Book reviews : The New Class War: Reagan's Attack on the Welfare State and its Consequences Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward Pentheon Books,New York,1982,US $4.95 paper

Gary Freeman and Paul Adams , 'The Politics of Social Security: Expansion, Retrenchment, and Rationalization' , in The Political Economy of Public Policy , edited by Alan Stone and Edward J. Harpham, Beverly Hills : Sage Publications, 1982 .

On the anti-poor bias of the America Social Security programme, and its origins , see Jerry R. Cates, Insuring Inequality , Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983.

Hugh Heclo ,' Toward a New Welfare State?' in The Development of Welfare States in Europe and America, edited by Peter Flora and Arnold J. Heidenheimer, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1981;

Peter Taylor-Gooby , 'The New Right and Social Policy, Critical Social Policy 1 (1981); Paul Adams and Gary Freeman, 'Social Services Under Reagan and Thatcher,' in Urban Policy Under Capitalism, edited by Norman I. Fainstein and Susan S. Fainstein, Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1982.

Paul Adams , Health of the State, New York: Praeger, 1982, pp.11-17;

Ian Gough , The Political Economy of the Welfare State, London : Macmillan, 1979.

On the Harold Washington campaign for mayor of Chicago, see Dan LaBotz's two articles, 'Why Leftists Worked for Washington -A Retreat from Independent Political Action' and 'Chicago: The Programme Was Pride, But the Winners Are the Democrats' both in Changes , May 1983.

A recent article in the journal Democracy (Summer, 1983, pp. 58-69),

' The American Road to Democratic Socialism ,' casts further light on the politics of Piven and Cloward. The American road that they propose taking differs from European social democracy not in its electoralism or statism, but in its discounting of the role of unions and of a mass working class party. In the same issue of Democracy, labor radical Tony Mazzocchi argues for an alternative American model, based on the independent political organization of the working class and a clear break with the Democratic Party ('Toward a Workers' Party,' pp.34-40).

On Mitterrand, see, for example, Ian Birchall et al. , 'Socialism in Europe,' Socialist Review (October, 1982): pp.13-19.

and Bill Webb , 'Socialists Put the Boot In,' Socialist Review (April, 1983): pp.9-11.

For discussion of the Swedish social-democratic response to the current economic crisis, see Kim Moody, 'Going Public', The Progressive (July, 1983): 18-21.

On the historical experience and the logic of European social-democracy, see, for example, Rosa Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution, New York: Pathfinder Press,

1973; Ralph Miliband , Parliamentary Socialism, London: Merlin Press,

1972; Leo Panitch , Social Democracy and Industrial Militancy , Cambrudge: CUP,

1976; Adam Przeworski , 'Social Democracy as a Historical Phenomenon ' New Left Review, no. 122 (July/August, 1980): 27-58;

Carl E. Shorske, German Social Democracy 1905-1917, New York: Wiley,

1965; Herbert Tingsten, The Problem of Democracy , Totota, NJ: Bedminster Press, 1965.