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Title: Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 by Charles Murray ISBN: 0-465-04233-3 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.6 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Charles Murray hits the nail right on the head
Comment: This is an important book that explains an incredibletransformation in American social policy. Sometime around themid-1960s, a new code of private values and government policies pushed their way into mainstream society. This vision and its consequences were a radical departure from our nation's past. From 1950 to 1965, an economy founded on free market principles, nurtured on minimal government regulation, and protected from large welfare programs, had slashed the poverty rate from one third of the population to just over one-tenth. Eliminating poverty seemed like a real possibility to Americans as long as the wheels of capitalism continued to spin unhindered. From 1950 to 1965, African-Americans won court battles giving them the human rights guaranteed to every citizen. These belated changes were cemented by the hallmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and accompanied by a remarkable surge in African-American incomes. This fifteen-year period was an era of immense progress. Not only were the classes and races coming together but crime was remarkably low, families exceptionally resilient, and drug use almost non-existent. Then around 1965 something happened. All of a sudden the capitalist economy that made Old World immigrants into middle-class, suburban home-owners was described as a guilty, imperialist system that exploited the poor and the weak. Government planners in Washington got right to solving this "problem." From now on, people could expect a guaranteed income for an unlimited period of time, without regard to personal behavior or the ability to work. To show what a compassionate society we are, we would destroy the work ethic that was the bedrock of Western civilization. But that wasn't the best part. After 1965, the principle of equal opportunity for all races that Martin Luther King martyred himself for was also described as a "guilty" system that kept blacks and women oppressed. Suddenly, it wasn't only white supremacists who claimed that blacks couldn't thrive in American society. It was the very black leaders themselves. They claimed that affirmative action programs were needed to keep African-Americans functional. Too bad if it destroyed the American ideal of merit and equal opportunity. Tough luck if it strained relations between whites and blacks. Those claiming that racial preferences were unjust could be dismissed as closet racists. Only a decade later, the consequences of this change in values and government policy were beyond dispute. Destroying merit and the work ethic did not create a "Great Society." Rather, it helped create a large underclass imprisoned by poverty. Crime rates tripled, illegitimate births exploded, and drug use surged. The trends have leveled off since the late 1970s but the consequences of this values shift remain with us today. Opponents of racial quotas are still lampooned as closet racists. Reformers of the welfare state are dismissed as "uncompassionate." What is really racist and uncompassionate is defending the government policies that created this wretched condition. We made this happen. And we can unmake it. The power, as always, is ours.
Rating: 5
Summary: Much needed debate
Comment: While the President and the Congress debate the levels of funding for the welfare state in the coming century, Charles Murray makes a very convincing arguement for why it should be done away with altogether. Replete with statistical analysis (including the raw data from federal government sources), Murray argues that should an outside observer review the statistics on the economic progress of blacks and the poor from about 1963 onward, without any social context, they would have to conclude that a systematic effort was afoot to ensnare a large group of people in perpetual poverty. Murray explains the dynamics behind the failure of welfare policy and argues a more generic case as to why nearly all government efforts to induce behavioral change in the population are doomed to failure. Murray's account is well supported, crystal clear, and highly thought-provoking. Recommended for all who wish to be involved in welfare policy or its debate for the coming century.
Rating: 1
Summary: Deeply flawed book.
Comment: Deeply flawed book.
I read this book in a poly-sci class. Its thesis is simple - by trying to help people, problems can be multiplied.
The author has lots of charts and graphs to prove his point. Yet some things did not click - for example in Matusow's "The Unraveling of America", the author posits that the main beneficiary of LBJ's Great Society was the middle class - not the poor - so there appears to be a contradiction that Murray does not address.
One thing to keep in mind is that Murray appears to starts with a conclusion - welfare is bad because... - and constructs his argument from that instead of the other way around, which I find suspicious.
All his charts and graphs are meant to impress the reader but fall flat because he is neither an historian nor economist.
Instead I would read "SOME TENDENCIES OF SOCIAL WELFARE AND THE PROBLEM OF INTERPRETATION" by Stephen T. Ziliak, who happens to be an economist with a mind toward history so you can understand how wrong Murray's thesis is.
I quote the salient part:
"The conservative story says that the U.S. welfare state has "created" a "dependent class" by allowing poor people to stay on the rolls too long. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the recent research shows that the average length of time an immigrant stayed on welfare in the 1980s and 1990s was a little less than the average experienced by able-bodied men and women of the 1820s, 1850s, 1880s, and 1910s."
(Cato Journal (Winter 2002), Page 506).
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Title: Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 by Charles A. Murray ISBN: 006019247X Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Rethinking Social Policy: Race, Poverty, and the Underclass by Christopher Jencks ISBN: 0060975342 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 March, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles Murray ISBN: 0029146739 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 October, 1994 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: What It Means to Be a Libertarian: A Personal Interpretation by Charles Murray ISBN: 0767900391 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government by Charles Murray ISBN: 1558152970 Publisher: ICS Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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