Book Review of The Underclass by Ken Auletta

This complex, richly detailed, and surprisingly well-balanced portrait of the "under- class" (often through their own eyes) is an important work which merits close attention. The debate over the definition, causes, and cures for the problems of the underclass is heavily influenced by ideology. Is the individual to blame (laziness, family); or, is society to blame (racism, structural unemployment, the nature of captitalism)? Ken Auletta carefully sorts out ideological prejudice from fact, and finds both the left and the right wanting in their views of the underclass.