Philosophy Now Forum

Surviving the American Dream
Well it does depend on how that is defined.
If it simply means Freedom, it has to be asked who this is for or what it is for.
Freedom for all individuals tends to be transferred to freedom for any business or other concern they may create. But while the former may evolve into anarchism, the latter if left unfettered may evolve into tyranny. It is entirely a matter of the other values that are employed or implied. The more exact definition of the American Dream has been expressed in terms of everyone being free to do their own thing, and taking the consequences. Now that is precious close to anarchism. It is equivalent to the autonomous individual or ego. With no place for any form of charity, even the coldest form of Christian charity as in the old Poor Law.
Where genuine charity is involved, or social responsibility, It modifies freedom to signify the individual and indeed their institutions of all kinds, having the freedom to do what is for mutual and overall benefit. In other words, altruism. The exact and pragmatic ways in which that is realized is a matter for politicians in the widest sense. But it is guided quite essentially by its opposition or contrast with social chaos, tyranny, and anarchism.

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From Wikipedia: Poor Law

Although the Poor Law Amendment Act did not ban all forms of outdoor relief, it stated that no able-bodied person was to receive money or other help from the Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse. Conditions in workhouses were to be made harsh to discourage people from claiming.

Workhouses were to be built in every parish and, if parishes were too small, parishes could group together to form Workhouse Unions. The Poor Law Commissioners were to be responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Act.

For various reasons it was impossible to apply some of the terms of the Act. Less eligibility was in some cases impossible without starving paupers and the high cost of building workhouses incurred by rate payers meant that outdoor relief continued to be a popular alternative. Despite efforts to ban outdoor relief, parishes continued to offer it as a more cost-effective method of dealing with pauperism.

The Outdoor Labour Test Order and Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order were both issued to try to prevent people receiving relief outside of the workhouse.

When the new Amendment was applied to the industrial North of England (an area the law had never considered during reviews), the system failed catastrophically as many found themselves temporarily unemployed, due to recessions or a fall in stock demands, so called 'cyclical unemployment' and were reluctant to enter a Workhouse, despite its being the only method of gaining aid. Nottingham also was allowed an exemption from the law and continued to provide outdoor relief.


The abuses and shortcomings of the system are documented in the novels of Charles Dickens and Frances Trollope and later in People of the Abyss by Jack London. Despite the aspirations of the reformers, the New Poor Law was unable to make the Workhouse as bad as life outside.

The primary problem was that in order to make the diet of the Workhouse inmates "less eligible" than what they could expect outside, it would be necessary to starve the inmates beyond an acceptable level. It was for this reason that other ways were found to deter entrance to the Workhouses. These measures ranged from the introduction of prison style uniforms to the segregation of 'inmates' into yards – there were normally male, female, boys' and girls' yards.

In 1846, the Andover workhouse scandal, where conditions in the Andover Union Workhouse were found to be inhumane and dangerous, prompted a government review and the abolition of the Poor Law Commission which was replaced with a Poor Law Board which meant that a Committee of Parliament was to administer the Poor Law, with a cabinet minister as head. Despite this another scandal occurred over inhumane treatment of paupers in the Huddersfield workhouse









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