[.ca] Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980, 10th ... (ISBN 0465042333)

oh, please!:
Murray is a discredited crackpot, and a racist to boot. Skip it.

no longer a controversy:
It is amazing how far we have come as a society. After reading this book, one must pause and consider why so controversial a book in 1986, now basically represents an establishment view on welfare policy today. Also, one must know that there is more to Murray thought than this book. At this point in time, he does not grapple with the prevailing assumption of equality. After reading this. One must also read the still controversial Bell Curve, that undermines the notion of equality, and then one must connect the dots between the two.

This book's premise is NONSENSE:
Murray is right in one sense, the 50s and 1st half of the 60s did bring unprecedented prosperity. But he is way off on why it happened--it happened because of the largest Government welfare program in history. The Federal Government made grants and loans for housing, education, and businesses available to 12 million people in the late 40s. One report suggest that the GI bill provided education vouchers to 8 million veterans. College attendance doubled between 1940 and 1950, and it turned college education from a rarity to something very attainable for millions of families. It doubled the ratio of homeowners from one in three before the war to two in three afterwards. And according to a 1986 government study, each dollar invested in the bill yielded 5 to 12 dollars in tax revenues. Over the years, the GI Bill has been called many things by historians and veterans alike - a Marshall Plan for America, a Magic Carpet to the Middle Class. Need more evidence, how about a quote from the late historian Stephen Ambrose, "Thousands and thousands of small businesses were started in this country and are still there thanks to the loans from the GI Bill. It transformed our country". Also, thousands that grew up in city rentals moved to the suburbs and enjoyed home ownership that was impossible before this Government Program. You want to know the truth, read Michael Bennet's When Dreams Came True: The Gi Bill and the Making of Modern America".

Deeply flawed book.:
Deeply flawed book. I read this book in a poly-sci class. Its thesis is simple - by trying to help people, problems can be multiplied. The author has lots of charts and graphs to prove his point. Yet some things did not click - for example in Matusow's "The Unraveling of America", the author posits that the main beneficiary of LBJ's Great Society was the middle class - not the poor - so there appears to be a contradiction that Murray does not address. One thing to keep in mind is that Murray appears to starts with a conclusion - welfare is bad because... - and constructs his argument from that instead of the other way around, which I find suspicious. All his charts and graphs are meant to impress the reader but fall flat because he is neither an historian nor economist. Instead I would read "SOME TENDENCIES OF SOCIAL WELFARE AND THE PROBLEM OF INTERPRETATION" by Stephen T. Ziliak, who happens to be an economist with a mind toward history so you can understand how wrong Murray's thesis is. I quote the salient part: "The conservative story says that the U.S. welfare state has "created" a "dependent class" by allowing poor people to stay on the rolls too long. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the recent research shows that the average length of time an immigrant stayed on welfare in the 1980s and 1990s was a little less than the average experienced by able-bodied men and women of the 1820s, 1850s, 1880s, and 1910s." (Cato Journal (Winter 2002), Page 506).

Corruption and A Stacked Deck Undermine This Philosophy:
I agree with almost all of the principles of this book. Work, not inactivity must be rewarded. However, the reason many of the ideas of the social reformation for greater economic equality did not work was because persons affiliated with such groups as theManhattan Institute deliberately undermined the Reforms. The CIA purposefully dumped cocaine and otheer drugs into poor neighborhoods. CIA connected affiiliates then boought up HUD distressed pproperties at a fraction of the marketvalue in the neighboorhoods they purposefully had poisoned. Nearly 40% of the Housing Money for the poor in HUD was stolen by insiders. While government connected groups (CIA--North, Contras et al) were dumping drugs in these neighborhoods, suthorities increased drug crime convictions and sentencing and cut back on social programs (Basic education)purposefully creating hopeless. A director of HUD---Catherine Solari---was hounded into bankruptcy when she created maps showing CIA drug dumping and CIA/ Manhattan Institute & other right wing think tanks (CIA fronts) and HUD Repossesions by these same people for pennies on the dollar. We also have the Enron Capatalist, BCCI , Savings & Loan Robberries where Prominent Republicans (Bush involved in all) have stolen billions from the tax payer through shell games, corruption, and tax evasion. These free market / work ethic capatilists change the rules & regulations & buy judges so that they do not play by the same rules as the common man. They are above thelaw. Perhaps the "great society" didn't work because these insiders sabotaged any hope that the lower & middle classes had of a "new deal" of simple fairness in application of the lawand decency. Enron is an example. The law is only for the poor & middle classes. As you will notice in the "Enron Congressional Hearings" Theatr Production---not one of the offshore Cayman accounts where these looters stashed their money has been impounded. Joe average guy would have had their account immediately seized and would be in jail. How can this author deem that all is needed ishard work to suceed? Middle class Enron Retirees lost everything----and lower & middle class workers get a similar shaft constantly in "Equal America".