The New Victorians: Poverty, Politics, and Propaganda in Two Gilded Ages

In his scholarly history of American anti-welfare movements, Pimpare shows how today's""compassionate conservatives"" are repeating the arguments made by Victorian propagandists during the late 1800s, when they persuaded the public that government aid hurts both the poor and the working class. The 1980s and '90s witnessed severe welfare cutbacks, culminating in the conversion of welfare to workfare in 1996; the late 19th century saw similar slashes in government aid. Pimpare contends that, while conservatives suggest that Gilded Age""reforms"" proved the superiority of private""faith-based"" charity over public relief, the historical record demonstrates just the opposite. Victorian rollbacks led to the 1893 depression and to the emergence of a dangerously angry unemployed class; anti-welfare crusaders eventually admitted that their""reforms"" had failed and launched pro-welfare campaigns--forerunners of the New Deal and the American welfare state. Pimpare argues that, in both centuries, anti-welfare crusades succeeded through""shrewdly crafted rhetoric,"" endlessly repeated and reinforced. His comments on the""electoral threat"" of the poor are especially alarming. Forty-eight states prohibit prisoners from voting;""in seven states where ex-offenders cannot vote, 25 percent of all black men were permanently disenfranchised."" With thorough research and numerous examples, Pimpare challenges the idea that welfare cuts reduce poverty. Instead, he contends, welfare helps the poor and working classes alike: it offers an alternative to low-wage work, raises the minimum wage and gives workers""leverage against the market and their employers."" While some arguments may seem dry to the general reader, the book has much contemporary relevance. Welfare, Pimpare writes, allows people""to lead their lives and care for their families in ways that are impossible when their very survival is tethered to the relentless demands of the low-wage labor market.""