Books
Escaping the Poverty Trap
– Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek, September 10, 1984.Excerpt: Political scientist Charles Murray is probably going to be roasted as a reactionary. He’s just written a well-documented polemic arguing that government’s efforts to… More
The Manhattan Project
– Charles Lane, The New Republic, March 25, 1985.The Battle Over ‘Losing Ground’
– Michael Barone, Washington Post, April 3, 1985.Excerpt: The debate rages over Charles Murray’s book “Losing Ground.” Has he conclusively proved that Great Society programs hurt rather than helped the poor and therefore… More
Reason Interview
– Reason, May 1985.Excerpt: REASON: Your book Losing Ground is very hot right now. Why did you go into this analysis of social welfare policy? MURRAY: My professional background consisted of evaluating… More
Helping the Poor: A Few Modest Proposals
– Commentary, May 1985.Excerpt: Last fall I published a book entitled Losing Ground. It called attention to the fact that on several of the dimensions we ordinarily use to measure quality of life—unemployment,… More
Author’s Attacks On ‘Great Society’ Shift Social Debate
– Juan Williams, Washington Post, May 28, 1985.Excerpt: Early last year a little-known social-policy analyst had three minutes, as part of a White House round-table group, to tell President Reagan how to improve American society. The… More
Charles Murray & His Critics
– Robert Royal, Crisis Magazine, July 1985.Excerpt: What is it about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (Basic Books, 1984) that has evoked such violent reactions? After initial shock at its… More
The Rediscovery of Character
– James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Fall 1985.Excerpt: Charles Murray, whose 1984 book, Losing Ground, has done so much to focus attention on the problem of welfare, generally endorses the economic explanation for the decline of… More
Are the Poor ‘Losing Ground’?
– Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1985.Excerpt: In the year since it was published, Losing Ground has become a political football in the debate about social policy toward the poor, and many of the substantive issues it raises… More
The Constraints on Helping
– The Freeman, February 1986.Excerpt: Let me pose a problem in the form that Einstein used to call a “thought experiment.” Whereas Einstein used the device to imagine such things as the view from the head of a… More
How to Lie with Statistics
– National Review, February 28, 1986.Excerpt: Charles Murray “has never publicly responded, however, to one of the most widely publicized “refutations” of his thesis, based on a paper by David Elwood and… More
Q&A: Charles Murray; Of Babies And Stick
– Robert Pear, New York Times, April 11, 1986.Excerpt: One of the Reagan Administration’s main sources of inspiration on social welfare policy is a book by Charles Murray, a conservative social scientist. In “Losing Ground:… More
Losing Ground Two Years Later
– Cato Journal, Spring/Summer 1986.Excerpt: Losing Ground appeared in the fall of 1984. It was an election year, and the two presidential candidates held a debate on domestic policy. The word “black” was hardly… More
The Origins of the Underclass
– Nicholas Lemann, The Atlantic, June 1986.Excerpt: The conservative answer is that welfare and the whole Great Society edifice of compensatory programs for blacks do exactly the opposite of what they’re supposed to: they make… More
Why Murray Prevailed
– Lawrence M. Mead, Academic Questions 1:2 (Spring 1988).Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family
– David T. Ellwood, Basic Books, 1988.Excerpt: Charles Murray’s powerful indictment of the social welfare system implicitly emphasizes these contradictions. According to Murray, the very system that was designed to help… More
Washington at Work; An Architect of the Reagan Vision Plunges Into Inquiry on Race and I.Q.
– Jason DeParle, New York Times, November 30, 1990.Excerpt: One thing Charles Murray knows how to do is generate controversy. In 1984, his book “Losing Ground” argued that social programs did more harm than good and proposed, as… More
Congress Writes a Law: Research and Welfare Reform
– Ron Haskins, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10:4 (Fall 1991).Abstract: This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on… More
Subsidized Illegitimacy
– Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, November 19, 1993.Excerpt: In fact, the idea I proposed is not at all original. I was merely echoing Charles Murray, who in his book, “Losing Ground,” offered the cold turkey approach as a… More
Talking Points: Response to Charles Murray
– Welfare Reform Working Group, William Jefferson Clinton Library, May 3, 1994.Excerpt: “He did the country a great service. I mean, he and I have often disagreed, but I think his analysis is essentially right. Now, whether his prescription is right, I… More
Whose Welfare? AFDC and Elite Politics
– Steven M. Teles, University Press of Kansas, 1996.Excerpt: There is no way to overestimate the effect that Charles Murray’s book Losing Ground had on the intellectual debate on poverty. Murray’s modest proposal, the outright… More
How Think Tanks Achieve Public Policy Breakthroughs
– Lawrence Mone, Manhattan Institute, May 29, 2002.Excerpt: It was back in 1984 that we sponsored what was to become a landmark book: Losing Ground, by Charles Murray, which was published by Basic Books. Charles, at the time, was a not very… More
The Manhattan Institute at 25
– Tom Wolfe, in Brian Anderson, ed., Turning Intellect into Influence, Manhattan Institute, 2004.Excerpt: But when the smoke cleared, Losing Ground was still standing. It had proved impossible to pigeonhole it in any ideological fashion. Murray had served in the Peace Corps in Thailand… More
Ending Welfare As We Knew It by Myron Magnet
– Myron Magnet, National Review, December 19, 2005.Excerpt: There’s no better proof of the adage that ideas have consequences than Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980. The magisterial 1984 classic… More
Charles Murray: Abolish the Welfare State
– Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report, March 29, 2006.Excerpt: Within a few years of the publication of Losing Ground, Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin began his rounds of welfare reform, replacing by-right welfare payments with work… More
The Battle of Ideas
– The Economist, May 23, 2006.Excerpt: It would be foolish to underestimate Mr Murray’s ability not just to stir debate but to steer policy: 12 years after “Losing Ground” was dismissed as the work of a… More
The Check Is In the Mail
– Lawrence M. Mead, First Things, October 2006.Excerpt: Toward the end of In Our Hands, Murray makes clear that his priority is not really to overcome the dysfunctions behind poverty. Rather, it is to restore the small-government… More
Charles Murray on Economic and Moral Life in America
– Video, Conversations with Bill Kristol, July 13, 2013.Summary: Economic and moral well-being in America with the preeminent political scientist and author of The Bell Curve.
Essays
Escaping the Poverty Trap
– Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek, September 10, 1984.Excerpt: Political scientist Charles Murray is probably going to be roasted as a reactionary. He’s just written a well-documented polemic arguing that government’s efforts to… More
The Manhattan Project
– Charles Lane, The New Republic, March 25, 1985.The Battle Over ‘Losing Ground’
– Michael Barone, Washington Post, April 3, 1985.Excerpt: The debate rages over Charles Murray’s book “Losing Ground.” Has he conclusively proved that Great Society programs hurt rather than helped the poor and therefore… More
Reason Interview
– Reason, May 1985.Excerpt: REASON: Your book Losing Ground is very hot right now. Why did you go into this analysis of social welfare policy? MURRAY: My professional background consisted of evaluating… More
Helping the Poor: A Few Modest Proposals
– Commentary, May 1985.Excerpt: Last fall I published a book entitled Losing Ground. It called attention to the fact that on several of the dimensions we ordinarily use to measure quality of life—unemployment,… More
Author’s Attacks On ‘Great Society’ Shift Social Debate
– Juan Williams, Washington Post, May 28, 1985.Excerpt: Early last year a little-known social-policy analyst had three minutes, as part of a White House round-table group, to tell President Reagan how to improve American society. The… More
Charles Murray & His Critics
– Robert Royal, Crisis Magazine, July 1985.Excerpt: What is it about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (Basic Books, 1984) that has evoked such violent reactions? After initial shock at its… More
The Rediscovery of Character
– James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Fall 1985.Excerpt: Charles Murray, whose 1984 book, Losing Ground, has done so much to focus attention on the problem of welfare, generally endorses the economic explanation for the decline of… More
Are the Poor ‘Losing Ground’?
– Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1985.Excerpt: In the year since it was published, Losing Ground has become a political football in the debate about social policy toward the poor, and many of the substantive issues it raises… More
The Constraints on Helping
– The Freeman, February 1986.Excerpt: Let me pose a problem in the form that Einstein used to call a “thought experiment.” Whereas Einstein used the device to imagine such things as the view from the head of a… More
How to Lie with Statistics
– National Review, February 28, 1986.Excerpt: Charles Murray “has never publicly responded, however, to one of the most widely publicized “refutations” of his thesis, based on a paper by David Elwood and… More
Q&A: Charles Murray; Of Babies And Stick
– Robert Pear, New York Times, April 11, 1986.Excerpt: One of the Reagan Administration’s main sources of inspiration on social welfare policy is a book by Charles Murray, a conservative social scientist. In “Losing Ground:… More
Losing Ground Two Years Later
– Cato Journal, Spring/Summer 1986.Excerpt: Losing Ground appeared in the fall of 1984. It was an election year, and the two presidential candidates held a debate on domestic policy. The word “black” was hardly… More
The Origins of the Underclass
– Nicholas Lemann, The Atlantic, June 1986.Excerpt: The conservative answer is that welfare and the whole Great Society edifice of compensatory programs for blacks do exactly the opposite of what they’re supposed to: they make… More
Why Murray Prevailed
– Lawrence M. Mead, Academic Questions 1:2 (Spring 1988).Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family
– David T. Ellwood, Basic Books, 1988.Excerpt: Charles Murray’s powerful indictment of the social welfare system implicitly emphasizes these contradictions. According to Murray, the very system that was designed to help… More
Washington at Work; An Architect of the Reagan Vision Plunges Into Inquiry on Race and I.Q.
– Jason DeParle, New York Times, November 30, 1990.Excerpt: One thing Charles Murray knows how to do is generate controversy. In 1984, his book “Losing Ground” argued that social programs did more harm than good and proposed, as… More
Congress Writes a Law: Research and Welfare Reform
– Ron Haskins, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10:4 (Fall 1991).Abstract: This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on… More
Subsidized Illegitimacy
– Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, November 19, 1993.Excerpt: In fact, the idea I proposed is not at all original. I was merely echoing Charles Murray, who in his book, “Losing Ground,” offered the cold turkey approach as a… More
Talking Points: Response to Charles Murray
– Welfare Reform Working Group, William Jefferson Clinton Library, May 3, 1994.Excerpt: “He did the country a great service. I mean, he and I have often disagreed, but I think his analysis is essentially right. Now, whether his prescription is right, I… More
Whose Welfare? AFDC and Elite Politics
– Steven M. Teles, University Press of Kansas, 1996.Excerpt: There is no way to overestimate the effect that Charles Murray’s book Losing Ground had on the intellectual debate on poverty. Murray’s modest proposal, the outright… More
How Think Tanks Achieve Public Policy Breakthroughs
– Lawrence Mone, Manhattan Institute, May 29, 2002.Excerpt: It was back in 1984 that we sponsored what was to become a landmark book: Losing Ground, by Charles Murray, which was published by Basic Books. Charles, at the time, was a not very… More
The Manhattan Institute at 25
– Tom Wolfe, in Brian Anderson, ed., Turning Intellect into Influence, Manhattan Institute, 2004.Excerpt: But when the smoke cleared, Losing Ground was still standing. It had proved impossible to pigeonhole it in any ideological fashion. Murray had served in the Peace Corps in Thailand… More
Ending Welfare As We Knew It by Myron Magnet
– Myron Magnet, National Review, December 19, 2005.Excerpt: There’s no better proof of the adage that ideas have consequences than Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980. The magisterial 1984 classic… More
Charles Murray: Abolish the Welfare State
– Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report, March 29, 2006.Excerpt: Within a few years of the publication of Losing Ground, Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin began his rounds of welfare reform, replacing by-right welfare payments with work… More
The Battle of Ideas
– The Economist, May 23, 2006.Excerpt: It would be foolish to underestimate Mr Murray’s ability not just to stir debate but to steer policy: 12 years after “Losing Ground” was dismissed as the work of a… More
The Check Is In the Mail
– Lawrence M. Mead, First Things, October 2006.Excerpt: Toward the end of In Our Hands, Murray makes clear that his priority is not really to overcome the dysfunctions behind poverty. Rather, it is to restore the small-government… More
Charles Murray on Economic and Moral Life in America
– Video, Conversations with Bill Kristol, July 13, 2013.Summary: Economic and moral well-being in America with the preeminent political scientist and author of The Bell Curve.
Commentary
Escaping the Poverty Trap
– Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek, September 10, 1984.Excerpt: Political scientist Charles Murray is probably going to be roasted as a reactionary. He’s just written a well-documented polemic arguing that government’s efforts to… More
The Manhattan Project
– Charles Lane, The New Republic, March 25, 1985.The Battle Over ‘Losing Ground’
– Michael Barone, Washington Post, April 3, 1985.Excerpt: The debate rages over Charles Murray’s book “Losing Ground.” Has he conclusively proved that Great Society programs hurt rather than helped the poor and therefore… More
Reason Interview
– Reason, May 1985.Excerpt: REASON: Your book Losing Ground is very hot right now. Why did you go into this analysis of social welfare policy? MURRAY: My professional background consisted of evaluating… More
Helping the Poor: A Few Modest Proposals
– Commentary, May 1985.Excerpt: Last fall I published a book entitled Losing Ground. It called attention to the fact that on several of the dimensions we ordinarily use to measure quality of life—unemployment,… More
Author’s Attacks On ‘Great Society’ Shift Social Debate
– Juan Williams, Washington Post, May 28, 1985.Excerpt: Early last year a little-known social-policy analyst had three minutes, as part of a White House round-table group, to tell President Reagan how to improve American society. The… More
Charles Murray & His Critics
– Robert Royal, Crisis Magazine, July 1985.Excerpt: What is it about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (Basic Books, 1984) that has evoked such violent reactions? After initial shock at its… More
The Rediscovery of Character
– James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Fall 1985.Excerpt: Charles Murray, whose 1984 book, Losing Ground, has done so much to focus attention on the problem of welfare, generally endorses the economic explanation for the decline of… More
Are the Poor ‘Losing Ground’?
– Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1985.Excerpt: In the year since it was published, Losing Ground has become a political football in the debate about social policy toward the poor, and many of the substantive issues it raises… More
The Constraints on Helping
– The Freeman, February 1986.Excerpt: Let me pose a problem in the form that Einstein used to call a “thought experiment.” Whereas Einstein used the device to imagine such things as the view from the head of a… More
How to Lie with Statistics
– National Review, February 28, 1986.Excerpt: Charles Murray “has never publicly responded, however, to one of the most widely publicized “refutations” of his thesis, based on a paper by David Elwood and… More
Q&A: Charles Murray; Of Babies And Stick
– Robert Pear, New York Times, April 11, 1986.Excerpt: One of the Reagan Administration’s main sources of inspiration on social welfare policy is a book by Charles Murray, a conservative social scientist. In “Losing Ground:… More
Losing Ground Two Years Later
– Cato Journal, Spring/Summer 1986.Excerpt: Losing Ground appeared in the fall of 1984. It was an election year, and the two presidential candidates held a debate on domestic policy. The word “black” was hardly… More
The Origins of the Underclass
– Nicholas Lemann, The Atlantic, June 1986.Excerpt: The conservative answer is that welfare and the whole Great Society edifice of compensatory programs for blacks do exactly the opposite of what they’re supposed to: they make… More
Why Murray Prevailed
– Lawrence M. Mead, Academic Questions 1:2 (Spring 1988).Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family
– David T. Ellwood, Basic Books, 1988.Excerpt: Charles Murray’s powerful indictment of the social welfare system implicitly emphasizes these contradictions. According to Murray, the very system that was designed to help… More
Washington at Work; An Architect of the Reagan Vision Plunges Into Inquiry on Race and I.Q.
– Jason DeParle, New York Times, November 30, 1990.Excerpt: One thing Charles Murray knows how to do is generate controversy. In 1984, his book “Losing Ground” argued that social programs did more harm than good and proposed, as… More
Congress Writes a Law: Research and Welfare Reform
– Ron Haskins, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10:4 (Fall 1991).Abstract: This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on… More
Subsidized Illegitimacy
– Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, November 19, 1993.Excerpt: In fact, the idea I proposed is not at all original. I was merely echoing Charles Murray, who in his book, “Losing Ground,” offered the cold turkey approach as a… More
Talking Points: Response to Charles Murray
– Welfare Reform Working Group, William Jefferson Clinton Library, May 3, 1994.Excerpt: “He did the country a great service. I mean, he and I have often disagreed, but I think his analysis is essentially right. Now, whether his prescription is right, I… More
Whose Welfare? AFDC and Elite Politics
– Steven M. Teles, University Press of Kansas, 1996.Excerpt: There is no way to overestimate the effect that Charles Murray’s book Losing Ground had on the intellectual debate on poverty. Murray’s modest proposal, the outright… More
How Think Tanks Achieve Public Policy Breakthroughs
– Lawrence Mone, Manhattan Institute, May 29, 2002.Excerpt: It was back in 1984 that we sponsored what was to become a landmark book: Losing Ground, by Charles Murray, which was published by Basic Books. Charles, at the time, was a not very… More
The Manhattan Institute at 25
– Tom Wolfe, in Brian Anderson, ed., Turning Intellect into Influence, Manhattan Institute, 2004.Excerpt: But when the smoke cleared, Losing Ground was still standing. It had proved impossible to pigeonhole it in any ideological fashion. Murray had served in the Peace Corps in Thailand… More
Ending Welfare As We Knew It by Myron Magnet
– Myron Magnet, National Review, December 19, 2005.Excerpt: There’s no better proof of the adage that ideas have consequences than Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980. The magisterial 1984 classic… More
Charles Murray: Abolish the Welfare State
– Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report, March 29, 2006.Excerpt: Within a few years of the publication of Losing Ground, Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin began his rounds of welfare reform, replacing by-right welfare payments with work… More
The Battle of Ideas
– The Economist, May 23, 2006.Excerpt: It would be foolish to underestimate Mr Murray’s ability not just to stir debate but to steer policy: 12 years after “Losing Ground” was dismissed as the work of a… More
The Check Is In the Mail
– Lawrence M. Mead, First Things, October 2006.Excerpt: Toward the end of In Our Hands, Murray makes clear that his priority is not really to overcome the dysfunctions behind poverty. Rather, it is to restore the small-government… More
Charles Murray on Economic and Moral Life in America
– Video, Conversations with Bill Kristol, July 13, 2013.Summary: Economic and moral well-being in America with the preeminent political scientist and author of The Bell Curve.
Multimedia
Escaping the Poverty Trap
– Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek, September 10, 1984.Excerpt: Political scientist Charles Murray is probably going to be roasted as a reactionary. He’s just written a well-documented polemic arguing that government’s efforts to… More
The Manhattan Project
– Charles Lane, The New Republic, March 25, 1985.The Battle Over ‘Losing Ground’
– Michael Barone, Washington Post, April 3, 1985.Excerpt: The debate rages over Charles Murray’s book “Losing Ground.” Has he conclusively proved that Great Society programs hurt rather than helped the poor and therefore… More
Reason Interview
– Reason, May 1985.Excerpt: REASON: Your book Losing Ground is very hot right now. Why did you go into this analysis of social welfare policy? MURRAY: My professional background consisted of evaluating… More
Helping the Poor: A Few Modest Proposals
– Commentary, May 1985.Excerpt: Last fall I published a book entitled Losing Ground. It called attention to the fact that on several of the dimensions we ordinarily use to measure quality of life—unemployment,… More
Author’s Attacks On ‘Great Society’ Shift Social Debate
– Juan Williams, Washington Post, May 28, 1985.Excerpt: Early last year a little-known social-policy analyst had three minutes, as part of a White House round-table group, to tell President Reagan how to improve American society. The… More
Charles Murray & His Critics
– Robert Royal, Crisis Magazine, July 1985.Excerpt: What is it about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (Basic Books, 1984) that has evoked such violent reactions? After initial shock at its… More
The Rediscovery of Character
– James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Fall 1985.Excerpt: Charles Murray, whose 1984 book, Losing Ground, has done so much to focus attention on the problem of welfare, generally endorses the economic explanation for the decline of… More
Are the Poor ‘Losing Ground’?
– Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1985.Excerpt: In the year since it was published, Losing Ground has become a political football in the debate about social policy toward the poor, and many of the substantive issues it raises… More
The Constraints on Helping
– The Freeman, February 1986.Excerpt: Let me pose a problem in the form that Einstein used to call a “thought experiment.” Whereas Einstein used the device to imagine such things as the view from the head of a… More
How to Lie with Statistics
– National Review, February 28, 1986.Excerpt: Charles Murray “has never publicly responded, however, to one of the most widely publicized “refutations” of his thesis, based on a paper by David Elwood and… More
Q&A: Charles Murray; Of Babies And Stick
– Robert Pear, New York Times, April 11, 1986.Excerpt: One of the Reagan Administration’s main sources of inspiration on social welfare policy is a book by Charles Murray, a conservative social scientist. In “Losing Ground:… More
Losing Ground Two Years Later
– Cato Journal, Spring/Summer 1986.Excerpt: Losing Ground appeared in the fall of 1984. It was an election year, and the two presidential candidates held a debate on domestic policy. The word “black” was hardly… More
The Origins of the Underclass
– Nicholas Lemann, The Atlantic, June 1986.Excerpt: The conservative answer is that welfare and the whole Great Society edifice of compensatory programs for blacks do exactly the opposite of what they’re supposed to: they make… More
Why Murray Prevailed
– Lawrence M. Mead, Academic Questions 1:2 (Spring 1988).Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family
– David T. Ellwood, Basic Books, 1988.Excerpt: Charles Murray’s powerful indictment of the social welfare system implicitly emphasizes these contradictions. According to Murray, the very system that was designed to help… More
Washington at Work; An Architect of the Reagan Vision Plunges Into Inquiry on Race and I.Q.
– Jason DeParle, New York Times, November 30, 1990.Excerpt: One thing Charles Murray knows how to do is generate controversy. In 1984, his book “Losing Ground” argued that social programs did more harm than good and proposed, as… More
Congress Writes a Law: Research and Welfare Reform
– Ron Haskins, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10:4 (Fall 1991).Abstract: This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on… More
Subsidized Illegitimacy
– Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, November 19, 1993.Excerpt: In fact, the idea I proposed is not at all original. I was merely echoing Charles Murray, who in his book, “Losing Ground,” offered the cold turkey approach as a… More
Talking Points: Response to Charles Murray
– Welfare Reform Working Group, William Jefferson Clinton Library, May 3, 1994.Excerpt: “He did the country a great service. I mean, he and I have often disagreed, but I think his analysis is essentially right. Now, whether his prescription is right, I… More
Whose Welfare? AFDC and Elite Politics
– Steven M. Teles, University Press of Kansas, 1996.Excerpt: There is no way to overestimate the effect that Charles Murray’s book Losing Ground had on the intellectual debate on poverty. Murray’s modest proposal, the outright… More
How Think Tanks Achieve Public Policy Breakthroughs
– Lawrence Mone, Manhattan Institute, May 29, 2002.Excerpt: It was back in 1984 that we sponsored what was to become a landmark book: Losing Ground, by Charles Murray, which was published by Basic Books. Charles, at the time, was a not very… More
The Manhattan Institute at 25
– Tom Wolfe, in Brian Anderson, ed., Turning Intellect into Influence, Manhattan Institute, 2004.Excerpt: But when the smoke cleared, Losing Ground was still standing. It had proved impossible to pigeonhole it in any ideological fashion. Murray had served in the Peace Corps in Thailand… More
Ending Welfare As We Knew It by Myron Magnet
– Myron Magnet, National Review, December 19, 2005.Excerpt: There’s no better proof of the adage that ideas have consequences than Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980. The magisterial 1984 classic… More
Charles Murray: Abolish the Welfare State
– Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report, March 29, 2006.Excerpt: Within a few years of the publication of Losing Ground, Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin began his rounds of welfare reform, replacing by-right welfare payments with work… More
The Battle of Ideas
– The Economist, May 23, 2006.Excerpt: It would be foolish to underestimate Mr Murray’s ability not just to stir debate but to steer policy: 12 years after “Losing Ground” was dismissed as the work of a… More
The Check Is In the Mail
– Lawrence M. Mead, First Things, October 2006.Excerpt: Toward the end of In Our Hands, Murray makes clear that his priority is not really to overcome the dysfunctions behind poverty. Rather, it is to restore the small-government… More
Charles Murray on Economic and Moral Life in America
– Video, Conversations with Bill Kristol, July 13, 2013.Summary: Economic and moral well-being in America with the preeminent political scientist and author of The Bell Curve.
Teaching
Escaping the Poverty Trap
– Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek, September 10, 1984.Excerpt: Political scientist Charles Murray is probably going to be roasted as a reactionary. He’s just written a well-documented polemic arguing that government’s efforts to… More
The Manhattan Project
– Charles Lane, The New Republic, March 25, 1985.The Battle Over ‘Losing Ground’
– Michael Barone, Washington Post, April 3, 1985.Excerpt: The debate rages over Charles Murray’s book “Losing Ground.” Has he conclusively proved that Great Society programs hurt rather than helped the poor and therefore… More
Reason Interview
– Reason, May 1985.Excerpt: REASON: Your book Losing Ground is very hot right now. Why did you go into this analysis of social welfare policy? MURRAY: My professional background consisted of evaluating… More
Helping the Poor: A Few Modest Proposals
– Commentary, May 1985.Excerpt: Last fall I published a book entitled Losing Ground. It called attention to the fact that on several of the dimensions we ordinarily use to measure quality of life—unemployment,… More
Author’s Attacks On ‘Great Society’ Shift Social Debate
– Juan Williams, Washington Post, May 28, 1985.Excerpt: Early last year a little-known social-policy analyst had three minutes, as part of a White House round-table group, to tell President Reagan how to improve American society. The… More
Charles Murray & His Critics
– Robert Royal, Crisis Magazine, July 1985.Excerpt: What is it about Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (Basic Books, 1984) that has evoked such violent reactions? After initial shock at its… More
The Rediscovery of Character
– James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Fall 1985.Excerpt: Charles Murray, whose 1984 book, Losing Ground, has done so much to focus attention on the problem of welfare, generally endorses the economic explanation for the decline of… More
Are the Poor ‘Losing Ground’?
– Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1985.Excerpt: In the year since it was published, Losing Ground has become a political football in the debate about social policy toward the poor, and many of the substantive issues it raises… More
The Constraints on Helping
– The Freeman, February 1986.Excerpt: Let me pose a problem in the form that Einstein used to call a “thought experiment.” Whereas Einstein used the device to imagine such things as the view from the head of a… More
How to Lie with Statistics
– National Review, February 28, 1986.Excerpt: Charles Murray “has never publicly responded, however, to one of the most widely publicized “refutations” of his thesis, based on a paper by David Elwood and… More
Q&A: Charles Murray; Of Babies And Stick
– Robert Pear, New York Times, April 11, 1986.Excerpt: One of the Reagan Administration’s main sources of inspiration on social welfare policy is a book by Charles Murray, a conservative social scientist. In “Losing Ground:… More
Losing Ground Two Years Later
– Cato Journal, Spring/Summer 1986.Excerpt: Losing Ground appeared in the fall of 1984. It was an election year, and the two presidential candidates held a debate on domestic policy. The word “black” was hardly… More
The Origins of the Underclass
– Nicholas Lemann, The Atlantic, June 1986.Excerpt: The conservative answer is that welfare and the whole Great Society edifice of compensatory programs for blacks do exactly the opposite of what they’re supposed to: they make… More
Why Murray Prevailed
– Lawrence M. Mead, Academic Questions 1:2 (Spring 1988).Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family
– David T. Ellwood, Basic Books, 1988.Excerpt: Charles Murray’s powerful indictment of the social welfare system implicitly emphasizes these contradictions. According to Murray, the very system that was designed to help… More
Washington at Work; An Architect of the Reagan Vision Plunges Into Inquiry on Race and I.Q.
– Jason DeParle, New York Times, November 30, 1990.Excerpt: One thing Charles Murray knows how to do is generate controversy. In 1984, his book “Losing Ground” argued that social programs did more harm than good and proposed, as… More
Congress Writes a Law: Research and Welfare Reform
– Ron Haskins, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 10:4 (Fall 1991).Abstract: This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on… More
Subsidized Illegitimacy
– Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, November 19, 1993.Excerpt: In fact, the idea I proposed is not at all original. I was merely echoing Charles Murray, who in his book, “Losing Ground,” offered the cold turkey approach as a… More
Talking Points: Response to Charles Murray
– Welfare Reform Working Group, William Jefferson Clinton Library, May 3, 1994.Excerpt: “He did the country a great service. I mean, he and I have often disagreed, but I think his analysis is essentially right. Now, whether his prescription is right, I… More
Whose Welfare? AFDC and Elite Politics
– Steven M. Teles, University Press of Kansas, 1996.Excerpt: There is no way to overestimate the effect that Charles Murray’s book Losing Ground had on the intellectual debate on poverty. Murray’s modest proposal, the outright… More
How Think Tanks Achieve Public Policy Breakthroughs
– Lawrence Mone, Manhattan Institute, May 29, 2002.Excerpt: It was back in 1984 that we sponsored what was to become a landmark book: Losing Ground, by Charles Murray, which was published by Basic Books. Charles, at the time, was a not very… More
The Manhattan Institute at 25
– Tom Wolfe, in Brian Anderson, ed., Turning Intellect into Influence, Manhattan Institute, 2004.Excerpt: But when the smoke cleared, Losing Ground was still standing. It had proved impossible to pigeonhole it in any ideological fashion. Murray had served in the Peace Corps in Thailand… More
Ending Welfare As We Knew It by Myron Magnet
– Myron Magnet, National Review, December 19, 2005.Excerpt: There’s no better proof of the adage that ideas have consequences than Charles Murray’s Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980. The magisterial 1984 classic… More
Charles Murray: Abolish the Welfare State
– Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report, March 29, 2006.Excerpt: Within a few years of the publication of Losing Ground, Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin began his rounds of welfare reform, replacing by-right welfare payments with work… More
The Battle of Ideas
– The Economist, May 23, 2006.Excerpt: It would be foolish to underestimate Mr Murray’s ability not just to stir debate but to steer policy: 12 years after “Losing Ground” was dismissed as the work of a… More
The Check Is In the Mail
– Lawrence M. Mead, First Things, October 2006.Excerpt: Toward the end of In Our Hands, Murray makes clear that his priority is not really to overcome the dysfunctions behind poverty. Rather, it is to restore the small-government… More
Charles Murray on Economic and Moral Life in America
– Video, Conversations with Bill Kristol, July 13, 2013.Summary: Economic and moral well-being in America with the preeminent political scientist and author of The Bell Curve.