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The article analyzes the dynamics of access among the welfare poor. Participation in political society is often considered from the perspective of the theory of democratic pluralism. This theory, which, in the 1960's, inspired a lively debate between those who found decisions controlled by monolithic elites and those who found multiple points of decision-making, has increasingly seen the empirical grounds of contention moving toward questions of participation and access to decision-making processes by non-elites. Access has been studied by analyzing the resources of individuals, the experience of new participants, the potential for manifestation of "quasi-groups," the effectiveness of group organization, and the response of competing groups, elites, and the public to the access-seeker. To comprehend the two-sided process of access-seeking, one must examine the forces that grant or block access as well as the parties that seek access. The central problem to which the empirical study of this paper is directed is the question of how difficult it is for a newly-formed group to gain a foothold in a presumably pluralistic structure of power.

The article presents the comment of the author on one of his papers related to poverty, minorities, and consumer exploitation. In the summer of 1965, the Watts riot happened. Along with many other residents of Los Angeles, California, the author was unable to get to his place of employment because of roadblocks established by the police and National Guard to contain the destruction. This "vacation" period provided a time for reflection about the nature and problems of the society. One of the easiest observations to be made was that business, ranging from the burned-out mom-and-pop store in Watts to the giant corporation, could not remain aloof from the growing urban crisis. It seemed likely, however, that the commentators and analysts would focus largely on the educational and social roots of the problem and ignore the role of the business community. This oversight would only perpetuate a situation that caused Charles Lazarus, a vice-president of Federated Department Stores, later to ask how it was possible that a whole generation of corporate executives could drive their Cadillacs through the slums of America and not know that someday these ghetto-poor would rise to threaten both the corporate balance sheet and the whole fabric of American life.