Michael J. Brun wrote: > > His book *Revolt of the Haves*, though no longer new, is a good > description of the history of the tax revolt in the late seventies and > early 80's. It shows how the right took over this issue, and to some > extent how the left botched it by not responding to real problems in the > tax system. > This post bestirs a "bee" that's been in my bonnet almost all year. If this was thoroughly discussed on PEN-L when I was "away" please refer me to the approximate dates and I'll try the archives. What do you folks think of the following: The "revolt of the haves" and its recent incarnation the Contract with America create a long run tendency for inequality increases and a NARROWING of the consumption base (even of our gigantic economy) on which ULTIMATELY the rate of capital accumulation will depend. The deficit spending of the 1980s temporarily delayed that but now the deficit has been reined in and appears not to be a reliable fiscal stimulant in the future --- meanwhile the "revolt of the haves" means you can't use the "balanced budget multiplier" to stimulate things as was done between WW II and the early 1980s. Result: the very basis on which the system was "held together" between 1945 and,say, 1989 is now GONE. The sluggishness of the recovery and the need to maintain unemployment so much higher than in the past and the persistence of the INCREASE in inequality (not just the persistence of inequality) all are part of the long run process. POLITICALLY, it appears that all potential ways of COMBATING these tendencies are being closed off. The long run appears to promise declining standards of living of larger and larger percentages of the population as international competition forces wages (and social wages) down towards some "lowest common denominator." (this is what Michael Perelman in _The Pathology of the US Economy_ called the "Haitianization" of the US economy --- but it's even happening, for example, in Germany as some PEN-L posts have indicated (though there, there's better resistance!).) This raises the interesting question of WHERE IS THE RULING CLASS? Don't they have any class consciousness about the harm the "revolt of the haves" is doing to "their" system? And (perversely) shouldn't the left be encouraging the idiocies in Republican policy [I don't really advocate that!] because it will crack the system quicker than social democratic incrementalism?? Sorry to go on like this... -- Mike Meeropol Economics Department Cultures Past and Present Program Western New England College Springfield, Massachusetts "Don't blame us, we voted for George McGovern!" Unrepentent Leftist!! [EMAIL PROTECTED] [if at bitnet node: in%"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" but that's fading fast!]
