Calls for the escalation and manipulation of violent rioting have long been central to Piven’s strategy. Her 1977 book with Cloward, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, detailed the rationale behind the infamous crisis strategy of a decade before. The core argument is that the poor and unemployed are so isolated from the levers of power in America that their greatest potential impact is to withhold “quiescence in civil life: they can riot.”
