ON POLITICAL BOOKS

Keisling, Phillip

ON POLITICAL BOOKS Lessons of the Great Society by Phillip Keisling Carles Murray has written an important book* one that may provide as much ideological grist for Ronald Reagan's second term...

...Murray opposes the concept and examines several "negative income tax" experiments conducted by the former Department of Health, Education and Welfare that concluded such guarantees undermine the work ethic...
...Most important, it would allow us to spend more on those poor who now receive such paltry amounts that "cheating" is all but required to survive...
...Murray apparently conducted extensive field research for his book, yet almost none of it is evident here...
...But as Murray also observes, real progress can come only if basic values change as well...
...If welfare programs really undermine the poor's ability to help themselves, wouldn't it be even more evident in West European welfare states that are far more generous than ours...
...Murray bolsters his brief against misguided liberal policies with a troubling array of statistical evidence...
...And that raises a possibility anathema to Murray and other neoconservatives: just as we may have "lost" the Vietnam war because we did too little to win it, might we have "lost" the War on Poverty for exactly the same reason...
...Then there's Murray's complaint of "wasteful" social spending...
...There's plenty of work waiting to be done, from repairing our decaying infrastructure to augmenting badly needed social services for the elderly, the mentally ill, and others...
...Don't be misled, however, by Murray's apparent mean-spiritedness...
...Likewise, the gap in achievement scores for black and white students seemed to be narrowing through 1965...
...This in turn presumably would spur economic growth, d la Gilder's formula...
...This is a key point, and one that an increasing number of black sociologists, journalists, and politicians are now expounding...
...Nor can his argument be dismissed as easily as most liberals would like...
...Worst of all, entirely removing the frayed social safety net would confirm the worst fears of the working poor, who are struggling to escape poverty and, more often than not, succeeding...
...It was used by those who urged "understanding" and automatic promotion of low-achieving and disruptive students—an approach that lowered classroom expectations and academic standards, thereby victimizing most those poor children who sought a decent education to escape the ghetto...
...Instead it has financed the expansion of entitlement programs that primarily benefit the middle class, among them Social Security, Medicare, and veterans' benefits...
...Murray's prescription isn't simply "more stick, less carrot," as he benignly characterizes it...
...This would lower taxes for the middle class, which now taxes itself heavily to pay itself back...
...Stiffing the poor Though most of his analysis rests on an implicit criticism of the response of young black males to Great Society programs, it would be unfair to dismiss Murray as a racist...
...He dedicates his book to the social workers he's known who "did not succeed nearly as often as they deserved ." But if these friends in the field had insights to share, they're not evident here...
...For example, making all education in America from kindergarten to graduate school completely free, with admission determined by performance on entrance examinations...
...Murray's prescription is also familiar...
...they were also marked by a calamitous decline in the quality of public schools...
...The argument assumed wholly "rational" behavior, as Murray does...
...If we were serious about redirecting government resources to only the deserving, we would combine the current panoply of programs with a social welfare purpose, from Social Security to food stamps, into a single insurance program against need...
...The implication, which Murray does nothing to dispel, is that the federal government has lavished vast sums of money on the poor...
...Once welfare is abolished, the suddenly renewed work ethic is expected to create jobs in and of itself...
...today, after desegregation, busing, and billions of dollars in compensatory education, it is widening...
...Murray's belief that they should work full-time would deprive poor children of one of the few advantages they now enjoy: the care and attention of a full-time parent...
...Yet it is precisely because Murray is so right about the importance of values—a point liberals instinctively recoil from—that his prescription is ultimately so wrong...
...the traditional formulation of "equal opportunity" was somewhat facile, much like the old saw that the rich and poor will be punished equally for sleeping under public bridges...
...American Social Policy, 1950-1980...
...Such composites often hold much truth, but they also tend to embrace the economist's fallacy that people always act in a "rational" fashion to "maximize their utility...
...For a closer examination reveals that much of Murray's argument depends on ignoring some highly inconvenient facts, and, on occasion, resorting to some deliberate distortions...
...It was also wrong, as the subsequent drop in welfare recipients proved...
...And one needn't call on the omni-quoted Thomas Sowell—Jesse Jackson would do just fine—to find blacks who agree that attitudes regarding marriage, homework, and employment have changed for the worse within the black community, simultaneous with the expansion of the welfare state...
...Murray's analysis is faulty in other key respects...
...In fact—no small irony here, though ultimately a welcome one—the fallacy of his solution can only be revealed once Murray's critics concede much of his case...
...As for illegitimate children, a woman who's had, say, three such children should be told to support the next child on her own...
...Black students should be held more accountable in school, subjected to higher expectations and taught that "failure can be dealt with," as Murray puts it...
...Let parents choose their children's schools through vouchers...
...But why not make a few amendments to meet Murray's legitimate criticisms...
...This amounts to a guaranteed annual income...
...At this point the statistics—which, for all their impersonality, reflect the actions of real people—give way to that favorite refuge of the speculative sociologist: the hypothetical composite...
...The answer, one soon suspects, involves more than Murray's occupational preference for numbers-crunching...
...This rationale was marshalled on behalf of leniency for coldblooded, vicious criminals—whose victims were disproportionately poor, black, and law-abiding...
...What can reasonably be expected of children who are learning-disabled due to low birthweight or bad nutrition, of students who are too terrified by crime in their neighborhood to pay attention in class, of young adults who cannot hold a steady job because of some immutable genetic defect that affects the chemical balance in their brains...
...Incompetent (but often black) teachers may be a far better explanation of poor performance on aptitude tests than "cultural bias...
...For example, the last two decades were not only distinguished by dramatic gains in civil rights, economic growth, and government assistance programs...
...The gap between the proportion of white and black males with jobs was negligible through 1966—and then increased dramatically as many young blacks failed to enter the work force...
...Harold and Phyllis," for example, an unemployed man and his pregnant girlfriend, are used to illustrate how changes in AFDC eligibility rules and benefits now encourage couples who once sought honest work to go on the government dole...
...Like many neoconservatives, Murray says much that should—but too often doesn't—give liberals pause...
...It merely changed form...
...Latent poverty," a useful term Murray has coined to describe the number of poor there would be if there were no government aid programs, is slightly higher today than it was in 1968...
...The thoroughness of Murray's statistical work is matched by a comparable neglect of some obvious, and important, reporting...
...Murray's evidence clearly shows why government programs need a complete overhaul...
...Why doesn't Murray reinforce his case with their views...
...a low-status job is better than none) feel like suckers...
...For example, in his preface Murray notes that "civilian social welfare costs increased by 20 times from 1950 to 1980, in constant dollars...
...As Murray himself notes, reformers too often have made eligibility standards too broad or sunk into paralysis in their vain search for a "perfectly fair" welfare system...
...Murray's insensitivity to women and children in this regard is matched by his uncritical attitude toward unemployment insurance, by which single men—who typically receive as much as fathers of five children—can easily arrange a "lay-off" to finance a vacation in Florida...
...Basic Books, $23.95...
...Remember, the average AFDC recipient relies on the program for less than two years...
...To make these comparisons or draw on these resources would run the risk of drawing attention to some serious flaws in his analysis...
...To this end he offers some constructive suggestions that are worthy of debate...
...But government must still provide the bedrock on which to build an effective social policy, or else those efforts will prove ineffective...
...He endorses vouchers after (rightly) flogging liberals for their role in aiding and abetting bad public schools...
...Yet by Murray's own logic, might not this countervailing trend—which disproportionately affected blacks in inner-city schools—be the real villain, more than wiping out the gains from Great Society programs...
...That, in turn, would lead to greater fear and resentment of the poor by middle-class taxpayers, further alienating the races and widening, not narrowing, the gap between social classes...
...The relativism that naturally followed from this approach—!`all the poor are equally deserving' resulted in making those who adhered to old rules and values (marry your girlfriend if she becomes pregnant...
...And (this is obviously more radical) eliminate most of the federal government's social welfare programs...
...Rather, it promises an effect opposite from what Murray (and the rest of us) want...
...pointing this out was a heresy for which Daniel Patrick Moynihan was excoriated nearly two decades ago...
...Murray's instinct for conventional liberals' intellectual jugular is sure and swift...
...A sociologist by profession, he is no intellectual slouch...
...ON POLITICAL BOOKS Lessons of the Great Society by Phillip Keisling Carles Murray has written an important book* one that may provide as much ideological grist for Ronald Reagan's second term as George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty did for the first...
...Meanwhile, the public has been conspicuously stingy with respect to the poor...
...The government's largest "means-tested" welfare program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, consumes less than 1 percent of the federal budget...
...But this new emphasis wasn't quite as invidious or irresponsible as Murray suggests...
...And while many blacks made impressive gains during this period—seen in the increase in black college graduates and managers—the crime rate in black neighborhoods exploded...
...and go on a Mediterranean cruise...
...A far worse culprit than the $250 AFDC payment to a teenage mother with no skills is the $600-a-month Social Security check that entices an experienced, prosperous worker to retire early (talk about undermining the work ethic...
...He argues persuasively that the "Society Is to Blame" theology which became fashionable in the mid-1960s (especially with regard to poor blacks) has harmed those it sought to assist...
...According to Murray's logic, states like Mississippi, which could never be accused of coddling the poor (a mother of two children receives just $96 a month in AFDC and $183 in food stamps), should be havens for a robust work ethic and strong family values...
...Simply abolishing AFDC, food stamps, housing assistance, and other programs, thereby forcing the poor to rely on the good will of private charity and local government, does nothing to address this central problem...
...But the underlying goal—to prevent children from having to pay for the sins and unfortunate circumstances of their parents—must be recognized as legitimate...
...Promoting the work ethic would be simple: all able-bodied recipients could be required to take a government job in exchange for assistance...
...This sense leads the reader to the book's most conspicuous flaw...
...A good example: when the Reagan administration eliminated a provision aimed at encouraging AFDC recipients to work (the $30 and one-third disregard, for those interested in such lacunae) because it also put many working poor on the welfare rolls, liberals protested that this would encourage people to stay on welfare and undermine the work ethic...
...But homo economicus is a rare species, as even liberals have discovered...
...An encouraging sign was Governor Mario Cuomo's speech to the Democratic convention...
...The flaws in Murray's argument are most evident in the book's second half...
...Mothers with preschool children, however, should be exempt...
...Murray's thesis will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Gilder's book or with Reagan's unguarded asides: the social welfare programs of the past 20 years have hurt the poor, not helped them...
...For example, he portrays the "paradigm shift" from seeking "equality of opportunity" to an insistence on "equality of result" that he says led to the "Society Is to Blame" rationale portrayed here as a sudden wave of insanity that came to dominate the "elite wisdom" circa 1967...
...contrary to his blithe assurances, children without such parents will be decidedly worse off, left behind in inner-city schools which will decay faster than ever...
...The black family is deteriorating in our inner cities...
...It is unfortunate that Murray, like so many other neoconservatives, lets his antipathy toward government so blind his judgment that he sees it only as the problem—and not as a necessary part of the solution...
...Abolish all affirmative action programs and laws...
...The incidence of poverty dropped steadily from 1950 to around 1968—and then leveled off...
...But he makes the same mistake he berates liberals for—over-simplifying their points and refusing to recognize the truth in their arguments...
...his book is clearly argued, well-documented, and marked by stretches of pungent writing...
...And in the last eight years, AFDC payments have dropped more than 15 percent, after accounting for inflation...
...As for Medicaid, last year half of its $20 billion went to the elderly, whose nursing home care is not covered by Medicare...
...These distressing trends, Murray argues, are the opposite of what one would expect from an expanding economy, dramatic progress in civil rights, and burgeoning social programs...
...Murray provides another example, from his own field: black sociologists who leapfrog to managerial positions as a result of affirmative action dictates, never to realize their full potential because they are deprived of the traditional apprenticeship period that would give them a solid grounding in basic research techniques...
...Meanwhile, the incidence of illegitimate births among blacks tripled to 55 percent...
...It would vastly increase those feelings of alienation that already are among the poor's worst enemies...
...And Murray's injunction to focus more attention on promoting values such as hard work, family, and achievement, is one that liberals must embrace as well...
...And in refusing to make distinctions, in shielding the poor from reasonable standards of judgment, the condescension of affluent whites towards blacks didn't disappear, Murray argues...
...It just ain't so...
...It's sink or swim in shark-infested waters...
...Losing Ground...
...Murray offers no such comparison...
...The antidotes liberals designed often were wasteful (CETA, Model Cities) or even counterproductive (busing, bilingual education...
...Indeed, a reader gets the distinct impression that Murray's understanding of the black community resulted in large part from a walk through an inner-city neighborhood one afternoon, as he nervously clutched his wallet while warily eyeing the young men on the street corner sipping cans of Schlitz Bull...
...And one more key omission: Murray conspicuously fails to concede the widely documented success of food stamps in reducing hunger—to the point where Ed Meese claims to have trouble finding evidence of it...
...Mississippi's poor are simply more miserable than those living in, say, Calfornia...
...More revealing is the fact that Murray shows no particular insight into the "black culture" he focuses on...
...Murray's rationale for this latter proposal is a variation on the premise of supply-side economics: even the poor will benefit from getting less help from the government...
...The goal is finding the best of flawed alternatives...
...As Mancur Olson has pointed out [see "What We Lose When the Rich Go on the Dole," January], when the rich tap into the welfare state, the productivity loss to society is greater than when the poor do...
...Yet the wise use of vouchers depends on conscientious parents...
...Indeed, most of Murray's valid evidence could be used to justify a much different conclusion...
...Yet, as Michael Harrington (a Murray antagonist, it must be said) demonstrates in his recent book, The New American Poverty, the majority of that money has not gone to the poor...
...Phillip Keisling is a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly...
...Racial discrimination doesn't fully explain why corner grocery stores in black neighborhoods are too often owned and operated by Vietnamese immigrants rather than local black entrepreneurs...
...He praises the New Deal's approach of tying government assistance to work—a "hand, not a handout," he remarks approvingly—then excoriates federal jobs programs like CETA in his roll call of Great Society sins...
...This isn't "genetic engineering" or "interfering with reproduction rights," as some might suggest— it's just common sense...

Vol. 16 • December 1984 • No. 11


 
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