Charles Murray – a Ph.D. in political science who objects to being labeled a sociologist (I’ll sign on to that) – has been back in the news, with his latest effort to offend liberals by explaining why the poor are poor.
D. Lange_ loc 83-G-44035
In the 1970s (Losing Ground), the poor were poor because the welfare system bred dependency. In the 1990s, they were poor because they were of genetically inferior intelligence (The Bell Curve; colleagues and I replied to that argument in this book). In the 2010s, Murray tells us that the poor are poor because the 1960s counterculture undermined their self-discipline (Coming Apart).
Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.Three strikes.
This link is to my column in the latest Boston Review discussing the general resurgence of cultural explanations for who are the persistently poor.
