Welfare and Power: More Harm Than Good?

In her article, "To Fulfill Their `Rightly Needs': Consumerism and the National Welfare Rights Movement," Felicia Kornbluh reflects on the relationship between welfare departments and the lower class recipients. Noting the battle over the content of the budget between beneficiaries of welfare and authorities (Kornbluh, 94), Kornbluh points to "fair hearings" as a solution to disputes (97). Yet, the hearings may amount to nothing due to the fact that the same authorities concerned in the battle also run the hearings, thereby creating a struggle of power between recipients and welfare departments. Theorists Michel Foucault and Emile Durkheim analyze the function of power in relation to the welfare state in order to determine the successfulness and legitimacy of welfare.

Foucault argues that because authority stems from relationships, one must work and try to gain dominance over others regardless of the social class he resides in so as to gain power. He asserts, ."..power...is produced from one moment to the next...in every relation from one point to another" (93). Therefore, groups such as the welfare departments, caseworkers, and even merchants can hold power over the lower class based solely on the ability to dominate the relationship between themselves and welfare recipients. Both welfare departments and caseworkers allocate money to the low-income citizens in need of money and, as a result have the ability to sustain dominance. Merchants also exploit these consumers by using "hard sells, high prices, poor merchandise and...very high rates of interest" (Kornbluh 82). Furthermore, "Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere" (Foucault, 93). Thus, society...

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...r as a crutch by recipients. On the other hand, Durkheim's concentration on a unified society suggests that welfare not only creates equality, a natural right of human beings, but also causes both recipients and society as a whole to gain power through solidarity. Thus, viewing power as a derivative of relationships suggests that welfare exists as nothing more than a failure on the part of society, while power as a result of solidarity and proposes that the system works as a success for all parties involved.

Works Cited:

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage Books, 1980. Pp. 92-102.

Kornbluh, Felicia. "To Fulfill Their `Rightly Needs': Consumerism and the National Welfare Rights Movement." Radical History Review 69. 1997. Pp. 76-103.

Lukes, Steven. Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work. London: Penguin, 1973. Pp. 255-276