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Rural Poverty and Economic Development: Lessons from the War on Poverty

The operation of antipoverty programs in rural areas is investigated in the context of the assumptions and objectives of the President's Commission on Rural Poverty as well as in the light of Gans's theory concerning the "positive functions" of poverty. Specific evaluations of Community Development Corporations, rural manpower programs, and rural low-income cooperatives suggest that these efforts have not been successful in reducing rural poverty. Further evidence, in connection with Nixon's proposed Family Assistance Plan and also the federal farm programs, lends support to the hypothesis that local elites have not only resisted changes in the rural status quo but successfully lobbied against them in both the legislative and the bureaucratic process. If the future is to be more successful than the past, policy researchers must be involved in program redesign, implementation, and feedback; ultimately, however, achievement of the desired goals requires more successful lobbying on the part of all those interested in social change.