So, as you may have heard, Glenn Beck, a man so loathsome that calling him a douchebag is an insult to vinegar and water, has targeted an obscure professor of political science in his latest prolefeed socialist conspiracy. It seems that Frances Fox Piven, 78 years old, once worked to "intentionally collapse our economic system."
The interest in Ms. Piven is rooted in an article she wrote with her husband, Richard Cloward, in 1966. The article, "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty," proposed that if people overwhelmed the welfare rolls, fiscal and political stress on the system could force reform and give rise to changes like a guaranteed income.
The so-called "Cloward-Piven strategy" (the link goes to the original article) pointed out that an integral part of the public welfare system, as it existed then (and as it exists now!) was to keep eligible people off the welfare rolls:
[P]ublic welfare systems try to keep their budgets down and their rolls low by failing to inform people of the rights available to them; by intimidating and shaming them to the degree that they are reluctant either to apply or to press claims, and by arbitrarily denying benefits to those who are eligible.
Now why am I suddenly reminded of my health insurance provider? Anyway, Cloward and Piven's radical, socialist, un-American idea was that everyone eligible on paper for welfare should apply for welfare. As the system was planned to support only a fraction of the people theoretically eligible, the 'weight of the poor' would place a burden on state and local governments, demonstrate that the current system was unworkable, and force the United States to adopt a guaranteed minimum income on the federal level.
Like so many other radical ideas of the 60s, the Cloward-Piven strategy never actually existed anywhere but on paper. [EDIT: this is wrong; see below.] But in the fevered dreams of Glenn Beck, it was an act of "economic sabotage"; Piven and Cloward planned "to overwhelm the system and bring about the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with impossible demands and bring on economic collapse."
So. According to Mr. Beck, trying to bankrupt the government is a Bad Thing. Policies crafted with the deliberate intent of driving the United States government into bankruptcy are 'economic sabotage', and the promulgators thereof deserve to face hatred and death threats from Glenn's audience. Alright. So, who should Glenn call out next?
How about Ronald Reagan?
How about Grover Norquist?
How about every conservative, libertarian, Tea Party, whatever, who supports the doctrine of "starve the beast"?
So how can the public be persuaded to accept large spending cuts?
The conservative answer, which evolved in the late 1970s, would be dubbed "starving the beast" during the Reagan years. The idea -- propounded by many members of the conservative intelligentsia, from Alan Greenspan to Irving Kristol -- was basically that sympathetic politicians should engage in a game of bait-and-switch. Rather than proposing unpopular spending cuts, Republicans would push through popular tax cuts, with the deliberate intention of worsening the government's fiscal position. Spending cuts could then be sold as a necessity rather than a choice, the only way to eliminate an unsustainable budget deficit.
The important part is bolded for emphasis. This is what Norquist was talking about when he said he wanted to "drown government in the bathtub". Push tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts - not because they're fiscally responsible, but because they are not, and force the government into a financial crisis that necessitates drastic and unpopular action.
In terms of economics, there is no difference - none! - between Norquist's plan and the Cloward-Piven strategy. One increases demand to force an economic crisis; the other decreases supply for the same purpose. Those of you who have taken basic microeconomics recognize the equivalence. As such, I look forward to Glenn calling out Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, and Sarah Palin, among others, as the economic traitors they are.
It won't happen, of course. Cloward and Piven planned to cripple the government and force radical change by mobilizing the poor, which makes them traitors bent on America's destruction. The conservative movement plans to do it by giving billions of dollars to the wealthy, which makes them heroes.
[Edit: In fact, the Cloward-Piven strategy (as Wikipedia calls it) was inspirational in the foundation of the National Welfare Rights Organization. Thanks to shanikka in comments for the correction.]