Abstract
Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward are internationally known writers on the politics of welfare. To many people in the USA however, they are better known as activists. They were centrally involved in the Welfare Rights Movement in the late sixties, and continue their organising today around issues like voter registration, which they consider one of the crucial areas for left political mobilisation in the USA.
Outside of America they are best known as the authors of a number of books and collection of essays including, Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare, Pantheon, 1971, Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, Why They Fail, Pantheon, 1977, and most recently The New Class War: Reagan's Attack on the Welfare State, Pantheon, 1982. Piven and Cloward were interviewed in New York City in May 1983. Here, we asked how they responded to suggestions that they have shifted away from the per spective developed in Regulating the Poor and queried them on the potential for collective action against Reagan's cutbacks.
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