The Cloward and Piven strategy was first put forward by Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. The strategy was based upon the concept of full utilization by all potential candidates of welfare in order to overload the economy with welfare claims which would lead to over-burdening of Government bureaucracy with finical claims resulting in to economic disaster. Consequently the federal intervention and a macro-level redistribution of wealth among all poor classes will become inevitable.

The strategy was made to rein the nuisance of capitalism which confines the wealth within few hands and devise a plan to pave the way for socialism. The strategy was used to exploit the opportunity and “strike while the iron is hot” when riots erupted in 1965 when a black drunk driver was physically beaten by the police. Cloward and Piven wrote an article “the weight of the poor: a strategy to end poverty”. The strategy became very popular among activists. The strategy was based upon the realization that capitalists are coaxing and intoxicating the poor by addressing their “very basic needs” only and hence extinguishing the revolutionary fire

which might bring a radical change in the society. The only way forward for poor people is when elite class and capitalism beneficiaries are frightened by the poor.

The strategy stressed upon the activists to crack the existing welfare system which only paralyses the poor and deprive them of their actual rights and to break the status-quo of a system which is deeply rooted in confining the wealth in few hands. Although the Cloward and Piven never remained obviously active in their strategy yet they went on helping gradual changes in the system which resulted in “voting rights” and “living wage” movements supported by George Soros and his party. The strategy is still alive by George Soros party’s support and ambitions.

Cloward and Piven Strategy