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

Phillips, Kevin P

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394559541 ISBN 13: 9780394559544

Publisher: Random House, 1990

Synopsis

Assesses the political and economic implications of America's new rich and their money culture and the future of U.S. politics

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Blending economic analysis and historical comparisons, Phillips ( Mediacracy ) proposes that the legacy of Reagan's presidency includes an enormous concentration of wealth at the top, intensifying pain and inequality for the poor, a massive, mounting debt, and foreigners gobbling up large chunks of America. The losers in this economic polarization include women, racial minorities, young people, single-parent families. Phillips demonstrates that deregulation has especially hurt organized labor, poorer city neighborhoods, people in small towns and rural areas. His analysis linking Reaganism to America's global loss of economic power is compelling. While George Bush keeps "imitating Ike in the 1990s" and refuses to develop a national strategy, post-Reagan Democrats take the blame for failure to resuscitate liberal economic populism. A stunning refutation of George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty , Phillips's dispassionate report offers no solutions yet zeroes in on key problems.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

In this extremely readable description of the economic consequences of the "Reagan revolution" of the 1980s, Phillips relies on diverse empirical data to support the notion that there is a cyclical pattern in American politics. Like the 1880s and the 1920s, the 1980s, says Phillips, represented the ascendancy of the Republican party, which allowed the wealthy to make even further dramatic gains over the middle and lower classes. This "circulation of elites" notion points to a populist backlash and possible return of the Democratic party to the presidency in the 1990s, he says. His critique fits nicely with the work of Arthur M. Schlesinger and the pioneering turn-of-the-century European social scientists Roberto Michels and Vilfredo Pareto.
- William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0394559541
• ISBN 13: 9780394559544
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 262