While John Edwards’ campaign and personal judgment certainly left a lot to be desired, I admired him for being the Presidential candidate most interested in the issue of poverty in the United States. It’s an issue that certainly hasn’t received the political attention it deserves, other than attacks on the poor coming from the Right.
I was especially excited when poverty was chosen as the high school debate topic for the 2009-10 school year. It gave me a reason to do a lot of reading about the subject, and it certainly can’t hurt to have some of the brightest young minds in the country thinking about and debating solutions to the poverty problem.
That’s all a long lead into suggesting that anyone interested in poverty give Edward Royce’s Poverty and Power: A Structural Perspective on American Inequality a read. Royce thoroughly debunks the pervasive conservative deficit narrative that blames for the poor for their poverty, refusing to concede the structural flaws that makes poverty persist:
The poor are not victims of their own failings; they are victims of an unresponsive political system. In this era of rising inequality, rather than stepping in to assist the millions of Americans struggling to keep their heads above water, elected officials have enacted tax, spending, and regulatory measures that only reinforce the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots.
It’s a well-researched and interesting book. I highly recommend it, doubly so for those who will probably never read it. 
Article by Don Pogreba
Don has written 1332 posts for us. He is an English and debate teacher in Helena, MT. When not writing here or working on debate handbooks, he is writing about educational issues at Prairie Pedagogue.
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Thank you so much for this topic. I worked for John Edwards in 2004 and 2008 because of his message. Martin Luther King Jr also understood that if we solved poverty everything else would fall in place. I mourn the loss of JRE's voice for this epic struggle. I hope that he and others like Spitzer can return to help in this cause. Because, let's face it. You need big strong celebrity voices to get some air time. There are a lot of us who care, but we don't have a pulpit.
I will pick up this book. I would highly recommend Jamie Galbraith's brilliant book "Predator State". It's all about the inequality, stupid.
Thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely check it out.