In her article, "To Fulfill Their `Rightly Needs': Consumerism and the National Welfare Rights Movement," Felicia Kornbluh reflects on the relationship between welfare departments and the lower class recipients. Noting the battle over the content of the budget between beneficiaries of welfare and authorities (Kornbluh, 94), Kornbluh points to "fair hearings" as a solution to disputes (97). Yet, the hearings may amount to nothing due to the fact that the same authorities concerned in the battle also run the hearings, thereby creating a struggle of power between recipients and welfare departments. Theorists Michel Foucault and Emile Durkheim analyze the function of power in relation to the welfare state in order to determine the successfulness and legitimacy of welfare.

Foucault argues that because authority stems from relationships, one must work and try to gain dominance over others regardless of the social class he resides in so as to gain power. He...