"the liberal technocrat"- adolph l. reed jr

7/25/2019 "The Liberal Technocrat"- Adolph L. Reed Jr.

1/5

6, 1988

167

REED

JR.

TRULY DISADVANTAGED:

City, the Underclass, and Pub-

Press.

254

pp.

wing the Reagan years public

discussion about poverty has

:moved considerably o the right

I

to focus on the behavior of the

16 the meaner-spirited versions of

a

logy; according to the better-

s imply a fate

efalls certain types of individu-

on

the one side

a brand of

love to wean the poor from

ntal appeals on behalf of pathetic

who suffer from a disease

poverty. In

William Julius Wilson at-

to

shift the terms of this discus-

away

from such banalities. His in-

are to address the problems of

detail, the policy implications

that analysis. He succeeds to the ex-

that he offers detailed view that

a

broader, more dynamic

N-ly a decade ago Wilson published

of

socioeconomic

mportantthan

of

Americans. The book debated

ylackchol-

severalyears, houghmostof

Ji. associate

is

ofThe. Jesse Jackson Phenomenon

Press The Politi-

Thought of W.E;B. DuBois

Press, also

Race, Politics and Culture: Crit-

Essays on he Radicalism of the

Press .

the criticism

of

it arose of fearsabout

its implications and not from Wilsons

arguments, which were hardly. unsup-

portive of

an

affirmative action agenda.

Of course conservatives have tried to

undercut programs such as affirmative

action by appropriating Wilsons argu-

ment that they are disproportionately

beneficial to upwardly mobileblacks,

but Wilson imself has consistently

maintained that race-specificpolicies,

properly applied, crucial to the

ad-

vancement

of

racial democracy. His

ar-

gument about the declining significance

of race has also been attractive to many

on the left, because it refuses to treat

racism as

a

monolithic force, unaffected

by historical context. What Wilson of-

fers is

a

view of race that links changes

in the character of racial subordination

to shifting pational economic impera-

tives. In folding racial dynamics into

economic dynamics this view sidesteps

the apparent autonomy of racial con-

flict in the United States-a problem

that has long plagued the lefts vision

of

a politics based on interracial solidar-

ity. Moreover, Wilson identifies himself

proudly

as

a social democrat and shows

some initation-at those who have sought

to associate him with black neoconserva-

tism.

Part

of his project in

is to extend his argu-

ment about race

and

economics to the

urban underclass.

Wilsons story is straightforward.

Blacks (and Hispanics) moved into cities

in great numbers just when the econom-

ic hub of urban life was changing from

god-producing o ~~e prod~~

ing activity. But

as a

result

of

that

change, those cities-mainly inhe

Northeast and Midwest-had lost the

sorts

of

lower-skill jobs needed to

accommodate the influx. Clustered in

ghetto neighborhoods because of the

opportunity-structure,blacks

and Hispecs experienced the social

isolation that produced undesirable

concentration effects. The latter in-

clude the well-known tangle-of-patholo-

gy litany-crime, een-age pregnancy,

female-headed families, out-of-wedlock

births and welfare dependency. In

sons view, this dynamic can under-

stood only by recognizing hat it derives

not so much from contemporary racism

as rom heoperation of impersonal

economic and demographic forces.

He takes great pains to distinguish

himself from the culture of poverty

tlieorists-e.g., Murray and the disin

genuous, Nicholas Lemann-who ascri

the intractability of poverty:to the at-

titudes, values and behavior of fie inner

city poor. FprWilson the characteristic

of

ghetto-specific .culture are prag-

matic adaptations to isolation and to

limited opportunity, both ofwhichhave

made it ?difficult to sustain the basic

institutions in these neighborhoods (in-

cluding churches, stores, schools, recre

ational facilities, etc.) in the face of in-

creased joblessness caused -by the fre-

quent recessions during the and

early and changes in the urban

job structure.The deterioration

of

those local institutions has led to socia

disorganization and the decline of ex-

plicit norms and sanctions against aber-

rant behavior.UnlikeLemann,Murray

et al., Wilson argues that the key con-

clusion from a public policy perspectiv

is that programs created to alleviate

poverty, joblessness, and related forms

of

social dislocation should place pri-

mary focus on changing the social and

economic situations, not he cultural

traits, of the ghetto underclass. He

moves from that conclusion to propose

a broad policy offensive based on

versal employment and training pro-

grams open to the general public. But

Wilson supports this view, whichhas its

merits, by a curious reading of Ameri-

can history, according which the

greatest strides in social reform have

been made not through conflict and

struggle but when liberals and conser-

vatives find common ground. (How

can

we fit abolition, suffrage, unioniza-

tion, the New Deal, civil rights or abor

tion rights into that framework?)

Most of the components of Wilsons

implicit agenda seem reasonable enoug

though he neglects to explain where to

find the coalition to form such a con-

sensus. This oversight is not so damn-

ing; he wiiiuld probably respond by say-

ing that specific strategies are not his

job. Moreover, the thrust of this book

lies not in its policy proposals but in its

efforts to make public social policy de-

bate more humane, intellectually honest

and, careful. Unfortunately, on the latter

score; despite good intentions and the

occasional insight or useful fact-e.g,,

that black een-age pregnancy has not

been increasing nd,may be in long-term


2/5

168

The 6 1

decline- fails

in several very important ways to break

with the premises of the Reagan era~dis-

course on the poor. Thespecific charac-

ter of this failure is certainly worthy of

the lefts attention-especially at

a

time

when the term social democrat is be-

ing applied to everyone who believes in

Social Security, Medicare and public

works employment.

To begin with, Wilsons entire inter-

pretation springs from the conjunction

of two disturbing and retrograde em-

phases, which-surprisingly for such a

distinguished sociologist-remain unex-

amined throughout the book. These

are first, the focus on disorganiza-

tion,aberration, deviance and

pathology that has influenced urban

sociological study at the University of

Chicago since the days of Robert Park

and the Americanization movement f

the World War I eraand, second, a

deeply patriarchal vision of main-

stream life.

When Wilson employs a language

of

social pathology, he is implyinga mode

of social health from which the under-

classdiverges. What is that model?

Because he does not state it explicitly,

we must infer it from his list of aber-

rant behavioral patterns that suppos-

edly define the underclass. On

basis, the healthy mainstream apparent-

ly is characterized by law-abiding, two-

parent families nwhichwomenhave

babies in adulthoo, with

the

imprima-

tur of church and s

t

te. Certainly, crime

and teen pregnancy would be endorsed

by no sensible person, but why should

we be concerned with how adult women

choose to organize their reproductive

activity and conjugal arrangements?

Wilson, has a n answer. The problem

This

is in

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is not that there is anything inherently

bad about female-headed households,

but, becausewomen earn lessmoney

than men, households headed by wom-

en are more likely than others

to

fall

below the poverty line. One might think

that pointwould lead him to call for pay

equity, universal day care and other

initiatives to buttress womens capacities

for living ndependently n the world,

but Wilson goes in exactly the opposite

direction. He defines the ultimate prob-

lem as

a

shortage of marriageable

men-going so faras to construct a

marriageable male pool index-and

argues for targeting employment and

training programs primarily at unem-

ployed young males who will thus be-

come more attractive as potential

spouses. (With respect to illegitimacy,

Wilson, like most underclass theorists,

makes no distinction between out-of-wed-

lock births and teen pregnancies, which

in fact are quite distinct phenomena.)

For all its apparent ingenuousness,

this

view s abominably sexist, not to

mention atavistic. Indeed, Wilsons very

definition of the underclass focuses al-

mosf exclusively on womens behavior.

If

it were not forviolent crime,pathol-

ogy would be recognizable only among

females.Wilson-like Park and the

others in the Chicago pantheon-sug-

gests that the behavioral patterns of the

poor warrant concern because they re-

flect social disorganization, and yet that

argument is undercut by his own insist-

ence that they are pragmatic responses

to structuralenvironment. The problem

is not the social disorganization of the

innerkcity poor, but Wilsons and oth-

ers distaste for, and reluctance

to

exam-

ine the institutional and organizational

forms that the inner-city poor, particu-

larly women,havedevised to survive

and

to

create meaning and dignity in

lives bitterly constrained by forces ap-

parently beyond their control.

Wilsons reflexive antifeminism and

commitment

to

the language of social

pathology account for another element

in his failure to escape the prevailing or-

thodoxy about poverty. The mainstream

propriety that he embraces issteeped

in a nostalgia now prevalent whenever

black intellectuals discuss the problems

of the black community. He recalls wist-

fully the time when lower-class, work-

ing-class, and middle-class black fami-

lies all lived more or less in the same

communities . .

.

sent their children to

the s h e chools, availed themselves of

the same recreational facilities, and

shopped at the same stores. He

members that in the 1940s black

Harlem couldsleepsafely on fire

capes n he summer heat and w

could venture uptown to consume

ture. The fact is that that safe, org

community was a more limited, c

plex and problematic entity than no

gia would allow,and its glue was no

much nuclear, intact families as

imperatives of racial segregation.

Wilson notes that when the stric

of racial subordination were relaxe

blackmiddleclass left the :inner

bantustans, and tohis credit he,doe

much indulge in the self-congrst,ula

prattle, now current among race-

tions engineers, about the black mi

classs special responsibility to

vide role models for thepoor. Yet h

cycles a related component of that

talgic deology in asserting a nee

restore two-parent families wit

regard to the fact that such a projec

nores the structural sources of pove

he describes.Moreover, he seems ob

ous to the danger that the new con

with the black family-like the old

cern with the black family and the o

concern with the immigrant family

an empty, moralistic ideology that s

to stigmatize the poor and enforce p

archal institutions -by appealing

past that may have been largely my

cal anyway, and one that was certa

predicated on the subordination

women. This is

not

to attack the

parent family, but family pol

should enable people to sustain w

ever sorts of iving arrangements

find

most

congenial-not impose

a

sa

sanct model.

There is one last problem with W

sons account, and it has perhaps

mosteriouslyimiting onsequences

for his treatment of poverty and pu

policy and or his broader argum

about race and economics.

is uninformed by

sense of politics as

a

factor in the c

tion and re-creation

of

the social w

Overlooking codified. segregation-

central issue in black life for two-th

of a century-in a paean to he

organic community, proposing a m

roeconomic dating service rather

attacking patterns of wage discrim

tion against women, and reading

flict out of the history of social ref

in the U.S. all exemplify his fai

Most strikingly, though, Wilsons

rative of the origin of the under

focuses exclusively on the role of b


3/5

6

1988

4 1

nor they create specific out-

hey are the products of con-

human action and in turn create

agendas. The transformationof

storical force but by

combination

of

private investment de-

ns and state action.

This

impetus

that-along with explicitly segrega-

ities in Federal public hous-

off minority communi-

displaced large sectionsof hese

n expressways, office complexes,

centers. There lies

of Wilson's social isolation.''

Wilson's overview leads him to mis-

m in the late and to miscon-

the ole of critics like Bayard

go beyond race to a

a broader program of social de-

ur-

by placing it within a

Without a clearsense

of

political ac-

responsibility, Wilson sees only

In

only

human agency he recog-

is the behavior of the underclass,

has done anything wrong,

contradictions abound. the un-

as a

contends that the un-

will witherawayas

why not define the underclass simply

nd lack of opportuni-

seems o lie at the

of moralistic ideology and patri-

dressed

up

as

social science.

failure to consider the political

of his argument allows Wil-

s. That also

a

weakness

of

of because

of race in the affirmative action ap-

But

it is especially inadequate

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of

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makes it impossible to distinguish pure-

ly racial from purely economic impera-

tives. Heavily black or Hispanic labor

markets are assumed to be plagued by

low skill levels nd poor work habits;

parcels of land occupied by minorities

are underutilized and ripe for redevel-

opment because the presencef minority

populations lowers market value. Wilson

himself notes that numbers of low-

skill jobs havebeenncreasing na-

tionally butnot irn those cities where

minorities are concentrated. In this con-

text the race/class debate is beside the

point. I t forgets that the logic of mar-

kets isocially and politically con-

structed and that race enters into social

and economic life in complex and indi-

rect ways. While the idea

of

institu-

tional racism is probably an

ron, racial subordination is reproduced

through he impersonal operations of

markets-with or without activedis-

crimination. Wilson rightly notes that

racism-a notion that implies individu-

al instances of prejudice and discrimina-

tion-does not explain the condition of

the underclass; however, like his antag-

onists he acceptsa view that sees only

the alternatives

of

explicit racial dis-

olicy

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crimination and race-blind stru

forces as explanations for black

nomic subordination. This is in pa

cause Wilson cannot see that hist

made by human action. Contrary

imputations of some of his propo

on the left, Wilsons argument doe

juxtapose race and class but race

whichhe treats as be

the scope of social intervention.

-

Finally,

an instructive text for the left as we

the end of Reaganism and, we hop

proach the empowerment of a l

Democratic regime. Wilson ex5mp

the limits of the liberal technocka

sion. ultimate concern is nut

durable patterns of dispossessio

stratification but with apparentl

cidental roadblocks to equal\oppo

ty. Thus, he separates joblessnes

poverty in a way that often eems b

At bottom his viewseems to be

poverty is acceptable (if palliate

maintenance programs) as long a

portunities exist for joining the up

mobility queue.

But what if there

is

no upward m

ity queue-or at least not one eith

enough to accommodate the large p

lations of blacks and

panics or -sturdy enough

to

with

the dynamics of racial and class s

dination? The economy is not ne

with respect to those dynamics. R

its inner logic-driven by concrete

choices-works-systematically to

centrate benefits among some gro

costs

among

others. Blacks, for exa

arenot new migrants who s

happened to show up in cities too

indeed, they have occupied the bo

of the urban social order througho

twentieth century.

Much of Wilsons omnibus socia

gram for jobs andraining is, unde

sent circumstances, a practical first

However, his bias against politic

conflict short-circuits his interpret

of the systemic sources of the unde

and threatens to keep everything i

bile while we wait for liberals and

servatives to form a consensus. In

tion, although hisviewof inne

poverty is some improvement over

of those available in public deba

cently, his habit of seeing the poor

ly as objects of administrative a

leads him to adopt,he language of

al repressiveness and patriarchy.

result, he cannot really free himse

the antidemocratic, Reaganite fram

reference.

= . .


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"the liberal technocrat"- adolph l. reed jr

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