Although it's a thought-provoking review of Kevin Phillips's "Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich," I don't agree with either John B. Judis's conclusions or even some of his premises. A few choice paragraphs:
"The Netherlands was felled by European tariffs against its textiles, British discrimination against its ships and its vulnerability to military attack from its neighbors. Britain declined in the early 20th century because it lagged behind the United States and Germany in making the transition from owner-operated manufacturing companies to large-scale corporate capitalism. In the late 1980's, it did seem that the United States would suffer a similar fate at the hands of Japan and West Germany, but just as they began to catch up in basic manufacturing, the locus of growth and innovation changed from industrial to postindustrial capitalism -- from hardware to software (much of which is misleadingly labeled services). The United States was better suited for this new phase of capitalism, and has once again pulled ahead of its rivals."
There seems to be more to the story.
and
"Very similar conclusions can be drawn about the Clinton years. Phillips says that ''the top percentiles became richer than ever while the lower portions of the society lost ground.'' The first part of this statement is correct, but the second isn't. During Clinton's second term, real wages finally began to rise, the result of low unemployment and of Clinton's earned income tax credit. Clinton was certainly not in T.R.'s class as a reformer, but he was by no means a friend of plutocracy..."
Howbout the "era of big government is over" statement? Can Clinton really take credit for low unemployment in the late nineties?
"Phillips's division of American politics among plutocrats, progressives and radicals is not altogether mistaken. It's just that the tripartition has been going on since at least 1992 and has been central to every subsequent presidential election. The two Bushes and Bob Dole represented, with appropriate reservations, the party of business and the market; Clinton and Gore were, for better or worse, representatives of a new T.R.-style progressivism; and Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot (and to some extent Ralph Nader) represented an angry economic nationalism..."
And the gratuitous Nader bash.
Peter