The aim of any government is to provide programs, policies, and services that benefit the quality of life of citizens. In our modern democracy it is increasingly difficult to resolve many of our current troubles (poverty, drug abuse, violence, etc.) because of the nature of our government and society. With a limited amount of resources, policymakers are placed in the position of funding some programs and policies at the expense of and instead of others. From constituents to PAC, politicians face pressure to enact policies and programs that please the most numbers of people or the most numbers of influential ones. Such a dilemma presents a “troubled society” that continues to enact policies and programs that leave many groups and their needs disenfranchised. One theory that perfectly explains the inability of government to cure our present social ills is the conflict perspective of society. Conflict perspective is defined as one that views society as marked by conflicts due to inequalities in class, race, ethnicity, gender, age, and other divisions that produce conflicting values. In Manufacturing Consent, Herman and Chomsky (1988) maintain that such conflicts where the wealthy ruling classes typically dominate necessitates the need for propaganda:
The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda.
Social Welfare in the United States has a long and storied past, its roots dating back to Elizabethan times. However, perhaps no issue demonstrates the conflict perspective of society like policymaking. This is particularly true because of the ...