Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research

Review: [untitled] Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 10, No. 2/3 (Apr. - Jun., 1969), pp. 181-201 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2740476 Accessed: 08/08/2010 03:51

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology.

http://www.jstor.org A CA* BOOK REVIEW:

Culture and Poverty:Critique and Counter-Proposals

b,yCharles A. Valentine

With the agreementof author and publisher,Culture and Poverty: Critique and Counter-Proposals, kinds of modern poverty. Moreover, by Charles A. Valentine (Chicago and London: Universityof Chicago Press, 1968) was sent Lewis is an avowed humanist with an for review,along with a copy of the precis printedbelow, to 20 Associates. The following responded with reviews: Catherine H. Berndt, Ethel Boissevain,John H. Bushnell, Peter explicitly humanitarian interest in the Carstens,Thomas Gladwin, Ulf Hannerz, V. K. Kochar, Eleanor Leacock, Oscar Lewis, people he studies. His abstractions of the William Mangin, David Matza, Margaret Mead, WalterB. Miller,and Daniel P. Moynihan. lifeof the poor are contradicted,however, Their reviewsappear below,followed by a replyfrom the author. by his own data, and his methods are inadequate to support his theory. While he describes his own work as an indict- alternative ideas that are more useful or ment of society-not of the poor-his Author'sPrecis constructive. policy proposals indicate that it is pri- An influentialsource of the sociological marily the lifewaysof poor people which This is a critical study of ideas about conception of "lower-class culture" in he believes must be reformed. Focusing poverty and the poor. Written from an America is E. Franklin Frazier's several on disorganization and pathology in the anthropological viewpoint, it focuses on works portraying the urban Negro poor ways of the poor, he insistentlyassigns prominent contemporary writings about as utterly disorganized (Frazier 1932, first priority to doing away with the poverty by social scientists.Examination 1939, 1957, 1966). From this background "culture of poverty," not poverty of crucial issues in this literature leads to has grown a pejorative, moralistic tradi- itself. proposals in four interdependent areas: tion that has been cultivated by Nathan Thus, in effectand in implications, the (1) the theory of poverty; (2) research Glazer, Daniel P. Moynihan, and others notions of "lower-class culture" and methods for validating the theory; (Glazer 1966; Glazer and Moynihan "culture of poverty" are much the same. (3) public policy to deal with the social 1963; Moynihan 1965, 1966, 1967a, b). Along with a host ofminor variants under problems of poverty; and (4) philosophi- Weak in method and static in theory,this differentlabels (e.g., "cultural depriva- cal positions consistent with these pro- approach prominently displays the con- tion"), these conceptions dominate vir- posals. tention or implication that poverty is tually all public attentionto the problems The discussion opens by clarifyingthe perpetuated primarily by defects in the of povertyand clearly guide most govern- central concepts of culture and povertyas lifewaysof the poor. There is an associated mental policies and programs dealing used throuighoutthe book. The idea of tendency to confuse the ethnic group with the poor, pre-eminentlythe "war on culture is identified with the consensus "Negro" with the stratificationcategory poverty." that has grown up within anthropology "lower class". This school of thought A few social scientists are pursuing as to the meaning of this term: The whole produces policy which stresses"self-help" a different line of thought. Clark way of life created, followed, and passed and offers for the most part token (1965; also HARYOU 1964) points out on by human groups. Implications of assistance. In effect,the position is taken that the "cult of cultural deprivation" this concept are brieflyexplored, includ- that the poor cannot enjoy equality unless serves to rationalize discrimination ing its relationship to ethnographic they adopt middle-class conventions. To against the poor. Gladwin, beginning methodology, to humanist philosophy, solve associated social problems it is the with early doubts about the scientific and to humanitarian ideology. The poor who must be changed, not the validity of the "culture of poverty" essence of poverty is shown to be social society as a whole. The ideological im- (1961), has come to believe (1967) that inequality and relative deprivation in plications of this tradition amount to a the "war on poverty," founded on that termsof culturally recognized values. The lightlyveiled Social Darwinism. very conception, is a failure. Liebow relevance of this definitionof poverty for The idea of a "culture of poverty" (1967) documents the assertion that stratified complex societies with egali- comes from the well-known work of street-cornermen-far fromrepresenting tarian ideologies is made explicit. The Oscar Lewis, though it has been endlessly a separate culture-strive to live by assertion is made that the twin concepts popularized and applied by others (Lewis standard American values but are con- "culture of poverty" and "lower-class 1959, 1961, 1966a, b; cf. CA 8: tinually met by externally imposed culture" constitutemisunderstandings of 480-500). These writingspresent serious failure. the poor and contradictionsof the idea of and thoughtfulattempts to develop new Working in part from clues in these culture. Most of the book is devoted to ethnographic methods and to adapt the and other sources, the author suggests a supporting this assertion and proposing culture concept to elucidating certain series of key methodological and con-

Vol.10 JNo.2-3 * April-7une1969 181 ceptualclarifications (e.g., with regard to tural position of the poor in our society, Finally, a postscriptis devoted to a subcultureand subsociety,ethnic group the culture patterns associated with detailed plan for a federallysponsored and social class). It is argued that we poverty, and related orientations with and financedprogram to combatpoverty mustbuild upon the developinganthro- respect to public policy and social action. by reducinginequality. The centralpur- pology of complex societies (Banton The model representing the tentative pose ofthis plan is to changeradically the 1966; Eisenstadt 1961; Steward 1965, conclusions of the author portrays the distributionof prime socioculturalre- 1967) to revitalizeethnography as the poor as a heterogeneous series of sub- sources(money, jobs, education)to serve prime instrumentfor delineating the societies with variable and adaptable directlythe interestsof the poor. The culturesof the poor. subcultures that are only partially and main operatingprinciple of this program Three prominent formulations of relatively distinctfrom American culture is to grantreal, democraticallymanaged poverty subcultures (Lewis 1966a, b; as a whole and locates the chiefsources of powerto thepoor in orderthat they may Miller 1958; Gans 1962, 1965) are pre- the deprivations sufferedby poor people enforcecompulsory positive discrimina- sentedas outlinesof concrete propositions, in their structural position in the wider tion in favorof presentlydisadvantaged together with alternative hypotheses, social system and in the actions and groups.It is suggestedthat only by peace- which can be tested by ethnographic attitudes of the non-poor. The presenta- fully institutingsuch a radical egali- fieldwork.A methodologicalappendix tion of the models is followed by some tarianismcan we resolve the national covers specificprocedures for such re- imaginative projections of the immediate crisissurrounding poverty without ever search. future, including attention to the part increasing bloodshed and destruction, Three broad models are presentedto anthropology may play in understanding probably accompanied by increasing summarizealternative views of the struc- and dealing with poverty. totalitarianism.

Also,probably few anthropologists would Urging more anthropologiststo study Reviews contestthe view, repeatedlyurged, that this field is one thing: labeling other ethnographicstudies of the people con- problemsand other anthropologistsas byCATHERINE H. BERNDT cerned, variously defined, are vitally old-fashionedis quiteanother. necessary,to providematerial not only The appeal-to-anthropologists,and Nedlands,Australia. 20 vii 68 on theiractual livingconditions but also presumablyto othersocial scientiststoo, If reportsof the "race" situationin the on their ("inside") point(s) of view as is evidenced in the Appendix, rather U.S. are even 50% accurate,it is under- againstothers. pretentiouslyentitled "Toward an Ethno- standable that an anthropologistin- Given all this, and grantedthat the graphic Research Design," but sliding terestedin civic affairsshould feel im- volumeis designedas an appeal to action, over a number of practical issues (of pelled to write about it and point to to take up smallerissues may seem like personal involvement,e.g., in some possiblesolutions. The plea ofurgency is fiddlingwhile Rome burns or splitting aspectsof such a situation)with the broad a disarmingone. hairs on the edge of a precipice.But, to reminder"that problemsmust be re- The focusis primarilyon theU.S. and single out only a few, recognition(pp. solvedby each fieldworkerin termsof his its domesticproblems; but the implica- 13-14) thatpoverty is a relativeconcept, own personality,individual values, and tionsare farwider, explicitly and other- an importantpoint, is blurredin constant particular field experience" (p. 189). wise, if only because of the influenceof referencesto "the poor," and especially Perhaps this wasn't the place formore (and oppositionto) the U.S. in other "the lower-classpoor" as contrastedwith than broad exhortation,anyway; but it parts of the world. In Australia,e.g., the "workingclass"; despitethe author's does seem to highlightthe question of "cultureof poverty"has been seized on assertion(p. 14) thathe need not"go into whom the volumeis reallyaddressed to, almost as an explanatoryconcept in the complex technicalquestion of how and who is likelyto read it-"not only relation to city-dwellersof Aboriginal social classesare defined,"this last con- academic or otherspecialists but fellow descent,just as some effortshave been trastis a trickyone and shouldhave been citizensas well" (p. vii). Much of the made to identifyAustralian Aborigines clarified.His treatmentof social anthro- writing,perhaps inevitably in view of its with American Negroes as "oppressed pology(p. 4) is misleadinglycursory. It is raisond'6tre, is colourfuland dramatic- coloured people," even though their undeniablethat "social statistics"do not the finalparagraph (p. 153) of the main respectivecircumstances are, in themain, in themselvesprovide informationon textvery much so (e.g., "Perhaps there verydifferent indeed. "cultural patterns" (p. 6); but the will be no new anthropology,no creative Valentine's discussion of "poverty" exampleson pp. 6-7 point to residence, resynthesisby the oppressed,but only and "culture" is useful,and so is his etc. patternswhich a thoroughdemo- anotherlong nightof blood and pain."). closerlook at Lewis' originalformulation graphicstudy would show up-i.e., the My ownview is thatthe mixture of rather in the light of Lewis' own material- authoris notsufficiently well informed on long-winded and ponderous writing, includingthe jump fromfamily studies to moderndemography. Although he refers repetitiousat times, and "purple pas- generalizationson a near-nationalscale. elsewhereto Whyte's(1943) study,Street sages" such as the last quotation,will The action programmeValentine pro- CornerSociety, he ignoresit in discussing(p. discouragequite a number of possible posesseems reasonable in essence,e.g., in 175) the problemof organization-or-dis- readers,including other anthropologists; its claim that "formulasof equal rights organizationin "lower-classneighbor- and this is a pity,when the subject is and opportunities"are not enough to hoods," despitethe fact thatit has long topical and importantand the authoris meetthe needs of severely disadvantaged beenregarded as a classicin thisrespect. evidentlysincere and earnestin tryingto people-that they need more positive One need not quibble,perhaps, about the put his message across. Maybe what is help. (This "favorable discrimination" use ofthe terms "model" (e.g.,pp. 141-47) neededhere is a combinationof Valentine was the principle underlyingearlier or "theoreticalthemes" (e.g., p. 144); and the anonymousauthor of a reviewof governmentpolicies toward Aborigines but talkingabout "new anthropologists Lewis' La Vida in the Times Literary in Australia;these are in disreputetoday like Oscar Lewis," "the old anthro- Su.pplement(1967): sincerityis notenough, because of their "paternalistic" and pology," "yesterday'sfieldwork prob- even (or evenmore so) whenthe message "overprotective"attitudes, but possibly lems," (p. 148), and "the new ethnog- is labelled"urgent." the principleitself is on its way back.) rapher" (p. 149) is going a bit far.

182 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY bYETHEL BOISSEVAIN Valentine:CULTURE AND POVERTY Hoboken,N.J., U.S.A. 29 vii 68 of an investigatoralter the behavior and key to the eradication ofpoverty. Implic it As the author himself states in the first the degree and kind of informationthat in the program is the expectation that sentence of his preface, "This is an am- the investigatee will display or divulge? employed workers or managers of em- bitious essay." It is ambitious not so On the whole, however, the outline is an ployment will thereby free themselves much in its exhaustive evaluation of the important and positive contribution to frompoverty. writings that have appeared recently on the study of the subject of poverty- It is not hard to foresee reluctance or the subject of poverty as in the author's indeed, much more important than its outrightrefusal to accept some aspects of willingness to put before the public an lowly status of Appendix would his proposal, not so much on the part of actual plan or blueprint for the allevia- suggest. employers as on the part of the rivals of tion ofpoverty. For thisValentine is to be In "A Proposal for Empowering the the beneficiaries of his "positive dis- congratulated. Far too many anthro- Poor to Reduce Inequality" (again, in- crimination." Reward for productivityis pologists and sociologists are willing to explicably relegated to the status of Post- an ideology as important in our society as criticize plans, proposals, and projects script,the author transcendsthe on-going egalitarianism, and it has been institu- put forwardby people in action positions theoretical argument and offers a con- tionalized in the networkof union regula- and to theorize about them; few ever crete plan. He advocates "positive dis- tions and union management contracts propose detailed or concrete plans for crimination" as a key. The unemployed in the formofwage incentives,job evalua- action. or those who earn less than $3,000 per tions, merit systems, seniority preroga- The author has made three principal year must be given "realistic good-faith tives, on-the-job training programs par- contributionsin this book: (1) a critique opportunities for employment or ad- tially based on seniority, and impartial of theories of poverty, including "culture vancement as soon as possible"; job arbitrationof disputes. These are benefits, of poverty" and "lower-class culture"; opportunitiesmust be opened up "regard- hard-won over many years, that the (2) suggestionsfor fieldworkmethods for less of applicants' existing qualifications worker with "qualifications as tradition- studying poor people, especially the as traditionally defined" and should pay ally defined" will surely defend with the urban poor; and (3) a proposal for no less than $3,000 a year to household advent of "positive discrimination." If empowering the poor to reduce in- heads and no less than the national mini- the board of overseers as described has equality. mum wage for other employees. The the employing and placement rightsout- In Valentine's criticism of previous hiringpriority would be assigned to heads lined, it will be fulfillingin part the role theories, his thesis is that poverty is not of households "who are members of the of management, i.e., the employer. Why, basically the result of a special set of non-white ethnic group which has the therefore,does Valentine omit the role of values and behavior patterns of the poor, highest rate of unemployment in each the impartial arbitrator in settlinglabor- but rather the result of inequality in the local area." Employers should be re- management disputes? social structureof the larger society. Thus quired and enabled to establish on-the- The weakness of Valentine's proposal he disagrees with E. Franklin Frazier, job training. Further, programs of train- is that it attacks the problem of poverty Nathan Glazer, and Oscar Lewis. He ing must be changed to give firstpriority from one angle and offers a one-sided questions the thesis of Lewis and others to the unemployed and the poor. solution: the employment of the un- that if poverty-culturevalues are altered, To implement this, the author suggests employed and the very poor, with the poverty will disappear. His own proposal a national office and local units "fully participation of their peers. In this way -that the eradication of poverty will be controlled by a board of overseers," at it resembles a number of other proposals followed by something like middle-class least 3 of whom should be unemployed that have appeared recentlyin the press, behavior or at least an end to the self- or poor elected by their socioeconomic such as the negative income tax plan. perpetuation of poverty-is, however, peers and should receive compensation I should like to suggest as an alternative a equally speculative. Such debate belongs no less than $3,000 a year or the minimum systemsapproach to the problem of poverty. in the ivory tower. national wage. The remaining 3 of the This method of problem-solvinghas been Valentine criticizes the fieldwork board should be made up of nominees increasinglyput to use in such diversified, methods of Oscar Lewis, Kenneth Clark, fromunions, churches, local government, complex goal-oriented challenges as Charles Keil, and Thomas Gladwin, private employers, etc. This program trafficmanagement in and around large findingtheir selection ofsubjects forstudy must have the force of law, and the cities, water management, big business, too limited to yield a picture of the total burden of proof that the high-priority, and the military (see Magee 1964, poverty society. He points out in par- i.e., otherwise unemployed, applicants McKean 1966, Quade 1957). The key to ticular that Lewis' family-studymethod would seriouslyimpair the business of the a successful systems approach to a com- has given rise to contradictions in his concern if placed in a technical or ad- plex problem is that the objective should conclusions and that the normative vanced opening would rest on the be broad enough so as not to predetermine evaluations expressed by Clark and employer. Appeals against orders or the solution. Thus, in the case of poverty, Gladwin are middle-class ethnocen- judgments of the local boards should be any one objective-e.g., guaranteed tricism. His own model research method to the U.S. Court of Appeals, then to the annual income, negative income tax, consists of a "flexible blend" of observa- U.S. Supreme Court. employment of the hithertounemployed, tion, interview, and participation, to be The rationale forthis program is that it changes in some behavior patterns of the implemented by a "small and closely knit would bring the "most disadvantaged poor-is too narrow; each may pre- team." I cannot help but invoke the and least qualified directly into a mean- determine the outcome. A broader Heisenberg principle in relation to the ingful and rewarding relationship with working objective of, say, adequate in- aspects ofhis method that call forinvolve- the real world of employment and re- come forall members of the societywould ment and participation: In what way muneration" (p. 165), and put responsi- eradicate outright poverty and bring could researchers, who obviously do not bilityfor managerial action and decision- about a more hopeful attitude among "belong" and who do not seem to share making into the hands of the poor. It can poverty habituees, and yet the final out- the problems and values of those whom be seen that this type of program im- come would not be limited by the confines they are studying, become involved in a plements Valentine's thesis that change of the economic status quo. Also, the family or small community other than as in the social and economic structure,not systemsapproach is not bound to any one investigators? and does not the presence in the values of the p)oor, is the primary theoretical diagnosis of the "cause" of Vol.10 * No. 2-3 April-June1969 183 poverty; a variety of diagnoses and cures been unrecognized or understated in the byPETER CARSTENS be accommodated simultaneously. past. His effortto shiftthe onus of poverty may Toronto,Canada. 29 VII 68 fromthe poor themselvesto the non-poor byJOHNH. BUSHNELL is particularly meaningful coming as it If we agree with Braithwaite (1953) that does at a time when few can deny the the study of man and his lifeways,like all New rork,N.Y., U.S.A. 22 vii 68 restrictive limitations imposed by a natural science, is concerned with an When a difficultsocial problem is pro- society which (as the report of the empirical subject matter, there should jected into the public arena, it frequently National Advisory Commission on Civil never be any resistance to examining in seems to generate a "blame complex" Disorders dramatically documents and so depth from time to time the theoretical, which in essence says, "Someone is at states) is racist in many respects. But methodological, and ideological founda- fault, and it is they,not we." however understandable Valentine's par- tions of anthropology and sociology. I recall the time that the press reported tisanship may be, his preoccupation with Valentine has now given us the op- on a paper I had delivered on the dis- the problems of image tends to obscure portunity to evaluate that part of our abling consequences, e.g., low level of the importance ofotherlevels ofinvestiga- discipline which is concerned with in- aspiration, of certain persistingaboriginal tion and analysis, particularly where equality. Hupa Indian traitsacting in combination negative qualities are involved. For Although its title places emphasis on with situational factors linked to a reser- example, the cumulative effectof decades the concept of culture, this is not the vation existence. There were outcries, of discrimination and poverty becomes central issue in Valentine's book. Rather, first from members of the tribe who ingrained not only at the level of culture his work is concerned with: (1) the assumed that I was putting them in a but also in the personality, mental and poverty of ethnography in complex so- second-rate category vis-a-vis the world physical health, and mode of functioning cieties, (2) an attack on the American of whites while neglecting to condemn of the individual. An assessment of the "Establishment," including those anthro- the real culprit, the government; and, creativity or adaptability of a given pologists and sociologists whose interpre- second, fromthe Bureau of Indian Affairs, cultural adaptation to subordinate status tation of human behaviour has been which strenuously denied through its is valid only when balanced against the influenced disproportionately by their press releases that federal policy had human cost involved. Also not to be by- societal position; and (3) an implicit operated to the detriment of its wards. passed is the crucial issue of the differen- overview of social stratification,forming When the smoke had cleared, the funda- tial degree and nature of maladaptation the basis for a demonstration of the mental problem still remained: the tribe, which apparently characterizes the "fit" necessity for redistributing power as a facing termination at that time, would of many subcultures to the national major step towards the eradication of have been decidedly disadvantaged by supraculture. poverty. the long-run effectsof both the cultural As I see it, it is not through the applica- Valentine's work is therefore a chal- and bureaucratic determinants I had tion of the culture concept that the poor lenge to anthropologists and others to reported if precipitouslymerged into the have been maligned, but rather through adopt new approaches in both the pure larger society. its insufficientuse. The persistence of the and the applied areas of their science. In We seem to be confrontedby a similar Frazierian interpretation of lower-class short, the eradication of poverty in the situation with respect to the poor of our Negro life or the effectiveness of a United States should be seen within a cities. If we describe the dysfunctional Moynihan Report can be directlyrelated broad moral and intellectual framework and pathogenic aspects of ghetto life, we to the absence of countervailing views wherein hypotheses can be both formu- are seen as ascribing blame to people who deriving from the cultural context that lated and tested. Valentine is probably at are better characterized as victims of a the anthropologist is in a position to his best when he explains why recent larger system. If we focus on the middle provide. As for the "culture of poverty," attempts to reduce poverty cannot suc- and upper classes of white America as the the concept is of course open to criticism ceed. In his criticism of the work of perpetrators of a discriminatory social and refinement.Thus Lewis' model seems the persons behind these attempts, the order which segregates and subjugates to be less a culture in the traditional sense following categorization seems implicit: the Negro, the Puerto Rican, or the than a summation of the characteristics (a) Unredeemable Bad Guys (e.g., Indian, among others,we are open to the common to the urban poor of various Frazier, Glazer, and Moynihan); (b) Re- charge of ignoring crippling features cultural or subcultural entities. On the deemable Bad Guys (e.g., Miller, Oscar contained within, and perpetuated by, basis of my own work in rural Mexico, I Lewis, and Matza); (c) Good Guys with the ethnic subculture. am struck by the sensitivityand validity Some Weaknesses (e.g., Clark, Gladwin, Valentine writes from a deep concern of his ethnographic data but also by and Gans); (d) Enlightened Good Guys about those who live in poverty, par- the apparent overlap of pan-national (e.g. Valentine, Liebow, and all or the ticularly the Negro in our slums. He does and poverty-specificfeatures. Possibly a potential members of the club). Readers not hesitate to indict those scholars whom clearer delineation of the culture of of Cultureand Povertywill discover various he regards as having contributed to a poverty will be forthcoming as Lewis ways of interpreting and evaluating its misleading, essentially condemnatory shifts his focus from Latin America to multiplex facets, and the battle between image of the poor and consequently to black America. In any case, Valentine's good guys and bad guys will not end with the creation of public policies which are repeated indictments of Lewis' formula- this issue of CA. of dubious value at best. He argues that tion seem unwarranted. First, the con- I have been unable to identifythe frame the alleged defects in the subcultures of ceptualization has been applied in this of referencefrom which the author views the impoverished have been emphasized country only to Puerto Ricans of New the concepts of class, status, and power. to the virtual exclusion of the healthy and York City, who comprise but a fraction Had the term culturenot been introduced the positive. The propositions which he of the nation's poor. Second, it is unlikely in Major Alternative3 to Gans's Ruling positsforfuturevalidationin the field con- that Lewis has been instrumentalin shap- Hypothesis3 (p. 138) this problem might stituteprimarily a search forviable, func- ing either public policy-which, un- have been solved in my mind. Perhaps tional culturalfeatures at thepoverty level. fortunately,seems to have been formu- some clarification from Valentine would Valentine's position is commendable lated on a piecemeal basis, with little or be of value, especially since writers like for the emphasis it places on the creative no regard for the findingsof the social or Dahrendorf ( 1959) and Ossowski ( 1956) and adaptive within the lower socio- behavioral scientist-or the popular present points of view that seemto be in economic strata, which have sometimes image of the poor. line with his own. I wish also to question

184 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY the theoretical(or ethnographic)justifi- Valentine:CULTURE AND POVERTY cation forenforcing proposals to reduce poverty(p. 163). Does he mean that all sustainedin responseto forcesintrusive several writerscertainly of equal im- change must be generatedfrom outside fromthe largersociety. In the firstin- portanceto thosehe had included.There the internalsubsystem? I do not think stance,the problem becomes one solelyof is onlypassing mention of Lee Rainwater, that any program of applied anthro- modifyingthe behavior of the poor a colleagueof Valentine's at Washington pology(planned change) can beginuntil people themselves,while in the second University,and of Hylan Lewis, the first the processualmechanisms of class and the solutionmust be soughtin reformof social scientistto raisethe crucialissue of statusrelationships have been adequately thesociety as a whole. the validityof the conceptof a cultureof isolated.Valentine does giveus plentyof Not surprisingly,the authorconcludes poverty,the centraltheme of the present reasonto supposethat he intendsthese to later in the book that both forcesare book. Worstof all, he ignorescompletely be solved by the detailed ethnographies almostalways operative. This conclusion Cloward and Ohlin, whose 1960 book ofthe "new anthropology";yet there is a is less important,however, than is his Delinquencyand Opportunitywas caughtup strongsuggestion in his topical guide insistencethroughout upon constantat- in the same issuesyet provided the theo- (pp. 178-80), as in the "old" ethnogra- tentionto discriminatingbetween the two reticalunderpinning for the entireWar phies focused on preindustrialsocieties, alternative premises and determining on Poverty.However, inclusion of these that class and status differentiation which is being reliedupon in any given men would onlyhave servedthe cause of have been left out. This is difficultto context.Because of a failureto do this, completeness.The critique as it stands understand,because manyof the ramifi- thewar on povertycame to be designed brings out compellinglythe pervasive cationsof social inequalityare discussed almostexclusively upon thefirst premise, importanceof dealing explicitlywith the in themain text. that of a self-perpetuating"culture of theoreticalimplications of the conceptof Coupled with this almostpredictable poverty,"not because its planners de- a cultureof poverty,and the magnitude anthropologicalsin of omissionis a dis- liberatelyignored the impactof the out- ofthe disasterwhich can ensuewhen this appointmentto non-Americanreaders, side world on poor people, but rather theoreticalissue, seeminglyof interest namely the overwhelmingAmerican because no one raised the issue strongly only to the specialist,is ignored.If the focusof Culture and Poverty. Some detailed enough or made the distinctionwith book receivesthe attentionit deservesit comparisonswith anti-povertymove- sufficientclarity that the responsible will thereforemake a major contribution mentsin otherparts of the worldwould people wereforced to look at it. Much of to both theoreticaland applied anthro- not have been out of place, e.g., the the tragicineffectiveness of povertypro- pology,and indeed to social philosophy solutionof the "poor white" problemin gramstodaymight have beenavoided had and socialaction. SouthAfrica and thesocial surveymove- thisbook been publisheda fewyears ago. The remainderof the book requires mentin Britain.Moreover, Zweig's The Butwhowas wiseenough to write it then? only brief mention. Along with some Planningof Free Societies (1942), although Valentine's long critique is by and methodologicaldiscussion which is notin out of date, is still of relevance to largewell done. He suffers,though, from itselfvery new, the author presentsa U.S. planning as presentedto us by the occupational failing of many re- useful explorationof the implications, Valentine. viewersin savoringmore richly the demol- both scientificand practical, of alter- I hope that theseapparently negative ishingstroke than the discoveryof essen- native ways of viewingthe relationship criticismswill stimulatefurther discus- tial wisdomin a man's work.He delights between a subgroup and the larger sion. Cultureand Povertyis a highlycom- to pounce upon the inadvertentphrase, society.Finally, as a gratuitous"post- mendable work,the firstcrystallization seldom givingan author the benefitof script," Valentine offersa grandiose ofa newtradition in anthropology. the doubt. Sometimeshe goes too far. schemefor nationwide positive discrimi- Grantedthat Moynihan perhaps deserved nationin hiringand trainingof the poor. byTHOMAS GLADWIN to be the principal whipping boy of It is somethingwhich the author has been criticsof the Great Society,it is hardly pushingfor some time and regardlessof OxonHill, Md., U.S.A.12 vii 68 appropriateto findhim accused in this its meritsor faultsdoes notbuild directly More thanhalf of this book is devotedto book (all in a single paragraph follow- upon or contributeto theargument of the a criticalreview of the work of a number ing a quotation in which Moynihan's restof the book. As such it can be con- of anthropologistsand sociologistswho "veil falls away") of an "expedient sideredsimply intrusive and outsidethe have writtenabout povertyor about poor attitudetoward the powerless,""callous scopeof this review. Negroes in the United States. The entire expression of middle-class willfulness, analysis is focused upon a single theo- lying beneath pious and pretentious byULF HANNERZ retical dimension, the degree to which words," "cold-bloodedassertions of the any distinguishably separate component power of privilege," and (almost an Washington,D.C., U.S.A. 27 v 68 in a large complex society should or anti-climax) of being a "middle-class Valentine has performeda valuable should not be treated as a self-perpetu- moralist." service in taking a critical anthro- ating subculture with an autonomous My ownwork is treatedfar more gently, pologist'slook at thewritings on poverty dynamic of its own. Although this may but hereagain Valentineshows the same and culture.In particularI agree with appear at firstglance a rather recondite disinclinationto give an authorthe benefit his criticismsof the Frazier traditionin methodological issue around which to ofthe doubt. Thus an earlyarticle of mine Negro familystudies and with his em- build an entire book, this is not so. As receivesseveral pages of essentiallyjusti- phasison theneed forethnographic field Valentine points out, both the social fied criticismwithout any mentionthat studiesof the poor. There is littlereason philosophyand the strategyof interven- in a later book (also reviewed) I cited to go on registeringareas of agreement tionto help a problempopulation, in this thatvery article as an exampleof how we here, however; instead,I will dwell on case poor people, become radicallydif- social scientistsmisled the architectsof some issueswhich I thinkmay be profit- ferentdepending on whethertheir mal- the war on povertyby puttingforth ably discussedfurther. adaptive behavioris seen as determined notionswhich turned out to be spurious. Basically,Valentine fights a two-front by cultural transmissionwithin the group Valentineis not the onlyone to whomis battle,on the one hand againstcultural (the group thus comprisinga true culture allowedthe wisdom of hindsight. authoritarianism,on the otheragainst a or subculture) or whether this behavior is The only substantivefailure of the possibleoverextension of the culturecon- recognized to be generated or at least author's critique is the omission of ceept.T he two battles tendlat times to Vol.10 * No. 2-3 * April-June1969 185

A4 contradict each other. His relativistposi- the Tikopians of yesterday, unaware of the actual context and textual limits of tion is that a culture of poverty must be outside standards. They continuously the works he discusses. respected and understood in its own compare their own life to that of their Valentine presents two models of terms, but he also argues that the life contemporaries in the wider society, poverty culture, the logical extremes of style of the poor is largely an adaptation thereby introducing their own compari- the two viewpoints he discerns in relation to the environment, not a cultural tradi- sons into the discussion. It certainly to the culture ofthe poor. With missionary tion. Admittedly, there are points at makes a differencewhether it is they or zeal, he exposes the alleged logical, which he states the third alternative of a the anthropologist who raise the point, theoretical, and ideological incongruen- culture adapted to its environment, but but the latter cannot always be blamed cies of one particular model as revealed repeatedly he poses the false dichotomy when external behavioral standards make in the writingsof the majority of authors of traditionversus adaptation in a manner theirway into the ethnography. on poverty or lower-class culture. Then which is common in the rhetoric of A few minor points: he identifiesa promisingemerging model, povertypolitics but which should be quite It is quite possible to write pejoratively the antithesisof the firstmodel, which he distressing to anthropologists aware of about the lives and personalities of the himself endorses. Throughout the book something called cultural ecology. poor while dismissing the "culture of he is engaged in a dialectical argument, Perhaps the particular notion of culture poverty" idea-note how Roach and attacking the premises of Model 1 by the which has prevailed in the povertydebate Gursslin (1967) use the stereotypes in presumptions of Model 2. His finding is has fostered the development of this such a fashion. that the basic premises of Model 1 are dichotomy. Apparently the conception of I still doubt the necessity of giving as theoretically and methodologically un- culture which is in fact used by Valentine much weight to the mapping of cultural tenable (Chapter 3). and other critics of the "culture of similarities as to that of cultural dif- Strangely enough, however, he con- poverty" concept is not that of "a whole ferences between majority and minority cludes with Model 3, in which he virtu- way of life created, followed, and passed groups, unless there is a mythof difference ally accepts the very premises of Model 1 on" but one of a system of stronglyheld or the similarityitself is a cause of conflict, that the has been so vigorouslycontesting values passed on by formal instruction. as in competition. In the interest of sug- throughout the book, and, indeed, con- This is obviously a much narrower notion, gesting policies for social change, one siders them fully compatible with the facilitating the rejection of a proposition might well take areas of togethernessfor basic premises of Model 2. He writes that certain modes of behavior among the granted and move on to areas of struc- (p. 144; italics mine): poor are cultural. Thus Valentine writes tural and cultural pluralism, where con- While there are many important incon- (p. 1 13) that flict and injustice are more easily sistenciesbetween the firsttwo [models],one generated. ofthe intentions behind Model 3 obviouslyis lower-classlife does not actually constitutea Valentine might have found it profit- distinctsub-culture in thesense often used by to reconcile some of these differencesby able to discuss some of the recent writings povertyanalysts, because it does not embody providing a frameworkto accommodate to any design for living to which people give on juvenile delinquency, which refer certainitems from both of the otherformula- sufficientallegiance or emotionalinvestment the same or similar phenomena as those tions. Thus the third model is, in part, an to pass it on to theirchildren. on "the culture of poverty." While not eclectic synthesisinvolving the contention necessarily correct in their conclusions, that majorpropositions from the firsttwo may I believe, however, that anthropolo- they are often more theoreticallysophis- be simultaneouslyvalid. than some of the studies he refers gists have usually seen learning by ticated Unexplainably, however, he still con- in role-modeling and through exposure to to and might have proven more useful siders that imageries and expectationsas major modes suggesting models (cf. Cohen 1955, of cultural transmission. It then seems Cloward and Ohlin 1960, Matza 1964; the main weightand prevailingdirection of obvious that once adaptations have Short and Strodtbeck 1965). available evidence are inconsistentwith it occurred in one generation, the following [Model 1] . .. thisportrayal is absurd . .. it is littlemore than a middle-classintellectual generationsliving in the same opportunity byV. K. KOCHAR rationalefor blaming poverty on thepoor. structure do not make their adaptations New Delhi,India. 15 vii 68 in a cultural vacuum; they are at least Again, a few paragraphs later (p. 146) he implicitly socialized into those of their The focal point of Valentine's theoretical writes, predecessors, regardless of what value the and methodological commentary and In myopinion, Model 2 isanother inadequate latter attach to their way of life. Such formulationsregarding the culture of the formulation,by virtueof incompleteness. socialization can easily be observed in poor is the recent studies ofmulti-problem the present, at least in the black families by Oscar Lewis. On the basis of The synthesisidea seems to be an after- ghetto. the somewhat repetitive, exaggerated, thought, because a few pages earlier (pp. This conception of cultural transmis- and involved arguments advanced in the 129-40) he has offered, item by item, sion certainlydoes not preclude an accep- course of the review of various works, he alternatives to the hypotheses and corol- tance of mainstream values and a trans- builds up a set of antithetical formulations laries of Model 1, insisting that a choice mission of these within the poverty com- within the frame of a research design will have to be made "between the above munity. I believe Valentine could usefully which he believes can be carried to the hypothesisand alternative on the basis of have given more attention to developing field. Although the author claims to have ethnographic research" (p. 129). the idea of a bicultural situation among studied "the effectsof poverty and relative Valentine makes a series of presump- the poor. My own experience of fieldwork deprivation on native peoples in highly tions about the views of Lewis regard- in a black ghetto neighborhood-along stratified plural society of a colonial ing the culture of poverty. He does lines similar to those suggested by dependency," no such experience is re- this, not by examining the exact context Valentine-is that a bicultural model is flected in the book. There is a heavy and import of Lewis' research aims or by the most adequate one; a parallel with undercurrent of ideological and political studying his explicit statements, but by the "conscious models" of the Chinese mission behind the book that completely pointing out presumed implications, fishermanminority as described by Ward skews the review, the critical arguments, logically or illogically derived, and by (1965, 1966) easily comes to mind. and the conclusions. It often carries imputingimagined political or ideological A note on "viewing a culture in its own Valentine away from the academic motives or values. These presumptions terms": today's Harlemites are not like relevance of his arguments and beyond are:

186 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 1. Lewis puts the blame of poverty Valentine:CULTURE AND POVERTY on the poor and argues that it is the culture of poverty that should first be poor and their culture. He doubts the Sifting through the unnecessary argu- abolished, rather than povertyitself. existence of thistypical culture of poverty, mentation one picks up some theoretical 2. Lewis overlooks the responsibilityof as he conceives, in caste societies like and methodological hints which deserve society as a whole in imposing or in re- India, in tribal societies of Africa and attention: moving institutionalhandicaps and limit- elsewhere, in socialist states and in highly As noted above, the "culture of ing conditionsforced on the poor. capitalist countries like the U.S. (Lewis poverty" concept refers to a highly 3. Lewis denies revolution or other 1966b: xlviii; Valentine, p. 59). With such polarized and localized style of life and forms of working-class movements and a clear distinction available, Valentine cannot be the basis for a cross-cultural supports the futile social-work-cum- has erred in tryingto judge the validity of formulation. Lewis' attempts to gener- psycho-therapypolicy. Lewis' model on the basis of what he alize the subculture of poverty are pre- 4. Lewis characterizes poverty culture knows, or a priori expects to find out, mature. More exploratorywork on other as self-generatingand self-perpetuating, about the many kinds of poor in America stylesof life that possibly exist among the as if the culture of the poor had nothing -particularly the Negro minority in great variety of poor in differentcontexts to do with the conditions imposed by the urban slums. The very fact of the race, is necessary. society around them. colour, and ethnic identification of the The methodology adopted by Lewis in 5. Lewis holds that the style of life poor, so consciously seized upon by black his familystudies is unsuitable aloneeither characterized in his formulation of the and white alike in maintaining or accen- forformulating a cross-culturalmodel or culture of poverty is valid for all kinds tuating sociocultural boundaries, over- for testing,or even precisely expounding, and degrees ofpoor. rules the applicability of Lewis' model. all the parameters of a subculture in a These presumptions are the basis of Even with referenceto the poor peasants complex society. For a balanced formula- discussions in the book. In my view, they in urban slums portrayed in TheChildren tion, the inside or microcosmic view will are sheer distortions,derived by stretch- ofSdnchez, Lewis refersto his concept of have to be matched with a detailed ing beyond recognition the original brief, culture of povertyonly in passing. macrocosmic view from the top. Few tentative statements of Lewis and by Valentine's main line of criticism and would disagree with Valentine that more overlooking what Lewis has clearly in- his arguments are thereforeclearly not to systematicinformation is necessary. dicated or partially reported in his the point. The propositions and hypoth- Even within the limitsof Lewis' present writings. eses which he advances about the poor frameworkthere is room for clarification None of Lewis' studies was designed or lower-class or underpriviledged ethnic and elaboration. Valentine's suggestion either to be a well-rounded anthro- minorities in the U.S., if correct, are that a more careful search would reveal pological study of the poor or to test any thereforenot necessarilyinconsistent with more positive traits of the subculture of hypotheses or set of ideas about the poor. Lewis' model and do not necessarily in- poverty seems plausible. Systematic con- His formulations about the culture of validate his propositions. The reference tent analysis of the verbatim familybiog- poverty constitute a small part of his groups forthese alternative characteriza- raphies would put Lewis' formulations publications, generally in the form of tionsare not identical or comparable with on surer ground. Contradictoryevidence, cryptic, impressionistic formulations. the referencegroup behind Lewis' model. some of which is indicated by Valentine, Lewis has not yet had occasion to fully Lewis does not deny the possibility of a will have to be resolved. Some parts of utilize his data for theoretical analysis. higher level of organization and group the concept, especially those pertaining to He has made no attempt to state or to consciousness, communitylife, participa- socialization and incapacitating psycho- systematicallyvalidate his basic proposi- tion and identification with the larger pathic influence, will have to be care- tions about the culture of poverty. The society,etc., among other types of poor in fully worked out, if necessary with conceptual scheme of the culture of the U.S. or elsewhere. Clearly, then, additional fieldinvestigations. povertyis evidentlyin a stage of tentative, "culture of poverty" is a static model-a Even if one does not accept Valentine's exploratory formulation. More evidence fact that has been overlooked by Lewis as alleged dichotomy between inherent, in- and analysis has been prornised. In his well. The firstrequirement of a cross- grained subcultural values or habits and introductory precis for the CA* Book cultural model forthe culture of the poor the values or traits which are mere Review (CA 8:480-83) covering three of is that it should reconcile and accom- ''responses to the experience of their his recent books, Lewis does not even modate variation in the stylesof life of the socio-economic environment and [as] present his conceptual model of culture of poor. adaptation to this environment," there is poverty, nor does he refer to his recent As to Valentine's other presumptions some merit in his suggestion that the paper in ScientificAmerican on the issue. about Lewis' work, leaving aside the culture of the poor, seen as a subculture This probably indicates the weight Lewis numerous direct and indirecthints spread of a complex society under the stress of himself assigns to his tentative formula- through the writings of Lewis, mostly poverty conditions, will reveal some new tions. His main contribution and major quoted by Valentine, we may refer to a dimensions of the culture of poverty. theoretical and methodological concern recent statement by Lewis (CA 8: 499) After all, the poor are drawn from a has been the development of the family- which has apparently escaped Valentine's certain sociocultural milieu and can be study approach. attention. The last three paragraphs of expected to embody some cultural as well Even in his tentative formulations, this statement are sufficientto nullify as subcultural continuities. What styles Lewis delimits the parameters of his con- most of the above-mentioned presump- of lifethey eventually develop under stress ceptual model ofculture ofpoverty, which tions. Had Valentine seriously followed depends largely upon the value orienta- he conceives as a very specific type or his own sobering advice "not to read too tion and structureof the society and the level of the culture of the poor. Lewis much into a few brief passages," had he subculture within it. identifiesa number of criteria or charac- started with the aim of synthesis,and had A good many of the characteristics of teristics which he considers as core, he confined himself to an academic dis- the poor seem to be dynamic and variable typical or symbolic of the culture of cussion of pertinent scientific issues, he and are perhaps best considered as points poverty. His model represents a very would have perhaps provided the ground- on a continuum. One can, for example, specific style of life among specific highly work for an intercultural research frame conceive of various degrees of integration disoriented poor in urban slums. It is not for the anthropological study of the of the poor into the larger society. The de totoapplicable to the wide variety of poor. orientation of these traits within the Vol.10 - No. 2-3 - April-June1969 187 value system of the larger society may parable to a highly disorientedindividual lower- than middle-class groups, matri- also vary from one society to another. or a small group under extreme stressand focality and family instabilityare said to Formulation of a general set of ideas isolation. Until some positive aspects of be characteristic of the lower class, by about the culture of the poor in cross- the culture of the poor are established, implied contrast with patrifocality and cultural perspectivewould require precise the use of the term "culture" remains family stability in the middle class. definition and description of these vari- open to question. To apply it to an entity Middle-class people delay gratification ables. This precision can be achieved which in fact represents "poverty of and plan for the futurewhile lower-class either by quantification or by detailed culture" betrays the basic presumptions people are unable to delay gratification description in depth such that qualitative of culture theory. and have a "fatalistic," non-planning differencesin the respective traits can be attitude. And so forth. (Who among the identifiedand compared. byELEANOR LEACOCK culture-of-povertytheoreticians cares to In this context, the ethnographic test the assumption of "fatalism" by U.S.A. 23 vii 68 research design suggested by Valentine is New rork,N.Y., studying, for example, poor Mexican- not fully workable. It does help to in- Valentine's analysis of writings on the Americans organizing for a strike?) Not dicate how the total society can be "culture of poverty" exemplifies the only are the enormous variations in the brought withinthe frameof investigation; interdependence ofthe so-called pure and behavior and attitudes within any group but it has, at the same time, serious applied aspects of social science. He points lost sight of, but so is the range of be- limitations, especially in its rejection of out that the net effectof poverty-culture havior drawn upon by any one individual Lewis' methodology. Those who have writings is, in good Social Darwinist in differentsituations, not to mention worked in urban areas will testifythat tradition, to blame poverty on the poor, the conflictingideological commitments large units are not manageable by tradi- and he demonstrates the ways in which and internally contradictory drives that tional ethnographic techniques alone. the supposed responsibilityof the poor for lie behind any significant individual Here anthropologistswill have to depend their condition followsfrom stressing pre- act. upon other techniques, including the sumed defects in their mentality or be- Valentine refersto the failure to docu- valuable family-studymethod developed havior, an emphasis dependent in turn ment current hypotheses about life styles by Lewis, to gain insight and recover upon a distortion of the culture concept of the poor with adequate and well- data of the richness and depth neces- itself and upon a lack of rigor in the rounded fieldworkand suggeststhat such sary for precise description of variable collection and analysis of field data. research would render many of them traits. On the whole, as Valentine makes obsolete. My own experience studying One important question that will have clear, scholars responsible for the culture elementary school classrooms in middle- to be resolved is in what sense (if any) of poverty concept see "subcultures" as as compared with low-income neighbor- poverty culture is a subculture. In com- internallyconsistent and virtually auton- hoods and in black neighborhoods as plex plural societies such as India, there omous ways of life. They ignore the compared with white (Leacock 1967, are so many levels and dimensions of sub- articulation of various social groupings 1968, 1969) has revealed the inadequacy cultural and sub-subcultural differenti- within the cultural whole, and theyforget of many standard formulations about ation, and theyare so varyinglyexposed to -here Valentine cites a stricture of educational failure among poor children poverty conditions, that simply labeling Kroeber's-"the complementarityof sub- as caused primarilyby out-of-school"cul- poverty culture a subculture will not be cultural distinctness and total-culture tural deprivation." School classrooms, meaningful. In India, for example, there coherence" (p. 108). Thus they fail to instead of meeting different groups of are (a) regional subcultures, broadly take into account possible external sources children equally, showed themselves to coterminous with language and dialect of "distinguishingstructural characteris- be settingsin which children of different areas; (b) north-south differences; tics" (p. 110). groups are treated differently.Education (c) rural-urban differences; (d) religious Valentine discusses the strongand per- in a formal sense is only part of the total communities-Hindu, Muslim, Chris- sistentethnocentrism which characterizes school function,which is tosocialize children tian, Sikh, etc.-each with its specific interpretationsof life among the poor- for differentpositions in society,middle-class subcultural load; among these, the "the now seemingly well-nigh tyrannical and working-class, relatively secure in Hindus are further subdivided into a power of the association between poverty their status if white, marginal if black. large number of more or less distinctive and pathology in the minds of social Such socialization is effectedthrough the sects; (e) castes; (f) tribes, related in scientists" (p. 120). One form through demographic structuring of a double- various ways to the caste society around which this ethnocentrism is expressed track system in keeping with patterns of them; and (g) broad class differences, (here Valentine is referringto the early class and color segregation by neighbor- cutting across all the above. There are formulations of E. Franklin Frazier) is hoods, and carried out by teachers, many poor at practically all levels. Of what, "a direct logical leap fromsocial statistics, of them well-meaning and hard-working, then, do the poor constitute a sub- which are deviant in terms of middle- but conveying to lower-class children culture? class norms, to a model of disorder and generally and non-white poor children in Beyond this,there is the question of the instability" (p. 23). This leap is based particular the message also contained in role of poverty and the culture of the upon the assumption that the values the texts and materials being used-you poor in the local context,on the one hand, which give motivational impetus to given do not now and probably will not ever and in the context of the culture as a behaviors can be inferred from the be- amount to anything worthwhile. A few whole, on the other. These are only a few havior itself,or from"the surface aspect" are allowed to succeed, however. Children of the many issues that must be resolved of life (p. 8). I might add that further in school are not simply being poured before the "subculture of poverty" can be problems are caused by the unfortunately into monistic "middle-class" or "lower- considered cross-culturallyapplicable. common tendencies in contemporary class," black or white molds. Instead they Another important question which social science to overgeneralize from a are being presented with patternedalter- Valentine hints at, but does not dwell variation or trend and to transform nativesfor behaviorand corollaryattitudes- upon, is the use of the term "culture" to moderate differencesinto the absolutes of with a series of roles to be filled according referto an entitydescribed mainly in terms polarized opposites. For example, since to individual abilities and inclinations, o f non- or ga niza tion al1, n on - int e grati o nal, recorded separation and divorce rates are but differentiallystructured for middle- negative, and psychopathic attributes. higher and the occurrence of female- as compared with lower-income children. The "subculture of poverty" is com- headed households more frequent among (For example, a brightand curious boy in

188 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY a lower-income classroom is more likely Valentine:CULTURE AND POVERTY to be channeled into a "trouble-maker" role than he would be in a middle-income dominantly pernicious influence." He is The subcultureof poverty, as definedby these classroom.) critical of the work of most of the people traits, is a statistical profile; that is, the The irony is that while teachers attend he discusses. He examines, with varying frequencyof distributionof the traits both in clusterswill be greaterthan in workshops to learn the reasons for the degrees of superficiality,the writings of singlyand therest of the population (1968: 11). seeming apathy of ghetto children, black E. Franklin Frazier, Nathan Glazer, parents are beginning to beat down the Daniel P. Moynihan, Walter Miller, I decided to use the term culture of doors of the schools to gain some say in David Matza, Oscar Lewis, Kenneth poverty because my books were intended the educational process! The fact that the Clark, Charles Keil, Thomas Gladwin, for a wide audience. I believed that the emphasis of the workshopsis now shifting Elliott Liebow, and Herbert Gans. Only concept of a subculture, difficulteven for from poverty culture to "black" culture Gans and Liebow come off relatively social scientists,would confuse the aver- and historyraises a final point in relation unscathed. age reader and, like the term subhuman, to culture-of-povertywritings. This is On the whole, I find Valentine's book mightsuggest inferiority. I hoped that the theirlack of historical orientation. All too tendentious, self-righteous, pedestrian, term "culture" would convey a sense of uncritically,they have been applying an and downrightirresponsible in its distor- worth, dignity, and the existence of outmoded monistic view of culture to tion of the views of others. Some of the pattern in the lives of the poor despite the explain persisting difficultiesof the non- criticismhas a horseflyquality about it: miserable conditions under which they white and the poor, without referenceto it buzzes and irritates,but is lightweight live. the historically evolved and historically and poses no serious threat. Nor does I believe that most of my colleagues evolving socioeconomic structureofwhich Valentine offerany new solutions. For all understood my intention. For example, these groups are a part. his aggressive rhetoric,he seems opposed Herzog in her article, "Some assumptions to revolutionarysolutions to the problems about the poor," wrote (1963: 395): byOSCAR LEWIS of the poor. He suggests no fundamental changes in the structureof the social and To the extent that the word "culture" is the cultureof poverty should be Urbana,Ill., U.S.A. 5 viii 68 economic systembeyond that ofproviding appropriate, thoughtof as a subculturerather than as a his Valentine better jobs for the unemployed by a In the preface to book, culturein itself-a distinctionmade. in fact, characterizes his work as "ambitious" and national policy of compensatory hiring. by Oscar Lewis.... "presumptuous." This is not an idle dis- His own contribution to the subject con- claimer, but a candid and accurate ap- sists essentially in saying that we need Actually, Valentine, too, understood my praisal which, I suspect, he arrived at well-rounded, intensive anthropological position. Unfortunately, this does not belatedly after finishing his book. This studies of slum life,based upon the tradi- become apparent until late in the volume interpretation is suggested by the dif- tional methods of participation, observa- when he discusses some of the problems ference in quality between the early tion, etc. While I would certainly agree inherent in the conceptions of subsocieties portion of the book, where he is the over- that we need more studies of many kinds, and subcultures. zealous critic, and the latter portion, this is hardly an original contribution. Valentine insistentlyattributes to me where he tries to be constructive and Because so much of his criticism is the idea that the people I am describing presents his own rather uninspired views directed to my own work, I should like to have a self-contained and self-sufficient of what should be done about the poor. reply to some of the issues he raises, even way of life. This is absurd. I never It is exasperating to find that some of his though I find most of them spurious and suggested that people with a subculture most belabored criticism in the early unenlightening.' Valentine criticizes me of poverty are totally isolated from the parts of the book is negated in the latter for using the expression "culture of institutions and values of the larger part, where he quietly incorporates as his poverty" instead of "subculture of society. The marginality I described is own the very point of view he has earlier poverty." It should have been evident to obviously a relative matter and involves decried. It is at the same time reassuring, any careful reader, but especially to an not isolation but the degree of effective because it suggests some flexibilityand anthropologist, that I was describing a participation (Lewis 1966b: xlv). If we capacity for growth. The ideas he has model of a subculture and not of a were to devise a scale of participation, borrowed improve the quality ofthe book. culture. I made this clear on several individuals and familieswith a subculture Thus, his "Postscript: A Proposal for occasions: of poverty would receive lower scores Empowering the Poor to Reduce In- than the rest of the population. equality" is a worthwhile and important Poverty becomes a dynamic factor which Valentine misunderstands the rela- statement. (On the other hand, his affectsparticipation in the larger national tionship between the autobiographical "Appendix: Toward an Ethnographic cultureand createsa subcultureofits own (1959: material in my recent books and the Research Design," is unexcitingand reads 2; italicsadded). theoretical model of a subculture of like a graduate student's research out- poverty, and he is disturbed by the The cultureof poverty ... is a dynamicfactor line.) difficultiesin relating these two distinct which affectsparticipation in the larger that he has This is inherent in all Valentine warns us done no national cultureand becomesa subcultureof levels. problem firsthand,systematic research among the itsown (1961: xxiv). social science models, and the lack of poor and that his knowledge is based perfect fit is in itselfno proof of the in- essentially on his reading and library The cultureor subcultureof povertycomes adequacy of the model, especially when research. He writes as an anthropologist into being in a varietyof historicalcontexts it is an ideal-type model. However, and as a citizen concerned with problems (1961: xxv). I should like to make a few clarifi- of social justice and with the persistence cations. of poverty. He also writes as a self- While the term "subculture of poverty" is The idea of the model of the subculture appointed defender of the image of the technically more accurate, I have used of poverty did not grow out of my study "cultureof poverty" as a shorterform (1966b: poor, whom he tends to idealize in a of the S'anchez family alone. Rather, it xxxix). Rousseauean fashion. developed out of my comparative Valentine believes that those of us who analysis of two Mexican vecindades,one a have some professional expertise in the For examples of more creativecriticism, large vecindadof 157 families, the other a study of poverty have had a "pre- see Gans (1968) and Rainwater (1966). small one of 14 families. In reviewing the Vol.10 JNo.2-3 * April-7une1969 189 findings on these 171 families and in various members of the Rios family In spiteof the generally low level oforganiza- tion theremay be a sense of communityand comparing it with data on slums pub- living in separate households was well espritde corpsin urban slums and in slum lished by social scientists (and also with in the middle group of the La Esmeralda neighborhoods.This can varywithin a single slum. Had I intended to illustrate the data from novels), I noted certain per- city or fromregion to region or countryto sistent patterned associations of traits model in its purest form, I would have country.The major factors that influence among families with the lowest income published a volume on a family with an this variation are the size of the slum, its level and the least education. It was the annual income of less than $500.00 a location and physical characteristics,length configuration of these traits which, for year; 22% of the families in the slum of residence, incidence of homeownership lack of a better term, I called the sub- were in this category in 1960. In his and landownership(versus squatter rights), culture of poverty. effortsto show that some of the characters rentals,ethnicity, kinship ties, and freedom I have recently explained in more in La Vida were less provincial and iso- or lack of freedom of movement. When detail some aspects of the subculture of lated than one might have expected slums are separated from the surrounding area by enclosing walls or other physical povertymodel (1968: 11-12): fromthe ideal type,Valentine stacked the when rentsare low and fixed and cards against the model by selecting as barriers, ... (1) The traits fall into a number of stability of residence is great (twenty or his examples individuals who had lived clustersand are functionallyrelated within thirtyyears), when the population constitutes and each cluster. (2) Many, but not all, of the for many years in New York City a distinctethnic, racial or language group or traitsof different clusters are also functionally who had incomes many times higher is bound by ties of kinship or compadrazgo, related. For example, men who have low than their relatives in San Juan! For and when thereare some internalvoluntary wages and sufferchronic unemployment example, Benedicto and Soledad together associations, then the sense of local com- develop a poor self-image,become irrespon- earned over $8,000 a year and Simplicio munity approaches that of a village com- sible, abandon theirwives and children,and and his wife earned over $5,000. More- munity.In many cases this combinationof take up with otherwomen more frequently over, Benedicto was a bilingual, literate, favorableconditions does not exist.However, than do men with high incomes and steady and sophisticated merchant seaman who even where internalorganization and esprit jobs. (3) None ofthe traits, taken individually, had seen the world. Again, the Sanchez de corpsare at a bare minimumand people is distinctiveper se of the subculture of a a sense of terri- family was not presented as an ideal move around great deal, poverty.It is theirconjunction, their func- toriality develops that sets off the slum example of the subculture of poverty tion,and theirpatterning that define the sub- neighborhoodsfrom the rest of the city. In that the culture. (4) The subculture of poverty,as model. It seemed to me very Mexico City and San Juan this sense of definedby thesetraits, is a statisticalprofile; wide range of types in this family would territorialityresults from the unavailability that is, the frequencyof distributionof the make that self-evident. Furthermore, I of low income housing outside of the slum traits both singly and in clusterswill be made it clear that they were in the areas. In South Africa the sense of terri- greater than in the rest of the population. middle-income group of the Casa Grande torialitygrows out ofthe segregation enforced In otherwords, more of the traitswill occur vecindad.Manuel Sainchez was relatively by the government,which confinesthe rural in combinationin familieswith a subculture sophisticated, literate, and well-traveled migrantsto specificlocations. of poverty than in stable working-class, to his younger sister Marta, middle-class,or upper-class families. Even compared In his critique of my subculture of and contrast between Consuelo and withina singleslum therewill probablybe a the poverty model, Valentine manages to was even more marked. gradientfrom culture of povertyfamilies to Aunt Guadalupe distort my position by omitting my dis- objective been to familieswithout a cultureof poverty. (5) The Had my primary cussion of the causes of the phenomenon, the model, I would have profilesof the subculture of poverty will illustrate the conditions under which it arises, its probably differin systematicways with the an entire volume on Guada- published adaptive functions, and the conditions differencein the nationalcultural contexts of lupe and her husband, two minor under which it will probably disappear. which they are a part. It is expected that characters in The Childrenof Sdnchez.2 He missesthe significanceof the difference some new traitswill become apparent with Since the model of the subculture of researchin differentnations. between poverty and the subculture of povertywas not derived fromthe Sanchez poverty. In making this distinction I I have notyet worked out a systemof weight- and Rios families alone, it is pointless to have tried to illu3trate a broader gener- ing each ofthe traits,but thiscould probably seek a one-to-one correspondence be- be done and a scale could be set up formany alization; namely, that it is a serious tween the model and the characters in of the traits.Traits that reflectlack of par- mistake to lump all poor people together, these books. It would be more helpful to ticipation in the institutionsof the larger because the causes, the meaning, and think of the subculture of poverty as the societyor an outrightrejection-in practice, the consequences of poverty vary con- zero point on a continuum which leads ifnot in theory-would be the crucial traits; siderably in differentsociocultural con- to the working class and middle class; for example, illiteracy,provincialism, free texts. unions, abandonment of women and chil- the various characters in The Childrenof Valentine sometimes denies the exis- dren,lack ofmembership in voluntary associa- Sdnchezand in La Vida would then fall at tence of the subculture of poverty and at tionsbeyond the extended family. differentpoints on the continuum. other times reluctantly accepts it. The Many of the "contradictions" between I had no intentionof equating an entire issue is whether the way of life described the model and the data cited by Valen- slum settlement with the subculture in my books is simply an adaptation of tine are not contradictions at all. For of poverty as Valentine erroneously the poor to the total social system (an example, he sees a contradiction between does. In my experience, the people who adaptation which supposedly begins my statementabout low level of organiza- live in slums, even in small ones, show a from scratch with each new generation!), tion and my description of La Esmer- great deal of heterogeneity in income, or whether the very process of adaptation alda (and also of Casa Grande) as little literacy, education, political sentiments, of the poor develops a set of values and communities. Simply to state that there and life styles. Indeed, I claimed that for norms which justify calling it a sub- is a community does not describe the some characteristics my sample of 100 culture. At one point he writes (p. I1 7), families fromfour San Juan slums was a level of organization. Furthermore, in good sample of the island as a whole the model I stipulated a range of level Evidence presentedin theliterature surveyed (Lewis 1968: 21-23). of organization for the subculture of here seems to provide littlebasis fora clear choice between these interpretations.To It should be clear to anyone who has poverty. In this connection I wrote conclude that the two formulationsare both read the (1966b: xlvii): Introduction to La Vida that valid bultnot mutually exclusive-that the the Rios familywas not intended to be an 2 See my forthcomingbook, A Deathin th1e two causal sequences may be coexistentand ideal representative of the subculture of Sdnchle~zFamily (New York: Random House, perhaps mutuallyreinforcing-is a position poverty model. The income of the September 1969). thatmay ultimatelyprove well founded.

190 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY In the light of this admission, one wonders Valentine:CULTURE AND POVERTY why he attacks my proposition that once the subculture of poverty comes into (which, I believe, is found only in ap- the total range and variety of custom and existence as a result of the total social proximately 20% of the families who behavior. Having done both community system, it is also in some measure inter- live below the povertylevel). studies and family studies, I am con- nally self-perpetuating. What I find most disappointing in vinced (and at some later time shall try More serious is Valentine's insistence Valentine's treatment of my recent work to demonstrate) that, for all of my that I have given highest priority to the is his failure to respond with sympathy editing, selection, and organization, the elimination of the culture of poverty as a and warmth to the people who tell of data in my familystudies is more precise, way of life rather than to the elimination theirlives in FiveFamilies, The Children of more valid, and more reliable than many of poverty per se, and the related charge Scinchez,Pedro Martianez,and La Vida. generalizations in traditional ethno- that I have put the onus of poverty on This is surprising in the light of his graphic monographs. the character of the people rather than statementof his objectives (p. 148): I should like to make it clear for the upon the larger society. This is patently If we can reallyregain the art of livingwith record, however, that: (1) I have not false and flies in the face of my published the natives [i.e., urban slum dwellers], . . . abandoned community studies. (2) I statements, in which I have consistently we should be able to see the world as it is consider them one of the basic research considered it most urgent to eliminate fromwithin the alien subsociety. . . forwe designs of anthropology. (3) It is cer- economic povertyin the United States by shall know the people ourselvesat firsthand. tainly feasible to do comrnunity-like creating new jobs, by paying people ... It seems probable that the futureeth- ethnographic studies of the kind Valen- higher wages, by training unskilled nographerof the poor will have clear knowl- tine yearns forin urban slums and shanty edge ofwhat lower-classpeople want.... workers, and by guaranteeing people a towns. Indeed, a number of such studies decent minimum annual income. My This is what I have tried to do in my have already been done in Africa and in point, however, was that even if all this studies of slums in Mexico City, San Latin America.3 (4) I have never stated were done, there would still remain a Juan, and New York, and I have said so that "poor people living in cities cannot large number of families with many explicitly in each of the volumes dis- be studied by focusingon neighborhoods, social and psychological problems. It was cussed (e.g., Lewis 1961: xii; 1966b: xii). localities, wards, or other sizeable social in this connection that I have suggested Valentine does not analyze the meaning units within the urban complex," as is special services in addition to income of poverty and its political implications falsely charged by Valentine (p. 175). improvement. I mentioned this problem as seen in the rich data provided by the (He knows better, because he has cited in my dialogue with the late Senator people themselves in these volumes. my data on Casa Grande and La Robert Kennedy, published in Redbook Instead, he brushes this data aside as Esmeralda.) (5) I have never intended (1967). For example, in response to "raw material" and concentrates on the my family studies as a substitute for Kennedy's question about the impor- more abstract issue of theoretical models community studies, but rather as a com- tance of betterjobs and higher income, I and the culture of poverty, issues which plement to them. My last four books all replied (p. 104), were quite incidental to the major began as part of community studies, and Yes, it would make a differenceand it should objectives of the books. As far as I am my decision to publish the family studies receivethe highest priority in any case. Every concerned, my formulation of a sub- firstwas simply a matter of publication Americancitizen deserves that as a minimum. culture of poverty is siimplya challenging strategy. Indeed, Pedro Martinez (1964) How theyrun theirlives is theirbusiness, if it hypothesiswhich should be widely tested combines a description of a community doesn'thurt society as a whole. But we over- by empirical research. with full-length individual biographies. simplifythe solution if we thinkit's just a I suspect that one of Valentine's In the light of his criticism of my work, questionof money. problems is that he is so enamoured of Valentine's failure to even mention this At one point Valentine charges that traditional ethnography and community book reflects upon his sincerity and my concept of a culture of poverty was a studies that he has developed resistance reliability as a scholar. Opler (1964), in guiding principle of the war against to data derived from any approach his review of the book, has written: poverty and must, therefore,bear some which tries to go beyond the traditional. There are some who have argued that the for its failure. What a He the valuable insightsone can responsibility ignores autobiography is too personal and idio- naive and absurd conception of the get about the nature of institutionsfrom syncraticto tell us much about a way of life. power of social science in our society! the way in which they are experienced Others are just as sure that the usual eth- It is not the concept of a culture or and reflected in the lives of individuals nography or anthropologicalaccount of a subculture ofpoverty which is responsible and families. His belief that a few good cultureis too divorcedfrom specific human for the lack of success of the anti-poverty old-fashioned ethnographies of urban activityto be convincing.It is the meritof program, but rather (1) the failure of the slums will open up entirelynew horizons Lewis' effortto present both of these ap- President and the Congress of the United and almost automatically push ahead the proaches togetherand, by providinga his- States to understand the degree of war against poverty is naive. To my toricalsetting, to give a sense of directionto themas well. national commitment necessary to cope knowledge, the many studies of tribal with the problem; and (2) the Vietnam and peasant societies have rarely led to Valentine misrepresentsmy work when war, which has been draining our any marked improvement in the con- he suggests that my focus on the family economic and human resources. ditions under which these people live. as a unit of study has led me to neglect or Having attended Moynihan's year- Moreover, he fails to recognize some ofthe eliminate "evidence of life beyond the long seminar on poverty and having serious limitations of traditional eth- confines of the household" (p. 63). Can heard some of the men who were directly nography and community studies. As an it be that he didn't read or doesn't responsible for formulating, organizing, old practitioner of the art, I am sensitive remember the descriptionsin The Children and carryingout the war against poverty, to these limitations and have described of Sdnchezof jail scenes, police brutality. I can testifythat most of them had only them at various times. Army life, gang activities in the vecindac, the vaguest conception of the difference Too often the generalizations which between poverty and the subculture of appear in ethnographic monographs 3I "The poverty. The anti-poverty program was about culture patterns are no more than am now preparing a work on Social Organizationand Material Cultureof correctly directed at economic poverty good guesses based upon the reports of a a Mexico City Slum," as well as a series of and not at the subculture of poverty few informantswho may not represent volumeson La Esmeralda in SanJuan. Vol.10 * No. 2-3 * April-June1969 191 work in the market, work in shops and lesserextent, Miller. I was particularly Germans,Ukranians, and otherdescen- factories,work in the fields as a braceroin impressedwith his critique of the culture- dants of European immigrantshave a California, impressions of life in the of-povertyconcept and with his impor- large elementof choice in theiridenti- United States, etc. ? tantdistinction between the highquality ficationor lack of identificationwith Throughout most of the early and of Lewis' ethnographicwork and the their group. Variety in social class, middle portion of the book, Valentine dubious nature of the extensionof the occupation,and religionand legal and consistentlycomplains about the unduly behaviourof one or two familiesto an illegal routesto successare available, at negative images of the poor which explanationof national and world-wide least in ideal terms,both within the emerge from the studies of professional "'cultures."The popular "viciouscircle" ethnic communityand in the general social scientists. Speaking for myself, explanationsof povertyand slow econ- society,to an infinitelygreater degree I should like to take sharp exception to omic developmentare of a piece with than among blacks. Prejudice exists his implication that I have exaggerated Social Darwinismand allowthe economi- among whites, and class mobility is the pathology and weaknesses of the cally powerfulto blame povertyon the difficult,but thereis no racial factorthat poor. It is curious and ironical that he poor. Through no intention of the continuesto make the membersvisible should even make this charge. Some originator,the idea of the culture of if they move socially. This allows a critics have complained that I have povertyprovides a ready-madejustifi- separationof class and ethnicitythat is glorified the poor and that I have cation forsuch explanations.Valentine not possible for Negroes. It may be improved their language to give more does well to show the weaknessesin picking, because I think Cultureand beauty and profundityto it than they are Lewis' misuseof culture and subculture. Povertyis a veryuseful book, but I think capable ofexpressing. My own evaluation The Moynihan Report falls into the his Model 3 unnecessarilycomplicated. of the people in my books belies Valen- same categoryby focusingon therespon- If lower-classpeople have the oppor- tine's charges (Lewis 1961: xii; 1966b: sibilityof the black lower class for staying tunityto advance economicallywithout xxvii, xxviii). black lowerclass. I do thinkthat Valen- prejudice, they automaticallybecome Belatedly, Valentine acknowledges the tineis unfairto theMoynihan "establish- less vulnerable and have much more relationship between culture and person- mentliberal" position when he attributes choice about ethnic cultural patterns. ality and, if I understand him correctly, sinister motives. To Moynihan, the Perhaps Valentine is correct that the affirmsthe self-perpetuatingelement in presentsystem could be a lot worse,and needed political change can be hurried the subculture of poverty, an idea which he sees no possibilityof revolution.He by increasedethnic nationalism. had been anathema to him earlier in the says to Negroes,"Shape up and be like Finally,as to his call formore research book. He writes (p. 145), us," and to Whites,"You had betterlet on the poor, I guess I have to be for ... there is certainlyempirical evidence of them." Both messagesshow a lack of more researchon anythingor I would pathology,incompetence, and otherkinds of understandingof American culture, be drummed out of academia. I do inadequacy among the people of the ghettos black and white, and of the most im- think,however, that maybe the poor and slums,as thereis in the rest of society. portantpolitical and economicforces in should be given a rest fromresearch. There can be no doubt thatliving in poverty U.S. society,but they are probablyno In readingHersey's (1968) accountof a has its own destructiveeffect on human less fantasticthan the Black Power, shootingby the police duringthe 1967 capacities and that these impairmentsbe- separate-staterhetoric. Moynihan's call Detroit fightingI found, as I suspect come part of the whole processperpetuating for action fromstate and local govern- many of my colleagueswould find,that deprivation. mentsis no more unlikelythan Valen- the lives of the young,black men were The crucial question from both the tine's own call for "enactmentof the relativelyfamiliar. The strange and, scientific and the political point of view necessaryprogram into law byCongress.'" thereby,"dangerous" people were the is: How much weight is to be given to the Valentine admires Clark's work but threepolicemen and theNational Guard internal, self-perpetuatingfactors in the says that it suffersfrom inappropriate warrantofficer. If we needmore research, subculture of poverty as compared to the methods and inadequate data. What maybe it should be on the U.S. middle external, societal factors? My own doesn't? He also admiresthe excellent class. Who are they-or maybe, who position is that in the long run the self- workof Gans and Liebow. It seemsto me are we? perpetuating factors are relatively minor that the crucial distinctionbetween the and unimportant as compared to the works cited favorablyand those cited byDAVID MATZA basic structure of the larger society. unfavorablyis thatthe former emphasize However, to achieve rapid change and social conditionsthat can be changedby Berkeley,Calif., U.S.A. 24 vii 68 improvement with the minimum amount altering power and wealth balances In Cultureand Poverty, Valentine develops of trauma one must work on both the throughlegal action and politicalpressure a perspectiveon the phenomenon of "external" and "internal" conditions. and the latter emphasize cultural and poverty.His view differssharply from To ignore the internal factorsis to ignore personalityfactors that can be changedby thatof mostwriters, and thus the main and distort the reality of people with a alteringthe internalstates of individuals part of the volume is devoted to an subculture of poverty. In effect, this is throughpsychiatry, revelation, or old- assault on the literature.Being a minor harmful to their interestsbecause it plays timesocial work.U.S. historyof the last exemplar of the perspectivecriticized down the extent of their special needs 100 years shows that assimilationand by Valentine, I suppose I ought to and the special programs which are profound cultural and personality provide a defenseand counter-attack. necessary to make up forthe deprivations changes are more or less irrelevantto I intend to. But how defend a per- and damage which they have suffered social structureas long as the group,or spective against so wild a misreading; over many generations. individual,is white and maintainsan how attack a writerso steeped in un- income over the povertylevel. Ethnic reality? by WILLIAM MANGIN nationalism has been-and, as any Valentinepurports to an anthropologi- observerof recent electionscan testify, Syracuse,N.X, U.S.A. 17 vii 68 cal perspective.Mainly, this means he continuesto be-importantin voting. embracesthe idea of culturalrelativism Valentine's political prejudices seem to A crucialdifference between the white withan avidityprofessors find refreshing be much like my own. I can't help but ethnicgroups and the blacks, however, when manifestedby bright,suburban sympathize with his critiques of Frazier, is theopportunity whites have to pass out sophomores.Additionally, he seems to Glazer, Moynihan, Matza, and to a of their group. Poles, Irish, Italians, conceive himself a (C. W.) Millsian. 192 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Mainly, thismeans he proclaims empathy Valentine:CULTURE AND POVERTY with the poor and a concern forsolutions. Morally armed with such admirable a main point of the essay. The thesis is mobilized and achieved consciousness- postures,Valentine considers the question hardly novel-certainly not since Marx. the classic view of writers since Marx- of poverty. Throughout, he seems guided Many writers-including most of those Valentine follows the romantic tradition by the premise that virtually everyone assaulted by Valentine-have held that in which the poor are merely differentin who has written on the subject is an the demoralization of being poor is their customs and arrangements. Family enemy of the poor, misled by ethno- created and produced by the oppressive life is not threatened, despite its shaky centric judgments, ordinary bigotry, or weight of historical circumstance. Even survival,but simplypursued in a different (Lord spare us!) plain old middle-class those who have too greatly stressed the and equally laudable way. Solidarity and bias. To the list of recent writers con- "culture" of poverty see it as resulting organization are not thwarted by the sidered by Valentine-all of whom agree from an oppressive set of historical surroundings, but simply defined dif- that life among the poor generally circumstances. More pertinent,however, ferently.Being poor does not lead to a speaking stinks-could be added such than the genuine issue of whether a degradation and debasement of the notable enemies of the working class as "culture" may reify the product of his- potentialities of human personality; this Engels, Marx, DuBois, and Bukharin. All torical circumstance is the more im- is just something that is wrongly con- have made the same mistake. Unaware, mediate question: if one holds privilege strued in that way by ethnocentric out- perhaps, of the revolutionary discoveries responsible for creating the condition of siders. One wonders, in light of such a in cultural anthropology, writers from poverty, should one address requests and perspective, why black Americans des- E. Franklin Frazier to Oscar Lewis have plans for"relief" to it? I happen to think perately risk their lives putting the torch continued to conceive the poor as if in not-unless, of course, it's a dole Valen- to a ghetto that represents their "way of many ways they shared the general pre- tine is after.For genuine relief,something life." Is it perhaps, because-like Orien- sumptions of American life-as if they a bit more forcefulis generally required- tals-they place a differentvalue on life actually were affected by some of the as the history of worker's organizations than Caucasians; or is it a form of beliefs and aspirations existingall around surelytestifies. potlatch ? them. Because of that basic misunder- It is for that reason that Valentine's Parts of Valentine's unmitigated rela- standing, recent writers harbor a reac- recommendations for massive employ- tivism read like a cruel joke. Perhaps the tionarytendency, according to Valentine. ment opportunities with compensatory presentationof one glaring example is the Seeing only the negative side of being training and hiring seem largely beside best way to conclude. Valentine wishes to poor, they are led to hold the poor the point, worthy as they may be. To contrastthe sweet fruitsof relativismwith responsible fortheir own conditions. entertainthe expectation that the current the sour,judgmental conclusions of some- I will come to the issue of perspective military and political economy in one like Oscar Lewis. To do this, he in a moment, but, first,I want to consider America will permit even the watered- frames some of Lewis' allegations in pro- the simpler question: whether stressing down version of the A. Philip Randolph positional form and suggests alternative the negative side of poverty implies hold- program promulgated by Valentine seems formulations.Thus, forinstance, "Propo- ing the poor responsible for their con- to me misleading. The meaningful ques- sition l a" (p. 130) represents Lewis' dition. I would have thought such an tion is not whether anyone's plan is perspective: association self-evidently absurd, but intelligent,rational, or feasible, but, in- Patternedlack of participationin important apparently it is not. Valentine's zeal in stead, whether black rebellion will be- aspects of the wider societyis an internally locating the reactionary tendency to hold come organized, whether the alliance perpetuated characteristicof the culture of the poor responsible is great. Thus, even between students and blacks can ever thepoor. when a writer tries to convey the view materialize, and, most of all, whether Valentine's "Alternative 1a" is designed that property and its agencies-and not organized labor can conceivably be to rescue the poor from theirjudgmental the poor-produce the oppressive con- shaken from its established lethargy to detractors and to straighten the anthro- ditions of poverty,Valentine can still find ally with an unemployed underclass and pological account. It releases the poor a way to glimpse reaction. He says (p. 47): returnto its occasional militancy. If these from a responsibility Lewis hardly as- Matza's historical interpretationsclearly things, or something like them, should signed them and, then, goes on to the imply that masses of poor people were happen, a program will be devised. If more important matter of transforming pauperized by the economic and political not, privilege will not be responsive- conditions that are worse into those that behavior of the non-poor. Yet he gives no however "responsible" it may be. Instead are different: hint that the privileged strata of today's of providing genuine relief, it will con- Socioeconomically disadvantaged groups society bear any responsibilityfor relieving tinue in its current response; the good show strikinglydifferential participation in theplight of the poor. citizens will shriek "law and order," various specific institutionalareas of the I must confess that after reading those further arm their police, and som- widersociety; these contrasting patterns are two sentences, I felt a sudden sympathy nambulisticallyawait a summer in which imposedand perpetuatedexternally through with residents of mental institutions. America's world mission of crushing institutionalstructures and processes,parti- Trapped, looped, I could see that there revolution is finallybrought home. cularlyrecruitment avenues that are beyond local control. was no way of avoiding a self-assured Finally, as to the perspective on accusation of error, sin, or worse. I am poverty,the basic point at issue: here too, So far, so good-but now comes the confident that most of the other authors I am afraid, Valentine's radicalism and punch line. What are the specific insti- considered by Valentine will have much relativism prove disappointing. Wishing tutional areas in which the poor are high the same feeling. Only Frazier-who is ardently to avoid giving offense to the and low participants? Valentine tells us: looped two or three times-will escape it, poor, he falls heir to a charming in- High participation: police-courts-prison but that is because he is dead. fantilism.For him, despite the oppression complex, armed services, welfare system, As it happens, my interpretation of of historic circumstance-for which we primary public education. Low participa- pauperization does not just "imply" that are to hold the "non-poor" responsible- tion: stable employment,property owner- the main agency for its foul achievement the organization of social life among the ship, political parties, labor unions, higher is what Valentine rather blandly calls the poor remains largely undaunted and education. ''non-poor." That pauperization is the intact. Far from seeing the poor as When Anatole France made a similar work ofproperty and the state is explicitly stupefied or disorganized until they have point about a differentsort of equality Vol.10 * No. 2-3 - April-June1969 193 between rich and poor, his intentionwas people adds his respect for their way poses and in different contexts. This to occasion bitter laughter. That remains of life to that of the people he studies. elasticityof definitioncontributes directly my reaction to the cultural equality The poverty version of a modern cul- to the impossible confusion between race less humorously conjured by Charles ture contains many elements which and class which pervades this essay; in Valentine. require repudiation rather than re- some contexts "The Poor" is exactly spect; shared repudiation becomes inevi- equivalent to "The Black Masses"; in byMARGARET MEAD tably partisan and requires involvement, others it refersto all low-income persons. an application of anthropology rather Valentine's argument ignores the central New York,N.Y., U.S.A. 25 vii 68 than pure research. Where primitive fact, which he cites in passing at one This polemical review of a small part of people's dignityis enhanced by objective point, that the bulk of the "low-income" the work that has been done on poverty research, "the poor" often feel further population is white (65% to 85%, may be usefulin focusinganthropologists' demeaned. depending on income definitions and attention on the significance of work localities). This is because the Move- among the poor of industrializing and byWALTER B. MILLER ment's "explanation" of the conditions of industrialized countries. The arguments low-status populations (see below) is U.S.A. 25 vii 68 it advances, however, are confusing. Cambridge,Mass., geared almost exclusively to low-status Whether or not the phrase "the culture Culture and Povertyis a passionate mis- blacks, failing badly to "account for" the of poverty" advanced by Oscar Lewis sionary tract by a true believer engaged circumstancesof the white majority. was as wise a choice as some such phrase in the classic exercise of attacking heresy Definingcharacteristics oflow-statusp9pula- as "the poverty version of modern cul- and defending orthodoxy. Valentine tions.A standard anthropological device tures" might have been is open to blunders into a nest of long-debated issues for defining a population is the designa- argument. But Oscar Lewis has never with the breathless innocence and arro- tion of a set of its major characteristics.In made the mistakes about culture which gant self-righteousnessof the new convert. conformitywith the definitional evasive- have informed the work of sociologists As a contributionto knowledge or clarifi- ness ofThe Movement, Valentine chooses and social psychologists,who have treated cation of conceptual issues respecting the instead to put the burden of definitionon cultural character as the main intractable circumstances of American low-skilled a single characteristic, "poverty," which factor in the improvement of the con- laboring populations, this essay is of one would then expect to be defined dition of the poor. Almost alone, Oscar negligible value; as a textbook example precisely and in detail. Instead, he offers Lewis has focused attentionupon some of of what I have elsewhere called "The the incredible definition "poverty is a the recurrentcultural featuresof the state ideology of The Poverty Movement of condition of being in want of something of poverty within national cultures, on the 1960's" (Miller 1968), it provides that is needed, desired, or generally the basis ofintensive ethnological methods much of value to the historian of recognized as having value." Alas for in which the familial approach was used cult movements. Currently fashionable humanity; we are all impoverished. as method of exposition and not as a sole slogans of The Movement ("The Poor," Having thus rendered his definition method of research. "Relative Deprivation," "The Black virtually useless by its universal applic- Valentine's discussion of the impor- Ghetto," "The Socially Disadvantaged," ability, Valentine administers the coup tance of seeing culture as a holistic "Injustice," "Powerlessness") prescribe de grace by adding "the essence ofpoverty phenomenon does not really deal with the thrustof the essay. It is suffusedwith is inequality ... the basic meaning of the problem of cross-cultural similari- inconsistency and contradiction; Valen- poverty is relative deprivation." The ties in subcultures, part-cultures, or ver- tine repeatedly violates the principles he Movement's use of "inequality" as a sions of national cultures which can be articulates in early sections; one gains the device for substituting ideology for ex- attributed to similar conditions, e.g., impressionof a troubled man desperately planation is discussed below, and the fishing, mining, trading as strangers, seeking affirmationof the true faith. As deficienciesof "relative deprivation" as a hereditary aristocracy, etc. Lewis has one consequence of the fact that the central justifyingconcept of The Move- merelyextended thistype ofcross-cultural organization of this work is dictated by ment in Miller (1 963). comparison to include a special condition, ideological dogma rather than concern Commn versutsdifferentiated societal stan- endemic in industrial societies and pos- for conceptual adequacy, a series of dards.The complex issue of the degree of sibly most acute in capitalistic societies. fundamental issues with respect to low- commonality and differentiationin what On the basis of present imperfectdata, it status populations and their relation to is loosely called the "value system" of the may well be suggested that in addition to the rest of society are never identifiedor United States has been treated in an changes in the wider socioeconomic en- isolated, let alone clarified. This review extensive literature, which Valentine vironment through city planning, educa- will be able to select only a few of these ignores. Few serious scholars would tion, and employment, other forms of and discuss them very briefly. dispute the proposition that in important change-revolutionary zeal, sect mem- Definition of the population at issue. respects all Americans share similar bership, and movements of self-help- Valentine follows orthodox Movement standards, ideals, and concerns, and that may serve to interrupt the cycle which practice in using "The Poor" as his in important respects various subsectors traps generation aftergeneration within a primary term of reference. A critical (men-women; adolescents-aged) differ condition of despair. Anthropologists deficiency which renders much of his significantlyboth in the character of their should certainlybe involved in analyzing discussion meaningless is his failure to standards and concerns and the weight- the povertyversion of particular cultures, definewith any precision the sector of the ings accorded similar concerns (e.g., and should be ready to criticize the lack population referred to (in contrast, for mating activity). As an obedient follower of perspective involved, for example, in example, with his careful attention to the of The Movement, Valentine takes as an blaming poverty on the state of the definition of "culture"). "The Poor" is axiom the simplisticand partisan position family,or in sociopolitical measures which used as a code word for at least three that all Americans-old and young, rich ask Americans to declare themselves as entities: (1) all Americans with annual and poor, southern rural whites and members of "the poor" in order to vote incomes below variously designated northern urban blacks-share common on economic questions. "poverty-lines"; (2) the urban portion national values. The obvious fact that Valentine's plea for participatory re- thereof; (3) the Negro portion thereof. people at different social status levels search suffersfrom a false premise. The These code-referents of the term shift customarily manifest differentforms of anthropologistwho lives with a primitive continually according to differentpur- behavior is accommodated by the Movre-

194 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY ment tenet that "The Poor" are impeded Valentine:CULTURE AND POVERTY by "external constraints" or "situational stresses"from actualizing their commonly formulations, however, are profoundly on an edited excerpt from a single pape held ideals. This follows from the influenced by a source of bias far more published in a collection (Ferman et al ritualized causational formula of The telling-the highly distinctive, cult-like 1965; Valentine's citations refer con Movement-"The Poor are In Poverty political philosophy of The Poverty fusedly sometimes to the original anc because they are Deprived by The Power Movement. Its special slogans are every- sometimes to the excerpt). Particularll Structure"-a classic thesis of conspira- where in evidence ("powerlessness of the noteworthy is his failure to utilize m) torial exclusionism (see Miller 1968). Of poor"; "relative deprivation"; "Black 1959 paper, which articulates an ex central relevance here is the position Power for the black masses"), and its plicitly anthropological perspective wit} taken by The Movement with respect to rigid tenetsstrait-jacket the entire formu- respect to issues such as the influence oi the universal phenomenon of discrepancy lation. Valentine bitterly impugns the class-derived bias (p. 232), inadequacies between ideal and practice. When ex- validity of formulations influenced by of the "disorganization-pathology" frame pressed sentiment (adolescent expresses class-derived values at the same time as of reference (p. 224), subtypes of, anc desire to be doctor) conflicts with ob- he grants unlimited sovereignty to poli- differentiationamong, low-statuspopula- served practice (same adolescent leaves tically derived values. But even more. As tions (p. 225; also in Miller 1958), the school at 16), the incentives underlying is so often the case, the zealot is abun- "adaptive" nature of lower-classpractices the expression of the sentiment are dantly guilty of precisely the sins for (p. 232), and other issues discussed by granted the status of reality and those which he castigates the evil. Valentine's Valentine either without credit or by underlying the practice conceived as essay teems with judgments based on attributing to me a position opposite to "restraints" imposed by malign external middle-class values. He calls mother- the one appearing in print. forces. father child-rearing arrangements "con- It is refreshing to find my work Explanationalmodels. As an evangelical ventional" and female-based arrange- categorized under "the pejorative tradi- tract, it is not the purpose of this work to ments "unconventional" (whose conven- tion" afterten years of being criticized on provide a well-conceived explanation for tions?). The absence ofmiddle-class forms precisely the opposite grounds-as an the circumstances of low-status popula- is "deprivation." His reform program apology forand defense of the lower class, tions,nor even to clarifydivergent formu- revives the classic proposal for middle- as inaccurately representing the sub- lations, but rather to attributeblame and classifyingthe "disadvantaged" by "re- culture of low-skilled laboring popula- blamelessness, villainy and x rtue. This vitalizing" and "reinvigorating" them by tions as no less "organized" and no less approash, discussed elsewhere as the "sweeping away subcultural patterns "healthy" than that ofmiddle-class popu- "blame frame of reference," dictates the which are merely static adjustments to lations and as performing a useful and organization of the essay. First, hopeless deprivation." As in a projective test, important social function. Valentine's heretics beyond salvation must be im- Valentine perceives formally neutral bizarre perception can, however, be molated (Moynihan, Glazer); next, near- characterizations as "pejorative" by pro- understood as a manifestation of what believers must be disabused of their jecting on them his own subjectively may be called "reverse valuation"-a remaining errors as a condition of salva- experienced contempt forlower-class life. phenomenon whereby a relatively neutral tion (Clark, Gladwin). This devils-angels Furthermore, he exhibits a blatant hos- or non-partisan formulation is perceived dichotomy reflects and derives from a tilityto the middle class, calling it "ruth- simultaneously by partisans at opposite model whereby The Movement portrays less" and "authoritarian" and making extremes as representinga position oppo- the nation as divided into two irrecon- witheringallusions to selfishclass interests site to their own. This perception, a sure cilable camps-poor and non-poor; black and "comfortable lives." The rules for mark of the extremist, is manifested by and white; exploited and exploiter. The being a non-value-laden anthropologist Valentine in classic form. Movement derives the circumstances of would thus appear to be: (1) attempt to With respect to the issue of the social- low-status populations from the direct conceal one's negative evaluations with class distribution of violative behavior, operation of a single and simple process- respect to the lower class; (2) flauntone's Valentine dredges up two worn cliches injustice. "Injustice" in Movement par- negative evaluations with respect to the familiar to all criminologists. The over- lance means the deliberate and concerted middle class; (3) use positive and negative whelming body of empirical evidence exclusion and exploitation of The Poor evaluations derived from one's political showing striking differences between by a bigoted and defensivelyself-protec- philosophy as the principal basis of higher- and lower-status populations in tive Power Structure.Explanations which theoretical formulation. the volume of officiallyrecorded crime is take as a starting point the division of Lest I be suspected of simulating de- explained away by two speculative labor in society,which conceive the func- tachment with respect to Culture and theories-the "white-collar crime" argu- tioning of large complex societies as in- Poverty,let me hasten to registera few of ment (higher-status people are just as volving multiple occupational classes the customary complaints of the misused criminal, but their crime takes formsless wherein essential and complementary and underused author. A series of papers likely to be acted on) and the "hidden roles are played by those at both higher I wrote between 1957 and 1959, based on delinquency" or "influence" argument and lower skill levels, and which derive field research in an urban lower-class (higher-status people commit just as social status differentiation from the community,played a major role in setting many crimes, but they control sources of operating requirement of large social the terms of discourse for the "new" con- influence which keep them from appear- systems,are anathema. The merest sug- cern with low-status populations of the ing in officialrecords). Both these propo- gestion that low-skilledlaborers might be 1960's. Major usages and concepts of sitions have considerable surface plausi- performing a useful or valuable social these papers (e.g., "focal concern"; bility; the trouble is that they are role is perceived as a justification of con- "female-based household") were adopted unsupported by empirical evidence. On tinued exploitation ofThe Disadvantaged directlyby later writers (e.g., Gans 1962) the basis of over ten years of intensive by The Power Structure. and influenced others (e.g., Rodman enmpiricalresearch in crime and delin- Influenceof values. Valentine follows 1963; Rainwater 1966). Of these papers quency utilizing a wide range ofindexes to traditional anthropological practice in (three are cited in full in Liebow 1967), violative behavior (field-recordedoffenses using the accusation of "ethnocentrism" Valentine apparently did not read a [Miller 1962, 1966], police-radio-repor- (in the form "influenced by middle-class single one in its entirety. Instead, he ted offenses,police records, court records) values") to bludgeon the evil. His own based his characterizations ofmy findings I have been unable to discover any evi- Vol.10 No.N 2-3 * April-June1969 195 dence which would significantlyweaken the same source as the impulse to anthro- Charles A. Valentine invited to make a the conclusion that lower-status popula- pological endeavor itself. Anthropology critique of the papers. The problem is tions do in fact engage in more crime, and will be unable to produce sound and that the view ascribed to me is precisely in more serious crime, than higher-status balanced formulations in this area until the opposite of that which I hold. I populations. It is particularly in areas it has developed non-partisan perspec- happen to believe, rightly or wrongly, like this that Valentine's lack of experi- tives for viewing political and social that the present Negro experience in the ence in empirical research in the United processes. cities is largely a replication of the ex- States appears as so glaring a defect, perience of other peasant groups that although it is abundantly obvious byDANIEL P. MOYNIHAN preceded them there. I stated thisposition throughoutthe essay that his formulations first in a well-attended lecture at the are products of highly selective library Cambridge,Mass., U.S.A. 9 viii 68 University of Chicago in the Spring of research by an ardent partisan and not Valentine attacks me rather extensively 1966, when I tried to draw parallels those of extended anthropological field in his book Culture and Poverty.This is between the experience of the Irish in study. never a pleasant experience, but it need 19th-centuryNew York and that of the The conclusion that Valentine is not to not always be an unsettling one. As a Negroes in the 20th century in the same be trusted is evidenced in a specific in- political scientist,knowing my own read- city. stance in his utilization of my writing for ing habits, I have littlefear that any great I also read in this new book, with purposes of rebuttal. In forwarding the number of my colleagues will come upon respect to the policy paper on the Negro "common-values" argument-that dif- his criticism. As a sometime political family prepared in the Department of ferences among U.S. social status levels activist in the sense of a politically ap- Labor in the early months of 1965, and simply reflectdifferent formal manifesta- pointed governmentofficial, I have taken President Johnson's speech at Howard tions of the same values-Valentine (p. my share of abuse in that arena, and have University in June, 1965, that "neither 135) quotes a passage from my 1958 seen such far better men treated so much this document, nor the resultant Presi- paper. The original reads: more harshly as to think it no more than dential speech, contained any proposal an unavoidable occupational risk. Them for a concrete program of action to The [focal concerns]cited here,while by no what gets the apple gets the worm, goes implement the declared objectives." Not means confinedto thelower classes, represent the Negro saying. until 1967, writes Valentine, did I a distinctivepatterning of concerns which "finally" come up with any plan to differssignificantly, both in rank order and Something else does worry me, how- weighting,from that of American middle ever, and that is the matter of mis- strengthen the family, namely a family class culture. representation. Valentine does not meet allowance, which seems weak tea indeed the standards of accurate presentation of to him. In quoting this sentence Valentine ex- facts that all persons associated with This is really quite startling. It is a punges the phrase "while by no means universitiescan and do expect of all other matter of record that what I have been confined to the American lower classes," such persons. In his own critique of the pleading for, within and without the replaces it with dots, and proceeds to re- book, Walter B. Miller charges Valentine government, over the past five years has fute the statement by arguing that these with "simple dishonesty." I should ima- been a systemof guaranteed full employ- concerns are by no means confined to the gine that is one of the very few times in ment. This concept was firstspecifically American lower classes. This is simple Miller's career that he has ever had broached as a policy proposal by the dishonesty. I do not know how frequently occasion to make such a charge. I have Presidential Commission on Automation Valentine used this trick in the case of nothing quite so serious to raise, but and Technology appointed in August, other authors, but even one instance is misrepresentationis grave enough. Even 1963, and "housed" in the Department of enough to cast into serious doubt the so, I would not write as I do save for two Labor. (I was Assistant Secretary of scholarship of the entire work. facts. The firstis that Cultureand Povertyis Labor for Policy Planning and Research A final comment: The circumstances of published by the University of Chicago at the time.) I raised the issue of family low-status populations in the United Press, which would warrant anyone's stability in the firstplace, not to discuss States and related conceptual issues of assuming that its data are correct. The any question of culture or poverty, on class, subculture, race, and policy are second is that thisis not my firstencounter which I had few strong views, but pri- currentlyof critical national importance. with Valentine's work, and I begin to marily to show the correlations between These issues are enormously complex and fear there may be a pattern to his employment and these other, more difficult,and sophisticated formulations aberrations. general, social conditions. I have pub- require the very best effortsof the best In the July-August 1968 issue of Trans- lished these correlations in professional anthropological minds. It is a pity that action,I was surprisedto find the following journals and endlessly reaffirmed my they must be treated in so angry an statement attributed to Valentine probably exaggerated faith in full em- atmosphere, with acrimony breeding (Whitten and Szwed 1968: 56): ployment. The Report of the National acrimony and partisan polemics breeding Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders The built-inbias of ethnographymay lead opposing polemics. anthro- quotes me to this effect, in a passage Although anthropologists(and others) to attribute taken from an pologists have struggled for decades with certainfeatures to Negro part-societieswith- article "Employment, the issue of values and knowledge, they out adequately exploringthe possible occurrence Income, and the Ordeal of the Negro have been singularly unsuccessful in of thesame culturepatterns in non-Nlegrocom- Family" (Moynihan 1965): achieving any substantial degree of munities.Perhaps the moststriking movement balance or objectivity in these areas- in thisdirection is the notionof the "mother- The principal measure of progresstoward I no less than others, here no less than centered family" as an exclusivelyNegro equalitywill be thatof employment. It is the primarysource of individual or group iden- elsewhere. Someday perhaps the aca- phenomenon. Such prejudicial biases have tity. In America what you do is what you demic dialogue will be conducted in a recently reached major policy levels, as evidencedby the MoynihanReport. are: to do nothingis to be nothing; to do calmer atmosphere with maximum pos- little is to be little. The equations are im- sible objectivity an explicit aim. That This apparently was given at a symposium placable and blunt,and ruthlesslypublic. time is not now. The reason, in my view, growing out of the 1966 American For the Negro American it is already, and is that the impulse behind formulations Anthropological Association meetings, at will continueto be, the masterproblem. It is in this area springs from deep-seated which 12 anthropologistsconsidered post- the measure of white bona fides. It is the political philosophies which arise from 1941 studies of New World Negroes, with measure of Negro competence,and also of

196 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY the competenceof American society. Most Valentine:CULTURE AND POVERTY importantly,the linkage between problems of employment and the range of social those folk aren't sufferingat all, maybe speech, which Godwin and I wrote, in pathologythat afflicts the Negro community they know something about life that quite differentterms: is unmistakable.Employment not only con- college professorsdo not. Bordua (1961) trolsthe present for the Negro Americanbut, [PresidentJohnson] is far ahead of most of in a most profoundway, it is creating the has put the matter in a fairminded way the intellectuals-especially those Northern futureas well. that I would think anyone could agree liberalswho have become,in the name of the with: highestmotives, the new apologistsfor seg- In their book The MoynihanReport and the regation.Some of the Commentarywriters, for Miller seems so concernedthat the features instance. Let's put it this way. President Politics of Controversy,to which Valentine of lower class culture,especially the female- Johnson's speech at Howard University refers, Rainwater and Yancey (1967) based household, not be seen as the dis- spelledout themeaning of full integration for state the reasons no policy recommenda- organizationof the more conventional system Negroes in a way that no one, no President, tions were included in the NegroFamily or as signsof social pathologythat he seems not Lincoln nor Roosevelt, no matter how report itself and specifically discuss the to overdoit ratherdrastically. much we love and respectedthem, has ever recommendations which did accompany I will be blunt. I take it Valentine is a done before.There was no hedgingin it, no the document to the White House (where, white middle-class academic. Has his escape clauses. in any event, the Department's views desire to identifywith black sufferingled So you see, life is complicated. But does were already known all too well). It him to distort the work of others? I Valentineknow that? simply is not good enough to confine me sincerelyhope not, but I fear it may be so, A small detail: Valentine speaks of to the belated advocacy of a family and this is a serious matter. data in the NegroFamily report showing allowance. It misrepresentsthe facts, to A final point on rhetoric: Valentine the decline of "Negro family income in what purpose I cannot imagine. quotes Ralph Ellison citing me and relation to white income during the years Valentine accuses Walter Miller of a Glazer, among others, as "new apologists in question." My reference, so stated, pejorative attitude toward the lower for segregation," and being quite critical was to non-whitefamily income. A speci- classes-poor Miller, who has suffered of the NegroFamily report. Yet Ellison, in ficallyNegro series only began in 1964. It for a decade from the repeated charge of the same article-same paragraph-in has so far been one to three points lower heartless indifferenceto sufferingbecause which he denounced the Commentary than the non-white figure (although of of his insouciant insistence that maybe writers,spoke of the Howard University late both have been rising).

about all this soon on the basis of cur- powerful revitalization movements. To- Reply rent research (Valentine and Valentine day I would emphasize all these con- 1969a, b). siderations more than I did in the book. byCHARLES A. VALENTINE Appreciation to Boissevain and Car- Thanks also to Leacock for several First, let me brieflyexpress my apprecia- stens for specifying the relationship pertinent additions: the useful point that tion of those critics who understood my between my plan fordealing with poverty poverty-culture concepts tend to make book and took it seriously enough to and the rest of the book, a relationship moderate or relative differences into make constructivesuggestions for correc- missed by others. More is said about this absolute opposites, relevant experience tion or extension of my arguments in responses to Lewis and Matza below. in educational research (consistent with (Berndt, Boissevain, Bushnell, Carstens, Special thanks to Gladwin for being some current findings of my own), and Gladwin, Hannerz, Leacock, Mangin). more gentle to me than I was to him, and the final point that culture-of-poverty Thanks to these reviewers, especially, for for an excellent summary of major issues formulations are weakened by lacking unintentionally but effectivelyanswering in the book. As for his suggestion that I historical orientation. some of the more hostile and destructive have gone "too far" on Moynihan: my Turning now to the more negative commentary by others dealt with below. strictures are comments on the writings critics (Kochar, Lewis, Matza, Mead, Here Bushnell's recognition that I quoted and cited; I go "too far" only if Miller, Moynihan), I am sorry that emphasize "the creative and adaptive that evidence does not support the Kochar doesn't like my ideological within the lower socioeconomic strata" commentary; evidence and commentary orientation. I might not like his either, if deserves particular attention from those are placed together so that the reader I made the necessary effortto identifyit, critics who claim to find a hidden may judge for himself. The "passing but at least I am candid about mine. Yes, contempt forthe poor in my work. mention" of Hylan Lewis and Rainwater my book is a "dialectical argument." No, Berndt, Carstens, and others are right was intended as positive recognition of the notion of synthesis is not an after- to call for further clarification on class, useful contributions by these writers; I thought. Presentation of a synthesis status, and power. An abbreviated give credit to both as sources of some of makes explicit the probability that response: The essence of poverty is my own ideas and each is mentioned in empirical testswill confirmsome proposi- inequality. Classes are the main structural several places in the book. Gladwin, tions from one side of the dialectical manifestation of inequality with respect Hannerz, and others are right that the opposition and othersfrom the other side. to both status and power. The poor are literature on delinquency should be This by no means implies that the author by definition a social stratum at the covered ifever the book is expanded. of the synthesis "accepts the very bottom of the structure. Ethnic stratifi- Hannerz and Mangin are most helpful premises of Model 1." Kochar's argu- cation is an important part of the in their emphasis on the crucial impor- ment seems to blur the distinction problem in the U.S. and other European- tance of the racial factor in differential between abstract disputation and em- dominated plural societies; yet it is not degrees of victimization by poverty, the pirical testing. What he chooses to call the whole story, if only because of the suggestion of a bicultural model forethnic "presumptions" or "presumed impli- commonly neglected fact that most poor groups among the poor, the need to focus cations" in my analysis of Lewis' work people in the U.S. are white. Internal study on structural and cultural plural- are based directly upon Lewis' own stratificationwithin poor communities is ism, and the related significance of ethnic words quoted at length. We may disagree also important. I hope to write more nationalism as a probable source of about the meaning of Lewis' formu- Vol.10 * No. 2-3 - April-J_une1969 197 lations, but ifwe are to have a meaningful This is the essence of what my book he now states them. Obviously this discussion the disagreement must be suggestson this topic. happens to many of us and could happen more concrete. Some of Kochar's points, The quotation from Lewis' new book to anyone, but we cannot evade some such as Lewis' own limiting remarks on Slum Cultureis certainly welcome. As measure of responsibilityfor what others about the distributionof poverty culture, he knows, of course, this was not avail- do with ideas we have made public are dealt with at length in my book. I do able when I was writing. (I have since property. agree with Kochar that the poverty commented on it [Valentine 1968].) In As forthe failure of the war on poverty, culture idea is a static model, and I regret any case, it does not change the essentials my point is that anti-poverty programs that I did not give more attention to this of the debate between us. If one has "no based on widely current versions of the point in my book. I also appreciate his intention of equating an entire slum culture of poverty were bound to fail discussion of varying degrees of inte- settlement" with a definite (sub)cultural even without such immense additional gration of the poor within complex design, why call it "slum culture"? If handicaps as the irresponsibilitiesof the societies. His succinct indication of the one does not believe certain (sub) cultural President and Congress, including the many levels and dimensions of sub- patterns typify most populations living Viet Nam war. The basic failure was not cultural variation in India is both in poverty, why use the phrase "culture the scale of the effort but rather the pertinent and sobering for those of us of poverty"? A major question remains conceptions that underlay it, the nature who take seriously the complexity of unanswered: How representative-and of the resulting programs, and probably differentiationin contemporary societies. of what-are Lewis' family studies? If the real intentions of the most significant Perhaps the basic difficultybetween the presentation of data in these volumes decision-makers. Thus Lewis' statement Oscar Lewis and myself is a failure of did not have as the "primary objective that "the anti-poverty program was communication. I do not question his ... to illustrate the model," then what correctly directed at economic poverty motives; rather, I declare my sympathy was the purpose? The very labels with and not at the subculture of poverty" and respect for his intentions; yet he which the books are titled or subtitled seems to me to fly in the face of the accuses me of insincerity and mis- seem to me to contradict their author's facts (cf., e.g., Gladwin 1967, Rodman representation. I thought I was giving disclaimers. 1968). the people in Lewis' books more credit Lewis still sees no contradiction be- Lewis ascribes to me a "belief that for their capacities and greater empathy tween his model and his description of [urban ethnography will] almost auto- with their situation than he did; yet La Esmeralda. His rebuttal on this point matically push ahead the war against what he finds "most disappointing" in rests on "sense of community," "esprit poverty." I don't believe this, nor did I my work is a "failure to respond with de corps," and "sense of territoriality." say anything like it. He is quite rightthat sympathy and warmth." I intended my This does not clear up the contradiction generalizations in some ethnographies analysis of his work to convey respect as between "minimum of organization" in are ''no more than good guesses based well as criticism; this obviously did not the model and the many structural or upon the reports of a few informants." If get through to Lewis. Wherever I am institutional features in the descriptive he read my sections on methodology, responsible for these misunderstandings I data. He feels I have distorted his however, he knows that I am not the apologize; I hope the communication position by "omitting" his discussion of least bit interested in that kind of failure will end here. causes, functions, and conditions for the ethnography. I am glad we now agree on Lewis' remark that I have done "no disappearance of poverty. He should the need for and feasibility of com- firsthand,systematic research among the reread my book (especially pp. 67-77). I munity-oriented urban ethnography. poor" directly contradicts the facts am confident he will find no omission Nevertheless, my remarks about his presented in my Preface and documented and no distortion. As for his distinction earlier stand on this issue are not a false in the Bibliography. Characterizing my between poverty and poverty culture, charge. He will remember that he wrote: thoughts as "opposed to revolutionary this is considered at more than one place "city dwellers cannot be studied as solutions" is completely inconsistentwith in my book. It was not entirely clear members of little communities" (Lewis my discussion of Models 2 and 3 (pp. earlier, and his present addition does not 1959:17, quoted in my book, p. 49). 142-47) as well as the Postscript, the seem to me to clarifyit any further. Lewis accuses me of "misrepresen- latter being much more than a scheme On the issue of priorities for policy, I tation" and casts doubt on my "sincerity for "compensatory hiring." Nor was my am most happy to have Lewis' clear, and reliability" because I don't give as proposal "borrowed" from anywhere definite statement that doing away with much attention as he would like to all of (see reply to Matza below). poverty as such is more urgent than his works, especially early ones. Actually On culture and subculture, the major attacking the culture of the poor. I I do cite much of his earlier work and issue is that, regardless of terminology, cannot agree, however, that my con- comment on contrasts with later books. Lewis often writes about the subject as tention about his theory guiding the war Nevertheless, my main concern is ob- if he had a full culture in mind. This on poverty is "naive and absurd." In viously with his recent works on the begins with his definition, "a culture in a forthcoming publication (Valentine subculture of poverty. Here I think my the traditional anthropological sense" 1969) this thesis is furtherdeveloped and strictures hold good. I claim no more (quoted more fully on p. 129), and documented, using sources ranging from than this,either here or in my book. continues throughout much theoretical the direct link of Harrington's work I am sorry that Lewis seems to have discussion. Whether or not people are (1962) to the insightful commentary of misunderstood me again as to my "totally isolated from. . . the larger Gladwin (1967) and Rodman (1968). position on the alleged self-perpetuating society" is not the issue. Lewis says that My point is not that there is any "special quality of a poverty culture. I have said "disengagement," "non-integration," "is power of social science in our society," before and now repeat that this hypoth- a crucial element in the culture of but rather that the idea of a poverty esis must be examined and tested, not poverty." This is what I question. We culture appealed to many powerful just proclaimed. When Lewis now says also disagree about "lack of fit." Lack of people who appropriated and developed that the "self-perpetuating factors are fit with the facts is exactlywhat makes a it for their own purposes, using it to relatively minor and unimportant com- model unsatisfactory. "Perfectfit" is not justify a series of pernicious policies. pared to the basic structure of the larger the issue. The point is that Lewis' model, Bluntly stated, Lewis' ideas have been society," I am glad we are closer to like all others, can be improved by posing used for purposes which have nothing in agreement than we were before. Again I alternatives and testingthem empirically. common with his aims, particularly as hope l:ewis will join me in ending our

198 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGIY misunderstandings. If so, debate can Valentine:CULTURE AND POVERTY prosper constructively. My next critic, Matza, says writers direction. It is an insulting travesty, means rules out "repudiation. " I re- fromFrazier to Lewis "conceive the poor however, to describe it as a "watered- pudiate the oppressive impositions on the as ifin many ways they shared the general down version of the A. Philip Randolph poor at home in much the same way (and presumptions of American life." On the program." The principal contrast with formuch the same reasons) as I repudiate contrary, this is one of the more impor- the Randolph Freedom Budget is that the colonial exploitation that operates tant propositions about poor people my proposal demands a significant through ethnic stratification in New which the relevant authors most often transferof power to poor people. Because Guinea. Nor does this mean that one neglect, minimize, or deny. Much of my this is an inherently revolutionary de- must give positive valuation to all book is devoted to documenting and mand, it may well require changes that patterns that might have an internal exploring this very point. Matza seems cannot be accommodated within the origin within urban ghettos-any more to misunderstand grossly both the book existing political structure and processes than an ethnographer must admire all and the literatureit criticizes. of our society. aspects of traditional Melanesian culture. Nowhere in my book is there anything Matza judges me guilty of "romanti- Moreover, I see no necessary antithesis resembling Matza's statement that cism" and "infantilism" with respect to between "involvement" and "objective" "stressing the negative side of poverty the poor. Assuming misunderstanding research. On the contrary, the two may implies holding the poor responsible for rather than deliberate distortion, I ask often be mutually strengthening,assum- their condition." I do say that over- the critic to read the book carefully and ing adequate safeguards as to intellectual emphasizing negative qualities of poor seriously. My book says nothing to the and ethical integrity. peopleoften goes with blaming poverty on effectthat the poor are "not threatened" For these reasons, as well as others, I the poor-a quite different point. In or "not thwarted." I do feel, even more do not expect poor Americans to feel either case, however, when the paired strongly today after further experience "demeaned" by my objective research, orientations appear together the com- with poor people, that "being poor is not any more than my friends in New bination has been constructed by indi- a degradation and debasement of the Guinea did. Why does Mead feel that vidual thinkers. There is obviously no potentialities of human personality." what she has done so well in Melanesia inherent logical connection between Perhaps this is the nub of the disagree- and elsewhere would be impossible in the negative views either of poverty or of the ment. In contrast with some of my critics, U.S. ? Is it because here she would have poor and any particular belief about I believe the poor have shown that their to confront the problems of her own causes or responsibility. potentialities (and their achievements) society, which are her (my, your) Matza is entitled to his preference for are very great-precisely because they problems? These difficulties may pose such abstractions as "property" and "the are not debased in spite of all oppression. significantlimitations for ethnography at state." I am equally entitled to translate As for black Americans taking great home; they certainly are real problems to these into more concrete terms of risksto burn down ghettos, I believe they which we should address ourselves. reference. I think that "economic and do this precisely because the ghetto does Perhaps Mead will address herself to political behavior of the non-poor," not "represent their way of life." What them elsewhere. It is disappointing that though stylistically lackluster, is other- they are burning down was imposed on here she did not go beyond the level of wise not a bad translation. Perhaps them by external forces. More and more unsupported pronouncement. One of the Matza's main objection to my trans- of them are declaring their total resis- major points of my book is that anthro- lation is that it carries implications of tance to this imposed structureby risking pology has unique potential for over- ethical responsibilityas distinct from the their own destructionin tryingto destroy coming these very problems. Some fur- amoral casuality of his more abstract what they experience as oppression. ther thoughts on all this will soon be formulations.This objection has no force Mead's statements that Lewis has not available in forthcoming publications for me, because I do not pretend to be a fallen into certain mistakes do not (e.g. Valentine and Valentine 1969a, b). value-free scholar. I believe that value- automatically make it so. A seriously Since Miller and Moyrnihan seem to freesocial science is a myth. argued critique commands respect; mere have worked together on their contri- Nothing in my book should convey the pronouncements, even when they come butions to this debate, I will deal with impression mentioned by Matza that I from deservedly eminent people, should them together. Their favorite charge is harbor an "expectation" that "relief" not. My discussion of holism is not, of that I am "not to be trusted" because I will be freelyor easily granted by holders course, intended to deal with problems of am guilty of "dishonesty," "misrepre- of power and privilege. That is why my part-societies and subcultures. These sentation," etc. Most of this self-righteous several discussions of solutions are problems are dealt with in other parts of furor is generated around three dots coupled with the contention that a radi- my book, and I would have welcomed which I inserted in a quotation to reduce cal and powerful social movement, attention to these sections. This is one of the redundancy of one of Miller's more launched by the poor themselves,will be the problem areas in which my own work, long-winded sentences. If the critics will necessary to eradicate poverty. The plan as well as that of others,is most noticeably reread the quotation, they will see that I proposed was intended to make avail- incomplete. It is disappointing that none nothing of any signilicance is left out. able one utopian but concrete model of of the more negative critics chose to The critics say I should have preserved necessary changes. This was offeredas an respond constructively to the challenge in the quote a clause about lower-class aid in the ongoing process of thinking of these problems. concerns not being confined to the lower through what kind of society should be In Mead's final point there is material classes; yet the meaning of this clause is built if a revolutionary social movement for a real and important debate, which perfectlywell represented by the lines I should emerge successfully.The proposal regrettably cannot be developed at did quote about lower-class concerns was deliberately designed to be an length here. Nevertheless, I must dis- differing "in rank order cand weighting" extension of already current reformist agree briefly. I have now worked with from preoccupations of the middle class. ideas, going beyond available plans but both "primitive people" overseas and Miller and Moynihan say I distorted the growing out of widespread notions. poor people in our own society. As an original by falsely implying that Miller Today, only a few months after publi- anthropologist I find that I not only can, said the relevant concerns do not exist cation of the book, I would be inclined but must, feel "respect for their way of among middle-class people. This is to revise that proposal in a more radical life" in both settings. FEorme, this by no nonsense. If the difference between the Vol.10 * No. 2-3 * April-June1969 199 two class patterns is one of "order and Miller suggests that I provide no my book. Miller ends his peroration with weighting," as the quotation says, then definition of the poor; I discuss this a reference to "non-partisan perspec- obviously the same concerns are being whole matter in the first chapter and tives." I do not believe that there is any said to exist in both social contexts. The give solid reasons for the position taken genuinely non-partisan perspective on quotation, ellipsis included, faithfully there. He says that I use "The Poor" as problems that are bringing our society to renders all essentials of the original. a "code word" for three conceptions that the brink-perhaps by now over the Beyond this, Miller and Moynihan com- I discuss but explicitly reject. He claims brink of civil war. It is my considered pletely miss the point of my critique on to find in my work an "impossible judgment that "non-partisans" in this this topic, but space is not available to confusion between race and class," even situation are engaged in either a delusion re-explain it here. With respect to the though much of the book is devoted to or a fake. A slogan from"the movement" charge of misrepresentation, however, documenting that very confusion in the that fits this situation is: There are no what might possibly be misunderstand- work of others (including his friend innocent bystanders. In contrast to the ing by Miller becomes a mere smear Moynihan) and to clarifying various many "movement" sayings that Miller when it is repeated without substantia- relationships between ethnic grouping and Moynihan attribute to me for their tion by Moynihan. and social stratification.This is followed own purposes, this is one forwhich I have The same charge is revived by Moyni- by an allegation that the problem of considerable sympathy. han, irrelevantly,in his referencesto some common versus differentiated values is Moynihan claims that he found it comments of mine which were para- "ignored" in my book which must be "startling" to read my statement that he phrased in Trans-action (Whitten and placed against the fact that a large part had made no public proposal for a Szwed 1968). Those comments clearly re- of the book is focused on precisely that concrete program to deal with poverty ferredto the Moynihan Report,which was problem. In his section on "explana- until 1967. Far from denying that published in 1965. I know nothing of tional models," Miller attributes a series Moynihan has called for increased Moynihan's 1966 lecture in which he now ofjudgments to me that I cannot find in employment, I specifically mention this says he changed his earlier position. If my book. in my book (p. 37). As I said there, the there is any misrepresentation going on Next comes a passage on the alleged outworn old slogan of "full employment" here, it lies in the suggestion that my "influence of values" on my work. Let is not a concrete program. We have no critique of theReport is dishonest or dis- me repeat that I do not claim to be a way of knowing what Moynihan may torted because Moynihan has since said "non-value-laden anthropologist"; in- have been "pleading for" within the something differentfrom what he wrote deed, I seriously doubt that there is any government since 1963. We do know in the Report. such thing. In any case, I have no need that no administration from that year Moynihan resorts to furtherrhetorical to hide my values. I use terminology forward, not to mention earlier, has tactics of the same sort in continuing reflecting middle-class values because been committed to full employment in his defense of Miller. This defense is these values are dominant in American any practical sense that would be entirely beside the point. Over-all society as a whole, they permeate the meaningful to poor people. As for his evaluation of Miller's career as a whole discourse of professors,and reference to "correlations" between family stability is neither relevant nor useful for the them is therefore useful in communi- and employment, why doesn't he reply purposes of my book. I cite and quote cating with social scientistswho are often to my critique of his analysis of this specific propositions offeredby Miller in more straightforward,even if not more problem? two publications, suggest reasons for enlightened, than Miller and Moynihan. Finally, if Moynihan is so concerned skepticism about these points, and put To accuse me of "contempt for lower- about the distinction between Negro forward alternative hypotheses for em- class life," however, is baseless innuendo. statisticsand non-white figures,why did pirical test. Neither Miller nor Moynihan In this connection, I hope Miller reads he not title his report "The Non-white answers this critique. Here as elsewhere, Bushnell's more constructive criticism of Family"? This might have made the their ad hominem arguments are evasions my book, since he apparently cannot, or racial and cultural absurdity of his whole of the intellectual issues raised in my will not, pay serious attention to the book enterprise sufficientlyobvious to render book. Their failure to address the issues itself. tedious debate unnecessary. It might also as such leads me to the conclusion that Miller says that he feels not only have alerted American Indians, Chinese, they have no answers on this level. The misused but underused as an author. I Japanese, perhaps even Puerto Ricans charges offered in place of genuine do not pretend to use his eiitire output, and Chicanos, who are not overly im- rebuttal are without substance. Though I nor do I see any reason why I should. I pressed by census categories, to the amwilling to be convinced, it is difficultfor cite only that part of his work which I did dangers of the Moynihan Report that me to believe that theydid not know these use. Moreover, I just don't happen to were initially perceived by Afro-Ameri- charges to be emptywhen theymade them. agree with other commentators on cans and their allies. As the answers to The question of how accurately a critic Miller's work who are quoted by him rhetorical questions flow so easily from represents the work of others must now and Moynihan; this does not make my the queries themselves, it occurs to me be asked of these two reviewers. I leave perceptions "bizarre." With respect to that debate might be worthwhile even it to readers to evaluate Miller's attempt "violative behavior," I merely offered with Miller and Moynihan. When I first to ridicule my book with labels calcu- some alternative hypotheses. I did not read their reactions to my book I was lated to excite contempt among aca- say that either Miller's hypothesis or my tempted to protest to editor Tax that demics, e.g., "missionary tract . . . of the alternatives had yet been empirically such screeds have no justifiable place in Poverty Movement," "cult-like political demonstrated. At the same time, how- CA, but the more I think about it the philosophy," etc. I must submit, how- ever, I do reject the kind of evidence more it seems to me that, given a little ever, that such name-calling is no cited in this connection by Miller, and I rope, they are quite capable of hanging substitutefor serious disputation. do so for reasons given at some length in themselves.

200 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY LEACOCK, ELEANOR. 1967. Distortions of social structurein modernsociety." Trans- ReferencesCited working-classreality in American social actionsof the Third World Congress of Sociology science. Scienceand Society31: 1-21. vol. 3. [PC A] BANTON, MICHAEL. Editor. 1966. The social [EL r] PARSONS, TALCOTT, and KENNETH CLARK. anthropologyof complex societies. New York: -- -. 1968. Working-classreality in social Editors. 1966. The Negro American.New Praeger. science: A discussion. Scienceand Society York: Houghton Mifflin. BORDUA, DAVID. 1961. Delinquent sub- 32: 82-88. [EL *] QUADE, EDWARDS. 1967. "Introductionand cultures: Sociological interpretationsof -- -. 1969. Classand color in cityschools, a com- overviewin cost effectivenessanalysis," in gang delinquency. The Annals of the parativestudy. New York: Basic Books. New approachesin decisionmaking. Edited by AmericanAcademy of Political and Social [EL c] T. A. Goldman. New York: Praeger. Science338: 120-36. [DPM *] LEWIS, OSCAR. 1959.Fivefamilies. New York: [EB W] BRAITHWAITE, RICHARD B. 1953. Scientific Basic Books. RAINWATER,LEE. 1966. The problem of explanation.Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- - - -. 1961. Thechildren of Sdnchez. New York: lower class culture. Pruitt-IgoeOccasional versityPress. [PC *] Random House. Papers 8: 1-45. (Reprinted in On under- CLARK, KENNETH. 1965. Dark Ghetto:Dilem- -- -. 1964. PedroMartz'nez: A Mexicanpeasant standingpoverty. Edited by D. P. Moynihan. masof social power. New York: Harper. and hisfamily. New York: Random House. New York: Basic Books, 1968. In press.) CLOWARD, RICHARD A., and LLOYD E. [OL *] [WBM, OL *] OHLIN. 1960. Delinquencyand opportunity. - - -. 1966a. The cultureof poverty. Scientific RAINWATER, LEE, and WILLIAM YANCEY. New York: Free Press. [TG, UH A] American215(4): 19-25. 1967. The MoynihanReport and thepolitics of COHEN, ALBERT K. 1955. Delinquentboys. ---. 1966b. La vida. New York: Random controversy.Cambridge: M.I.T. Press. New York: Free Press. [UH *] House. [DPM r] DAHRENDORF, RALF. 1959. Class and class -- -. 1968. A studyof slum culture: Backgrounds Redbook.1967. A Redbookdialogue: Robert conflictin industrialsociety. Stanford: Stan- for La Vida. New York: College Depart- Kennedy and Oscar Lewis. September, fordUniversity Press. [PC *] ment,Random House. [OL *] pp. 74-75, 103-4. [OL *] EISENSTADT, S. N. 1961. Anthropological LIEBOW, ELLIOT. 1967. Tally'scorner. Boston: ROACH, JACK L., and ORVILLE R. GURSSLIN. studies of complex societies. CURRENT Little,Brown. 1967. An evaluationof the concept "culture ANTHROPOLOGY 2: 201-22. MAGEE, JOHN F. 1964. Decision trees for ofpoverty." SocialForces 45: 383-92. ELLISON, RALPH. 1967. A very stern dis- decision making. HarvardBusiness Review, [UH W cipline.Harper's 234: 76-95. [DPM *] July-August. [EB *c] RODMAN,HYMAN. 1963. The lower-classvalue FERMAN, LOUIS A., JOYCE L. KORNBLUH, and McKEAN, RONALD N. 1966. Efficiencyin stretch.SocialForces42: 205-15. [WBM *] ALAN HABER. Editors. 1965. Povertyin governmentthrough systems analysis. New - - -. 1968.Family and social pathology in America.Ann Arbor: Universityof Michi- York: JohnWiley. [EB *] the ghetto.Science 161:756-62. gan Press. MATZA, DAVID. 1964. Delinquencyand drift. SHORT, JAMES F., JR., and FRED L. STRODT- FRAZIER, E. FRANKLIN. 1932. TheNegrofamily New York: JohnWiley. [UH *] BECK. 1965. Groupprocess and gang delin- in Chicago.Chicago: Universityof Chicago MILLER, WALTER B. 1958. Lower class cul- quency.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ture as a generating milieu of gang Press. [UH *] - - -. 1939. TheNegro family in the United States. delinquency. Journalof Social Issues 14: STEWARD, JULIAN H. Editor. 1965. Thepeople Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press. 5-19. (Reprinted in Povertvin America. of Pue7to Rico. Urbana: University of - --. 1957. Revised edition. TheNegro in the Edited by Louis A. Ferman, Joyce Illinois Press. UnitedStates. New York: Macmillan. Kornbluh, and Alan Haber, pp. 261-69. -- -. 1967. Contemporarychange in traditional -- -. 1966. Revised and abridged edition. Ann Arbor: Universityof Michigan Press, societies.Urbana: University of Illinois The Negro family in the United States. 1965.) Press. Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press. -- -. 1959. Implicationsof urban lower-class TimesLiterary Supplement. 1967. Prying into GANS, HERBERT. 1962. The urbanvillagers. culture for social work. The Social Service poverty.September 21. [CHB *] New York: Macmillan. Review33: 219-36. [WBM *] VALENTINE, CHARLES A. 1968. Review of: A -- -. 1965. "Subcultures and class," in -- -. 1962. The impact of a "total-com- studyof slum culture, by Oscar Lewis (New Povertyin America.Edited by Louis A. munity" delinquency control project. York, Random House, 1968). American Ferman, Joyce Kornbluh, and Alan SocialProblems 10: 168-91. [WBM *] SociologicalReview. In press. Haber, pp. 302-10. Ann Arbor: University - --. 1966. Violent crimesin citygangs. The - - -. 1969. "The 'culture of poverty,' its ofMichigan Press. Annalsof theAmerican Academy of Political scientific significance, and its implications -- -. 1968. "Culture and class in the study and Social Science364: 96-112. for action," in The cultureof poverty:A of poverty: An approach to the anti- [WBM c] critique.Edited by Eleanor Leacock. New poverty research," in On understanding ---. 1968. "The eliminationof the Ameri- York: Simon and Schuster. In press. poverty:Perspectives from the social sciences. can lowerclass as federalpolicy: A critique VALENTINE, CHARLES, and BETTY Lou Edited by Daniel P. Movnihan.New York: of the ideologyof The PovertyMovement VALENTINE. 1969a. Ghetto ethnography: A Basic Books. In press. [OL W] of the 1960's," in On understandingpoverty: preliminary report of research. Human GLADWIN, THOMAS. 1961. The anthropolo- Perspectivesfrom the social sciences. Edited by Organization.In press. gist's view of poverty. The SocialWelfare Daniel P. Moynihan. New York: Basic - - -. 1969b."Making the scene, digging the Forum,pp. 73-86. Books. In press. [WBM *] action,and tellingit as it is: Anthropologists - - -. 1967. PovertyU.S.A. Boston: Little, MOYNIHAN, DANIEL P. 1965. The Negro at workin a darkghetto," in Afro-American Brown. family:The casefor national action. Washing- Anthropology:Contemporary Perspectives. Edited GLAZER, NATHAN. 1966. "Foreword," in The ton: U.S. Departmentof Labor. by NormanWhitten andJohn Szwed, New Negrofamily in the UnitedStates, by E. - --. 1966. "Employment,income, and the York: Free Press. In press. Franklin Frazier. Chicago: Universityof ordeal of the Negro family,"in The Negro WARD,BARBARA E. 1965. "Varieties of the Chicago Press. American.Edited by Talcott Parsons and conscious model: The fishermenof South GLAZER, NATHAN, and DANIEL P. MOYNIHAN. Kenneth Clark, pp. 134-59. New York: China," in The relevanceof modelsin social 1963. Beyondthe meltingpot. Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin. (First published in anthropology,ASA Monograph no. 1, pp. M.I.T. Pressand Harvard UniversityPress. Daedalus94: 745-70.) 113-37. London: Tavistock. [UH *] HARRINGTON, MICHAEL. 1962. The other - - -. 1967a. The president and the - - -. 1966. Sociological self-awareness: America:Poverty in the UnitedStates. New Negro: The momentlost. Commentary43: Some uses of the conscious models. Man, York: Macmillan. 31-45. n.s., 1: 201-15. [UH *] HARYOU. 1964. routhin theghetto. New - - -. 1967b.The politicsof stability. Speech WHITTEN, NORMANE. JR., and JOHN SZWED. York: Harlem Youth OpportunitiesUn- to National Board, Americansfor Demo- 1968. Negroes in the New World. Trans- limited. craticAction, Washington. action5: 49-56. [DPM *] HERSEY, JOHN. 1968. The AlgiersMotel in- OPLER, MORRIS. 1964. A man, his hoe, and WHYTE, W. F. 1943. Streetcorner society. cident.New York: Bantam. [WM *] his hope. Book Week, New rork Herald Chicago: University of Chicago Press. HERZOG, ELIZABETH. 1963. Some assump- Tribune,May 3, p. 5. [OL *] ZWEIG, FERDYNAND. 1942. The planningof tions about the poor. Social ServiceReview OSSOWSKI, STANISLAW. 1956. "Old notions freesocieties. London: Secker and Warburg. 37:389-402. [OL *] and new problems: interpretationsof [PC A}

Vol.10 * No. 2-3 * April-J_une1969 201