Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail PDF
Preview Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail
PO OR PIOPLE’s MOV E MEN'IS WHY THEY SUCCEED, How THEY FAILM J '_ , ,1. ‘ ‘5" 4' (t! A$. £x _ s“;- 1 'M'.0k th OUld bk 1.;1-5 '|NQTON st.‘ rHr NEWYOR IMISBOOK REVw -\ FRANCES FOX PIVEN AND RICHARD A. CLOWARD WITHANEWINTRODUCTION BYTHE AGTHORS POOR PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS Why They Succeed, HOWThey Fail by FRANCES FOX PIVEN and RICHARD A. CLOWARD VINTAGE BOOKS ADivisionofRandom House -NewYork Grateful acknowledgmentismade to the followingforpermission toreprint previously publishedmaterial: The Antioch Press: Excerpts from “Kennedy in History: An Early Appraisal" by William G. Carleton. Copyright © I964by the Antioch Press. First published in The AntiochReview,vol.24,no.3.Reprinted bypermissionoftheeditors. Delacorte Press: Excerpted verse from Toil and Trouble by Thomas R. Brooks. C0pyright © 1964by ThOmas R. Brooks.Reprinted by permission of Delacorte Press. Fartune: Quotation fromFortune,Fall1931. Greenwood Press.Inc.: Excerpt from WoridRevolutionary Propaganda by Harold D. Lasswelland Dorothyllumenstock. Usedwith the agreementof the reprint publisher, Gr'eemsoodPress.Inc. Lexington Books:Bread orJustice by Laurence Neil Bailis.Reprinted bypermission of Lexington Books,D.C.Heath and Company, Iexington, Mass, 1974. Lexington Books and The Rand Corporation: Prolexts by the Poor by Larry R. jackson and William A.Johnson. Reprinted by permission of Lexington Books.D. C. Heath andCompany,Lexington, Mass, 1974,and The Rand Corporation. George T. Martin, Jr; EXCCI‘ptfSrom "The Emergence and Development of a Social Movement Organization Among the Underclass: ACaseStudy of the National Welfare Rights Organization" by George T. Martin, Jr., Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology.UniversityofChicago, 1972.Reprinted bypermission. Monthly Review Press: Excerpts from Rosa Lnxemburg's Selected Writings, edited byDickHoward. Copyright. 1971byMonthly ReviewPress.Reprinted bypenniSsion ofMonthly ReviewPress. The Nation: "No Rent Money...1931”byHorace Cayton in the September 9. 1931. issue and “Labor 1975:The Triumph of BusinessUnionism" by B.]. Widick in the September 6,1975issue. National Welfare Rights Organization: Excerpt from the “Natimial Welfare Rights OrganizationNewsletter.”Reprinted bypermission The New American Library, Inc. Excerpts from Lyndon B.Johnson: The Exercise of Power by Rowland Evansand Robert Novak.Copyright © 1966by Rowland Evans and Rohert Novak.Reprinted byarrangement with The New AmericanLibrary, Inc., NewYork,N.Y. The NewYorkTimes Company: Excerpt from March 6, 1930,Febniary 2,1932,and juue I6. 1963,issues.Copyright © 1930,1982.1963byThe New YorkTimes Company. Reprinted bypennission. Radicai America: "Personal Histories of the Early C10" by Staughton Lynd from the Mny—june1969155111v3o,l. 5,n0.3.Copyright © 1959byRadical America. United AutoWorkersandJane Sugar:Fourlinesoflyricsattributed to MauriceSugar. Chief Counsel forUnited AutoWorkers. [937—1948. VintageBooksEdition,January [979 Copyright© 1977byFrancesF0xPivenandRichard A.C101tard Allrigi'ii‘sreserved _underInternational and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Pub lished1ntheUnited States_byR,andomHouse, Inc. NewYork,and inCanadabyRandOm Houseoszi'nda Limited,Toronto OriginallypublishedbyPantheon BooksinNovember -.1977. Library ofCongIESSCataloging inPublication Data Piven,FrancesFox. Poorpeople’smovements. Includesbibliographiesandindex. 1.Labor and laboringclasses—UnitedStates—Politicalactivity History. 2. Afro-Americans—Civilrights-History. 3.Welfareriglitsmoyement—United States—History. I. Cloward,Richard A.,joint author. [1.Title. [HD8076.P55 I979] 322.4’4'0973 78-54652 ISBN0-89172697-9 Manufactured intheUnited StatesofAmerica C9876 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like tothank BertDeLeeuw, Murray Edelman, MarkNaison, BillPastreich,and Howard Zinn forreading andcommenting on thismanuscript atvarious stagesin its preparation. Andour particular thankstoS.M.Miller,who both encouraged ustowrite thisbookand introduced usto GeorgeWiley. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ix Chapter I The Structuring ofProtest 1 Chapter 2 The Unemployed Workers’ Movement 41 Chapter 3 The Industrial Workers’ Movement 96 Chapter 4 The Civil Rights Movement 181 Chapter 5 The Welfare Rights Movement 264 INDEX 363 ABOUT THE AUTHORS 383 Introduction to the Paperback Edition In thereviewsthatappeared during theinterval betweenthepublica» tion of the hardcover and the paperback editions of Poor People's Movements,a number ofcritics took issuewith some of the conclu sionswereached.In thisbriefintroduction tothe paperback edition, wetaketheopportunity ofcontinuing thedebate.l Perhapsthesingular contribution of theintellectual tradition ofthe left,asithasdevelopedsincethenineteenth century,hasbeentobring working-classpe0ple fully into history, not simply asvictims but as actors. The left bas understOodthat working-classpeople are a his torical forceand could becomeagreater historicalforce.And the left hasunderstood that thedistinctiveform in whichthat forceeXpresses itselfisthe massmovement. In theory,thelefthasalsounderstood thatworking-classmovements are not forged merely bywilling or thinking or arguing them into existence.Proletarian movements,Marxsaid,areformedbyadialecti calprocessreflectingtheinstitutional logicofcapitalist arrangements. The proletariat isa creature, not ofcommunist intellectuals,but of mpital andtheconditionsofcapitalistproduction, apoint emphasized inthe CommunistManifesto: 1n prOportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is deve10ped, in the same pr0portion is the proletariat, the modem working class, de' veloped ...[and] .. .notonlyincreasesin number; itsstrength grows, and itfeelsthat strength more....Ofall theclassesthat stand faceto lThe followingreviewsarereferred tointhe text:jack Beatty,TheNation,October8. 1977:1. Barton Bernstein, The Chronicie of Higher Education, March 27. 1978;Carol Brightman, SevenDay:,January 1978:Michael Harrington. The New York Times Book Review,December ll. 1977;E.I. Hobsbawm, The NewYorkReviewofBooks,March 23. 1978;and PaulStarr,WorkingPapers,March/Apri11978. ix Introduction x facewith the bourgeoisie today.the proletariat atom isareally revo lutionary class.The Otherclassesdecayand finally disappear in the faceof Modern Industry; the proletariat is its Specialand essential product. Of course,historical developments frustrated Marx’sprediction: ex panding capitalist production did not create a revolutionary pro letariat. Still, the basic mode of dialectical analysis underlying the failed prediction—the idea that the strugglesof ordinary people are both formedbyand directed againstinstitutional arrangements—iscorrect. The prediction failedbecauseMarxdid not anticipate thespeci6cin stitutional patterns whichevolvedunder modem mpitalism, nor did he anticipate the particular forms of struggle which would be gen eratedinreactiontothem.Theseinstitutional arrangementsinhibited theemergenceofaunifiedandrevolutionary workingclass:thespread ofimperialism helped toproduce thesurplusesthat would raisework ing-classmaterial standardsinthemothercountries; thebalkanization of modern industry helped to fractionalize the working class; new institutions such as public education helped to ensure capitalistic ideological hegemony. In turn, these institutional arrangements shaped the character ofworking-classresistance.Contemporary work ing-classstrugglesarefragmented where the left wishesforunity, and working-classdemands arereformist wheretheleft prescribesaradical agenda. But the intellectual left hasfailed toconfront thesedevelopments fully, at leastin itsposture toward movements in industrial societies.2 It has failed to understand that the main features of contemporary popular strugglesarebothareflectionofaninstitutionally determined logicand achallenge to that logic.It hasclung instead to the specific nineteenth-century content of the dialectic, and by doing so, has forfeited dialectical analysis.Insofar ascontemporary movements in industrial societiesdo not take the formspredicted byan analysisof nineteenth-century capitalism, the left has not tried to understand thesemovements,but rather hastended simplytodisapproveof them. The wrongpeoplehavemobilized,fortheyarenottruly theindustrial 2By contrast, left-wing analysesof peasant movements are oriented precisely toward understanding the influenceof specificsocietalarrangements on thosemovements.with a measure of insight that perhaps benetits from the relative absenceof nineteenth century Mantis: thought 0n thesubject.See.forexample,ErichR.Wolf,Peasant Warsof the Twentieth Century (NewYoxk:Harper and Row, 1969),or James C.Swtt. The MoralEconomyofthePeanut (NewHaven.Conn: YaleUniversityPress,1976).
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