In 1984, Charles Murray wrote Losing Ground – a book in which he argues that the welfare system is full of perverse incentives which keep the poor from going out and getting jobs. The book is widely perceived as providing the inspiration for welfare reform under both Reagan and Clinton. It is also widely regarded as part of the rise of a neoliberal ideology which now permeates American politics. Thus Charles Murray and “workfare” are examples of the effect of neoliberalism on welfare policy.
In 2006, more than 20 years later, the same Charles Murray wrote In Our Hands - a book in which he argues that attempts to control the moral behavior of the poor are bound to fail. Instead, what we need as a guaranteed annual income (GAI) program which gives each and every person a minimum income provided by the government. So far, pundits and scholars of social policy have been pretty quiet about this other Charles Murray. Having labeled CM1 as neoliberal, they are confused as to how to label CM2. Will the real neoliberal please stand up?
There are two solutions to this problem. The first is to simply say that Murray has done a 180 degree turn when it comes to social policy. He is a new man! He has seen the light! Income security is a right for all Americans! While this is plausible, I think it misses the continuity in Murray’s thought. Both policy prescriptions stem from what Steensland (2008: 81) calls a laissez faire welfare reform paradigm which define poverty in monetary terms, sees perverse incentives in the welfare state as the problem, and relies on the rationality of the poor to craft a solution. While Steensland’s typology is useful, I don’t think calling it “laissez faire” is accurate. Rather, it is an example of what Fourcade (2009: 108-109) calls the economicization of social policy (specifically microeconomics) where we see the ‘diffusion of an ‘economist’s view of the world’ which has turned microeconomic tools and concepts (e.g., efficiency, opportunity, cost-benefit trade-offs, and incentives) into the standard language of public policy.”
This problematizes academic discourse on neoliberalism. Economic imperialism arose from the University of Chicago and was closely linked to the free market ideology of Friedman, Stigler, Becker, et al. In the minds of most social scientists, economics and neoliberalism are inextricably intertwined. As we just did with Charles Murray though, we can fast forward to look at economics today. Behavioral economics and Harvard law and economics are two good examples. Both retain the hallmarks of Chicago-style thinking yet most of the economists working in these traditions come away with interventionist policy conclusions. In this way, neoliberalism is a lot like porn – people have a hard time defining it but they will tell you that they know it when they see it. Maybe Supreme Court Justices can get away with giving fuzzy definitions but I don’t think social scientists should have the same privilege.
- Josh McCabe
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