Collapsing the System … on Purpose

Collapsing the System … on Purpose:

"First proposed in 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and his wife Frances Fox Piven (both longtime members of theDemocratic Socialists of America, where Piven today is an honorary chair), the 'Cloward-Piven Strategy' seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Inspired by the August 1965 riots in the black district of Watts in Los Angeles (which erupted after police had used batons to subdue a black man suspected of drunk driving), Cloward and Piven published an article titled 'The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty' in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation. Following its publication, The Nation sold an unprecedented 30,000 reprints. Activists were abuzz over the so-called 'crisis strategy' or 'Cloward-Piven Strategy,' as it came to be called. Many were eager to put it into effect.

In their 1966 article, Cloward and Piven charged that the ruling classes"

MORE...