Mr. Newburgh's
Neighborhood
A Review of From
Opportunity to Embitterment: The Transformation and Decline
of Great Society Liberalism
by Gareth Davies
Author Biography
Born in London, England, Gareth Davies has
now published his first work. His first masterpiece, From
Opportunity to Entitlement: The Transformation and Decline
of Great Society Liberalism, was an accumulation of his
knowledge in American and Modern history. Graduating from
St. Anne’s College and then Oxford University, Davies has
become a lecturer on American History in the University of
Lancaster.
In the year 1961, a plethora of blacks from the south were
to be moved to the city of Newburgh in upstate New York.
City Manager Joseph Mitchell would not allow such a thing to
happen to his fair city for the fact that they were all
poor, meaning that welfare would have to be given out to
every single one of those southerners. With so many expected
to be on welfare, an economic tumble was predicted. Before
too much damage had occurred, the racist Mitchell declared
that all the unemployed would have to work in order to be
paid and receive benefits and be paid; welfare was now a
thing of the past in Newburgh. His believed that “it is not
moral to appropriate public funds to finance crime,
illegitimacy, disease, and other social evils.”1
It showed how racism was still an important factor, and a
prelude to how important this social issue would become in
the sixties. Although ruled illegal, national publicity had
sided with Mitchell because welfare had truly become a
problem, albeit it was racism that convinced Mitchell on
clamping down on welfare—both the people and government
could agree on that. However, traditions of individualism
must be broken for a radical idea of income entitlement to
be fulfilled—thus the title for the fact that Newburgh had
tossed the snowball down the slope to first create momentum
for rethinking welfare in general: was welfare a bigger
problem for the city economically, a burden for the people,
or actually beneficial despite the issues?
In the first few chapters, the human condition was
elaborated upon through a political point of view. Too many
people had become dependent economically because of welfare
due to the New Deal, and it was finally sought out to be
changed Lyndon B. Johnson. However, before getting into what
LBJ actually accomplished on the said standpoint, a
background on the New Deal, the history of dependency, and
recent historical events leading up to LBJ’s decision
considering welfare as either a demon or as an angel came
first to elaborate the idea of changing the country through
politics. Distributing new opportunities to almost all
Americans, the New Deal was a liberal idea that would set a
precedent that America not only could be changed for he
better, but that it should be worked on harder than anything
else to achieve. Dependency was an issue ever since the
Gilded Age, man did not want to become dependent no matter
what, yet there were times where there was no choice. In the
sense of proving how long the people and eventually the
politicians had considered dependency a problem, a brief
background on recent events further enhanced the reasons on
why welfare was the enemy. After Newburgh, welfare had been
seen in an entirely new light. Could it be that LBJ would
help America by taking away its free food, giving lessons on
how to make a spear, and letting the populace roam the
country to hunt for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Lyndon
Johnson wanted to teach the people how to hunt rather than
just plainly giving the food out—it would benefit everyone
in America, an not just that generation, but if anything,
help more and more down the road with every upcoming generation.
Opportunity had become the entire issue LBJ was adamant on
being primary in America in the first two chapters. In
Chapters four through five, the War on Poverty, the term
used by Johnson to summarize his entire liberal campaign as
an actual war against welfare’s ironic consequence—poverty
and dependency, had become a winning war. Lyndon Johnson had
considered that opportunity was everything in the world, and
that without it, no American could become independent and
successful. As LBJ went on the road showing off his
enlightened perspective, more and more people started to
consider that opportunity truly was the ultimate answer.
With opportunity, a man could get any job he wanted—the
American dream had finally reached home for many Americans.
However, the only problem was that opportunity could not
reach everyone, and as few as the minority was, these people
who could not, would not gain the advantages an
opportunistic America.
Chapter six is an important chapter the justification that
the War on Poverty was a war that could not be won.
Regardless, LBJ did not understand such a thing until the
end of his travels promoting a liberal hope for America’s
future and Americans’ futures. Other than the War on
Poverty, there was the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War proved
to be a power to reckon with after it consumed all the funds
Lyndon Johnson had planned for his efforts and not on the
anti-communist super power he tried to change from within
for the better of its people. With so many citizens and
politicians worried about the impact war had had, regardless
of a victor or not, no one had the energy to consider making
a torn America happy. The ideals of opportunity had a key
feature that would not be sought from this point on—equality
on the battlefield for opportunity in the War on Poverty
through a sort of unification. Blacks were a key part in
making Lyndon Johnson hesitate on his own battlefield for
opportunity. Because of social inequality, Lyndon Johnson
had to create equality in order for people to be equals in
fighting for opportunity. After working with civil right
leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Whitney Young
Jr., Lyndon Johnson finally understood that his war would
not, could not, and should not compete any longer against
social, political, and economical issues.
From chapters seven through eleven, the downfall of the War
on Poverty had become reality and truth. Lyndon Johnson had
tried and tried, through civil rights and politics to get
his idea of opportunity across. The idea surely came across,
yet it lost the people’s support. By the late 1960s and
early 1970s, Americans were not in need for an opportunistic
America; times had changed.
Contrary to popular belief, there was no individualism in
America as people had figured. It was in “the Gilded Age
that the individualist credo reached its
zenith.”2 With Samuel Gompers leading this
controversy in the People’s Party at that time, people were
finally considering individualism. The Gilded Age was an era
full of workers and ironically economic dependency.
Independence had become more and more visible, understood,
and considered. For America, independence had to change
tradition-wise. Also, the Gilded Age shows how early
individualism was fought for the average person. All the
People’s Party did for the effort was start off the fight,
but the New Deal really added momentum. The New Deal would
come into play to help society and humanity, but would it be
enough? President Roosevelt even noted in his State of the
Union Address in January of 1935 that independence was a
larger importance than any popular politician had considered
key and that “to dole out relief in this way is to
administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human
spirit.”3 Roosevelt had said that the road to
independence must be taken; for if not, terrible
consequences would befall to the citizen. The Progressive
Era’s New Deal had helped the nation out tremendously,
socially, and economically when the country really needed
it. However, the one thing that stood out from the New Deal
to really help out the end of the average American’s
dependency was the Social Security Act of 1935. It would
prove to push people in the right direction away from
economical dependency. Dependency was a double-bladed sword
that was unable to be weald anymore. It was then assumed
that if prosperity returned, popular individualism would
follow. By the 1950s, social security had finally done
enough to almost guarantee it would remain in political
programs in the future. In 1957, for example, Aid to
Dependent Children replaced Old Age Assistance, regardless
of further expenses. This showed just how the public now
viewed dependency within the adult community—much more
uncommon, for one. Dependency was often found and destroyed;
any trace of it would be wiped out for out of sight was out
of mind.
Gareth Davies wrote From Opportunity to Entitlement: The
Transformation and Decline of Great Society Liberalism for
the sole purpose of demonstrating that dependency is the
worst things in humanity today. Dependency leads to the
problems of poverty and starvation. Dependency was the issue
Davies explained was key in Johnson’s thinking on how to
change America—dependency must be eliminated. With the
termination of dependency, America could function peacefully
and successfully. However, the only way dependency could go
away would be through the idea of opportunity. Davies
mentions that opportunity was everything in the world Lyndon
Johnson envisioned for his country. Opportunity allowed the
average man, no matter where he was coming from or where he
was going, to just keep moving. An opened door defined
opportunity, and with that door open, dependency would be
lost forever. Gareth Davies mentioned over and over again
that with a combination of opportunity and independence, a
duality that helped each other infinitely, poverty, and
hunger would never be seen again on the streets of Suburbia,
USA. Humanity’s worst conditions, poverty, hunger, and
dependency should be abolished. Johnson understood that, and
Gareth knew where Johnson was coming from—if one man could
become rich, then why not the rest? At that time, the rest
could not, and it was rare to find a rich man to make an
example out of. Things would need to be changed, and through
the War on Poverty, things would be.
Written in the mid-nineties, From Opportunity to
Entitlement: The Transformation and Decline of Great Society
Liberalism was written for a reason. Historiography played a
role in the birth of such a book on American liberalism, its
crusade to make America better, and its failure. During a
Russian Renaissance regarding British literature and
history, many new novels about liberalism and history had
been written in both Russia and Britain observing each
other’s history as well as others, like American history for
example. A term that could sum this entire attitude on
writing trends about foreign studies is ksenology. Ksenology
is the study of foreign attitudes towards local events and
of local attitudes towards foreign events. During that era,
both countries looked for help on how to make their country
better—a concentration of knowledge about other countries
and their politics brought inspiration to politicians,
historians, and writers. As new laws were agreed upon and
new history textbooks published, a writer by the names of
Davies wrote his own book as part of the writing movement on
politics’ history. This could all explain the sudden
interest in the growth of liberalism in politics and literature.
From Opportunity to Entitlement: The Transformation and
Decline of Great Society Liberalism was a journey in
itself. Gareth Davies discussed how the Great Society’s War
on Poverty had helped the nation. The movement had failed,
yet it had influenced ideas on how America should run and
help out its citizens in the rat race called life. Success
was an issue often demonstrated in the book; however, it was
not demonstrated successfully. Many chapters had interesting
topics, yet they were elaborated upon in a confusing manner.
Not enough examples justified opinions and supposed facts in
the book. Regardless of confusing chapters, the ideas found
within the chapters were jaw-dropping interesting. Lyndon
Johnson had been defined as a hero by what he had tried to
accomplish and sadly failed. It gives a reader a
propagandized view on how hard and well the government tried
to make America a better place to thrive in. From
Opportunity to Entitlement: The Transformation and Decline
of Great Society Liberalism gave a reader insight on
what really happened in the political agenda of Johnson, and
how America reacted. These facts were portrayed excellently
because of how much was said on behalf of the author’s
thesis—the world can be a better place and Johnson knew it.
In-depth analysis on America’s point of views on war,
social, and economic issues, be it liberal or otherwise, can
help the reader understand the possible steps his or her
government must take and/or is taking in their present life.
What is the government considering during the War on
Terrorism, during the immigration issue, or during the
problems of peace in the Middle East? The book is helpful in
putting the past, present, and future into perspective when
debating political agendas.
In Gareth Davies’s analysis, the War on Poverty played a
large role in political, economic, and cultural American
history. Politically, Johnson proposed a liberal agenda that
would aid in the abolishment of dependency, a burden that
plagued all humanity. If it were gone, then everyone in and
out of America, would benefit. Economically, welfare was put
on trial. If welfare was gone, then the given opportunity
would be used to its fullest potential, bringing out the
fullest potential of every American citizen. If one had to
work to survive, then there would be no dependency ever
again. Socially, Lyndon Johnson proposed radical
ideas—racial equality. For opportunity to be true, it had to
give equal opportunity to everyone regardless of race or
gender. Johnson got as serious as to work with civil right
activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. to help make
America a better place. From Opportunity to Entitlement: The
Transformation and Decline of Great Society, liberalism
proves that Lyndon Johnson puts effort into making a better
America.
review by Elad Shem-Tov
- Davies, Gareth. From Opportunity to Entitlement the
Transformation and Decline of Great Society Liberalism,
Kansas: University of Kansas 1996, 28.
- Davies, Gareth 12.
- Davies, Gareth 15.
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