In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here: chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.” The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...
“A market economy is to economics what democracy is to government: a decent, if flawed, choice among many bad alternatives.” -- Charles Wheelan, "Naked Economics"
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Buried inside a Washington Post feature on “America’s worst candidate” is this revealing look on politics as it is played:
Tennessee Democrats, who’d watched their conservative voters drift to the GOP, finally lost the state House in 2010. That had been a financial lifeline for Democrats, since the legislature has broad powers over patronage.
“That pretty much was the end,” said [Will T. Cheek, a Nashville investor who has been a member of the state Democratic Party’s executive committee since 1970]. “Because we have nothing left. In the other low points, we had the Election Commission, we had the Building Commission. ... If you wanted to get state deposits into your bank, those were all ours. And that’s where you’d raise your money.”
Losing those powers “really kicked the props out from under the financing of the party,” Cheek said.