A Strategy to End Poverty

8/14/2019 A Strategy to End Poverty

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THE WEIGHT OF THE POORA STRATEGY TO END POVERTYRICHARD A. CLOWARDM r . Cloward is prof es sor of socral work, and MrsPiven I S aresearch associate, both at the ColumbiaUniversity School ofSocial W o r k .

and FRANCES FOX PIVEN

How can the poor be organized to press for relief from pov-erty? How can a broad-based movement be developed andthe current dlsarray of activist forces be halted? These ques-tions confront, and confound, activists today. It is our pur-pose to advance a strategywhich affords the basis for aconvergence ofcivil rights organizations, militant anti-pov-erty groups and the poor. If this strategy were implemented,a politicalcrisiswouldresult that could ead to legislationfor a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.

The strategy is based on the fact that a vast discrepancyexists between the benefits to which people are entitled un-der public welfare programs and the sums which they actu-ally receive. This gulf is not recognized in a society that iswholly and self-righteously oriented toward getting peopleoff the welfare rolls. It is widely known, for example, thatnearly 8 million persons (half of them white) now subsist onwelfare, but it is not generally known that for every personon the rolls at least one more probably meets existing cri-teria of eligibillty but is not obtaining assistance.

The discrepancy is not an accident stemming from bureau-cratic inefficiency; rather, t is an integral feature of thewelfare systemwhich, if challenged, would precipitate aprofound financial and politicalcrisis. The force for thatchallenge, and the strategy we propose, s a massive driveto recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls.

The distribution of public assistance has been a local andstate responsibility, and that accounts in large part for theabysmal character of welfare practices. Despite the growinginvolvement of federal agencies in supervisory and reim-bursement arrangements, state and ocal community forcesare still deciswe. The poor are most visible and proximatein the local community; antagonism oward hem (and to-ward the agencieswhich are implicatedwith them) hasalways, therefore, been more intense locally than at thefederal level. In recent years, local communitles have in-creasingly felt class and ethnic friction generated by com-petition for neighborhoods, schools, jobs and political power.Public welfare systems are under the constant stress of con-flict and opposition, made only sharper by the rising coststo localities of public aid. And, to accommodate this pres-sure, welfare practice everywhere has become more restric-tive than welfare statute; much of the time i t verges onlawlessness. Thus, public welfaresystems try to keep theirbudgets down and their rolls low by failing to inform peo-ple of the rights available to them; by intimidating andshaming them to the degree that they are reluctant eitherto apply or to press claims, and by arbitrarily denying bene-fits to those who are eligible.

A series of welfare drives in large cities would, we be-lieve. mpel action on a new federal program to distribute510

income, eliminating the present public welfare system aalleviating the abject poverty which it perpetrates. Widspread campa~gns o register the eligible poor for welfaaid, and to help existing recipients obtain their full benefwould produce bureaucratic disruption in welfare agencand fiscal disruption in ocal and state governments. Thedisruptions would generate severeolitical strains, adeepen xistingdivisions mong lements in hebigcityDemocratic coalition: the remaining white middle class, twhite working-class ethnic groups and the growing minoripoor. To avoid a further weakening of that historic coation, a national Democratic administration woulde costrained to advance a federal solution to poverty that wouoverride localwelfare failures, local class and racial coflicts and local evenuedilemmas. By the internal disrution of local bureaucratic practices, by the furor over pubwelfare poverty, and by the collapse of current financiarrangements, powerful forces can eenerated for majeconomic reforms at the national level.

The ultimate objective of this strategy-to wipe opoverty by establlshlng a guaranteed annual income-willbequestioned by some.Because the ideal of individsocial and economic mobility has deep roots, even activisseem reluctant to call for national programs to eliminpoverty by the outright redlstribution of income. Insteaprograms are demanded to enable people to becomeeconomically competitive. But such programs are of no use millions of today's poor. For example, one-third of themillion poor Americans are in families headed by femaltheseheads of family cannot be aided appreciably by jretraining, higher minimum wages, accelerated rates of ecnomic growth, or employment in public works projects. Ncan the 5 million aged who are poor, nor those whose poerty results from the ill health of the wage earner. Prograto enhance individual mobility will chiefly benefit the veyoung, if not the asyet unborn. Individual mobility isanswer to the question of how to abolish the massive prolem of poverty now.

It has never been the full answer. If many people in tpast have found their way up from poverty by the pathindlvidual mobdity, many others have taken a differeroute. Organized labor stands out as a major example. Athough many American workers never yielded their dreaof individual achievement, they accepted and practiced tprinciple that each can benefit only as the status of woers as a whole is elevated. They bargained for collectmobility, not for indlvidual mobility; to promote their ftunes in the aggregate, not to promote the prospects of oworker over another. And if each finally found himself the same relative economlc relationship to his fellowswhen he began, it was nevertheless clear that all were innitely better off. That fact has sustained the labor movemin the face of a counter pull from the ideal of individachievement.

Butmany of the contemporary poor will not rise froTHE NATION1 M a y 2, 19


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poverty by organizing to bargain collectively. Theyeitherare not in the labor force or are In such marginal and dis-persed occupations (e.g., domestic servants) that it is ex-tremely dlfficult oorganize hem.Compared with othergroups, then,many of todays poorcannotsecurea redis-tribution of income by organizing within the institution ofprivate enterprise. A federal program of income redistribu-tion hasbecome necessary toelevate hepooren massefrom poverty.Several ways have been proposed for redistributing in-come through the federal government. I t is not our purposehere o assess the relative merits of these plans, which arestill undergoing debateand clarification. Whatever mech-anism is eventually adopted, however, i t must nclude cer-tain features if it is not merely to perpetuate n a newguise the present evils of the public welfare system.First, adequate levels of income must be assured. (Publicwelfare levels are astonishingly low; indeed, states typicallydefine a minimum standard of living and then grant onlya percentage of it, so that families are held well below whatthe government itself officially defines as the poverty level.)Furthermore, ncome should be distributedwithout equir-ing that reclpients first divest themselves of their assets, aspublic welfare now does, thereby pauperizing families as acondition of sustenance.

Second, the right to Income mustbeguaranteed,or theoppression of the welfare poor will not be eliminated. Be-cause benefits are conditional under the present public wel-fare system, submission to arbitrary governmental power isregularly made heprice of sustenance.Peoplehave beencoerced intoattending literacy classes or participating inmedical or vocational rehabilitation regimes, on pain of hav-ing their benefits terminated. Men are forced into labor onvirtually any erms lest they forfeit heir welfare aid. Onecan prize literacy,healthandwork, while still vigorouslyopposing the ight of government to compelcompliancewith these values.Condltional beneflts thus result n violations of civil lib-erties throughout he nation, and n a pervasive oppressionof the poor. And these violations are not less real becausethe impulse leading o them is altruistic and he agency isprofessional. If new systems of income distribution con-tinue to permit the professional bureaucracies to choose whento give and when to withhold financial relief, the poor willonce again be surrendered to an arrangement in which theirrights are diminished in the name of overcoming their vices.Those who lead an attack on the welfare system must there-fore be alert o the pitfalls of inadequate but placating re-forms which give theappearance of victory to what is intruth defeat.How much economic force can be mobilized by thisstrategy? This question is not easy to answer because fewstudies have been conducted of people who are no t recelv-ing public assistance even though they may be eligible. Forthe purposes of this presentation,a few factsaboutNewYork City may be suggestive. Since practices elsewhere aregenerally acknowledged tobe even more restrictive, theestimates of unused benefits which follow probably yield aconservative estimate of the potential force of the strategyset forth in this article.

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Baric arsistance for food and rent: The most strikingcharacteristic of public welfare practice is that a great manypeople who appear o be eligible for assistance are not onthe welfare rolls. The average monthly otal of New YorkCity residents receiving assistance in 1959 was 325,771, butaccording to he 1960 census. 716,000 persons (unrelatedor in families) appeared to be subsisting on incomes at orbelow the prevailingwelfare eligibility levels (e.& $2,070fora amily of four). In thatsame year, 539,000 peoplesubsisted on incomes less than 80 per cent of the welfareminimums, and 200,000 lived alone or in families on in-comes reported to be less than half of eligibility levels. Thusit appears that for every person on welfare in 1959, at leastone more was eligible.The results of two surveys of selected areas in Manhat tansupport the contention that many people subsist on incomesbelow welfare eligibillty levels. One of these, conducted byGreenleigh Associates in 1964 in an urban-renewal area onNew Yorks upper West Side, found 9 per cent of those no2on the rolls were in such acute need that they appeared toqualify or emergency assistance. The study howed, fur-ther, hatasubstantialnumber of families that were notin a critical condition would probably have qualified forsupplemental assistance.The other survey, conducted in 1961 by Mobilization forYouth, had similar findings. The area from which it s sam-ple was drawn, 67 square blocks on the lower East Side, isa poor one, but by no means the poorest in New York City.Yet 13 per cent of the otalsample who werenot on thewelfare rolls reported ncomes falling below the prevailingwelfare schedules for foodandrent.There is no reason to suppose that he discrepancy be-tween those eliglble forand hose receiving assistance hasnarrowedmuch in he past few years. The welfare rollshave gone up, to be sure, but so have eligibility levels. Sincethe economic circumstances of impoverished groups in NewYork have not improved appreciably in the past few years,each such rise increases the number of people who are poten-tially eligible for some degree of assistance.

Even if one allows for the possibilit that family-incomefigures are grossly underestimated by the census, the finan-cia1 implications of the proposed strategy ar e still verygreat. In 1965, the monthlyaverage of persons eceivingcash assistance in NewYork was 490,000, ata otalcostof $440 mdlion; he rolls have now risen above 500,000,so that costs will exceed $500 million in 1966. An increasein the rolls of amere 20 per cent would cost an alreadyoverburdened municipality some $100 million.Special grants: Public assistance recipients in New Yorkare also entitled to receive nonrecurring grants for cloth-ing, household equipment and furniture-including washingmachines, refrigerators, beds and bedding, tables and chairs.It hardly needs to be noted that most impoverished familieshave grossly inadequate clothing and household furnishings.The Greenleigh study, for example, found that 52 per centof the families on public assistance lacked anything p-proaching adequate furniture. This condition results becausealmost nothing is spent on special grants in New York. I nOctober, 1965, a typical month, the Department of Welfarespent only $2.50 per recipient for heavy clothing and $1.30for household furnishings. Taken together,grants of this511


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kind amounted in 1965 to a mere $40 per person, or a totalof $20 milhon for heentire year. Considering the realneeds of families, the successful demand or full entitle-ments could multiply these expenditures tenfold or more-and hat would involve the disbursement of many millionsof dollars indeed.One must be cautious n making generalizations aboutthe prospects for this strategy in any jurisdiction unless thestructure of welfare practices has been examined in somedetail. Wecan, however, citeother studies conducted nother places to show that New York practices are not atyp-ical. In Detroit, for example, Greenleigh Associates studieda argesample of households in a low-income district in1965.Twenty per cent were already receiving assistance, but35 per cent more were judged to need it. Although the au-thors made no strict determination of the eligibility of thesefamilies underhe laws of Michigan, they believed thatlargernumbers of persons were eligible than receiving.A good many of these families didnot know that publicassistance was available; othershoughthey would bedeemed ineligible; nota few were ashamed or afraid toask.Similar eprivations ave been shown in nation-widestudies. In 1963, theederal overnmentarried utsurvey based on a national sample of 5,500 families whosebenefitsunder Aid toDependentChildrenhad been ter-minated. Thirty-four per cent of these cases were officiallyin need of income at the point of closing: this was true of 30per cent of the white and 44 per cent of the Negro cases.The chiefbasis for termination given n local departmentrecords was other reasons (i.e., other han mprovementin inancialcondition, which would makedependence onwelfare unnecessary). Upon closer examination, these otherreasons turned out to be unsuitable home (i.e., the pres-ence of illegitimate children), failure to comply with de-partmental regulations or refusal toake legal actionagainst a putative father. (Negroes were especially singledout or punitive action on he ground thatchildren werenot being maintained in suitable homes.) The amounts ofmoney hatpeople are deprived of by these injustices arevery great.

In order to generate a crisis, thepoormustobtainbenefits which they have orfeited.Untilnow, they havebeen inhibited from asserting claims by self-protective de-vices within the welfare system: its capacity o limit infor-mation, o intimidateapplicants, to demoralize recipients,and arbitrarily to deny lawful claims.Ignorance of welfare rights can be attacked through amassive educationalcampaign Brochures describing bene-fits in simple, clear language, and urging people to seek theirfull entitlements, should be distributed door to door in tene-ments and public housing projects, and deposited in stores,schools, churches and civic centers. Advertisements shouldbe placed in newspapers; spot nnouncements should bemadeon radio.Leaders of social, religious, fraternalandpolitical groups in the slums should also be enlisted tore-cruit the eligible to the rolls. The fact that the campaign isintended to inform people of their legal rights under a gov-er nyen t program, hat t is a civic educationdrive, willlend it legitimacy.

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But informationalone will not suffice.Organizers whave to become advocates in order to deal effectively wiimproper rejections and erminations. The advocates tasis to appraise the circumstances of each case, to argue tmerits before welfare, to threaten legal action if satisfactiois not given. In some cases, it will be necessary to contedecisions by requestingafair hearing before heappro-priate state supervisory agency; it may occasionally be neessary to sue for redress in the courts. Hearings and couactions will require lawyers, many of whom, n cities likNew York, can be recruited on a voluntary basis, especialunderhebanner of a movement to endpoverty by strategy of asserting legal rights. However, most cases winotrequireanexpert knowledge of law,but only of wefare regulations; the rules canbe earned by laymen, icluding welfare reclpients themselves (who can help to maninformation and advocacy centers). To aid workers these centers, handbooks should be repared describiwelfare rights and he tactics to employ in claiming them

Advocacy must be supplemented by organized demostrations to create a cllmate of militancy that wlll overcomthe invidious and immobillzing attitudes which many potetial recipients hold toward being on welfare. In suchclimate, many more poor people are likely to become theown advocates and will not need to rely on aid from organizers.

As the crisis develops, it will be important to use tmass mediaonform the broader llberal community boutthe inefflciencies and injustices of welfare. For example, thsystem will not be able to process many new applicanbecause of cumbersomeandoftenunconstitutional invesgatory procedures (which cost 20c for everydollar dbursed). As delays mount, so should the public demand thaa simplified affidavit supplant these procedures, so that thpoor may certify to their condition. If the system reacts bmaking the proof of eligibility d r e difficult, the demanshould be made hat he Department of Health, Educationand Welfare dispatch eligibility registrars to enforce fed-eral statutes governing local programs. And throughout thcrisis, the mass media should be used to advance argumenfor a new federal income distribution program.*Although new resources in organizersand unds wouhave to be developed to mount this campaign, a varietyconventlonal agencies in the large cities could also be drawupon or help. The idea of welfare ightshas begunattractattentlon inmany liberal circles. Anumber of oganizations, partly under the aegis of the war against po

erty, are developing information and advocacy services flow-income people [see Poverty, njustice and he Wfare State by Richard A. Cloward and Richard M. lmaThe Nation , issues of February 28 and March 71. It is nllkely that these organizations will directly participate in tpresent strategy, for obvious political reasons. But wheththey participateor not, they constitute a growing netwoof resources to which people can be referred or help*In public statements, it would be important to distinguish btween he Income distributmg function of public welfare, whichshould be replaced by new federalmeasures,andmanyotherwelfare functlons, such as foster care and adoption services fchildren, which are no t at issue n this strategy.

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establishing and maintaining entitlements. In the finalanalysis, it does not matter who helps people to get on therolls or to get additional entitlements, so long as the job sdone.

Since this plan deals withproblems of great immediacyIn the lives of the poor, it should motivate some of them toinvolve hemselves in regular organizational activities. Wel-fare recipients, chiefly ADC mothers, are already formingfederations, committees and councils in cities across the na-tion; in Boston,New York, Newark, Cleveland, Chicago,Detroit and Los Angeles, to mention a few. Such groupstypically focus on obtaining full entitlements for existingrecipients rather than on recruiting new recipients, and theydo not yet comprise a national movement. But their veryexistence attests to a growing readiness among ghetto resi-dents to act against public welfare.

To generate an expresslypolitical movement, cadres ofaggressive organizers would have to come from he civilrights movement and the churches, from militant low-income organizations like those formed by the IndustrialAreas Foundation (that IS, by Saul Alinsky), and from othergroups on the Left. These activists should be quick to see

the difference between programs to redress individual griev-ances and a large-scale social-action campaign for nationalpolicy reform.

Movements that depend on involving masses of poorpeoplehavegenerally failed in America. Whywould theproposed strategy to engage the poor succeed?

First, this plan promises immediate economic benefits.This is a point of some importance because, whereas Amer-icas poor have not been moved n any number by radicalpoliticaldeologies,hey have sometimesbeenmovedbytheir economic interests. Since radical movements in Amer-ica have rarely been able to provide visible economic in-centives, they have usually failed to secure mass participa-tion of any kind. The conservative business unionism oforganized labor is explained by this fact, for membershipenlarged only as unionism paidoff in material benefits.Union leaders have understood that their strength derivesalmost entirely from their capacity to provide economicrewards to members. Although leaders have increasinglyacted in political spheres, their influence has been directedchiefly to matters of governmental policy affecting the well-

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being of organizedworkers. The samepoint is made bythe xperience of renttrikes in Northern cities. Theirorganizerswereoften motivated by radical ideologies, buttenants have been attracted by thepromisehathousingimprovements would quickly be made if they withheld theirrent.

Second, for h~s strategy to succeed, one need notaskmore of most of the poor than that they clalm lawful bene-fits. Thus the lan ashextraordinaryapability ofyielding mass influence without mass particlpation, at leastas the termparticipation is ordinarilyunderstood.MassInfluence in this case stems fromhe consumption ofbenefits anddoes not require hat argegroups of peoplebe involved in regular organizatlonal roles.

Moreover, this kind of mass influence is cumulative be-cause beneflts are ontinuous.Once eligibility for basicfoodand entgrants is establlshed, the dramon local re-sources persists indefinitely. Othermovementshave ailedprecisely because they could not producecontinuousandcumulatlve Influence In the Northernenttrlkes,orexample,enantparticlpationdepended largely on imme-dlate grievances; as soon as landlords made he most mmi-malepairs, articlpation fell away nd with ithempactof themovementEfforts to revive tenantpartxipation byorganizingdemonstrations roundbroaderhousing issues(e.g., the expansion of public housing) did not succeed be-cause the incentives were not immediate,

Third,he prospects for mass influence are nhancedbecause this plan provides a practical basis for coalition be-tween poor whites and poor Negroes. Advocates of low-income movements have not been able to suggest how poorwhites andpoorNegroes anbe united in n expresslylower-class movement. Despite pleas of some Negro leadersfor joint action on programsequiringntegration, poorwhltes have steadfastly resisted making common cause withpoor Negroes. By contrast, the beneflts of the present planare as great for whites as for Negroes. In the big clties, atleast, it doesnot seem likely that poor whites, whatevertheir pre~ud~cesgainsteitherNegroes or public welfare,will refuse to particlpate when Negroes aggressively claimbenefits hat are unlawfully denied to them as well. Onesalutary onsequence of publlc nformationcampaigns oacquaint Negroes with thelr rights is that many whites willbe madeaware of theirs. Even if whites prefer to workthroughheir own organizations ndeaders,he onse-quences wdl be equivalent o joinlng with Negroes. For ifthe object IS to focusattention on the need for new eco-nomicmeasures by producinga crisis over he dole, any-one who insists upon xtractingmaximum beneflts frompublicwelfare is n effect part of acoalitionand is con-tributing to the cause.

The ultimate aim of this strategy IS a new programfor directncome lstnbutlon.Whateason is thereoexpect hat hefederalgovernment will enactsuch legisla-tion in response to a crisis in the welfare system?

Weordlnarily hink of major leglslation as taking formonly through establlshed electoral processes We tendooverlook he orce of crisls inpreclpltatlng leglslative re-form, partly because we lack a heoretical rameworkbywhich tounderstand he mpact of malordisruptions.51 4

By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption n sominstitutionalphere Crisis can ccurpontaneously (e.griots) or as the Intended result of tactlcs of demonstratioand protest whlch elther generate institutional disruption obrmgunrecognlzeddlsruptlono pub lx attention.Publictrouble IS a political liability, it calls for action by politicaleaders to stabdize the sltuatlon. Because crlsis usually creates or exposes conflict, it hreatens to produce cleavagein a polltlcal consensus which politicians wdl ordinarilact to avert.

Although crisis impels political action, it does not itsedetermine he selection of speciflc solutions. Political leaders will try to respond with proposals which work to heiradvantage in the electoral process. Unless group cleavageform around issues and demands, he politician has grealatltudeand tends to proffer only he minimum actlon required to quell disturbanceswithout isking exlsting eletoral support. Spontaneous dlsruptions, such as riots, rarelproduceeaderswho rticulate emands;hus oermsare imposed, and political leaders are permitted o respondIn ways that merely restoreasemblance of stabillty without offendmg other groups in a coalition.

When, however, a crisls is defined by its participants-or by otheractwated groups-as a matter of clear issueReprints of t h u artlcle map be obtarned b y wrltirrg to MiGracie Carroll, Colurnbln Umversrry School of Social Wo r2 East 91 Street , New Y o r k , N . Y . 10028. Single copie25c. f i v e for $1; f r f t y f o r $5.and referred solutions, terms are imposed onhe polticlans bld for their support Whether political leaders hendeslgn solutions to eflect these terms depends ona twfold calculatlon: first, the impact of the crisis and the issuit ralses on existing alignments and, second, he gains Iosses in support to be expected as aresult of aproposedresolution.

As to he impact on existing alignments, issues eposed by a crisis mayactivate new groups, thusalteringthebalance of supportandoppositionon he issues; ormaypolarlzegroup entiments, lteringheerms whicmust be offered to Insure thesupport of given constituegroups. In framing resolutions, pollticians aremoree-sponsive togroup shiftsand aremore likely toaccommodate to the erms imposed when electoral coalitions threaened by crisls are already uncertain or weakening. In othwords, the polltician responds togroup demands,notonlyby calculatmg hemagnitude of electoral gams and lossebut by assessing the impact of the resolution on hesta-bllity of existlng or potential oalitions. Polltical leadeare especially responsive to group shifts when the termssettlement an be framed so as to shoreup an exlstlncoalition, or as a basrs for thedevelopment of new anmore stable alignments, without jeopardizing exlsting suport.Then, Indeed, the alculation of net gain is mosecure.

The legislative reforms of thedepression years, for eample, were impelled not so much by organized intereexercised through egularelectoral processes as by widspreadeconomic crIsIs. That crlsis precipltated hedisrup-

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tion of the regionally based coalitions underlying he oldnatlonalparties.During he ealignments of 1932, a newDemocratlccoalition was formed, based heavily onurbanworking-class groups.Once npower, the nationalDemo-cratlc eadership proposed and Implemented theeconomicreforms of the New Deal Although these measureswere aresponse to the lmperatlve of economic cnsis, the ypes ofmeasures enacted were designed to secure nd stabilize thenew Democratic coalitlon.

The C I V ~ ights movement, to takea ecent case, alsoreveals the relationship of crisis and electoral conditions inproducing legislative reform. The crisis in the South ookplace in thecontext of a weakening North-SouthDemo-craticcoalition The strains in that coalition were first evi-dent in theDixiecrat esertion of 1948, and ontinuedthrough the Eisenhower years as theRepublicans gainedground in theSouthern states. Democraticparty eadersatf m t tried to hold the dissident South by warding off thedemands of enlarglngNegroonstituencies in Northerncities Thus for two decades thenationalDemocratic Partycampaigned on strongly worded civil rlghts planks utn-acted only token measures. The civil rights movement forcedthe Democrats' hand. a crumbling Southern partnership wasforfeited, and malor clvil rights legislatlon was put forward,deslgned to insure he upport of NorthernNegroesandliberal elements in the Dernocratlc coal~t~on. Tha toalitionemerged strong from the 1964 electlon, easlly able to over-come the loss of Southern states to Goldwater. At the sametime, the enacted legislation, particularly the Votmg RightsAct, laid the ground for a new Southern Dernocratlc coali-tion of moderate whites and the hitherto untapped reservoirof Southern Negro voters.THE NATION M a y 2, I966

The electoralcontext which made crisis effective n theSouth is also to be found in the big cltles of the nation today.Deep tenslons have developed among groups comprising thepolltlcal coalltlons of the large cities-the historic trong-hold of heDemocraticParty. As a onsequence, urbanpoliticlans no longer turn in the vote to national Democraticcandldateswith nfaillngegularity. The marked efec-tlons revealed in the elections of the 1950s and which con-tlnued until the Johnson andslide of 1964 are a matter ofgreat concern o henationalparty. Precisely because ofthis concern, a strategy to exacerbate still further the strainsin the urban coalltion can be expected to evoke a responsefrom national eaders.

The weakening of the urban coalition is a result ofmany basic changes in the relationship of local party leader-ship to Its constituents.First,he poIitical machine,hedlstinctive and raditionalmechanism for forging alliancesamongcompetmggroups In theclty, IS now virtuallyde-funct in most clties Successive waves of municipal reformhave deprlved politlcal leaders of control over the publicresources-jobs, contracts, services and favors-which ma-chine polltlcians formerly dispensed to votersn returnfor electoral support Conflicts among elements in the urbanDemocratlc coalition, once held together politlcally becauseeach secured ashare of thesebenefits, cannotnowbe soreadily contalned.And as themeans of placating com-petinggroupshavediminished, tensions alongethnicandclass lines have multiplied. These tenslons are being intensi-fled by theencroachments of an enlarglngghettopopula-tion on jobs, schools and esldentialareas Big-city mayorsare huscaught between antagonistic working-class ethnic

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groups, the remaining middle class, and the rapidly enlarg-ing minority poor.

Second, there are discontinuities in the relationship be-tween the urban party apparatus and its ghetto constituentswhich have so far remained unexposed but which a welfarecrisis would force into view. The ghetto vote has been grow-ing rapidly and has so far returned overwhelming Demo-cratic majorities. Nevertheless, his voting bloc is not fullyintegrated in the party apparatus, either through the repre-sentation of its leaders or the accommodation of its n-terests.While the urban political apparatus includes members ofnew minority groups, these groups are by no means repre-sented according to their increasing proportions in the popu-lation. More important, elected representation alone is notan adequate mechanism for he expression of group inter-ests. Influence inurbanpoliticsswon not only at thepollsbut through the sustained activity of organized in-terests-such as labor unions, home-owner associations andbusinessgroups. These groupskeep watch over the com-plex operations of municipal agencies, ecognizingssuesand regularly asserting their point ofview through meet-ingswlthpublic officials, appearances at public hearingsand the like, and by exploiting a whole array of channelsof influence on government. Minority constituencies-atleast the large proportion of them that are poor-are notregular participants in the various institutional spheres whereorganized interest groups ypicallydevelop. Thus the in-terests of the mass of minority poor are not protected byassociations which make their own or other political leadersresponsive by continuously calling them to account. Urbanparty organizations have become, in consequence, more anavenue for the personal advancement of minority politicalleaders than a channel for the expression of minority-groupinterests.And the bigcity mayors, truggling to preservean uneasy urban consensus,have thus been granted theslack to evade the conflict-generating interests of the ghetto.A crisis in public welfare would expose the tensions latentin his attenuated relationship between the ghetto vote andthe urban party leadership, for it would thrust forwardghetto demands and back hemwith the threat of defec-tions by voters who have so far remained both loyal andquiescent.

In the face of such a crisis, urban political leaders maywell be paralyzed by a party apparatus which ies hem toolder constituent groups, evenwhile the ranks of thesegroups are diminishing. The national Democratic leader-ship, however, is alert to the importance of the urban Negrovote,especially in national contests where the loyalty ofother urban groups is weakening. Indeed, many of thelegislative reforms of the Great Society can be understoodas efforts, however eeble, to reinforce the allegiance ofgrowing ghetto constituencies to the national DemocraticAdministration. In the thirties, Democrats began to put for-ward measures to circumvent the states in order to reachthe big-city elements in the NewDeal coalition; now it isbecoming expedient to put forward measures to circumventthe weakened bigcity mayors n order to reach the newminority poor.

Recent federal reforms have been mpelled in part bywidespread unrest in the ghetto, and instances of more ag-516

gressive Negro demands. But despite these signs that thghetto vote maybecome ess reliable in he uture, therhas been as yet no serious threat of massive defection. Thnational party has therefore not put much pressure on iurban branches to accommodate the minority poor. Thresulting reforms have consequently been quite modest (e.gthe war against poverty, with its emphasis on the involvment of the poor, is an effort to make the urban partapparatus somewhat more accommodating).

A welfare crisis would, of course, produce dramatlocal political crisis, disrupting and exposing rifts amonurban groups. Conservative Republicans are always readto declaim the evilsofpublic welfare, and theywouldprobablybe the first to raise a hue and cry. But deepeandolitically more telling conflicts would take placwithin the Democratic coalition. Whites-both workingclass ethnic groups and many in the middle class-wouldbe aroused against the ghetto poor, while liberal groupwhichuntil recently have been comforted by the notiothat the poor are few and, in any event, receiving the beneicent assistance of public welfare,would probably support the movement. Group conflict, spelling political crisifor the local party apparatus, would thus become acute awelfare rolls mounted and the strains on local budgetsbecame more severe. In NewYork City, where the Mayois now facing desperate revenue shortages, welfare expeditures are already second only to those for public eduction.

It shouldalsobenoted that welfarecosts are generalshared by local, state and federal governments, so that thecrisis in the citieswould ntensify the struggle over revenues that is chronic in relations between cities and states.If the past is any predictor of the uture, citieswill fato procure relief from thiscrisisby persuading states tincrease their proportionate share of urban welfare costfor state legislatureshavebeen notoriously unsympathetto the revenueneeds of the city especiallywherepublicwelfareand minority groups are concgmed).

If this strategy for crisis would intensify group cleavagea federal income solution would not further exacerbathem. The demands put forward during recent civil righdrivesn the Northern cities roused the opposition ohugemajorities. Indeed, such fierce resistance wasevoked(e.g., choolboycottsollowed by counter-boycotts), thaccessions by political leaders would have provoked greatpolitical turmoil than the protests themselves, for profounclassand ethnic interests are at stake in the employmeneducational and residential institutions of our society. Bcontrast, legislativemeasures o provide direct income the poor would permit national Democratic leadenocultivate ghetto constituencies withoutunduly antagonizinother urban groups, as is the case when the battle lines adrawn over schools, housing or jobs. Furthermore, a federincome program would not only redeem ocal governmentsfrom the immediate crisisbutwould permanently relievthem of the financially andpolitically onerous burdens opublic welfare*-a function which generates support from

*It should also be noted that the federalgovernment,unlikelocal urisdictions, has taxing powers which yieldsubstantiallyincreased revenues as an automaticby-product of increases nnational income.THE NATION/ May 2, 196


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none nd hostility from many,not least of al l welfarerecipients.We suggest, in hort, hat if pervasive institutional e-forms are not yet possible, requiring as they do expandedNegro political power and the development of new politicalalliances, crisis tactics can nevertheless be employed tosecureparticular eforms in the hort unby exploitingweaknesses in current political alignments. Because theurban coalition stands weakened by groupconflict today,disruption ndhreats of disaffection will count power-fully? provided that nationaleadersanespondwithsolutions which retain the support of ghetto constituencieswhile avoiding new group antagonisms and bolstering theurbanpartyapparatus.These are he conditions, then, foran effective crisis strategy in the cities to secure an end topoverty.

No strategy, however confident its advocates maybe, is foolproof. But if unforeseen contingencies thwart thisplan to bringabout new federal legislation in the field of

poverty, it should also be noted that there would be gainseven in defeat. For one thing, the plight of many poor peo-ple would be somewhat eased in hecourse of an assaultupon ublic welfare. Existing recipients would come toknow heir rights and how to defend them, thus acquiringdignity where nonenow exists; and millions of dollars inwithheld welfare benefits would become available to poten-tial recipients now-not several generations from now. Suchanattack should also be welcome to those currently con-cerned with programs designed to equip theyoung to riseout of poverty (e.g., Head Start), for surely children learnmore readily when the oppressive burden of financial in-security is lifted from he shoulders of their parents. Andthose seeking new ways to engage theNegro politicallyshould emember hatpublic resources have always beenthe fuel fo r low-income urban political organization. If or-ganizers can deliver millions of dollars in cash benefits tothe ghetto masses, it seems reasonable to expect that hemasses will deliver their loyalties to their benefactors. Atleast, they have always done so in he past.

MOSCOW CONGRESSThe Old Party the Young PeopleISAAC DEUTSCHERM r Deutscher I S the author of many books on th e U S S R ,among them TheGreatContest- Russiaand he West, and athree-volume llfe of Trotsky (both Ox ford Unrvers l ty ress) .

LondonAt the 23rd Congress, which ended in Moscow on April 9,the Soviet ruling groupputa ombstone on Mr. Khrush-chevs political grave, wlthoutoncementioninghis name.An almost identical method of anonymous denunciation, tmay be recalled, was applied to Stalin in the first two orthreeyearsafter his death I t is certain hat at he closedsession of this Congress, to which foreign Communists-delegates fromfraternal parties-were not admitted, hede-Khrushchevlzation was carried out quite explicitly. Butuntil news about what happened behind the closed doorsleaks out, he results of the Congress can beassessed onlyon the basis of the incomplete official reports.What 1s clear even now s that the Congress has broughtabout, or at least revealed, a swing from eform and de-Stalinization to more rigid and authoritarian policies whichmay be described, for the ack of a better term, as crypto-or neo-Stalinist. Most of the reforms initiated by Khrush-chev have been scrapped. The Congress was extremely ret-icent about the previously much advertised advice of Sovieteconomists who urged the government togive wider scopeto profit in the natlonal economy. There IS to be more cen-tral control over the administration and over industry. Sta-bility, discipline and caution were the watchwords.The desire for stability and the fear of taking risks bvereSO great hat heauthoritarians did not even dare to boastof their Indubitable success. They protested against the

wholesale denigration of our heroic past by novelists andmemoirists; they called for tricterparty supervision overhistary writing, literatureand hearts;but heydidnotcome out openly as thedefenders of Stalin and Stalinism.Evidently no one who aspires to play a role n Soviet po-litical life canafford to do so. Thisaccounts for he factthat he Congress did not rehabilitate Molotov andKaga-novich, the Stallnist die-hards whom Khrushchev had ex-pelled fromheparty,but only their associate, the oldMarshal Voroshilov.

In the weeks preceding the opening of the Congress,rumors of an Impending rehabilitatlon of thegreatdespotcaused alarm and led manyeminent scientists, writersandparty veterans to express their misgivings in public demon-strations, in collective letters to the party eaders,and invarious other ways. Thesewere almost factional activities,such as had not been tolerated for forty years-because intheparty,as in any army, collective protests of anykindare held tantamount o mutiny.Those presently guilty ofthemutinous acts have been reproved?butmost of themare ar too eminent o be punished, and heir warningshave been heeded, up to a point, even by the crypto-Stalin-ists who sensed that they might raise a storm if they behavedtoo provocatively.

Thus, he authoritarian rend in party ffairshasshown Itself ess in open pronouncements than n urtivemaneuvers and symbolic gestures. The partys supreme au-thority,hePresidlum, has been renamed thePolitburo,as it was in the olddays;and Mr. Brezhnev is no longerFlrst Secretary but General Secretary, as Stalin was. Theleaders of the three most powerful organizations, those ofT H E NATION / M a y 2, 1966 517


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A Strategy to End Poverty

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