Boiling Point: Democrats, Republicans, and the Decline of Middle-Class Prosperity [Paperback]

Kevin P. Phillips (Author), Kevin Phillips (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1994

The author of The Politics of Rich and Poor presents a thoughtful examination of frustration and decline in America's middle class. Reprint. 35,000 first printing; $25,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Phillips's hard-hitting analysis of the middle-class decline in the U.S. is a worthy sequel to The Politics of Rich and Poor , in which he predicted a populist revolt against Reagan-Bush policies that favored the rich. Here the onetime Republican campaign strategist spells out in painstaking detail how the Reagan-Bush agenda benefited the nation's wealthiest 1% at the expense of a middle class battered by inequitable taxes, deteriorating public services, increasingly unaffordable health care and education, shrinking employee benefits, job cutbacks and declining household net worth. Clinton tapped middle-class frustration using populist rhetoric, but unless his administration delivers on its promises to the eroding middle class while revitalizing the economy, the Democrats will be voted out of office in 1996, suggests Phillips. He stresses that the Democrats must replace yesteryear's internationalism with greater emphasis on domestic issues and must curb the abuses sponsored by financial elites and welfare statists alike. An urgently important book. Author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Phillips's first book, The Emerging Republican Majority (1969. o.p.), was called "the political bible of the Nixon era," and The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Af termath ( LJ 5/15/90) documented the economic consequences of the so-called "Reagan revolution." With comparative data and unrelenting force, his latest book demonstrates how "voodoo economics" shafted the middle class and put America's future at risk. The frustration of middle America resulted in the Clinton presidency. This latest book establishes Phillips as America's Aristotle, the first advocate of a strong middle class to assure a stable society. Boiling Point may become the political bible of the 1990s. It deserves the widest possible audience. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/92.
- William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins (February 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060975822
• ISBN-13: 978-0060975821
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 5.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #334,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Eye-opener, March 26, 1999

By 

"patriot451" (Richmond, Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Boiling Point: Democrats, Republicans, and the Decline of Middle-Class Prosperity (Hardcover)

Despite being out of print, this is still one of the most useful books any citizen can read. It shows you where your political interests lie and why, for most of us, the U.S. doesn't feel like the world's richest country any more.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Optimist, November 18, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Boiling Point: Democrats, Republicans, and the Decline of Middle-Class Prosperity (Paperback)

I reccomend this book highly but I will warn you that Phillips is an optimist. I read this book before I read his "Arrogant Capital" and it strikes me that Phillips is maybe a little too naive in expecting things to improve in America. It is fortunate of course that we in this country have people like Phillips who inform us well so that we can then make informed decisions about what to do in the future. Take me for instance, I have decided to leave America for the next 15 years, or at least I am going to attempt a life abroad. If you read Phillips and Krugman and just about what any other respected journalist or educated government watcher writes, then there is but one inescapable conclusion - viz, America ails with a terminal illness. The microbes of this illness are the K-Street lobbyists and also the Christian Coalition. According to Phillips the demise of the middle class which incidentally is a symptom of the breakdown of governance, started a long time ago, when we did not have Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson running around with their silly diatribes. So, at this late stage in the atrophy, injecting religion into politics is akin to shooting crystal meth into your veins when you are in the last stages of liver cancer. The final nail in the coffin. By the way, I am a born again Christian evangelical.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Covers the Transformation of the USA from an industrial-manufacturing powerhouse to a speculator economy, July 29, 2008

By 

Michael Emmett Brady "mandmbrady" (Bellflower, California ,United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Boiling Point: Democrats, Republicans, and the Decline of Middle-Class Prosperity (Paperback)

Phillips does a good job of demonstrating why the American middle class was shrinking in the early 1990's.The situation today(2008) has only been exacerbated by 17 years of more of the same-more and more speculation in financial assets and stocks and less and less industrial and manufacturing production.A combination of securitization and banker financed speculation has resulted in an economy where the major growth sector is " financial services ".More and more income is diverted into this speculative sinkhole while less and less is invested in long run physical capital formation that will create jobs and businesses where profits are based on production.The current banker dominated approach to income generation is the manipulation of the financial assets of corporate America-profit without production.It is obvious that the fortunes of the American middle class are tied to an economy primarily based on a strong industrial-manufacturing sector that produces real goods for sale .These fortunes are severely impacted negatively if the currently dominate speculative approach continues.The core of Philips analysis is contained on pp.185-190.Phillips does an excellent job in discussing this issue.The impact on the reader,however,could have been much greater if Phillips had explicitly tied his analysis to the analysis originally presented by Adam Smith in 1776 and restated in advanced form by John Maynard Keynes in 1936 in The General Theory of Employment,Interest, and Money .Unfortunately,Phillips appears to be unaware that Adam Smith had already warned against allowing speculators to take control of an economy by allowing them access to bank loans with which to leverage their debt positions.Smith's conclusion is that savings loaned out to speculators is savings that is " ... wasted and destroyed ".There has never been a more clearcut warning about the dangers of speculation. (See Adam Smith,1776,Modern Library(Cannan)edition of The Wealth of Nations,pp.339-340).I have deducted one star due to this omission.