Two arguments are advanced here. First, it is believed that some individuals are 'morally' unfit or defective. That is, they are unwilling to work hard and make sacrifices to take advantage of the many training and education opportunities which are available, such as staying in school until they attain literacy skills, going to night school to improve their basic education and job qualifications, or taking jobs which pay low wages but offer training opportunities. If such individuals are poor, conservatives argue, they deserve it 2

Second, many adults are believed to be unable to develop literacy skills or do well in the world of work because they are inherently less capable or less intelligent than normal. "Scientific" arguments alleging the genetic inferiority of the poor, particularly racial minorities, are frequently cited in this regard 3

In either case, whether the defects of the poor are "moral" or genetic, they are not remediable, and the anti-poverty strategies as developed by liberals are seen as doomed to failure. As prominent conservative Barry Goldwater asserted in 1964, "the fact is that most people who have no skills have no education for the same reason--low intelligence or low ambition".4 In effect, conservatives deny that greater social equality is possible.

In the view of conservatives, public investments in education and training for the poor cannot be justified in economic terms. According to Gordon, conservatives believe:

individual opportunities to work in the labour market are seriously distorted by government intervention in that market, and that we should try to minimize government involvement with market institutions 5

They contend that educational programs such as those pursued under the U.S. War on Poverty failed to help the poor, and actually were counterproductive, i.e. they contributed to poverty. According to this view, the rapid expansion of the education establishment caused an inflation of educational requirements for jobs beyond any necessity inherent in the work being done. "Credentialism" has given an inordinate importance to education in the job market and has come to constitute a significant barrier to the employment of the poor 6

Another factor cited by conservatives is their belief that wages for even menial jobs grew rapidly, as workers with ever-higher levels of education demanded increases out of line with the work being done, and this ultimately led to a shrinkage in the total number of jobs which employers could offer7. Finally, conservatives argue that the heavy expenditures for education on the part of the federal government contributed to inflation, which in turn stunted economic growth and diminished the job-creating capacity of the economy 8 Under the leadership of the Reagan administration, manpower retraining programs and adult basic education programs are being dismantled, severely cut back or responsibility for them shifted to the states in order to remove their "distorting" effect from the labour market, allowing it to function "naturally".9 It is believed that in the long run, only unimpeded economic growth can help the poor, or, more exactly, those among the poor who are "willing" to work. 10