The breaking of the American social compact

by Frances Fox Piven

Piven and Cloward demonstrate that under the banner of "globalization," a mobilized American business class is driving down wages and benefits, breaking unions, weakening civil rights, and slashing programs that protect the disadvantaged - all at a time when income and wealth inequality has reached historic extremes. They argue that business elites' claim that ordinary people must make due with less because of the imperatives of the global markets is a hoax, and that the effort to dismantle the social compact should instead be understood as an ideologically powered political mobilization by business.