who does murray blame for crime?
who does murray blame for crime?
Murray's book was about American society, although he did later visit Britain and suggest the same thing was happening here. He argued that government policies were helping to create an underclass of people who did not work and depended on welfare benefits.
His argument is that policies that were intended to help the poor actually made the situation worse. For example, benefits for lone parents provide a perverse incentive for girls to get pregnant and for fathers not to stay and take responsibility for their children. To get welfare payments and qualify for social housing, girls would become single parents. Those children would then be brought up without a male role model and without any role model who went to work. They would then grow up believing it was normal not to work, and the girls would aspire to be young parents and the boys would not expect to have to work or be responsible parents.
For Murray, a whole class had emerged with generations who were in a welfare or poverty trap: they did not have an incentive to work and nor did they have the skills or values associated with work or enterprise.
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