Customer Reviews

The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Phillips has documented in some detail the massive income shift of the Reagan years. In almost all categories the upper 10% of American families soared, while the remaining 90% either stagnated, or at the lower end, actually declined. The author's exhaustive charts demonstrate statistically what popular opinion could only entertain: the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. An interesting question to pose is why a Republican strategist like Phillips would document this adverse result in such unsparing fashion. Perhaps like some far-seeing conservatives he views a growing income gap as destabilizing to the country, and hopes to bring forth moderating influences.

In any event, the book stands as an excellent reference for understanding the impact of those years. That Phillips does not delve beyond surface movements for deeper explanation is not an objection to the work as a whole. For what he succeeds in doing with considerable authority and as "one of their own", is to revive class bias as the focal point of American politics. Being a conservative, he is not about the business of endorsing class-struggle as a premise of human history or American politics. Nevertheless, his linking of the Reagan era to previous eras of capitalist overreach helps to revive the long submerged story of class-struggle in America. This is an indispensible book for understanding the 1980's and years beyond.

Kevin Phillips has all the credentials necessary to speak on this subject and for those who seem unaware of it; happens to be a republican. His detailed coherent account of what is, in the hands of most authors, a murky story - how the rich really got richer at the expense of the majority during the 80's - is fact filled, copiously notated, and hard to fault without resorting to a willfull ignorance to believe ideology over evidence. A must read book for anybody who got taken at that Three Card Monty table that was the american economy of the 80's

Phillips wrote this book in 1990.This allows a reader to compare it with later books that dealt with the same problem ,such as " Boiling Point " in 1993 and " Arrogant Capital " in 1994.The first point that Phillips demonstrates overwhelmingly was that the Reagan tax cuts were primarily aimed at increasing the wealth and political power of the Wall Street speculators and investment banks like Bear Stearns,Merrill Lynch,Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley,Lehman Brothers,J.P. Morgan,Credit Suisse,Deutsche Bank,etc. This was possible because Reagan was not able to differentiate between Wall Street speculators ,on the one hand ,and entrepreneurship and enterprise ,on the other hand. For instance,ALL of the supply side economists(Laffer,Wannsiki,etc.)and most of the University of Chicago economists advising President Reagan were tied in to the Wall Street crowd ,either directly or indirectly.Phillips covers this in chapter 3.It is here that he makes two serious mistakes in less than one half of a sentence that costs him one-half of a star.He states :" Most of the conservative theorists acknowledged their restatement of Adam Smith..."(Phillips,1990,p.65).First,none of the supply siders or University of Chicago economists are conservative in the sense that Adam Smith was .They are Libertarians.This is a major confusion that is ubiquitous in America.Second,NONE of the policies recommended by these supply side and Chicago advisors follows from Smith.First ,Smith favored (a) an overall, progressive tax system,not a flat or proportional system (Smith,1776,Modern Library(Cannan) edition,p.794),(b)retaliatory and revenue tariffs(Smith,pp.434-439),and (c)direct government intervention into the economy through the provision of universal religious instruction and education,provided for free by the government to all individuals who could not afford to pay,in order to counteract the massive undepletable ,negative externalities/spillover effects arising from the workings of the Invisible Hand of the Market(self interest plus the specialization and division of labor[Smith,pp.716-768,pp.734-741);Phillips does better on p.69 in recognizing Smith's opposition to the interactions of monopolies and government and their negative impact on the political sphere of life.]

A major plus of Phillips exposition is not only the massive statistical support that he presents in this book about the increasing inequality of income between different income classes but a very clear cut example that can be understood by any reader : " Under Reagan,as under Coolidge,the clear evidence is that the net tax burden on rich Americans as a percentage of their total income shrank substantially because of the sweeping tax cuts.The surge in actual tax payments was the result of higher upper-bracket incomes.To measure the benefits,imagine a businessman who had made $333,000 in salary,dividends and capital gains in 1980,and paid $120,000 in federal income taxes.As prosperity returned in 1983,his income climbed to $ 500,000.Yet with the typical tax rates reduced,he might well have paid,say,$150,000 in taxes,more actual payment,of course,but less relative burden."(Phillips,1990,p.82;It is unfortunate that Phillips did not explicitly tie this example in to his Table 2 analysis on p.58 that showed the higher incomes going to providers of " financial services ",a.k.a.,Wall Street speculators).

Phillips loses another one half of a star due to his failure to explicitly deal in this book with the negative impact of the rise of the Wall Street speculators under Reagan ,and their support from the Federal Reserve System under Volcker and/or Greenspan,as well as the support given to them by the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC),the regulatory agency which is supposed to protect middle class American from the ravages of speculators and projectors. The topic " Speculation " is not included in the subject index at the back of the book wheras it figures prominently in the later books ,such as " Boiling Point" and " Arrogant Capital ".Phillips's Table 2 on pp.56-58 is a brilliant historical summary of the negative impact of speculation on the economy;however,he needed to explicitly discuss this problem in the same way that Adam Smith did in The Wealth of Nations on pp.260-340,especially on pp.339-340,where Smith pinpointed,as did the Scholastic philosopher -theologians of the medieval Catholic Church in the 13th century,the dangers of speculation,especially where bankers and financial interests are involved.


This leads us to the end of the book and Phillips' discussion of the political ramifications of this process of allowing more and more income to be siphoned off to the " financial services" sector of the economy,i.e.,securitization/speculation and the generation of imcome without production by attempting to manipulate the income, balance, and cash flow accounts of American corporations and financial institutions.

Phillips correctly identifies what the Wall Street crowd,which controls both political parties,more(Republican) or less(Democrat),regards as their biggest future challenge :" Our biggest fear is that the Democrats surface with a leader who is able to capitalize on the theme of economic populism".(Quotation from GOP Pollster V.Breglio;Phillips,1990,p.210).One need only look at the reliance of the Clinton's,Kerry's,and Obama's on Wall Street money to recognize that such a leader does nor exist.

The myths (or many of them)of the right are given full exposure in this fine book. Well researched and well written, it is a good primer on the delusions of the privledged class (just read some of the other reviews on this page).
Over all a significant contribution to the new analysis of conservative revisionism.

Although Kevin Phillips wrote this book back in the late 1980s, many of its socio-economic descriptions are accurate for the 21st Century. The book was required reading in many colleges when it was first published and the author's prediction about the characteristics of the economic times were on target and may have been exceeded in 2011.

Phillips would do well writing an update to the Politics of Rich and Poor. Its narrative is still relevant today.

This book does the job. It properly points out how the Reagan administration tore this country apart to serve the interests of the rich. I might have only one criticism of Phillips's work: His consistent mention of the post Civil War era and the 1920's as parallels to the 1980's. It would have been great to have an entire chapter dedicated to that, then have the rest of the book focused exclusively on the 80's. It would have made the attack more efficient. No major complaints, however. This book is excellent.

I was excited to find this book based on the tittle and book description, mainly because I felt I was going to get a book of facts to bolster my already formed opinions. Well the book did provide facts, lots of facts sometimes not in the best order, but facts none the less. What the author and publisher failed to realize is that in the method the book was written the average reader would find it almost impossible to plod through the text. I had a college statistics professor that was Asian with a very strong accent, and the ability to stand at the front of the room and drone on and on without every moving his body or using the black board (an interesting feat in a math class) that was more lively then this book. I am assuming that even economics professors aged 65 and over would think this book to be dry and dull.

The net effect of the bone dry text and the overwhelming amount of facts, charts and lists of numbers is that a book I was excited to read turned out to be a downright pain to get through. It turned into a labor of love or some sick need to finish the book that finally got me through to the end. I feel like I deserved some medal for completing this thing. Overall the facts are interesting (in small doses) but the written was one that would bore the dead.

Exploiting class envy is as old as civilization itself,and this book is another exercise in just that.I don't question the validity of Mr. Phillips arguments or stasistics.Sure the wealthier get wealthier or at least maintain their wealth from generation to generation(barring catastrophe)but that is because when you are talking in terms of millions of dollars money automatically makes itself grow.Someone worth $5,000,000 this year will with safe,predictable,long-term investments see an increase in their wealth till the day they die.Poor to middle class people on the other hand won't see a great buildup of wealth simply due to the fact that they don't have enough wealth to exponentially grow year after year.Even an idiot can stick $5,000,000 in the bank,leave it alone,and in five or six years have $6,000,000.Of course if you only have $20,000 in the bank it won't ever be much more than $20,000.All societies have an unequal concentration of wealth and always will.Most so-called economic booms do benefit mainly the upper classes while recessions hit the poorest the hardest.Phillips does a thorough job of exposing the boom of the 80's for the myth that it was, but all in all he has written nothing we didn't already know.

Seems that all the book does is Talk bad about the reagan years and the Republicans. I think that the author needs to come back and look at other years under different presidents.