The Death of the Welfare State and the Rise of Free-Market Family Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 176-192
Author(s):  
Maxine Eichner
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Basic Function ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Government Support ◽  
The Government ◽  
Families With Children ◽  
Government Benefits

This chapter shows how, in the last decades of the twentieth century, the United States abandoned its view that insulating families from harm by market forces was a basic function of government. This shift began in the early 1970s. At that time, it had looked like the government would move further toward protecting families by enacting two proposed pieces of legislation: a guaranteed income plan for families with children and universal daycare. Both plans ultimately failed, however. Their failure was partly a product of happenstance, but two other forces were also at work. The first of these was the growing—but false—belief that government support for families weakened them, whereas markets made them strong. The second was the rising racist—and equally false—belief that the majority of government benefits were going to undeserving African Americans. These forces coalesced in the passage of welfare reform in 1996 and gave rise to the free-market family policy we have today.

America’s Free-Market Family Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-42
Author(s):  
Maxine Eichner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Leave ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Market Policy ◽  
Child Benefits ◽  
The Government

This chapter contrasts two models of the role that government can play with respect to families. Free-market family policy, which the United States has adopted, is premised on the view that all government needs to do to support sound families is to support strong markets, which will in turn benefit families. In contrast, pro-family policy, which other countries have adopted, is based on the idea that families do better when the government actively supports them. Pro-family policy considers markets an important tool for distributing the resources that families need, but it regulates them to reduce economic inequality and insecurity and institutes programs like paid family leave, paid vacation, universal childcare, and child benefits. Of the two types of policies, free-market policy leaves families more vulnerable to market forces. That creates devastating problems for families when economic inequality and insecurity increase, as they have in the United States.

How We Fail Our Children Part I—The Caretaking Young Children Need

2020 ◽  
pp. 92-118
Author(s):  
Maxine Eichner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Early Childhood Development ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Work Hours ◽  
Childhood Development ◽  
High Quality

A question for any thriving society is how to ensure that children have the things they need to do their best. Two different approaches, pro-family policy and free-market family policy, claim to satisfy children’s needs well. Countries with pro-family policy go out of their way to make it easy for parents to spend time with their children when kids most need it, as well as to provide them high-quality caretaking while parents work, and generous material support. In contrast, under free-market family policy, the United States expects parents to negotiate these conditions on their own, privately arranging for time off from work, reasonable work hours, caregiving while they work, and enough cash to support their kids. This chapter uses recent research on early childhood development to construct a list of the caretaking conditions that help young children thrive. It then considers the extent to which children receive these conditions under free-market family policy versus pro-family policy. Ultimately, it turns out that by far the biggest casualties of free-market family policy are our children.

The “Hearts and Minds” Fallacy: Violence, Coercion, and Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline L. Hazelton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Building ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Zero Sum ◽  
Hearts And Minds ◽  
Government Benefits ◽  
The U.S

Debates over how governments can defeat insurgencies ebb and flow with international events, becoming particularly contentious when the United States encounters problems in its efforts to support a counterinsurgent government. Often the United States confronts these problems as a zero-sum game in which the government and the insurgents compete for popular support and cooperation. The U.S. prescription for success has had two main elements: to support liberalizing, democratizing reforms to reduce popular grievances; and to pursue a military strategy that carefully targets insurgents while avoiding harming civilians. An analysis of contemporaneous documents and interviews with participants in three cases held up as models of the governance approach—Malaya, Dhofar, and El Salvador—shows that counterinsurgency success is the result of a violent process of state building in which elites contest for power, popular interests matter little, and the government benefits from uses of force against civilians.

The Black Market in Occupied Northern France, 1940–4

1997 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Market ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Northern France ◽  
Supply And Distribution ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Government ◽  
Second World

During the Second World War, the black market was an integral part of daily life in all parts of wartime Europe – occupied, collaborationist, neutral – and beyond, in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States and elsewhere. Wherever nations had shifted to a controlled economy, in which supply and distribution were regulated by the government through rationing and quota systems and demand exceeded the regulated supply, the black market flourished. It was the free market at its most brutal. Prices were determined by the laws of supply and demand, adjusted to recognise and reward the enormous risks taken by suppliers in trading on the black market. It was no different in northern France.

scholarly journals Formation of Crop Belts for National Innovative Clusters

2020 ◽  
pp. 154-165
Author(s):  
Lidiya Voyevodina ◽  
◽  
Lyudmila Medvedeva ◽  
Inna Mitrofanova ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiments ◽  
System Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrial Clusters ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Soybean Production ◽  
The World ◽  
Irrigated Lands ◽  
The Government ◽  
Growing Conditions

The aim of the paper is to study the foreign practice in the formation of innovative agro-industrial clusters and to substantiate scientifically the formation of the Russian soybean agricultural belt with the infrastructure providing selection and production of non-GMO soybean in the required volume for domestic consumption and exports. Comparative and system analysis, situational approach, and field experiments were used for the research. As a result of the study, the US experience in the formation of soybean growing clusters was studied. It was found that soybeans are the predominant crop cultivated on irrigated lands in the states of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Nebraska, where the share of soybeans on irrigated lands reaches 59%. The soybean exports are essential to the economies of the United States, Argentina, and Brazil. The main soybeans are exported to China, the consumption of which is estimated at about 100 million tons of soybeans, and it is worth almost $40 billion. For Russia, the proximity to the world leader in imports of soybeans, China, could be one of the advantages in the expansion of supplies to this country, what would stimulate the development of soybean production and the formation of national innovative clusters. The soybean production is based on high-yielding cultivars adapted to local growing conditions. The selection of cultivars without the use of GMO technologies gives the opportunity of having competitive advantages in the organic market. The newest cultivars of the Russian selection are “VNIIOZ 86” and “Volgogradka 1”, which make it possible to obtain 3–4 tons per hectare on chestnut soils of Volgograd region. The formation of a soybean belt will provide a synergistic effect in soybean selection, organization of soybean production, and independence from foreign seed markets. Under the government support within a specialized cluster the core of which should be research institutes providing the scientific and selection core of the soybean agricultural belt in the South of Russia, the production of soybeans can be organized in volumes that cover the needs of the domestic market and increasing supplies to the world food market.

Organization of American States

1960 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 360-361 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Dominican Republic ◽  
Basic Principle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Basic Function ◽  
Organization Of American States ◽  
American System ◽  
American States ◽  
The Government

It was reported that during a meeting of the Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) on February 8, 1960, a debate took place on the alleged violations of human rights perpetuated by the government of General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina of the Dominican Republic. Dr. Falcon-Briceno, Venezuelan ambassador to the United States, who had brought the charge on instructions of his government, contended that a concern for human rights was a basic function of the inter-American system and called upon the Council to investigate the situation. He was challenged by the Dominican ambassador, Mr. Diaz Ordoñez, who insisted that the prevailing situation was a matter of exclusively domestic concern to his government and stressed the fact that non-intervention in internal affairs was a basic principle of the inter-American system. The delegates were urged to action by the delegate of Honduras, who expressed the view that the principle of non-intervention should not close the door to action deemed to be necessary for the preservation of human rights and liberties. After a threehour debate, the Council reportedly decided, by a vote of 20 to none, with 1 abstention (the Dominican Republic), to initiate an inquiry into the matter. To this end, five nations—Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Peru, and the United States—were appointed as a working group to consider whether and how the organization could conduct an investigation in the case.

scholarly journals A Precis on How Democracies Die as a Consequence of America’s, Failure of Government Working for the People while Serving the Interests of the Wealthy

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. p65
Author(s):  
Frederick D. Bedell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
The People ◽  
States Government ◽  
The Government

This precis speaks to the failure of the United States government to sustain the wealth of the middle-class after the post-World War Two years’, while serving the wealthiest Americans. It will document how the country has become polarized and fractured along ideological and cultural lines. This situation has created a segmentation of the country that has competing visions, purpose and meaning which is tearing it apart.It will also focus on the inequality in the country that has emerged from the Oligarchy’s domination of the political and free market space-government of the 1%, by the 1% AND FOR THE 1%. Their mantra is to keep the government out of business and have business in the government.

Toward Thriving Families

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-226
Author(s):  
Maxine Eichner
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Low Income Families ◽  
Employment Rates ◽  
Paid Parental Leave ◽  
The Many

This chapter addresses three concerns that might arise when considering whether to adopt pro-family policies. First, it assesses whether adopting pro-family programs will make our economy less competitive. In answer, it demonstrates that countries that have adopted pro-family policies have experienced as much or more growth in GDP per hour worked in the last decades as the United States has. Furthermore, the employment rates in countries that have adopted pro-family policy are actually higher than our own. Second, the chapter considers whether the costs of pro-family programs, including paid parental leave, child benefits, and universal daycare and prekindergarten, would be prohibitively high. It demonstrates that the additional costs of pro-family programs could be readily absorbed either simply by shifting existing total social welfare spending to spend more on children publicly without paying a penny more overall or by raising taxes in a manner that placed no added burden on middle- and low-income families. Third and finally, the chapter considers whether pro-family policy would stifle Americans’ freedom. Free-market proponents who equate unregulated capitalism with freedom, this section shows, overlook the many ways that market pressures are increasingly constraining Americans’ lives.

How We Fail Our Children Part II—Young Children from Poor and Low-Income Families

2020 ◽  
pp. 119-141
Author(s):  
Maxine Eichner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Year ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Material Support ◽  
Low Income Families

Free-market family policy puts most American families in a difficult position when it comes to the trade-off between earning income to support a family and making sure young children get the caretaking that suits them best, but it clearly puts poor and low-income families in the toughest positions. This chapter considers the extent to which poor and low-income US families can privately provide the conditions that help young children thrive: adequate material support, a parent at home for up to the first year, good daycare and prekindergarten after that, and time with a nurturing parent. It also compares the likelihood that young children will receive this support in the United States under free-market family policy and in countries with pro-family policy.

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