Book Review Essay : Poverty, 1974: a Political Perspective

• Author: John E. Crow
• Published date: 01 March 1975
• Date: 01 March 1975
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297502800112
• Published By: Sage Publications, Inc.
• Subject Matter: Articles

193

BOOK

REVIEW

ESSAY

POVERTY,

1974:

A

POLITICAL

PERSPECTIVE

JOHN

E.

CROW

University

of

Arizona

From

Poverty

to

Dignity:

A

Strategy

for

Poor

Americans.

By

Charles

Hampden-

Turner.

(Garden

City:

Anchor

Press,

Doubleday,

1974.

Pp.

300.

$8.95.)

Ends

and

Means

of

Reducing

Income

Poverty.

By

Robert

J.

Lampman.

(Chicago:

Markham

Publishing

Company,

1971.

Pp.

178.

$3.95.)

The

Unheavenly

City

Revisited.

By

Edward

C.

Banfield.

(Boston:

Little

Brown

and

Company,

1974.

Pp.

290.

$4.25.)

Poverty,

Politics

and

Change.

By

Dorothy

James.

(Englewood

Cliffs:

Prentice-Hall,

Inc.,

1972.

Pp.

164.

$6.95.)

From

Poor

Law

to

Welfare

State,

A

History

of

Social

Welfare

in

America.

By

William

Trattner.

(New

York:

Free

Press,

1974.

Pp.

276.

$9.00.)

Do

the

Poor

Want

to

Work?

By

Leonard

Goodwin.

(Washington:

Brookings

In-

stitution,

1972.

Pp.

178.

$6.50.)

The

varied

world

of

the

poor

in

American

political

life

continues

to

draw

the

attention

of

many

disciplines.

A

decade

after

the

commencement

of

Lyndon

Johnson’s

&dquo;War

on

Poverty,&dquo;

solutions

to

systemic

poverty

remain

elusive,

but

any

notion

that

study

of

the

poor

has

little

to

stimulate

or

challenge

the

social

scientist

is

perhaps

buried

for

good.

How

much

social

science

can

or

should

engage

the

amelioration

of

poverty

is

one

of

the

unsettled

and

unsettling

questions

in

the

contemporary

university.

The

poor

and

their

advocates,

preoccupied

with

action,

not

uncommonly

voice

their

rage

with

the

establishments

in

social

science

(as

elsewhere).

Hampden-

Turner,

one

of

the

more

vocal,

fumes,

&dquo;The

disgrace

of

social

science

in

our

time

is

not

just

in

its

refusal

to

help

the

poor,

for

in

truth

it

has

little

to

give

the

qua

man ....

Voyeurism

has

become

the

cornerstone

of

the

’scientific

method’

ap-

plied

to

social

affairs

-

Peeping

Toms

watching

Uncle

Toms

through

slits

in

the

ivory

tower,

the

impotent

methodically

measuring

the

impotence.&dquo; ’

Being

uncertain

how

man

can

relate

to

other

men

except

as

men

the

reviewer

takes

comfort

in

recalling

that

bombast

which

exalts

irrationalism

is

not

a

monopoly

of

the

political

left

(the

Falangist

slogan,

&dquo;Death

to

the

Intelligence&dquo;

comes

to

mind).

From

my

own

particular

slit

in

a

brick

tower,

however,

Hampden-Turner’s

case

for

Community

Development

Corporations

(CDC’s)

as

a

tool

of

anti-poverty

effort

is

a

plausible

one.

His

advocacy

is

pretentiously

cloaked

within

an

elaborate,

often

obsecure

scheme

of

value

analysis.

His

style

requires

frequent

systemic

flow

charts;

key

words

are

repeatedly

capitalized

so

as

to

alert

the

reader

that

some-

thing

IMPORTANT

is

being

COMMUNICATED.

The

CDC

is

a

device

not

unlike

the

old

producer’s

cooperative,

which,

under

certain

circumstances

has

been

helpful

is

strengthening

incomes

of

particular

1

Charles

Hampden-Turner,

From

Poverty

to

Dignity:

A

Strategy

for

Poor

Americans

(Gar-

den

City:

Anchor

Press,

Doubleday,

1974),

pp.

199-200.