The New Politics of Poverty: The Nonworking Poor in America

by Lawrence M. Mead

Book Overview

Thirty years ago, the great national debate was how to help ordinary, workaday Americans achieve the good things in life. Today, we are preoccupied with--and increasingly divided over--how to cope with the problems of poor and dependent Americans, most of whom cannot or will not work at the jobs available. Mead provides overwhelming and disturbing evidence that passive poverty--the failure of most of the poor to work at all--reflects defeatism more...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465059627
• ISBN13: 9780465059621
• Release Date: May 1992
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Politics of Liberal Theory?

Mead writes a book that is not only well researched, but also understands the psychology of poverty.Before I go on let me explain the obvious by way of the fact that there are poor people that don't want to work, and poor people that do want to work. What's been happening is that there is a shift from the latter, to the former.Those that want to work deserve all the support that our government can provide; however, there is a "just give me a welfare" check mentality that is quickly becoming popular amongst the disadvantaged. This mentality is fostered by liberal programs, and then these people are harvested for their votes like so much cattle.The problem is what has been termed "the politics of pity". Liberal programs do not treat these people with any sort of respect. Instead, lip service is paid to their woes in return for their votes. Studies show that the more impovershed a person is, the more likely they are to vote liberal. Therefore, conservative plans have it in their own best interests to empower voters to work. However, while liberal plans are given impressive sounding descriptions, the DETAILS of liberal plans are less than generous.THE POLITICS OF POVERTY says that when the USA is in an economic downturn, the country votes Democratic; when the country is doing well, they always vote Republican. While many country-club liberals enjoy feeling morally superior by feeling sorry for poor people, the ugly and hard fact is that they need the poor in order to support their own positions. Other People's Poverty equals their own power. Consider this: during the last 19 months of the George Bush I presidency, the Democratic legislature refused to bring to debate any appropriations bills, even those supported by Alan Greenspan. It was basically a politically-sponsored recession.While Mead hints at this, he doesn't come right out and say it. However, Lawrence Mead bears out all of this with hard data. Liberals that enjoy feeling morally superior to others by feeling sorry for the poor (and these liberals have never worked with the underpriviliged) will say that this study lacks "compassion", (the childish will call me and other realists immature names) but that doesn't change the fact that the statistics are hard, fast, and true. Many poor don't want sympathy, they want a JOB. And it's just common sense that if you pay someone to do nothing, you need to provide an inventive for them to do something."If there were no poverty in the USA, nobody would vote Democratic"