October 24, 2024
Michael Fortner
“The Great Society,” President Lyndon B. Johnson explained, “rests on abundance and liberty for all.” He added, “It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice.” Achieving such noble ends, however, would not be an easy feat: “The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use [the nation’s wealth] to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.”
In “The Tangle of Pathology Revisited,” Charles Fain Lehman reminds us that the Great Society represents both a monumental aspiration and a colossal failure. His meticulous analysis reveals that “it is entirely possible for government to make people richer on paper,” but far more difficult to “address the pathologies that come with poverty.” Yet despite these challenges, the strategy persists—reflecting what Lehman terms “technocratic liberal meliorism,” the belief that sound public policy, particularly income transfers, could “reverse the growth of single-parent households and, more generally, the social dysfunction that encouraged them.” While the reliance on technocratic solutions is problematic enough, a deeper issue lies beneath: a willful epistemic blindness within public policy and academia.
This epistemic blindness extends beyond poorly designed social programs. Prominent historians and social scientists have often refused to seriously engage with what Lehman calls “dysfunctional behaviors” and the sociological “tangle” that binds them. Instead of addressing these issues head-on, much of the scholarly and public discourse has dismissed them as “blaming the victim” or embracing racist tropes. These critiques often target intellectuals like Daniel Patrick Moynihan—whom Lehman identifies as a key architect of technocratic liberalism—and James Q. Wilson, a skeptic of the same philosophy, subjecting both to contemporary criticism.
Historian Elizabeth Hinton exemplifies this intellectual trend. In her award-winning work, she assails the focus on social disorder, arguing that policymakers “decided to manage the criminal symptoms of poverty and inequality rather than fundamentally disrupt the racial and economic status quo.” For Hinton and many others, highlighting social dysfunction is not only analytically misguided but also ideologically dangerous, leading to policy responses that criminalize and punish “blackness.” Lehman’s analysis suggests, however, that while critiquing the failures of the Great Society is essential, ignoring or dismissing the role of behavior and social order in perpetuating poverty deepens the blind spots in public policy.
Surveys and interviews conducted in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant during the rise of the Great Society add further complexity to this debate. They show that residents in poor neighborhoods were profoundly concerned with the very “pathologies” that academic and policy discourses have frequently disregarded. Like liberal technocrats, residents believed good public policy could expand employment opportunities and improve housing affordability and quality. But for them, poverty was not merely the absence of individual resources—it was a communal experience shaped by social disorganization and disorder, rooted in both structure and culture. In a 1964 New York Times survey of Black New Yorkers, economic concerns (54%) topped the list of problems, followed by housing issues (49%), “crime and criminals” (39%), and education (32%). Nearly 30% identified “Negro behavior and attitudes,” including “indifference, apathy,” and poor child-rearing, as major issues. In contrast, only 16% mentioned civil rights, and a mere 6% pointed to prejudice or complaints about whites. A 1966 survey of Harlem residents corroborated these findings. When asked to name the worst problems in Harlem, respondents listed “drug addiction” (21%), “better housing” (20%), and “crime and juvenile delinquency” (11%). Ten percent cited “better family life,” while smaller percentages mentioned welfare dependence (6%) and race prejudice (6%). On a more local level, residents emphasized behaviors and disorder on their blocks: 32% pointed to “dope addiction,” 20% to “juvenile delinquency,” and 11% to “dilapidated housing.” Other concerns included unsafe buildings, street drunks, and noise.
One 46-year-old woman expressed frustration with the interplay of housing and crime: “Rent and too much rent. This kind of rent hurts the poor people who can't afford it. And there's that crime. Scared to walk the street. Dope addicts. Scared to walk through the apartment at night.” She added, “Lower the rent and see how fast the problems are fixed. Give me a nice place to stay.”
Another woman said: “Problem? Poor housing. People live in rat holes. These houses aren’t safe, and they need guards. We’re not protected. We can’t find the Police Department when we need them.” She continued, “I want to move into a project because decent people live in the projects. [Police officers are] there so they can have order.”
There was a general belief that better housing conditions would cultivate better behaviors. A 55-year-old man commented, “Projects are the best place to live for poor people. We have been living here about 1½ years. Course people who drink around here are looking for something to steal. This is a very good place to live. Transportation, school, hospital and the houses — very good. Friends living here. We have no problems about this building.” He added, “The housing department should tear down some of the buildings and apartments in Harlem because they will help the people to change their way of life. There is a lot of trouble in those old houses. In a lot of old houses they have too much freedom to do anything. To put them to live in a project or better place, that may teach them to live better.”
One 49-year-old woman offered a similar assessment: “I think it would be a good idea to tear down these old houses. It would give the people a little initiative to know what it means to live nice, wholesome and fresh. It would get rid of the roaches and pests.”
Interestingly, the survey report highlighted an unexpected focus in the participants’ responses: although they were invited to discuss broader city issues—such as rising prices or police brutality—they instead prioritized concerns around housing and social disorder. As the report observed, “Problems such as integrated schools, bussing, police brutality, or some other issues usually considered significant barely received any mention.” Yet these very issues preoccupied activists at the time and have since attracted the attention of social scientists and historians. They continue to fuel “technocratic liberal meliorism.” This reveals another flaw in the project’s approach: it targets sweeping structural issues, while residents in impoverished neighborhoods grapple with more mundane, yet perhaps more manageable, challenges.
Other surveys from the period underscore these concerns. A 1967 survey of Bedford-Stuyvesant, a predominantly Black neighborhood with many residents relying on public assistance, found that 60% of respondents identified housing as the most pressing issue, followed by jobs (50%), drug addiction (33%), and crime (28%). Notably, only 4% mentioned discrimination or prejudice. Dissatisfaction with housing was closely tied to safety and quality of life, with 63% citing rodent infestations and 53% emphasizing the need for security against robbery. About the former, one resident recalled: “A rat bit me on the nose when I was a little kid. We had a cat, but he was afraid of the rats and we had to get rid of him. So we got a dog. And even [the dog] is so scared of [the rats].”
A 1969 Harris survey on housing in New York City highlights the extent to which these concerns—and the suggested remedies—were practical and grounded in everyday realities. The primary complaints centered around crime and quality-of-life issues: “crimes against one’s property” (20%), “neighborhood buildings run down” (17%), “crimes against one’s person” (16%), and “more drug addicts” (16%). Additional concerns included “streets littered, uncollected garbage” (16%), “people afraid to walk streets” (14%), and “nasty, noisy kids, street gangs” (10%). Residents highlighted “big problems” with their apartments, including rodents (roaches and rats), security issues (“security for mailboxes and entrances,” “intruders from outside,” “drug addicts”), and general housing conditions (“condition of the apartment—paint, plaster, windows, etc.,” “condition of public areas in the building—paint, plaster, etc.,” “the plumbing,” and “heat in the apartment”). When asked to identify the most important problems facing people like them and potential solutions, 40% mentioned “crime, unsafe streets” and advocated for “more police protection or policemen,” while 17% cited “drug addicts” and proposed “getting rid of pushers and addicts.” Other common solutions included “more sanitation services,” “making landlords keep up buildings,” and “building more apartment buildings and homes.”
Lehman’s essay confronts an uncomfortable truth: the persistence of poverty cannot be solved through income transfers alone. Public policy must also address the underlying behaviors and community dynamics that contribute to social disorder. Yet his otherwise thorough analysis overlooks a broader and equally critical issue: the divide between scholars, policymakers, and the communities they aim to serve. By neglecting behavioral and social dynamics, policymakers fail to engage meaningfully with the concerns of those most affected by poverty. As the surveys and interviews demonstrate, residents themselves recognize the importance of stability and safety. They understand the “tangle of pathology” better than anyone. This is the most tragic failure of post-Great Society “technocratic liberal meliorism”: it silences what it should hear and dismisses what it desperately needs to understand.
The danger of liberal epistemic blindness is also that, while it may align with the ideological preferences of scholars and policymakers, it distracts from achieving ordinary, shared goals. As the residents of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant made clear, their vision of the “Great Society” was far more modest: good-paying jobs, affordable housing free from rats and roaches, and safe streets. They wanted to own “nice” things and live in “nice” places. They simply sought to “advance” “the quality” of their modest corners of “our American civilization.” Government may not be able to achieve great things, but surely it could do that.
Michael Fortner is the Pamela B. Gann Associate Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College.