Sociologists: U.S. Poverty Planned by Capitalists, Politicians

" Unemployment and underemployment are closely related to decisions made by top corporate executives and investors--with profit accumulation and control of the work force as ultimate corporate goals. These decisions by the economically powerful play a major role in shaping the boom-bust cycles of late capitalism. Decisions about levels of profit, about location of new enterprises, and about automation are typically made without any significant democratic consultation with the employees affected, yet such decisions have profound effects on working people and their families. The unemployed and underemployed are essential to the operation of the U.S. economy because they put downward pressure on wages and because they provide a reserve labor force. In recent years many corporations have created serious unemployment problems by their profit-oriented decisions, which do not take worker and other social costs into account. A concern for profits and for a more docile labor force has motivated decisions by many corporations to relocate operations in Sunbelt states or in selected countries overseas, particularly those with many low-wage workers.

Poor Americans not only suffer the indignities of unemployment and low incomes but also endure considerable attitudinal hostility aimed at them by many middle- and upper-income people. The ideology of individualism includes beliefs about hard work for success and about the character defects and laziness of those who do not succeed, including the poor. The general ideology of individualism and the view of the poor as folk villains have developed with the growth of the U.S. economy and have been vigorously fostered by leading capitalists and allied politicians from the nineteenth century to the present day.

Such an ideology helps to legitimate the many inequalities in U.S. society. Culturally ingrained exhortations to work hard have been important in stimulating the effort of workers to do the jobs provided by our capitalistic system. One indication of a poorly developed awareness of economic exploitation among many workers is their strong acceptance of the individualistic views on poverty and unemployment as reflecting laziness or immorality. A major consequence of intense antipoor views among ordinary blue-collar and white-collar workers is to direct attention away from their own economic exploitation."