
musical as those produced by a bagpipe; it came from a Murut near
at hand, who was perhaps serenading his mistress. I examined the
instrument he used, and it was very simple to produce so many
notes. Two thin bamboos, about twelve inches long, were fastened
very neatly side by side; in one was cut four holes like those in a
flute, while the other had a long piece of grass inserted in the lower
end. A slight incision was then cut across both towards the upper
portion. The performer thrust this instrument rather deep into his
mouth and blew, and then, with the aid of tongue, fingers, and
moving the grass, produced some very agreeable and wild tunes. I
watched him for some time as he sat by the side of a flickering fire,
but being tired, it at last lulled me to sleep.
29th.—Si Lopong is naturally very unwilling to start without his
relation, the Orang Kaya Upit; he says that he cannot be many days,
as he has only to wait for the return of the party of Main Muruts, who
have gone to fetch him some slaves. This settles the question, and I
start without guides. Unfortunately, the Orang Kaya has with him the
hunting dogs I purchased at Tabari’s. Our intention is to walk to the
Adang River, and construct rafts on which to float down the stream.
The Muruts have always warned us that it is too full of cataracts,
rapids, and huge rocks, to be descended by rafts, and that, if they
fail us, the country is impassable; but my men are eager to try the
easy method of returning, and I am desirous of following the course
of the Limbang.
6 p. m.—We got away at 9 a.m. I explained to my men that I
would not allow our guides to bring slaves into our party; that all the
shame of the transaction would fall on me; and that if the Orang
Kaya attempted it, I would take away his boat, and let him find his
way home overland. There was rice of ours sufficient for a month’s
consumption, and I strongly advised the men to remember how they
had suffered in their former land journey. They all promised to take
twelve or fourteen days’ provisions, and I took eighteen days’,
dividing it among all the men, each to carry a day’s rice for me.
We found the Adang range a very stiff climb, and before we
reached the top I had to relieve Musa of his double barrel, he was
carrying so heavy a load. At the stream we met two hunters, and
endeavoured to persuade them to lend us a hand for one day, but
we could not bribe them. It is astonishing what habit will do. A young
girl, not above thirteen, came part of the way with us to assist in
carrying a relation’s burden, and she walked up that steep mountain,
comparatively with the most perfect ease. I here found some of
those beautiful Anœctochilus which Mr. Low wanted. I collected
about a dozen, all I could see, and put them into a tin pepper-box,
with holes in the top, to try whether they would keep. They are the
most breathtaking plants I have ever seen, with leaves through
which lines of gold, or white, or bright red run, forming a lovely
pattern. I have been shown some of the very plants I collected, now
growing luxuriantly in England, and they are the most delicate
looking ornaments for a hot-house.
After much exertion, we got about half way down the western face
of the Adang range, the rain pouring heavily; so at five p.m. we came
to a stop and pitched our tents.
30th.—The rain still continued, but we pushed on by the old path
till we came to a small stream, called the Batu Loba, where we found
some freshly constructed huts. After bathing, I felt very feverish, and
taking a dose of quinine, a large basin of rice-water, and wrapping
myself up in all the dry clothing I had, I burst into a profuse
perspiration. It was not a very agreeable night for me. I lay in my tent
alone: the men, except Musa, who watched over me, preferring the
hunters’ huts, as the floor was there dry, and they had no time to
make a raised floor in the tent for themselves, as they did for me.
The rain was coming down in torrents, which presently increased
to a terrific thunderstorm. The wind did not affect us much, we were
too low, in a hollow; but I thought if this really be fever, what a
prospect for me in this forest. I called Musa, and made every
necessary arrangement in case I should be delirious in the morning:
that two or three men should stay with me, and the rest go back to
the houses; that if I grew worse, the Muruts might be engaged to
carry me to their village; and that when I recovered, we should go
home by the Trusan, abandoning the boats, instruments, and
everything.
 I need scarcely say how joyful we all were, when in the morning I
got up without any fever, and only a little weakened by the slight
attack. I thought at the time that it might be from over-fatigue, as I
had not only carried all my instruments and arms, but had assisted
others. Some one during the night must have been amusing himself
with my revolver, as shortly after starting, on withdrawing it from its
cover, I found the chamber gone, rendering the weapon useless till
our arrival at the boats, where I had left a spare one; so I gave up
the carbine, and took to my double-barrel.
October 1st.—Continued by the old path to the Adang; hitting it,
however, a little to the northward of the point where we previously
crossed it. Here we prepared to make the rafts on which we intend to
continue our journey. We found plenty of material—light wood,
bamboos, and rattans, &c.; so we encamped on a pebbly bank, the
men hoping to be soon joined by the Muruts. During our walk to-day,
while following the ridge of the Batu Put hills, we observed on its
summit two large boulders, one some twenty-five feet in length. They
appeared to be granite, but I could not break off a piece. They bear
that rather immodest name from the following legend:—That a
famous chief of yore, disdaining to make his nuptial-couch on the
grass, fetched up these huge stones to sleep on; and they point to
some marks as the impression made by his bride’s limbs, which,
without much stretch of fancy, might be taken for the mould of a foot
and leg.
2nd.—Occupied in making rafts. The rain last night produced a
flood: the river rose about five feet, not many inches below the tent,
and is in a capital condition for a start; but making the rafts has
occupied more time than I expected, and we cannot set out to-night.
The Orang Kaya Upit has not made his appearance: I only regret the
rice we left at Si Lopong’s—he may come to-night; but I have never
expected him to follow so soon. It has been showery all the
afternoon, and I fear a wet night. We have made four rafts: old Japer
commands one with three men, Minudin with three more, Lamit and
three, then Musa, with three Malays, a boy, Ahtan, and myself. Ours
is a very strong raft of bamboo; the others appear but very shaky
affairs, the men being too lazy to work well at them.
 5th.—Started early; at first all went smoothly enough. The river
was sufficiently deep, though it had fallen. We began to congratulate
ourselves on the charming sensation of gliding down the stream,
with only the occasional trouble of pushing the raft from the bank.
The first notice we had that all was not to be smooth water was
seeing in a long reach a rock in the centre, with a dashing, breaking
fall on either side; and on this rock was one of our men standing, the
very picture of despair. Three rafts had passed, and his only chance
was to jump on to ours. We came rushing towards him at a
tremendous pace, trying to keep as near the rock as possible to give
him a better chance, and in doing so, caught it, which threw the raft
right across the stream: it rose to an angle of 45°, and we all thought
it was going over, when the broad surface presented to the water
raised it up, and it slipped past the rock. The man, after having
assisted in moving it, stood still, and we had nearly passed him; I
yelled at him, which brought him to a sense of his danger: he made a
bold spring, and just succeeded in reaching the raft. Had he
remained where he was, he must have sprung into the boiling surge,
hoping that we could pick him up if he reached the smoother water.
On arriving at the next difficult rapid, it was proposed to take out
the baggage, and then pass the rafts down, as the first had already
been buried in the water, and everything was wet through. This was
tiresome work. It is always difficult to pack and unpack during the
day’s journey; but after an hour’s hard work, we had passed all the
things down to the bottom of the rapid, except a large tambok, or
basket three feet high, made from the covering of the sago-palm
stem. This the owner thought he would take with him on the raft; but
just as he started, a wave struck it, and it rolled into the water, and
went dancing down the stream: it was full of valuables of mine and
the man’s clothing. The bold fellow sprang after, but too late to reach
it before it sank; he, however, dived till he fished it up.
Our pride in our rafts was fast leaving us when, about an hour
afterwards, we saw one of the smaller ones rushing round at a
frantic pace in a whirlpool, and three men trying to save one of their
companions, whose head we could occasionally see bobbing up: we
were on them in a minute; our strong raft went headlong against the
rock, creaked to the force of the waters, but did not break up, and we
were enabled to push the man near enough to the shore to be
seized by his companions: our raft was too long to be mastered by
the whirlpool: we just saw one man holding on to the fellow’s long
hair, as we were swept out of sight.
Our raft had bravely carried us through dangers that, one after the
other, had destroyed its companions, so that at four p.m. I very much
regretted finding it stuck firm on a great rapid that appeared a mile in
length. I proposed that we should encamp opposite, and trust to the
night’s rain to enable us to float it over; but the men said we had
better push on to the Limbang and build new rafts there; so we
walked till five, when, catching up our wrecked companions, we
pitched our tents: there was very little cheerfulness in the party that
night. We had passed through a country of nothing but low forest,
with a few hills scattered about. Our course was nearly west south-
west.
4th.—We had heavy rain during the night, which made the river
rise a fathom; so that had we stuck to our raft, we might have
advanced in her. The course of the river continued winding to the
west-south-west, passed the Umur on the right bank. Had some
difficulty in finding a ford: after five hours’ walking, reached the
Limbang. I had but a partial view of the junction; I thought it only the
end of an island, though a clear view shortly after showed, by the
augmented volume of water, that we were on the main river: walked
forward for an hour and a half, till we found sufficient light wood to
make our rafts: then pitching our tents, the men set to work
preparing them, and after doing my best to make our tent
comfortable, I am now inditing this journal. The men this afternoon
evidently think that matters are looking a little serious, and have
worked away with a will till dark.
Convinced that bamboos make bad rafts, strong but not
sufficiently buoyant, they are using only light woods;[8] and
remembering the severe blows they received in the tributary, they
are preparing for worse in the main stream. We are now beginning to
remember the warnings of the Muruts, that you cannot descend the
stream in rafts at any time, and in boats only in fine weather; and the
addition, that if the rafts fail now, the country is composed of such
steep mountains that it would be impossible to cross them. I hear
these not very cheerful discussions going on around me; but the
sanguine portion of my retainers point to the beautiful smooth
stream, whose banks we have followed for several miles.
5th.—There was much rain last night, with thunder and lightning;
and the river rose a fathom, and is continuing to rise, concealing any
signs of rapids in the long reach before us. The men are determined
that this time the rafts shall be strong enough: ours is a model,
twenty-two feet long by six in breadth, composed of a double layer of
trees, the lower nine large ones, the upper a dozen smaller trees; on
this is a raised platform, on which we have stowed our provisions
and goods. We have all got on it to try its buoyancy, and find that it is
not an inch out of water, but that is immaterial. I have just been
round to look at the different rafts. Though not so good as ours, they
are all tolerably strong; and the men having breakfasted, I have
given the orders to put off; and now, at mid-day, we are starting.
Our course was at first very pleasant. The river was broad, deep,
and sufficiently rapid; but, after a few reaches, this changed, and
bluff points began to invade the stream. Now we were hurled against
a rock, or pressed against the bank; the next moment we were in a
whirlpool, flying about, and with difficulty getting out of it. These
whirlpools were so deep, that with our longest poles, and they were
four fathoms, we could not reach the bottom. At one very large one,
we continued going in a circle for above ten minutes, when we saw a
companion raft coming down upon us. We shouted to the men to try
and sheer off, but it was of no use, and it crashed into us; however,
the damage was all for them. Our heavy raft merely sank a foot, and
was driven near enough to the bank to enable us to get out of this
whirlpool, leaving our friends to repair damages while taking the
successive turns from which they had driven us. I soon began to find
that our rafts were unmanageable, and that we must allow the
stream to carry us whither it pleased.
After moving on at a good pace for about a couple of hours, we
heard a roaring in the distance, and I called to the men to stop the
raft if possible, and send ahead to see what was the cause of this
sound; but they thought they could pass the rapid which was before
us, and concluded that it produced the roar we heard. I was of a very
different opinion. This one was bad enough; but in turning the point,
how shall I describe the scene that was presented to me? The
almost perpendicular hills closed in on the river, their lofty trees
meeting in an arch overhead, and the waters dashing through the
narrow space, tumbling over huge rocks, raised waves like those of
an angry sea on a rocky shore; but the worst spot was where the
cliffs appeared to have fallen across the stream, damming it to half
its width by a huge tree-crowned rock, and forming two foaming
cascades.
We had been told that the cataract was nine fathoms deep. To
stop the raft was impossible: the pace was too great; and, as we
approached this formidable danger, the men burst into a prayer,
which, though they shouted at the tops of their voices, could scarcely
be heard in the roar. I spoke not, but clutched the side of the raft with
one hand and Ahtan with the other, for fear we should be swept off.
As we came to the edge of the cataract, it looked so deep that the
men were awed into silence, and my only thought was, Can we ever
rise out of that abyss? Down we went. We felt a slight shock, the raft
trembled, and in another moment we were buried in the recoiling
waves. We rose again, our bows forced up into the air, and the stern
completely hidden as I glanced round to look if the men were there,
and then over the second tier of rocks, which were not so serious, as
there was a deep pool beyond; and though we were again buried
beneath the waters, yet we touched no rock. At the first cataract we
but grazed the bottom. Had we struck, our raft must have been
dashed to pieces; as it was, the centre trunk was driven from its
place—I was about to say, like an arrow from a bow; but how far it
went I cannot say; it left no trace behind it.
I have attempted since to estimate the length of these falls; but,
after allowing for the exaggeration natural to remembrance of one’s
own adventures, I cannot think they were less than three and two
fathoms, but probably more. However, we passed so rapidly that it
was impossible to judge correctly. On we went, over a small cataract;
and then the men gave vent to their feelings in a frantic yell, which
they had been unable to utter after the great danger. As we cleared
the point, we heard shouts from the bank; and, looking up, saw four
of our men calling upon us to stop, as there were worse dangers
ahead.
As this reach was tolerably smooth, one of the men sprang into
the stream with a long rattan in his hand, hoping to reach the shore,
but it was dragged from him before he was half way. Then Musa,
choosing a better spot, plunged in; he reached the shore, but, before
he could land, the rattan was torn from his grasp, and we were swept
away. I saw Musa, breathless, trying to free himself from the waves
that dashed him against the rocks, and in another moment we were
out of sight.
Our two skilled men were gone; but we managed to keep the raft
straight, and presently we were caught in a whirlpool. This was our
best chance; one of the men sprang into the water, and was soon
ashore. The rattan was twisted round a tree just as the stream
caught us. This was a trying moment. The rattan began to part as
the great strain came upon it; so I ordered the last man to make
straight for the shore, and draw the raft out of the strength of the
stream. The men really exerted themselves; and, in almost less time
than it takes me to write this down, we were moored comfortably
under the bank.
Presently one of the other rafts came round the point; they tried to
join me, but were swept to the other side, where they brought up; the
next followed, and was also secured; the fourth soon came round the
point, but with only old Japer upon it. I trembled for him, but the old
fellow was used to danger, and cleverly brought himself under the
opposite rocks, and threw a rattan on shore. This, however, was torn
out of the hand of a stupid man who ought to have twisted it round a
stump or a rock; nevertheless, an active fellow sprang from one of
the already secured rafts into Japer’s, and twisted a strong rattan
round one of the trunks. Now all were interested, and rushed to help
to prevent the great stream carrying away the rafts.
I was very pleased to see Musa join me. He presently went
ahead; and, after an hour’s absence, returned, telling me he had
found a spot where we could secure ourselves for the night; but that
the men requested that I and Ahtan, as the non-swimmers, would
walk to the night’s resting-place. We found the way very difficult; and,
after half an hour’s hard work, reached the rafts. I now heard that
three of the most active of the party had gone ahead to examine. We
had brought up the rafts in a kind of bay, with the rocks below
stretching across the river, forming formidable rapids. At six p.m. the
scouts returned, bringing the unpleasant news that the river for about
two miles was one succession of rapids; in fact, as far as they had
seen it, it was a continued sheet of white foam, from the innumerable
rocks which studded the stream. To proceed in the rafts was quite
impossible, so we made up our minds to walk.
Now I thought matters began to look sombre, particularly as Ahtan
came to tell me that he had been to several of the men for my rice,
and had found that they had only a day’s provisions left. Upon this I
called the men up, and ascertained that three men had still six days’
rice, three had four days’, four had two days’, and the rest only
provisions for one day; and, what was very serious for me and
Ahtan, all our rice had been consumed, except sufficient for two
days.
It was useless to reproach the men, so I called Ahtan on one side,
and proposed to him that we should in future take thin rice-water,
and trust to the cabbage-palm for our chief support. To this he readily
agreed, and then added in a whisper that he had about two cupfuls
of tapioca flour. I persuaded him that this should be kept, in case one
of us fell ill. I must confess that, being excessively hungry, I was not
sorry to find that he had cooked a fowl—the last but one—and boiled
a lot of rice, before he discovered how short we were. We divided
the food into two portions, and dined heartily.
Rocks, sandstone, dipping to the north-east, at an angle of 18°. It
was in the great cataract, to-day, that my journal was wetted. As we
were twice buried in the recoiling waves, nothing but a single change
escaped being soaked. We made great fires to dry our clothes, but
the continuous rain prevented our completely succeeding.
 6th.—I was up at dawn. There was not much cooking; but Ahtan
having saved a little cold rice, we breakfasted off that, and then
started. We found the Muruts were correct in their account of the
country. The walking was very difficult indeed, either along the sides
of precipitous hills or up the face of them, where our hands came
into as much play as our feet. I kept the men at it till five p.m.,
making but little advance over this very difficult country. We were
evidently crossing the Kalio hills which I had noticed on our left in our
walk from Madihit, and then estimated at 5,500 feet; but my
barometer was now out of order.
We encamped on the summit of one of the mountains; and,
having found a little water, we cooked. I noticed that none of the men
followed our example of sparing the food, but eat as if they had been
at home; so that but half have any rice left. I had for a week
preserved a small glass of brandy; and, believing it impossible to feel
more exhausted, I drank it, for the last climb had been such as to
render a farther advance impossible for any of us.
7th.—To-day the walking was worse than ever—so steep that my
heart almost failed me, but knowing how everybody looked to me, I
did not give way. How continually those lines came to my memory,
and how often I found myself repeating them—

“Jog on, jog on the footpath way,

And merrily hent the stile-a;
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.”

We kept on till twelve, when we stopped at a stream to breakfast

on the cabbages of the bengkala palm; exceedingly delicious, but
not satisfying; it was like living on sugar and water. Here the old
Pablat man said he must stay behind, as he had an attack of
elephantiasis. I left his son-in-law with him, and pushed on.
We followed the torrent’s course for some time over broken rocks,
when the man we had constituted our guide turned to the left
towards a mountain that looked nearly perpendicular. There was
almost a mutiny; even Musa declared that they could not face it—
they must try the bank of the river. I represented to them that the
Muruts had warned us that it was impossible to follow that course;
but they kept repeating they would like to try, so I gave way, and we
continued for half an hour, till we reached the Limbang. Here the
banks were perpendicular, and we all sat down for half an hour,
looking gloomily at the foaming stream.
But this being of no use, I rose and told the guide that we must go
back to the spot he had before chosen. The men feeling rather
ashamed of themselves, got up with more alacrity, and we faced the
difficulty, commencing the ascent at two p.m., but did not reach the
summit till six p.m., and yet we worked as hard as we possibly could,
hoping to get down to the banks of a running stream. These were
evidently the Paya Paya, or the “very difficult” hills. For several
hundred yards we moved up a narrow spur, about five feet broad
generally, but occasionally narrowing to a single foot, so steep that
we had to place our rifles and guns before us as far as we could
reach, and then pull ourselves up to them.
The sun went down before we stopped for the night. There was
no water, but there was a prospect of heavy rain, and strong puffs of
wind, as black clouds were gathering to the north-east. It was seven
o’clock before I got my tent pitched on a ridge not three feet broad;
and then, there being nothing to eat or drink, we lay down and slept
on our weariness. Fortunately for me, I had managed to dry my
Scotch plaid during our stay for breakfast; and, wrapping myself up
in that best of all companions, I did not feel the cutting winds. I
awoke for a few minutes in the middle of the night, to find that the
cold had driven the men to light a fire; but before I could distinctly
distinguish any one I was off to sleep again, and did not wake till the
sun shone on my face. Yesterday satisfied me that I was in excellent
condition to endure fatigue, as, though I had not drunk any water
since breakfast, I felt no thirst.
8th.—Being excessively hungry, I determined to have the
remaining fowl, a mere chicken, for breakfast. I thought we deserved
it, having had nothing to eat for dinner, so it was killed before we
started. An hour’s walk brought us to the end of the mountain ridge,
and gave us a fine view of the country. There was Molu with its
highest peak bearing west by south, proving that the western peak,
under which we were last February, is not the loftiest.
It appeared to me that we had clearly passed the greatest
difficulties as regards country; it was now more open, the hills
drawing back farther from the banks of the river, which wound at our
feet some three thousand feet below. I now knew from the bearings
that we were north of our boats; they lay as nearly as possible
between us and Molu. I therefore proposed to the men that we
should abandon the main stream and push due west, straight for the
Madihit; but they had no faith in compasses, and seeing a mountain
range nearly as high as the one we were on between us and what I
affirmed to be the Madihit, they said they preferred keeping to the
banks of the Limbang, which now appeared to be less difficult.
We did not long continue admiring this extensive prospect; our
thoughts referred to water and something to eat, so we commenced
the descent, which was nearly as steep as yesterday’s ascent; but
going down hill, though trying to the knees, does not take away the
breath. We did not, however, reach a stream till nearly two, when we
stopped for breakfast. Ahtan, smiling at the thought of a fowl, got the
breakfast ready in a very short time. The men proposed that we
should spend the night here, but I declined, insisting that we should
reach the Limbang. It poured with rain, but it was necessary we
should exert ourselves. I pushed on with Ahtan and two others.
When I was gone, one of the men lay down in the path and burst
out crying, saying he should never see his mother again; a
companion threw himself down too, but the rest of the party followed
me. These two I rather pitied, as this was their second day without
rice; but they and their two friends were the most improvident of the
lot. One day they began to cook without orders; the rice was just
wetted, but they were told to move on, and not cook till we all
stopped. They therefore wrapped up their breakfast, and moved on.
Presently I saw a packet, and picking it up, found that they had
thrown away the rice, saying it was too much trouble to carry it;
another party, on its being handed to them, quickly appropriated it.
Another day they cooked three times, throwing away what was left. It
was disgusting to see such waste of food; but they suffered for it. At
five p.m. I reached the main stream, and feared I should have to
encamp without tents, as I could hear nothing of the party. One of
the men volunteered to go back to search for them, and at sunset
they were all collected.
I know of no sounds more curious than those which are
sometimes heard in the old forest. Last night we frequently noticed
the cries of the Argus pheasant, both male and female. In the deep
silence one is startled by the thrice-repeated “Tu-wau,” in a clear and
sonorous tone, and that is the crow of the cock. The cry of the
female is similar, but more quickly repeated; but both are very
pleasing to hear. Occasionally, also, we could distinguish the clear
and distinct note of the Jelatuk bird, which a stranger might mistake
for the echo of a stroke from an axe.
There is another sound, only heard in the oldest forest, and that is
as if a mighty tree were rent in twain. I often asked the cause, and
was assured it was the camphor tree splitting asunder, on account of
the accumulation of camphor in some particular part—an explanation
which was not satisfactory. During heavy squalls we have often been
put in fear by the crash of falling timber; but our men were very
particular in not pitching the tents near half-rotten trees. The Argus
pheasant is found in many places we have passed during this
expedition, and occasionally in the jungle we have come across
open spots strewed with the feathers of the cock bird, where two
have been struggling for mastery. It would appear as if they always
chose the same spots for their fights, as the ground was free from
grass and brushwood, and was beaten hard.
 CHAPTER VII.
MY LIMBANG JOURNAL—Concluded.

Stopped for a Day—Five start for Provisions—The Sick Men left

behind join us—No Shoes—Weakness from want of Food—
Leeches—Stop again—Collect Food—Anecdote of Female
Orang Utan and Murut—Again construct Rafts—Present of a Cup
full of Rice—Start on the Rafts—Abandon them—A Bear—The
River—Immense Pebbly Flats—Long Walks—Traces of the
Advance Party—Wild Fruit—Sour Oranges—Recognize a Hill—
Fruit of the Jintawan, or Indian-rubber Plant—Find Remains of
Bees’-nest—The British Flag—Reach the Madihit—Bad Conduct
of the Advance Party—Food nearly all consumed—An unfeeling
Father—Proposed Punishment—Ravages of the Bears—
Anecdote of Ahtan—Return in the Boats—The Herd of Wild
Cattle—Wound a Bull, but do not get it—A slight Supper—Start in
a Sampir—Ahtan ill—The last of the Food—News from Brunei—
Reach the Town—Arrival of the rest of the Party—Bornean
Travelling—Measure Distance by Fatigue—Slow Progress
necessary—Active Murut—Average Rate of Advance—Great
Mistakes made in the Estimates of Distance—Instances—Mr.
Motley’s Account of his Advance up the Limbang—Mr. De
Crespigny’s Mistake in the Latitude of the River Damit and
Position of the Mountain of Molu—Remarks on the Map—Causes
of the continued Health of my Followers—The Tents—Mistake in
trusting to Native Huts—Native Geographical Information tested
—Found correct—Arrival of the Orang Kaya Upit—Tragical Death
of Pangeran Mokata, the Shabandar—Two Years after—Sad Fate
of a Party of Adang Muruts—Murder by Orang Kaya Gomba—
Head-hunting—Heads valued, but none seen—Incident of
meeting Head-hunters—No Treacherous Designs—Inefficient
Government—Desecration of the Graveyards—Chinese Secret
Societies, or Hués—Ahtan joins one—Robbery of the Iron Chest
from the Consulate—The Sultan’s Method of extorting a
Confession—Obstinacy of Ahtan—Officers of the Secret Society
—Chest restored—Prisoners released—The Hué broken up—
Treatment of Prisoners—Musa and the Priest—Threats—
Personal Regard for some of my Followers.