Orwell depicted the poor unsentimentally, but with compassion and economic realism. Today’s conservative critics, who blame poverty on an absence of values, do neither.
Robert Lieberman
Robert C. Lieberman, who teaches political science and public policy at Columbia University, is the author of Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State.
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Why Americans Hate Welfare
A curious paradox defines the politics of welfare in the United States. On the one hand, we are an extraordinarily generous and forgiving people. In 1998 Americans donated more than $170 billion to charity, and we have proven open to giving just about anyone (even, say, a philandering president) a second chance. Americans are willing, […]