Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail
Individual blame can cover up a much larger, societal issue
In the excerpt from Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, authors Fances Fox Piven and Richard A Cloward use the Great Depression of the 1930’s to illustrate how people respond to crisis. In the beginning of the economic depression when workers were being laid off, “official denials helped to confuse the unemployed and to make them ashamed of their plight” (Piven and Cloward 290) In reality, the issue expanded far beyond the individual workers as this was a simple excuse for a much larger problem spreading around the world. When the “unemployed sometimes comprised voting majorities” (Piven and Cloward 291), it was clear that there was something seriously wrong. …show more content…
While they may be about a variety of topics, the ones in history are remembered as one of two things: won or lost. While this is subjective, it accurately describes what this passage entails. The passage takes place in the midst of the Great Depression. The millions of people left unemployed were looked down upon. The problem was, many people felt a particular burden for themselves and did not see the catastrophe taking place around them. “Even where public relief agencies existed, what little was actually given was usually provided by private charities (Gamson 288) For a period, the government lacked in support efforts for the citizens. However, come FDR’s election run, he gave the bottom working class a chance for hope. “What working people listened to were the promises to “build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid (Gamson 292) When people have been stripped of an identity (almost dehumanized), it is hard to fight for social change. However, when a large enough group of disfranchised have their voices heard, that is when a social revolution is about to
In the excerpt from Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, authors Fances Fox Piven and Richard A Cloward use the Great Depression of the 1930’s to illustrate how people respond to crisis. In the beginning of the economic depression when workers were being laid off, “official denials helped to confuse the unemployed and to make them ashamed of their plight” (Piven and Cloward 290) In reality, the issue expanded far beyond the individual workers as this was a simple excuse for a much larger problem spreading around the world. When the “unemployed sometimes comprised voting majorities” (Piven and Cloward 291), it was clear that there was something seriously wrong. …show more content…
While they may be about a variety of topics, the ones in history are remembered as one of two things: won or lost. While this is subjective, it accurately describes what this passage entails. The passage takes place in the midst of the Great Depression. The millions of people left unemployed were looked down upon. The problem was, many people felt a particular burden for themselves and did not see the catastrophe taking place around them. “Even where public relief agencies existed, what little was actually given was usually provided by private charities (Gamson 288) For a period, the government lacked in support efforts for the citizens. However, come FDR’s election run, he gave the bottom working class a chance for hope. “What working people listened to were the promises to “build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid (Gamson 292) When people have been stripped of an identity (almost dehumanized), it is hard to fight for social change. However, when a large enough group of disfranchised have their voices heard, that is when a social revolution is about to