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The Breaking of the American Social Compact
The Breaking of the American Social Compact is a landmark volume from two of our most perceptive social critics. Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward address the tumultuous politics of the past three decades that have culminated in an all-out assault on the American social compact. Delving into the political dynamics behind the rise of the working class in the 1930s and 1960s, Piven and Cloward assign singular importance to disruptive protest and examine the ways protest has dwindled since the 1960s and how many reforms gained then have been swept away. They cover the dramatic changes of recent years, from the breakup of the traditional Democratic Party, to the new power struggles between blacks and whites in northern cities, to the increasing demonization of immigrants and the poor everywhere. Finally, they examine the politics underlying governmental "reform," arguing that the recent devolution of federal authority is simply a strategy to increase the influence of business.
452 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 1997
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About the author
Frances Fox Piven
37 books38 followersFrances Fox Piven is an American professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she has taught since 1982. Piven is known equally for her contributions to social theory and for her social activism.
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August 7, 2023
/The Breaking of the American Social Compact/, Frances Fox Piven (1932- ) and Richard A. Cloward (1926-2001), 1963-1997, 452 pages, Library-of-Congress HN 57 P58 1997 Memorial Library
A collection of astute essays on how we arrived at our dismantled social compact.
Globalization, with domestic restructuring and downsizing made possible by technological change, seems to give capital unlimited opportunities to exit, disempowering labor, disempowering national governments, disempowering voters. pp. 6-7, 42, 48-50. The fragmented state and local governments in the U.S. also give businesses and wealthy people the power to leave or threaten to leave, if they don't get their way. p. 381, 394-405, 425. Division ensures domination. pp. 45-46.
Weak unions and a politically compromised and meager welfare state facilitated rapid and wholesale disinvestment from older industries, an explosion of speculation, and campaigns to lower wages, break unions, cut welfare state spending, roll back government regulatory protections, and tax more regressively. Average household income remained more or less stable only because married women flooded into the labor market in the service sector. pp. 436, 443.
In the 1960s, urban blacks made trouble and demanded jobs, services, and status. Organized city and state employees (mostly white) reaped the greatest gains. (See the authors' /The Politics of Turmoil/ for details.) Working- and middle-class private-sector workers resented being taxed to pay for those gains. To appease them, the small gains the blacks did make are being whittled away. Ghetto, public employees, and other working-class workers turned against each other. No one turned against the concentrations of individual and corporate wealth in America. 1973. pp. 155-156, 391-397, 404.
In 1996, Bill Clinton set a lifetime 2-year limit on recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children; barred aid to /legal/ immigrants and to disabled children; restricted food stamps. pp. 60, 255-256. Bashing politically-powerless welfare recipients while celebrating family values struck a chord with the electorate. p. 256. AFDC /had/ cost about 1% of the federal budget. p. 61. Clinton freed and deregulated international trade, with NAFTA and GATT. Productivity and profits rose, part-time and temporary work expanded, worker earnings fell. pp. 66, 444.
The owning class strives to keep workers un-safety-netted, thus insecure, thus powerless and willing to work for low wages in harsh conditions. pp. 180, 192. This class conflict is centuries old. When labor unrest was low or profits were disappointing, employers took from workers what they could. pp. 174, 177-178, 180-185, 190-204. "Christ himself might have been turned over by you to the police department as a 'vagrant without visible means of support.'" p. 183.
Poor people have no regular resources for influencing public policy. p. 282.
A series of disruptive labor strikes in 1934 and 1935 forced FDR to support the National Labor Relations Act, despite bitter and sustained opposition to the act by employers before and after its passage. pp. 294, 305.
U.S. presidents since Nixon have served the owning class at the expense of the working class. Taxes are cut for the rich; social programs are cut. pp. 187, 380, 399-400.
[$50 trillion has been transferred from the bottom 90% to the top 1% since Reagan. https://www.rand.org/multimedia/video... This is the result of deliberate policy choices by U.S. Government officials: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... ]
Federal agricultural-mechanization subsidies, and federal subsidies for idle farmland, displaced the Southern agricultural-laborer population. Federal welfare policies permitted states to deny aid to their unemployed. Displaced laborers had little choice but migrate to Northern cities--whose economies could not absorb them. p. 390. Federal policies tilted economic development toward the south and west. Military-industrial spending; highway and water projects; labor and welfare policies keeping Southern pay low. p. 438.
Between 1950 and 1960 the nonwhite population in the central cities swelled by 63%; the white population continued to decline. pp. 115, 390. Middle-class whites have obtained huge governmental subsidies to bring decent housing within their reach. Poor blacks have only decreasing availability of increasingly squalid rentals. pp. 119, 380, 386, 438. As of 1966, we've spent $3 billion on urban renewal (also known as "black removal" pp. 392, 439), destroying 328,000 mostly low-rent housing units, building [yes, only] 13,000 low-rent housing units, along with luxury apartments, stadiums, office buildings, and highways. pp. 121-122. White flight prevented city revenues from keeping up with exploding costs. p. 157, 380.
The federal government subsidized highways and suburbanization, to the neglect of refurbishment of older housing, mass transit, and city infrastructure. p. 386.
Between 1973 and 1989, real income of U.S. male high school graduates dropped by a third. p. 54. Wages are falling for most people, despite lengthening worktime. New hard, filthy, unsafe work is spreading, such as chicken processing or garbage recycling. p. 65. The top 1% own 42% of all assets, as of 1995.
The U.S. Democratic Party is not a labor party, because of the feudal South. pp. 11-12, 86, 421-446. The U.S. provides notoriously niggardly levels of support for the poor. p. 186.
State "right-to-work" laws, ratified by the 1947 federal Taft-Hartley Act, denied Southern workers the benefits of unionization granted by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. p. 387.
German workers' wages and benefits are twice those in the U.S. p. 9.
Right-wing politicians stoke anger against outsiders. p. 53. Immigration, crime, and welfare are all code terms for minorities. p. 55.
Integration must be understood not as the mingling of bodies in school and neighborhood but as participation in and shared control over the major institutional spheres of American life. And that is a question of developing communal associations that can be bases for power--not of dispersing a community that is powerless. p. 127. The strength to resist majority prejudices, to advance in spite of them and ultimately to overcome them must be found within a countervailing ethnic community. p. 128. [1966.]
If voters are atomized, casting their ballots as disconnected individuals, politicians need muster only small minorities to prevail. pp. 288, 304. The major parties collude to avoid taking major issues to the voters. pp. 288, 304.
Popular resistance can moderate some of the cruelties of capitalism. Both major U.S. political parties are working for Wall Street, and will, unless assaulted by protest movements in the future. p. 446.
Also
/Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare/, Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, 1971. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
/Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail/, Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, 1977. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
/The Power Elite and the State: How Policy Is Made in America/, William G. Domhoff, 1990. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
/The New Class War: Reagan's Attack on the Welfare State and Its Consequences/, Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, 1985. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
/Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America/, Frances Fox Piven, 2006. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
/The Politics of Turmoil/, Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, 1974. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
/Private Power and American Democracy/, Grant McConnell, 1966, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
/The Semi-Soverign People/, E.E. Schattschneider, 1960, but see Benjamin Wetmore's review of it: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Piven's books: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list...
Piven's writings have appeared in:
/The Progressive/, https://progressive.org/api/search.ht...
/International Socialist Review/: https://isreview.org/person/frances-f...
/The Nation/: https://www.thenation.com/authors/fra...
/The New Republic/ (1968): https://newrepublic.com/authors/franc...
/Mother Jones/: https://www.motherjones.com/author/fr...
/The Socialist Register/ (subscribers only), https://socialistregister.com/index.p...
Frances Fox Piven is a professor of political science and sociology at the graduate school of the City University of New York.
https://politicalscience.commons.gc.c...
Her wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...
Piven on imdb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1622032/
U.S. labor-union membership rates https://unionstats.com/
A collection of astute essays on how we arrived at our dismantled social compact.
Globalization, with domestic restructuring and downsizing made possible by technological change, seems to give capital unlimited opportunities to exit, disempowering labor, disempowering national governments, disempowering voters. pp. 6-7, 42, 48-50. The fragmented state and local governments in the U.S. also give businesses and wealthy people the power to leave or threaten to leave, if they don't get their way. p. 381, 394-405, 425. Division ensures domination. pp. 45-46.
Weak unions and a politically compromised and meager welfare state facilitated rapid and wholesale disinvestment from older industries, an explosion of speculation, and campaigns to lower wages, break unions, cut welfare state spending, roll back government regulatory protections, and tax more regressively. Average household income remained more or less stable only because married women flooded into the labor market in the service sector. pp. 436, 443.
In the 1960s, urban blacks made trouble and demanded jobs, services, and status. Organized city and state employees (mostly white) reaped the greatest gains. (See the authors' /The Politics of Turmoil/ for details.) Working- and middle-class private-sector workers resented being taxed to pay for those gains. To appease them, the small gains the blacks did make are being whittled away. Ghetto, public employees, and other working-class workers turned against each other. No one turned against the concentrations of individual and corporate wealth in America. 1973. pp. 155-156, 391-397, 404.
In 1996, Bill Clinton set a lifetime 2-year limit on recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children; barred aid to /legal/ immigrants and to disabled children; restricted food stamps. pp. 60, 255-256. Bashing politically-powerless welfare recipients while celebrating family values struck a chord with the electorate. p. 256. AFDC /had/ cost about 1% of the federal budget. p. 61. Clinton freed and deregulated international trade, with NAFTA and GATT. Productivity and profits rose, part-time and temporary work expanded, worker earnings fell. pp. 66, 444.
The owning class strives to keep workers un-safety-netted, thus insecure, thus powerless and willing to work for low wages in harsh conditions. pp. 180, 192. This class conflict is centuries old. When labor unrest was low or profits were disappointing, employers took from workers what they could. pp. 174, 177-178, 180-185, 190-204. "Christ himself might have been turned over by you to the police department as a 'vagrant without visible means of support.'" p. 183.
Poor people have no regular resources for influencing public policy. p. 282.
A series of disruptive labor strikes in 1934 and 1935 forced FDR to support the National Labor Relations Act, despite bitter and sustained opposition to the act by employers before and after its passage. pp. 294, 305.
U.S. presidents since Nixon have served the owning class at the expense of the working class. Taxes are cut for the rich; social programs are cut. pp. 187, 380, 399-400.
[$50 trillion has been transferred from the bottom 90% to the top 1% since Reagan. https://www.rand.org/multimedia/video... This is the result of deliberate policy choices by U.S. Government officials: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... ]
Federal agricultural-mechanization subsidies, and federal subsidies for idle farmland, displaced the Southern agricultural-laborer population. Federal welfare policies permitted states to deny aid to their unemployed. Displaced laborers had little choice but migrate to Northern cities--whose economies could not absorb them. p. 390. Federal policies tilted economic development toward the south and west. Military-industrial spending; highway and water projects; labor and welfare policies keeping Southern pay low. p. 438.
Between 1950 and 1960 the nonwhite population in the central cities swelled by 63%; the white population continued to decline. pp. 115, 390. Middle-class whites have obtained huge governmental subsidies to bring decent housing within their reach. Poor blacks have only decreasing availability of increasingly squalid rentals. pp. 119, 380, 386, 438. As of 1966, we've spent $3 billion on urban renewal (also known as "black removal" pp. 392, 439), destroying 328,000 mostly low-rent housing units, building [yes, only] 13,000 low-rent housing units, along with luxury apartments, stadiums, office buildings, and highways. pp. 121-122. White flight prevented city revenues from keeping up with exploding costs. p. 157, 380.
The federal government subsidized highways and suburbanization, to the neglect of refurbishment of older housing, mass transit, and city infrastructure. p. 386.
Between 1973 and 1989, real income of U.S. male high school graduates dropped by a third. p. 54. Wages are falling for most people, despite lengthening worktime. New hard, filthy, unsafe work is spreading, such as chicken processing or garbage recycling. p. 65. The top 1% own 42% of all assets, as of 1995.
The U.S. Democratic Party is not a labor party, because of the feudal South. pp. 11-12, 86, 421-446. The U.S. provides notoriously niggardly levels of support for the poor. p. 186.
State "right-to-work" laws, ratified by the 1947 federal Taft-Hartley Act, denied Southern workers the benefits of unionization granted by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. p. 387.
German workers' wages and benefits are twice those in the U.S. p. 9.
Right-wing politicians stoke anger against outsiders. p. 53. Immigration, crime, and welfare are all code terms for minorities. p. 55.
Integration must be understood not as the mingling of bodies in school and neighborhood but as participation in and shared control over the major institutional spheres of American life. And that is a question of developing communal associations that can be bases for power--not of dispersing a community that is powerless. p. 127. The strength to resist majority prejudices, to advance in spite of them and ultimately to overcome them must be found within a countervailing ethnic community. p. 128. [1966.]
If voters are atomized, casting their ballots as disconnected individuals, politicians need muster only small minorities to prevail. pp. 288, 304. The major parties collude to avoid taking major issues to the voters. pp. 288, 304.
Popular resistance can moderate some of the cruelties of capitalism. Both major U.S. political parties are working for Wall Street, and will, unless assaulted by protest movements in the future. p. 446.
Also
/Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare/, Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, 1971. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
/Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail/, Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, 1977. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
/The Power Elite and the State: How Policy Is Made in America/, William G. Domhoff, 1990. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
/The New Class War: Reagan's Attack on the Welfare State and Its Consequences/, Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, 1985. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
/Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America/, Frances Fox Piven, 2006. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
/The Politics of Turmoil/, Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, 1974. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
/Private Power and American Democracy/, Grant McConnell, 1966, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
/The Semi-Soverign People/, E.E. Schattschneider, 1960, but see Benjamin Wetmore's review of it: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Piven's books: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list...
Piven's writings have appeared in:
/The Progressive/, https://progressive.org/api/search.ht...
/International Socialist Review/: https://isreview.org/person/frances-f...
/The Nation/: https://www.thenation.com/authors/fra...
/The New Republic/ (1968): https://newrepublic.com/authors/franc...
/Mother Jones/: https://www.motherjones.com/author/fr...
/The Socialist Register/ (subscribers only), https://socialistregister.com/index.p...
Frances Fox Piven is a professor of political science and sociology at the graduate school of the City University of New York.
https://politicalscience.commons.gc.c...
Her wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances...
Piven on imdb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1622032/
U.S. labor-union membership rates https://unionstats.com/
Displaying 1 of 1 review