Robert Ball and the Politics of Social Security (review)

"We must consider institutions and the mass psychology surrounding them as living institutions, not dissimilar to human personalities . . . never quite understanding themselves or the part they are actually playing because of the necessary illusions with which they must surround themselves to preserve their prestige and self-respect." So observed Arnold in The Symbols of Government, published the year that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed his omnibus Social Security Act into law.¹ Scholars typically analyze bureaucracies in terms of their missions, operations, and effectiveness; they rarely put human faces on institutional modus operandi.

The evolution of Social Security into one of the Federal government's most complex and vast institutions was, according to Berkowitz, in large part the accomplishment of Robert Ball (1914–), who joined the organization in 1939. Bright, knowledgeable, and self-effacing, Ball devoted his career to promoting and defending social security. Berkowitz credits Ball with scripting the 1950 amendments, which raised benefits and expanded coverage sufficiently to give the system's social-insurance provisions greater importance than its welfare programs. While Ball served as commissioner from 1962 to 1973, Social Security expanded greatly and enjoyed tremendous popular support. More than any other person, Ball (a Democrat with strong labor backing) formulated in 1972 the rationale for linking benefit increases to the consumer price index, deftly winning the support of Richard Nixon and Wilbur Mills. When presidents Ford and Carter questioned the long-term viability of the program, Ball, then a private citizen, joined former HEW secretary Wilbur Cohen in founding Save Our Security (1979). Four years later, when social security faced a crisis, Ball used his formidable negotiating powers and energy to forge a settlement. In 1986, he founded the National Academy of Social Insurance, in part to commission research on social security and in part to train future cohorts to commit themselves to promoting this living institution.

In writing this biography, Berkowitz had exclusive access to Ball's papers and extensive personal interviews. "To understand Ball's contributions to social policy," he claims, "one has to get past the often conservative rhetoric that Ball and his colleagues used to see the program's liberal results" (3–4). With degrees in English and economics from Wesleyan, Ball knew how to use illusions to make his case, but he also was a master administrator whose numbers presidents, lawmakers, and lobbyists trusted. Rather than focusing on social security's origins, Berkowitz effectively chronicles the significance of the 1950, 1972, and 1983 amendments.

This highly competent monograph suffers under two handicaps. First, Robert Ball and the Politics of Social Security is not as colorful as Berkowitz's Mr. Social Security (Lawrence, 1995); Wilbur Cohen was simply a more exuberant character. By privileging Ball's voice throughout, Berkowitz often misses the importance of other players who also shaped the institutional context in which Ball operated.