Regulating the Poor The Functions of Public Welfare

Piven and Cloward have updated their classic work on the history and function of welfare to cover the American welfare state's massive erosion during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years. The authors present a boldly comprehensive, brilliant new theory to explain the comparative underdevelopment of the U.S. welfare state among advanced industrial nations. Their conceptual framework promises to shape the debate within current and future administrations as they attempt to rethink the welfare system and its role in American society.
"Uncompromising and provocative. . . . By mixing history, political interpretation and sociological analysis, Piven and Cloward provide the best explanation to date of our present situation . . . no future discussion of welfare can afford to ignore them."
Peter Steinfels, The New York Times Book Review"

1. Relief, Labor, and Civil Disorder: An Overview

Part I: Relief and the Great Depression

2. Economic Collapse, Mass Unemployment, and the Rise of Disorder

3. The New Deal and Relief

Part II: Relief and the Years of Stability: 1940-1960

4. Enforcing Low-Wage Work: Statutory Methods

5. Enforcing Low Wage Work: Administrative Methods

Part III: Relief and the Urban Crisis

6. The Welfare Explosion of the 1960s

7. Agricultural Modernization and Mass Unemployment

8. Migration and the Rise of Disorder in the Cities

9. The Great Society and Relief: Federal Intervention

10. The Great Society: Local Consequences

Part IV: Relief, Deindustrialization, and the War Against Labor: 1970-1990

11. Poor Relief and the Dramaturgy of Work

12. Poor Relief and Theories of the Welfare State