The combat between these two rages on, especially in academia, but also in mainstream culture in a somewhat more elementary form. The news is rife with examples of the battle, liberals typically emphasizing the structural view, and conservatives defending the crucial role of culture. The recent argument over the causes for the massacre at Columbine High School was a clear exhibition of the debate. Those on the left favored more gun control and spending on violence prevention programs while conservatives blamed violent media and parental negligence. Other venues for the clash have been public education, affirmative action, and criminal justice. Structure versus culture is everywhere.

But nowhere has the argument been more vociferous and newsworthy (and soon to be even more so) than on the issue of poverty. Of course, labeling the problem as "poverty" is already a tip off of my opinion. Those on the right are not ready to concede that poverty is the problem. The problem, instead, they say, is twofold: 1) government, and 2) poor folks’ behavior. More precisely, "big government," they say, has spoiled the poor into dependency, promiscuity, laziness, and substance abuse. That these moral failures are regularly paraded by the rich goes conspicuously unnoticed.

Gov. George W. Bush is most certainly a culturalist. Though his recent comments have been more moderate, Bush’s rhetorical history brims with behavioral explanations for why people find themselves poor. Short answer? Because they deserve it. In Bush’s view, the poor are poor because of bad choices. Many Americans agree with him, and supported wholeheartedly tough welfare reform measures in 1996 that restricted their family size, locked them up for fraud and minor drug infractions, and punished children for their parents’ mistakes. The sentiment of such programs is if we can just make the poor "more like us," they will be much better off. Welfare ceased being an anti-poverty tool and became instead an array of behavior modifiers.

With the passage of welfare reform in 1996, the ascendance of the culturalist regime in social policy was complete. Its genesis, however, began years before during the Reagan administration, and was abetted by the efforts of "scholars" such as Charles Murray, Lawrence Mead, and Robert Rector. Their books fanned the flames of anti-poor sentiment and gave it an air of intellectual legitimacy. It was only a matter of time before such ideas were reflected in public policy.

Two other conservative commentators, Marvin Olasky and Myron Magnet, have been the primary influences on Bush’s views on social matters. The common thread of their work is the belief that most of America’s problems are due to moral failures on the part of various groups. Most of these moral failures originate in the 1960s, when in their view, traditional values were thrown out the window and the government began to swell like The King’s jumpsuit.

In a nutshell, Olasky asserts that charity and religious groups were adequate deliverers of services to the poor, that the rise of liberalism in the 1960s ushered in an era of bureaucratic involvement in anti-poverty policy, and that we have all paid the price ever since. Olasky believes that government programs have fatally damaged the work ethic of the poor, made them dependent on government services, and spent billions of taxpayer dollars with little success.

Magnet writes about the effects of the cultural change that began in America in the 1960s, with the advent of the hippie movement, anti-war protests, loosening of sexual mores, increase in drug use and other assorted psychedelic vices. Essentially, Magnet claims that this period was the undoing of America, the gradual tearing down of treasured values, the abandonment of individual responsibility and decency, and the installation of a culture of permissiveness and moral relativism. He agrees with Olasky that government did more harm than good by "subsidizing" wrong behavior through welfare, Food Stamps, and the like.

When pressed about his own "compassion," Bush and his campaign literature fall back on ideas that reveal the influence of Olasky and Magnet. His "faith-based initiatives," such as prison ministry and support for a new law that gives religious groups greater involvement in social services delivery are all promoted as cheaper and more effective ways of helping the poor. "Government does not have a monopoly on compassion," says Bush, whose favorite brand of care is that dispensed sans Uncle Sam. Logically, then, we can expect a Bush administration to advance similar proposals on the federal level, and he has suggested as much in recent remarks.

Not a single plank of Bush’s social policy agenda would confront poverty per se. Instead, they target behaviors and lifestyles that Olasky and Magnet told him lead to poverty. It is clear from these plans that Bush views the problem as being with the poor themselves, not with their circumstances. There are several strong, predictable reasons why he would do this. Primarily, behavioral fixes force the public’s gaze away from the failures of the market economy. To acknowledge that capitalism fails people would invite a critique of the entire system, and well, we just can’t have that. In fact, it’s not even possible. The system is solid, it’s the people that need fixing. Second, a behavioral fix resonates with the public because it is cheap. Regardless of whether faith-based initiatives work, they are certainly not using tax-payer money. If they have the benefit of actually working, great, but that’s just gravy. And finally, a behavioral fix sounds more and allows for the kind of poetic flourish that Bush has been perfecting recently ("government can spend money, but government can’t change hearts").

Bush’s social policy proposals are so steeped in a behavioral modification mentality that they cannot even countenance some very real exceptions to its rules. For example, how does changing a person’s work ethic make a difference if their wages are still sub-poverty level? What good is being off welfare if the job they have doesn’t bring any more income and has fewer benefits than when they were on welfare? For a person who by all other measures is concerned with "fundamental and lasting change," Bush’s proposals for dealing with the poor are decidedly temporary and shallow. To be sure, they are designed to treat poverty, rather than uproot it.

Let’s assume for a moment that Bush is right and the poor are poor because of cultural and moral deficiencies of some kind. Let’s also assume that as president he implements a national program of faith-based services designed to make people work harder, have fewer babies, avoid government aid (which will be scant), and otherwise be more industrious. Every poor person is successful at finding a job (which is statistically impossible, but we are already on the high road to fantasy). This average poor person is a woman with a high school degree or less and at least one young child. The job she finds will likely be in the services industry and pay the minimum wage or slightly above it. The job will offer no benefits, and little chance of advancement. She must also find child care to be able to go to work, and it must be affordable. Assuming she is able to find adequate child care, with what income she has left she must pay rent. Most likely, her wages will force her to live in an inexpensive neighborhood. This neighborhood is likely to have over-crowded unsafe and low-performing schools. Assuming that the child attends all 12 years and graduates, it is virtually impossible that he or she will be able to afford college. Because high-paying jobs are requiring more skills and specialized training, the child will most likely find another service industry job paying less than a living wage.

The above scenario is free of a myriad of misfortunes that could very easily befall the family. It is as good as we can expect for a low—income, low—education family in America today. If Bush has his way, will we still have poverty? Will we still have a cycle of unfulfilled potential? Will families still struggle to escape the conditions of their birthplace? Most assuredly yes, because nothing has been done to address the structure. In the above scenario, government could have intervened to:

• Raise the minimum wage
• Secure benefits for working families
• Expand federal funding for child care in states and cities
• Provide training and education for higher-paying jobs
• Establish equitable and adequate financing for all public schools
• Expand scholarship programs, especially to graduates of schools in poor neighborhoods

But none of this will happen under a Bush administration because, in his mind, there is nothing wrong with the system.

 Of course, Bush and his team are no dummies. They’ve picked the ultimate expendable constituency to exploit, the poor. They don’t vote, they don’t contribute to campaigns, they don’t get any media attention, and most everyone tries avoid them if possible. If Bush screws the poor, who cares? As long as he can deliver tax cuts and safe suburbs, he’ll be in high cotton.

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