D2.Soc.18.9-12: Proposing and Evaluating Responses to Inequality

Overview

Lesson Procedure

60-70 minutes of class time across 5 phases.

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes
2. Direct Instruction20 minutes
3. Guided Practice15 minutes
4. Independent Practice15 minutes
5. Closure5-10 minutes

1. Warm-Up5-10 minutes

   Warm-Up Prompt

   "Invented situation: a school's library now closes at 3:30 p.m., and students without internet at home can no longer finish online homework. List as many different responses as you can. For each, say who would carry it out."

   Sort the class's list on the board into four rows (individuals and families, voluntary groups, employers and businesses, the school or government) and ask which responses help tonight and which would still help next year. Tell students that responses to inequality differ in exactly these two ways, and that today they will judge responses with stated criteria rather than by first impressions.

2. Direct Instruction20 minutes

   Key terms. Relief meets an immediate need, such as food or rent. Social insurance pools risks, such as illness, injury, old age or job loss, across many people so that a loss does not fall on one family alone. Opportunity responses, such as schooling and training, aim to change what people can do later. Rule changes alter who decides or how shares are set. A criterion (plural criteria) is a standard used to judge something. A trade-off is giving up some of one good to get more of another.

   Reading 1. Horace Mann was secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and Source 1 is from his annual report for 1848, reprinted in a collection of his annual reports. Three words to know: equably diffused means spread evenly; servile dependants are people who must obey those they depend on; and agrarianism, in Mann's usage here, means demands to divide up the property of the rich, which he calls "the revenge of poverty against wealth."

   1Now, surely nothing but universal education can counterwork this tendency to the domination of capital and the servility of labor. If one class possesses all the wealth and the education, while the residue of society is ignorant and poor, it matters not by what name the relation between them may be called: the latter, in fact and in truth, will be the servile dependants and subjects of the former. But, if education be equably diffused, it will draw property after it by the strongest of all attractions; for such a thing never did happen, and never can happen, as that an intelligent and practical body of men should be permanently poor. Property and labor in different classes are essentially antagonistic; but property and labor in the same class are essentially fraternal. [...]

   2Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, — the balance-wheel of the social machinery. I do not here mean that it so elevates the moral nature as to make men disdain and abhor the oppression of their fellow-men. This idea pertains to another of its attributes. But I mean that it gives each man the independence and the means by which he can resist the selfishness of other men. It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility towards the rich: it prevents being poor. Agrarianism is the revenge of poverty against wealth. The wanton destruction of the property of others — the burning of hay-ricks and corn-ricks, the demolition of machinery because it supersedes hand-labor, the sprinkling of vitriol on rich dresses — is only agrarianism run mad. Education prevents both the revenge and the madness. On the other hand, a fellow-feeling for one's class or caste is the common instinct of hearts not wholly sunk in selfish regards for person or for family. The spread of education, by enlarging the cultivated class or caste, will open a wider area over which the social feelings will expand; and, if this education should be universal and complete, it would do more than all things else to obliterate factitious distinctions in society.

   3The main idea set forth in the creeds of some political reformers, or revolutionizers, is, that some people are poor because others are rich. This idea supposes a fixed amount of property in the community, which by fraud or force, or arbitrary law, is unequally divided among men; and the problem presented for solution is, how to transfer a portion of this property from those who are supposed to have too much to those who feel and know that they have too little. At this point, both their theory and their expectation of reform stop. But the beneficent power of education would not be exhausted, even though it should peaceably abolish all the miseries that spring from the co-existence, side by side, of enormous wealth and squalid want. It has a higher function. Beyond the power of diffusing old wealth, it has the prerogative of creating new. It is a thousand times more lucrative than fraud, and adds a thousand-fold more to a nation's resources than the most successful conquests. Knaves and robbers can obtain only what was before possessed by others. But education creates or develops new treasures, — treasures not before possessed or dreamed of by any one.

   Reading 2. Source 2 is from Josephine Shaw Lowell's 1884 book, which her preface calls a restatement of "the principles upon which the Modern methods of Charity are based." The same preface says much of the book is "direct and verbal quotation" from earlier writers; this chapter names no other source, so the page treats it as Lowell's statement of those principles. Before this excerpt she lists four tests of charity: it must be voluntary, free of any personal claim or duty, an act that does good, and directed toward a person in poorer circumstances. Almsgiving and dolegiving mean handing out small gifts of money or goods without follow-up; beneficent means actually doing good, while benevolent means meaning well.

   1Charity, then, as I define it, must be a voluntary, free, beneficent action performed toward those who are in more destitute circumstances and inferior in worldly position.

   2By this definition, of course, all official and public relief is put outside the pale of charity, since it lacks the voluntary element.

   3By this definition, moreover, I contend, that all indiscriminate almsgiving and all systematic dolegiving is proved not to be charitable.

   4Charity must be a good — a good forever, to him who receives it — but however benevolent may be the motive, if the action be not beneficent, there is no charity. Almsgiving and dolegiving are hurtful—therefore they are not charitable.

   5Almsgiving and dolegiving are hurtful even to those who do not receive them, because they help to keep down wages by enabling those who do receive them to work for less than fair pay. No greater wrong can be done, not only to those who receive the miserable pittance, but to all working people. Wages at the best are low enough, without being reduced by the action of the benevolent.

   6Almsgiving and dolegiving are hurtful to those who receive them because they lead men to remit their own exertions and depend on others, upon whom they have no real claim, for the necessaries of life, which they do not receive after all.

   7In this last fact lies one secret of the injury done — false hopes are excited, the unhappy recipients of alms become dependent, lose their energy, are rendered incapable of self-support, and what they receive in return for their lost character is quite inadequate to supply their needs; thus they are kept on the verge almost of death by the very persons who think they are relieving them, by the kindly souls who are benevolent, but who will not take the trouble to be beneficent, too.

   8The nature of doles is to be insufficient and to be uncertain. They would cease to be doles and would become pensions were they to assume a regular character and to be sufficient to meet the ascertained wants of the recipient, and in certain cases pensions are an excellent manner of bestowing charity.

   Six criteria for evaluating a response to inequality (written for this page; people weigh them differently)

   Criterion	Question to ask	Where the sources raise it
   Effectiveness	Does it reach the people affected and the cause of the problem, not only a symptom?	Lowell: help must be "beneficent"
   Cost and who pays	What does it cost per person helped, and who bears the cost?	Rubinow: premiums against a limited income
   Dignity and voice	Do the people helped keep their independence and a say in decisions?	Lowell: fear that relief makes people "dependent"
   Side effects	Could it cause harm elsewhere, for example to wages or to effort?	Lowell: almsgiving and wages
   Time frame	Does it help now, later, or both?	Mann: education over a lifetime
   Fairness of process	Who decided, and would the people affected accept the decision as fair?	D2.Soc.17.9-12: power and channels

   • Who acts, and what it aims at: Sources 1 and 2

     Classify the response each author defends.

     Result: Mann defends public schooling for all, a government response that aims at opportunity: it works over years, through what people can later do. Lowell defends voluntary charity that is "beneficent," a voluntary-group response aimed at relief, with careful attention to whether the help does good. The two responses differ on both dimensions, so they can be combined rather than treated only as rivals.

   • Turning an author's test into a criterion: Source 2, paragraph 4

     Lowell writes that "however benevolent may be the motive, if the action be not beneficent, there is no charity." Restate this as a criterion that could judge any response, not only charity.

     Result: Criterion: judge a response by its results for the people it is meant to help, not by the intentions of those who give it. Under this test, a well-meant program that leaves people no better off fails. This is the effectiveness criterion in the table.

   • Comparing three responses to one problem (invented example)

     Invented example: low-lying streets in an invented city flood every spring, and the families there have the lowest incomes in the city. Compare (1) emergency cash after each flood, (2) help paying for flood insurance and (3) rebuilding the storm drains.

     Result: Emergency cash helps fastest but returns every year (relief, short time frame). Insurance help spreads the risk and keeps families independent, but premiums may still be hard to afford (protection). Rebuilding the drains reaches the cause but costs the most and takes years (rule or condition change). A strong proposal might combine (1) now with (3) later, and must say who pays.

   • Cost per person served (invented example)

     Invented example: a tutoring program costs $18,000 a year and serves 90 students; a summer camp costs $27,000 and serves 60. Which costs less per student, and what does that number leave out?

     Result: Tutoring: 18,000 / 90 = $200 per student. Camp: 27,000 / 60 = $450 per student. Tutoring costs less per student, but the figure says nothing about results: if the camp produced much larger gains, it could still be the better use of money. Cost per person is one criterion, not the whole evaluation.

3. Guided Practice15 minutes

   Read Source 3 together. I. M. Rubinow's 1913 book describes him on its title page as a lecturer on social insurance at the New York School of Philanthropy and a former statistical expert of the United States Bureau of Labor. In 1913, "workingman" and "wage-earner" meant workers who live on wages rather than on property or a business. Stop after each paragraph and ask pairs:

   1. Paragraph 1: whom does social insurance protect, and who is left to buy protection privately?
   2. Paragraphs 2 and 3: why do wage-earners face a harder problem than the middle classes? Trace the argument in Diagram 2.
   3. Paragraph 4: what alternative to insurance does Rubinow raise?
   4. Paragraph 5: what does he grant to the other side, and what evidence does he say settles the question? Is that evidence shown in the passage?

   1All insurance, therefore, is essentially a social function. Why, then, this emphasis upon "social insurance" and what features are necessary to distinguish it from other forms? The historical origin of the term within rather recent times from the older one "workingmen's insurance," is sufficiently significant. It emphasizes the fact that social insurance is the policy of organized society to furnish that protection to one part of the population, which some other part may need less, or, if needing, is able to purchase voluntarily through private insurance. [...]

   [...]

   2Sickness, accidents, invalidity, premature or normal old age, premature death, and finally unemployment, — such are the economic risks which stare in the face each and every workingman. Their economic consequences are very much more serious in his case, than in the middle classes deriving their income from property, business, or profession, where the continuity of income is not so closely dependent upon continuity of effort.

   3Not only are the various risks more numerous and more serious, but they are also more frequent in the case of the workman. Clearly, then, the premiums to protect against such possible losses upon the now familiar theory of distribution of loss must be very much higher, while the source from which such premiums must be paid is very much more limited. Thus remaining upon the strict basis of actuarial (or insurance business) principles, the premium necessary to protect all these emergencies is so high that the working class as a whole are either unable or unwilling to meet it. A point is arrived at where the certainty of the economic cost of insurance overbalances the fear of the danger of possible loss, and insurance is not effected.

   4But why necessarily insurance? the question may arise. To assume that insurance is the only proper method of meeting these possible emergencies, when one discusses the problem in America, would be to beg the entire question. It is often argued that, inasmuch as all these emergencies are quite common and frequent, each individual family must take the necessary steps to be prepared for them through the instrumentality of savings.

   5No student of economics would deny the educational, character-building value of thrift, meaning elimination of waste and respect for the proper value of property, which in the last analysis means respect for the results of human effort. But the assertion that, in the case of the wage-earning class, individual saving may solve the problem of poverty, necessarily presupposes the existence of a surplus in the budget of the average wage-earner's family. There was a time when that assertion could be glibly made for lack of accurate scientific material to contradict it. That time is fortunately gone. A series of able and painstaking investigations both of the actual and normal standards of living, has conclusively shown that, even in the United States, a very large proportion of the wage-earners have an income which is insufficient for the maintenance of a normal standard, and surely have no surplus. Under such conditions saving for all possible future emergencies must necessarily mean a very substantial reduction of a standard already sub-normal.

   Close by placing each author's response in Diagram 1, and add one response from the warm-up list to an empty cell.

4. Independent Practice15 minutes

   Read Source 4, an invented case with invented numbers. The town's survey covered 250 households, and the expected numbers of users are estimates, not counts.

   1Invented case, written for this page. The town, the store, the people and every number are invented. In the invented river town of Ashford, the only grocery store in the South End closed last year. The nearest full grocery store is now 4 miles away. A town survey (invented) of 250 South End households found that 75 have no car, and the bus to the store runs once an hour and stops at 6 p.m.

   2Residents, store owners and town officials have put forward five responses. (A) Volunteers from two churches and a school club open a free weekly food pantry in the South End community center. (B) The town pays for a grocery shuttle that runs four times a day, six days a week. (C) Residents form a cooperative grocery: each member household buys a $100 share, and members elect the board that runs the store. (D) The community college offers free evening courses in bookkeeping and food-service management, so that more South End residents qualify for better-paid jobs. (E) The town offers a grocery chain five years without property taxes if it opens a store in the South End.

   3Some figures the town has gathered (invented): the pantry expects to serve about 120 households a week on $8,000 of donated food a year; the shuttle would cost $52,000 a year and is expected to carry about 300 riders a week; the cooperative needs $250,000 to open, and 400 households have said they might join; the evening courses can take 60 students a year; and the tax break would cost the town about $45,000 a year in property taxes.

   4At a public meeting, a retired teacher said: "The pantry helps tonight, but my neighbors don't want to stand in line for food forever." A shop owner said: "If the town runs a shuttle to a store 4 miles away, our neighborhood never gets its own store back." A college student said: "Training is fine, but nobody can eat a certificate this week."

   Task: (1) Propose a sixth response, or a combination of two of A-E, and say who carries it out and what it aims at. (2) Evaluate your proposal and one of A-E against at least three of the six criteria, with one number from paragraph 3. (3) Name the strongest objection to your proposal and answer it. Use Sources 1-4 for the quiz and homework.

5. Closure5-10 minutes

   Exit ticket: "Name one response to inequality from today's sources, one criterion it does well on and one it does poorly on, with a reason for each."

   Teacher notes. (1) The three historical authors each argue for their own response, and each is one voice; this page presents their arguments for evaluation and does not adopt any of them. (2) Lowell's book uses judgments that are now rejected, such as "inferior in worldly position" and the idea that relief costs people their "character"; Mann writes of "class or caste" and uses "men" for people in general. Lowell's preface also says the book has perhaps no "original thought or suggestion" and that much of it is "direct and verbal quotation" from earlier writers; Source 2's chapter names no other author, so the page attributes it to Lowell as the author of the book. Keep the words when quoting and discuss them as period language. (3) In paragraph 5 Rubinow rests one point on "a series of able and painstaking investigations" that the passage does not show; treat it as his summary. (4) Source 4 and its numbers are invented, and its usage figures are estimates. The page does not ask students to evaluate any current law, program, party or candidate, and no student should be asked about their own family's income or needs.

Differentiation Strategies

Assessment Guidance

1. Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to Source 1, paragraph 1, what happens when "one class possesses all the wealth and the education, while the residue of society is ignorant and poor"?

   AThe poorer class rises quickly to equal the richer one BThe richer class loses its property within a generation CBoth classes become equal partners in the same work DThe poorer class becomes servile dependants of the richer

2. Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 1, paragraph 1, what does Mann predict if education is "equably diffused"?

   AIt will draw property after it, so educated workers do not stay poor BIt will make property worthless by giving everyone the same income CIt will move workers from farms into the factories of the cities DIt will end the need for any labor by the property owners

3. Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Source 1, paragraph 2 says education "does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility towards the rich." What does Mann say it does instead?

   AIt teaches the rich to share their property BIt prevents being poor CIt makes the poor content with their lot DIt abolishes the class of property owners

4. Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 1, paragraph 3, why does Mann think the reformers who say "some people are poor because others are rich" stop short?

   AThey want to abolish public schools and spend the money on relief BThey believe that only the rich should be allowed to attend school CThey assume property is fixed, but education creates new wealth DThey want each town to set its own wages for every kind of work

5. Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   Mann writes that "such a thing never did happen, and never can happen, as that an intelligent and practical body of men should be permanently poor" (Source 1, paragraph 1). What kind of support does the passage give for this claim?

   AFigures from a survey of Massachusetts workers BA comparison of schooled and unschooled towns CA confident assertion with no evidence shown DTestimony from workers who rose out of poverty

6. Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   By Lowell's definition in Source 2, paragraphs 1 and 2, why is "all official and public relief" outside the meaning of charity?

   AIt costs more than private gifts of the same size BIt is given only to people who are able to work CIt reaches too few of the people in need DIt lacks the voluntary element

7. Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   According to Source 2, paragraph 5, how can almsgiving and dolegiving hurt workers who never receive them?

   AThey raise the prices of food and rent for every family BThey take money from taxes that workers have to pay CThey help keep down wages for all working people DThey give the charities too much power over the town

8. Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 2, paragraph 8, what separates a dole from a pension?

   AA dole is paid by the government and a pension by a charity BA dole is scant and uncertain; a pension is regular and enough CA dole goes to children and a pension goes to older people DA dole is given in goods and a pension is given in money

9. Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice

   In Source 2, paragraph 6, what reason does Lowell give for saying that the recipients of alms "do not receive" the necessaries of life "after all"?

   AThe givers keep most of the money for their own use BThe alms are stolen before they reach the families CThe recipients refuse the gifts out of pride DWhat they receive is not enough to meet their needs

10. Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    According to Source 3, paragraph 1, what is social insurance?

    AA private business that sells policies to property owners for a profit BA gift of money from wealthy families to the workers they employ CProtection organized by society for those who cannot buy it privately DA savings account that each worker must keep at a public bank

11. Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    According to Source 3, paragraph 2, why are the economic consequences of sickness, accidents and unemployment more serious for the wage-earner than for the middle classes?

    AThe wage-earner's income stops when work stops, unlike income from property BThe middle classes are never affected by sickness, accidents or old age at all CThe wage-earner already receives social insurance from the government DThe middle classes pay all the costs of the wage-earner's losses

12. Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In Source 3, paragraph 5, what must be true, according to Rubinow, for individual saving to solve the problem of poverty for wage-earners?

    AWage-earners must have a surplus in the family budget BWage-earners must stop buying insurance of every kind CBanks must pay a higher rate of interest on savings DEmployers must match every dollar their workers save

13. Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    Invented data (Source 4, paragraph 3): the shuttle would cost $52,000 a year and carry about 300 riders a week. About how much is that per ride?

    AAbout $173.33 a ride BAbout $1,000 a ride CAbout $3.33 a ride DAbout $208 a ride

14. Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice

    In Source 4, paragraph 4, the shop owner objects to the shuttle. Which criterion does the objection mainly raise?

    ACost and who pays BSide effects CDignity and voice DFairness of process

15. Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer

    Invented data (Source 4): if all 400 interested households bought a $100 share, what fraction of the cooperative's $250,000 opening cost would that raise? Use this figure and one other criterion to evaluate response C.

    Show model answer

16. Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer

    Lowell (Source 2) and Rubinow (Source 3) both worry about dependence and dignity, but reach different responses. Explain each author's view and where they disagree.

    Show model answer

17. Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer

    Evaluate Mann's response (Source 1) to inequality using two criteria from the table: one on which it does well and one on which it does poorly. Support each with the text.

    Show model answer

18. Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer

    Propose a response or combination of responses for Ashford's South End (Source 4), and evaluate it against three criteria, using at least one number.

    Show model answer

19. Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer

    Invented data (Source 4): compare the five-year cost to the town of response E (the tax break) with five years of response B (the shuttle). Then explain one advantage and one risk of E that the numbers do not show.

    Show model answer

20. Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer

    Invented situation: in an invented city, children in one neighborhood are far more likely than children elsewhere to have untreated tooth decay, and the nearest dentist who accepts low-cost payment plans is across the city. Propose two responses carried out by different kinds of actors, and evaluate each on two criteria.

    Show model answer

These standards connect to D2.Soc.18.9-12: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.

Standard text: National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). NCSS was not involved in the production of this lesson and does not endorse it.