Poverty and Power: The Problem of Structural Inequality / Edition 3

by Edward Royce

Overview

Poverty and Power suggests that today's poverty results from deep-rooted disparities in income, wealth, and power. The rate and severity of poverty remain high, because millions of Americans are trapped in low-wage jobs, inadequately served by government policy, excluded from mainstream policy debates, and victimized by discrimination and social exclusion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538110454
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/07/2018
Edition description:	Third Edition
Pages:	378
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Edward Royce is professor emeritus of sociology at Rollins College, where he was a recipient of the Cornell Distinguished Faculty Award. In addition to Poverty and Power, he is also the author of Classical Social Theory and Modern Society: Marx, Durkheim, Weber (2015).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

1 Poverty as a Social Problem 1

The Problem of Poverty 2

The Individualistic Perspective and the Structural Perspective 13

Organization of the Book 15

Appendix 24

Part I Individualistic Theories of Poverty and Inequality 27

2 The Biogenetic Theory of Poverty and Inequality 29

Our Fate Is in Our Genes 29

Genes, IQ, and Intelligence 31

Is It Better to Be Born Smart or Born Rich? 33

Genes, IQ, and Poverty 35

Conclusion 40

3 The Cultural Theory of Poverty and Inequality 47

Poverty as Deviance 47

The Origins and Development of the Cultural Theory 48

The Culture of the Poor 49

The Sources of the Cultural Deviance of the Poor 51

The Cultural Solution to the Problem of Poverty 53

Is the Cultural Theory Plausible? 55

How Well Does the Cultural Theory Know the Poor? 57

Do the Poor Differ from the Nonpoor, and If So How and Why? 58

Conclusion 63

4 The Human Capital Theory of Poverty and Inequality 71

Education Is the Key to Success 71

Acquiring Human Capital 73

Converting Human Capital 75

What You Know or Who You Are? 76

What You Know or Who You Know? 79

What You Know or Where You Work? 81

Skills Deficit or Jobs Deficit? 82

Conclusion 84

Part II A Structural Perspective on Poverty-Four Systems 89

5 The Economic System and Poverty 91

The Economics of Poverty 91

Poverty and Economic Growth 93

Skill-Biased Technological Change 94

A Shift in the Balance of Economic Power 97

Deindustrialization 100

Globalization 103

Corporate Restructuring 107

A Shortage of Jobs 110

Conclusion 112

6 The Political System and Poverty 123

The Politics of Poverty 123

We're Number One: The United States inComparative Perspective 124

The Structure of the American Political System 127

The Political Mobilization of Business 131

The Political Marginalization of the Working Class and the Poor 132

The Synergy of Money and Power 136

Policy Consequences of the Power Shift: Robin Hood in Reverse 139

Conclusion 146

7 The Cultural System and Poverty 157

Hearts and Minds 157

The American Dream and the Ideology of Individualism 159

Beliefs about Poverty and the Poor 161

Strong Individualism, Weak Structuralism 162

The News Media 165

The Right-Wing Ideology Machine 172

The Rightward Turn in Poverty Discourse 175

Conclusion 178

8 The Social System and Poverty 187

We Are Not Alone 187

Group Memberships 189

Neighborhood Effects 192

Social Networks and Social Capital 196

Conclusion 204

Part III A Structural Perspective on Poverty-Ten Obstacles 215

9 Structural Obstacles and the Persistence of Poverty (I) 217

Racial and Ethnic Discrimination 218

Residential Segregation 222

Housing 226

Education 230

Transportation 234

10 Structural Obstacles and the Persistence of Poverty (II) 249

Sex Discrimination 249

Child Care 253

Health and Health Care 256

Retirement Insecurity 260

Legal Deprivation 264

Conclusion 268

11 Conclusion 283

Poverty and Power 283

Programs and Power 285

Movements and Power 289

Selected Bibliography 295

Index 317

About the Author 327

Editorial Reviews

At a time when America is facing a crisis of inequality and rising poverty, Edward Royce's Poverty and Power is a critical guide to understanding the true causes of economic hardship in our country and to avoiding falling for the false and misleading ideas about poverty that are so popular in the mass media.  Poverty is a problem created by political power—Royce shows how it's done, and how it can be undone.

Gordon Lafer

A brilliantly written book about the causes and consequences of American poverty that serves as a wakeup call to a nation with the ideals of justice, but the realities of gross inequity born out of injustice.

Rebecca Havens

Poverty and Power is an excellent textbook that not only provides rigorous analysis of the ongoing socio-economic issues in the United States, but challenges students to think more critically at how structural and institutional norms reinforce poverty.

Randy Goldson

I use Royce’s book Poverty and Power when teaching a sociology course focused on social class. In a clear and up-to-date manner, Royce challenges common myths about social class in the U.S., and presents data and corresponding arguments that reveal structural causes of poverty, rooted in economic, political, social, and cultural systems.

Laurel R. Davis-Delano

Poverty and Power is the best one-stop-shop I have found for helping students to understand how inadequate our understandings of poverty are in the U.S. and how central power is to fostering—and, ultimately, to addressing—poverty.

Michael Barram

The single most comprehensive structural exploration of inequality and poverty.

Rick Eckstein

Poverty and Power is an essential text for students interested in understanding the intersection of structural poverty and the unequal distribution of power in the U.S., and how the former is perpetuated by the latter.

Arturo Baiocchi

Clear, accessible, and powerfully argued, Poverty and Power offers readers a deeply informed exploration of how we tend to explain poverty in the United States and how those dominant explanations differ from what we know about the reality of being poor in America. There may be no better single-volume introduction to the issue than this compelling and comprehensive book.

Stephen Pimpare

Poverty and Power, second edition, is a tour de force treatment of competing perspectives on poverty in America and of the compelling case for understanding poverty as a structurally-generated social problem. This lively and current volume is essential reading for students and citizens interested in developing a more complete understanding of discussions and debates on the nature of poverty and on social policies designed to deal with poverty as a social problem.

Earl Wysong

Poverty and Power is a well-documented  account of the political and economic roots of the exceptionally high rates of poverty in the United States and a systematic critique of explanations that blame the so-called deficiencies of the poor.  Its clearly laid out argument and highly readable prose make it an excellent resource for classroom use and for all who are interested in understanding why economic hardship is so widespread in a country of such celebrated wealth.

Alice O'Connor

In the area of economic inequality, there is no book I would adopt before Poverty and Power. Royce analyzes and synthesizes an astonishing amount of material. I challenge anyone to find a scholar more steeped in the literature on poverty than this author. Poverty and Power will broaden and deepen the knowledge base of any professor (let alone student) but without excessive disciplinary jargon. The result of Royce’s painstakingly thorough research and elegant writing is a highly informative yet engaging and readable text. The first edition proved a hit with students in my senior seminar; we eagerly await this second edition!

Lisa M. Tillmann

Poverty and Power persuasively demonstrates the force of social structures in generating and perpetuating poverty. Challenging conventional arguments about the poor being poor as a result of their own choices, Royce clearly details how the exercise of power by actors in structurally advantaged positions—such as corporate lobbyists, employers, and the media—necessitates the existence of poverty. This important work should be required reading for students, scholars, and policy makers.

Monica McDermott

The United States has a serious poverty problem. As Edward Royce argues with admirable clarity, the causes lie deep in our social structure. Poverty and Power provides a lucid overview of contending theories and a wealth of empirical data. It is an essential antidote to the complacent, blame-the-poor rhetoric that has hamstrung progress toward the elimination of poverty in this country.

Matthew Nichter

Edward Royce’s Poverty and Power provides a comprehensive look at the reasons why poverty persists in the United States and why it is so often taken for granted by many Americans. Royce's compelling argument identifies the cause of poverty as rooted in inequalities in power and politics and shows the inadequacies of individualistic, cultural, and human capital theories of poverty.

Ellen Reese

This updated edition of Poverty and Power remains the single most comprehensive exploration of structural inequality I have ever read. The book brilliantly excoriates our prevailing belief that poverty and inequality result from individuals’ poor decisions or bad personal attributes. In speaking with colleagues, Poverty and Power has become the ‘go to book’ for undergraduate and graduate classes that want to examine the economic, cultural, political, and social layers of systemic inequality.

professor of sociology at Villanova University