September 10, 2007 9:27 AM

Defending The Great Society, 40 Years Later

The new issue of Democracy is out, and with it, a particularly noteworthy piece by Clay Risen. Risen's task? Defending The Great Society generally, and the War on Poverty specifically, from those who make it a model of why government can do no right. Some choice quotes:

But, for all its flaws, the War on Poverty was hardly a failure. Between 1965 and 1970, the number of poor Americans fell from 33 million to 25 million (despite the 1969—1970 recession). Incomes for poor African Americans rose dramatically, as did high-school graduation rates, while infant mortality dropped. After writing several books examining every aspect of the War on Poverty, political scientist Sar Levitan, in an article with Robert Taggart, concluded, "As a result of Great Society civil rights and other initiatives, blacks made very substantial gains on a number of fronts during the 1960s."

Generally speaking, there is not nearly enough of this type of common-sense history being written, with too many even on the left falling into the Charles Murray Losing Ground school of economic analysis. Risen's article is a nice/concise little corrective, but man does one wish for a high-profile booklength treatment of this topic. Any takers?