Losing Ground

American Social Policy, 1950 - 1980

Beginning in the 1950s, America entered a period of unprecedented social reform. This remarkable book demonstrates how the social programs of the 1960s and ’70s had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even reversing earlier progress in reducing poverty, crime, ignorance, and discrimination. Using widely understood and accepted data, it conclusively demonstrates that the amalgam of reforms from 1965 to 1970 actually made matters worse.

Why? Charles Murray’s tough-minded answers to this question will please neither radical liberals nor radical conservatives. He offers no easy solutions, but by forcing us to face fundamental intellectual and moral problems about whom we want to help and how, Losing Ground marks an important first step in rethinking social policy.

Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He first came to national attention in 1984 with Losing Ground. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He lives with his wife in Burkittsville, Maryland.

©1984 Charles Murray (P)1989 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Without bile and without rhetoric it lays out a stark truth that must be faced." ( Business Week)

"A great book." ( Wall Street Journal)

“A remarkable book. Future discussions of social policy cannot proceed without taking the arguments and evidence of this book into account.” (James S. Coleman, University of Chicago)

Excellent

This book was excellent. It is worth reading with an open mind. It’s a shame that it is unlikely to get a fair account.

Fantastic and Important

The government ruins everything it touches. When it tries to help, it makes things worse. In this case, when government tried to help the poor, it hurt poor people and created more of them.

still relevant

although this is a somewhat older examination of the welfare state in the United States, it still offers cutting analysis that is still relevant to this day.

Very informative

Narrator was sometimes hard to follow had to turn up the volume on headphones

hate facts

this book is so full of hate-facts, gavin mcinnis probably sleeps with a copy under his pillow.