Experts' War on Poverty

D. Huret Romain, John Angell

Description

In the critically acclaimed La Fin de la Pauverte?, Romain D. Huret identifies a network of experts who were dedicated to the post-World War II battle against poverty in the United States. John Angell's translation of Huret's work brings to light for an English-speaking audience this critical set of intellectuals working in federal government, academic institutions, and think tanks. Their efforts to create a policy bureaucracy to support federal socio-economic action spanned from the last days of the New Deal to the late 1960s when President Richard M. Nixon implemented the Family Assistance Plan. Often toiling in obscurity, this cadre of experts waged their own war not only on poverty but on the American political establishment. Their policy recommendations, as Huret clearly shows, often militated against the unscientific prejudices and electoral calculations that ruled Washington D.C. politics.The Experts' War on Poverty highlights the metrics, research, and economic and social facts these social scientists employed in their work, and thereby reveals the unstable institutional foundation of successive executive efforts to grapple with gross social and economic disparities in the United States. Huret argues that this internal war, coming at a time of great disruption due to the Cold War, undermined and fractured the institutional system officially directed at ending poverty. The official War on Poverty, which arguably reached its peak under President Lyndon B. Johnson, was thus fomented and maintained by a group of experts determined to fight poverty in radical ways that outstripped both the operational capacity of the federal government and the political will of a succession of presidents.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• USA
• Welfare economics
• History of the Americas
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501709531
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

The Experts’ War on Poverty

A Volume in the Series American Institutions and Society Edited by Brian Balogh and Jonathan Zimmerman A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

The Experts’ War on Poverty

Social Research and the Welfare Agenda in Postwar America

Romain D. Huret Translated by John Angell

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Originally published as La Fin de la Pauvreté? Les experts sociaux en guerre contre la pauvreté aux EtatsUnis (1945–1974) (Éditions de l’EHESS, 2008).

Copyright © 2018 by Éditions de l’EHESS

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2018 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Huret, Romain, author. | Angell, John (Translator), translator. Title: The experts’ war on poverty : social research and the welfare agenda in postwar America / Romain D. Huret ; translated by John Angell. Other titles: Fin de la pauvreté?. English Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2018. | Series: American institutions and society | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018007694 (print) | LCCN 2018021283 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501709531 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501712173 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9780801450488 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Poverty—United States—History—20th century. | Poor—United States—History—20th century. | Economic assistance, Domestic—United States—History—20th century. Classification: LCC HC110.P6 (ebook) | LCC HC110.P6 H5913 2018 (print) | DDC 362.5/560973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018007694

Cover image: Detail of a 1960 photograph of staff working in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

To my dream team—Ariane, Emilien, Melvil, and Raphaël

Introduction

Contents

Part I. A Science of Poverty (1945–1963)

1. The Poverty Paradox

2. The Poverty Culture

3. The New Wisconsin Idea

4. Beyond the Affluent Society

Part II. From Science to War (1963–1974)

5. An Economist at War

6. A Pyrrhic Victory

7. Uncertainty of Numbers, Certainty of Decisions

1

11

13

37

56

77

95

97

115

131

vi i i

Contents

8. A Doomed Alternative

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

154

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The Experts’ War on Poverty