American Poverty: Functions, Mechanisms, and Contradictions

In: Monthly review: an independent socialist magazine, Volume 24, Issue 2, p. 72-79

Abstract

3 complimentary perspectives--functional, descriptive & dialectical--can be applied to the past, present & future of the poor in America. Poverty & inequality serve several critical functions in the maintenance & stabilization of the American Capitalist system. However, the social structure of capitalism has changing requirements as it evolves over time. Increasingly stratified labor markets today serve to "divide & conquer" potential labor unity & struggle. Econ growth tends to induce workers to tolerate alienated labor in return for material reward & future gain. A descriptive analysis of the mechanisms through which the system reproduces groups with diff personality structures & behavorial characteristics reveals the key instit's to be the fam & stratified educ'al tracks. The dialectical perspective elucidates the contradictions within the structure of regulatory tax & welfare systems. One set of imperatives is the maintenance of work incentives & low-wage labor markets. The other set of constraints concerns the preservation of order & the amelioration of discontent. As technological displacement produces superfluous workers, attempts at categorical treatment, special dispensation such as negative income tax subsidies or income maintenance assistance are resisted by the working poor just above the poverty line. The dilemma arising from these reformist policies is either the undermining of work incentives or the provocation of the poor. A. Karmen.