Frances Fox Piven, political science and sociology professor at the City University of New York, said last night that the shift in power from workers to business has undermined the welfare system in the United States.
"The attack on welfare is caused by political forces encouraged by changes in market," Fox Piven said to about 50 people in the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences in a speech titled "Markets, Politics and the Assault on Welfare."
Fox Piven said throughout history, the welfare state has been described as a progressive entity, but "this evolutionary, progressive perspective cannot stand up under recent events."
She said that in the post-industrial era, power relations have changed from the early 1900s when "labor was becoming decomm-odified through the ability to resist the demands of the market."
In the early industrial period, workers had the power to strike and unionize and big business wanted to be conciliatory toward them, she said.
"Now, we're in a second phase," she said. "In this new phase, we have business agendas which seem to want to dismantle national government."
In the 1970s, as profits fell, big business became mobilized and more political, according to Fox Piven. She said business began to defeat unions in the marketplace.
Fox Piven said those in power today are taking apart the national government apparatus which made the welfare state possible.
She said that this process would "devolve national government to a level that is excruciatingly vulnerable to capital mobility."
She said voters are letting this happen because politicians are presenting two important arguments; an international argument that a "laissez-faire" dismantling of government intervention is spreading across the world and an argument blaming "victims for failing to meet tests of employment."
She called this the cultivation of "hate" or "blame" politics.
But Fox Piven said voters, for the most part, do support government welfare programs.
"Contrary to the idea that public opinion motivates the welfare rollbacks, the reason for all of the sloganeering against big government is because there is underlying support for partly responsible government," she said.
Fox Piven said government's "propaganda campaign is necessary because people don't agree with" measures cutting social programs.
