The Cloward–Piven Strategy

Outlined in 1966, the strategy’s endgame is to force a crisis that allows for the implementation of socialism or communism through government force

In 1966, Piven and Richard Cloward published “The Weight of the Poor” in the Nation magazine. The essay elaborates what has since been dubbed the “Cloward-Piven Strategy”: the mass enrollment of the poor onto welfare rolls. If all who were entitled to government benefits claimed them, they argued, the system would buckle, exposing the magnitude of Ameri…