Class War in America: How Economic and Political Conservatives Are Exploiting Low- and...

CLASS WAR IN AMERICA: HOW ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONSERVATIVES ARE EXPLOITING LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME AMERICANS. By Charles M. Kelly. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Fithian Press, 2000. 237 pages. $15.95.

Charles M. Kelly calls his book Class War in America, but it could just about as easily have been

called Class War in America and the Language of Conservative Politics. That's because this book really has two themes. First, as the title suggests, it is an analysis of how conservative policies, both economic and social, have hurt not only the poor but most working Americans. The term "working Americans" includes anyone who is not a member of what Kelly calls the "wealthy class," those people who "don't work yet make huge amounts of money" (p. 76). Second, and almost as important, it de-constructs the language and tactics used by conservatives to sell Americans their economic and social medicine.

Kelly makes both arguments by carefully combing through, comparing, and noting the contradictions between editorials and news stories from the major conservative newspapers and magazines, including Forbes, Business Week, and The Wall Street Journal. The examples are illustrative. When the conservative press praise and support right-to-work and other anti-union legislation as being good for workers, Kelly argues it is as if they were ignoring the constant stream of articles (appearing in their own publications) that attribute low inflation and increased inequality during the 1990s to weaker unions and increased free trade (the implication being that unions actually yield some positive benefits for their members and society as a whole).1

This must mean that these editorial writers either (a) are unaware of the widely held view that low inflation and inequality follow from weaker unions, i.e., haven't read their own newspapers; (b) have not considered the link between their anti-union opinions and this widely held view; (c) disagree with the widely held view; or (d) are aware of and believe the widely held view but choose to cynically ignore it because they're really only interested in defending their own class interests.

From all appearances, it looks like Kelly believes that most editorial writers fit into response (d) or, at best and with the benefit of the doubt, (b). He notes, for example, that when "conservatives talk about getting `big government out of your hair,' they really mean out of their hair" (p. 175). Or when the Republicans, editorialists, and other political pundits talk about abolishing the so-called "death tax" (otherwise known as the estate tax), they never mention the fact that this tax affects only the richest 1 percent or 2 percent of the population. Instead, they talk about repealing the tax so that "On principle, every family, every farmer and small businessperson, should be free to pass on their life's work to those they love."2

The rest of Kelly's book comprises similar arguments. He cites, for example, articles in The Wall Street Journal that make it clear that tax increases in the 1993 deficit reduction legislation were not the "largest in history," contrary to the frequent claim of Republicans. Instead, they were targeted almost exclusively at the rich.

In a similar fashion, Kelly takes on other longstanding conservative shibboleths such as the belief that economic growth always means higher wages, the supposed need for and benefits of privatizing social security, and the view that government is inherently wasteful and deserving of contempt. He also laments what he believes to be an implicit conservative ethos of glorifying greed and materialism. This in turn lends itself to acquiescence in the face of a "a growing American royal class."

The Lineage

Kelly's book taps into some powerful currents in American history. In its analysis of the growing "royal class," Kelly seems to be concerned that American society may be shedding its Republican skin and becoming more like Britain's, where class is more rigid and visible.

His class-based analysis bears some affinity to the work of Thorstein Veblen and especially his seminal theory of the leisure class, which analyzed the cultural foibles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century elite. Interestingly, this too was an era of "unbridled prosperity" when many people became fabulously rich very quickly. This too was a period of technological change, albeit on a far more revolutionary scale (Gordon 2000). This too was a period of massive immigration that effectively kept labor "in its place." Together, these forces conspired, as they do today, to create a public discourse that refused to acknowledge those left behind, the dangers of a society that glorifies greed and "easy money," or the systematic forces that keep most people down.

In its content analysis, Kelly's approach is reminiscent of the dogged work of I. F. Stone and even Noam Chomsky, both of whom took publicly available documents and consistently found glaring contradictions, outright falsehoods, and glaring omissions.

Weaknesses

For the academic economist or political scientist, Kelly's work will probably fall short of the mark because it mostly ignores theoretical arguments that could have buttressed his case. As JEI readers know, there are many schools of economic thought that explicitly acknowledge class antagonisms, including theories in the Keynesian and especially Marxian traditions. Drawing ties between these theories and his research might have given some theoretical "oomph" to Kelly's otherwise excellent work.

Then again, Kelly almost certainly didn't intend his work for academics. His language is colorful and passionate. His text is peppered with the word "screwed" to describe the plight of workers (see p. 174 for example), hardly the stuff of mainstream academics. This passion is at once this book's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Not for one moment does the reader doubt the sincerity of Kelly's views. However, passion can be a double-edged sword and it sometimes encourages Kelly to get carried away. It is, for example, a bit strong to say that "over the period of forty years between '42 and '82, none of the bad things that conservatives warn about happened. We didn't have massive unemployment, we didn't stifle innovation or economic growth, and, above all we didn't become communists" (p. 128). Surely the post-war high unemployment rate observed in 1982 (9.7 percent) or the combination of rising unemployment, inflation, and slower economic growth in the 1970s should not be so easily dismissed. They were the cornerstone of the Reagan and right-wing revolution and there is some justifiable concern about their recurrence. Again, there are important theoretical explanations for these phenomena outside of mainstream economics that Kelly would probably find appealing without having to resort to denial.

Even the title of the book may deter some readers from buying, let alone reading, what is by all rights a book that should be read by anyone interested in what's likely to happen under the new Republican administration and the rhetoric of the conservative press. Then again, Kelly strikes the reader as a man of principle who is deeply exasperated with the niceties of language that so often hide vile and harmful policies. He speaks to this frustration when he offers up a Truman quip that asks "How many times do you have to get hit on the head before you try to find out who's hitting you?" For Kelly, it is time to find out.

The Way Forward

Not surprisingly given his analysis, Kelly advocates re-regulation of the economy so that firms are no longer forced to compete by lowering labor costs and standards. Similarly, he advocates institutions that would short-circuit the "race to the bottom" logic of pure competition.

He also believes that center-left forces must reclaim the moral high ground and not shy away from arguing that it is, for example, immoral to force workers into situations that make them bear the full brunt of competition against impoverished workers in distant lands. It is immoral for corporations to use the desperation of others as leverage in their contract negotiations. It is also immoral for editorialists, pundits, and politicians to use language that hides these and other truths.

The next step is to find someone, or some party, with the nerve to say all this in blunt terms, as Kelly has in his book. Kelly is, however, relatively pessimistic on this possibility. After dismissing the Republicans, he finds that far too many Democrats should really be considered Republicans and they probably would be if not for age-old political fault lines or pure ambition. He therefore urges voters to direct their attention to third party candidates, anyone who will unabashedly speak the truths and find out who exactly has been waging class war in America.

FOOTNOTE

1.There is considerable empirical support for this view. Thomas I. Palley (1999), for example, has found that as much as 40 percent of the 14 percent increase in income inequality that occurred between 1980 and 1997 could be explained by declining union density. Richard B. Freeman (1996) estimates the effect at closer to 20 percent (which appears to be the consensus view) but argues this figure is "almost certainly an underestimate of the true effect of declining union density on inequality."

2. For an excellent analysis of arguments for and against abolition of the estate tax, see "Resurrecting the Estate Tax" by Gale and Slemrod (2000).

REFERENCE

References

REFERENCE

Freeman, Richard B. "Labor Market Institutions and Earnings Inequality." New England Economic Review (May-June 1996): 157-168.

Gale, William G., and Joel Slemrod. "Resurrecting the Estate Tax." Brookings Institute Policy Brief #62, June 2000.

REFERENCE

Gordon, Robert J. "Does the New Economy Measure up to the Great Inventions of the Past?" Journal ofEconomic Perspectives (Fall 2000).

Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.

Palley, Thomas I. "Accounting for Income Inequality in the U.S.: The Role of Unions, the Minimum Wage, Unemployment, Family Structure, and International Trade." Paper presented at The Jerome Levy Eco

REFERENCE

nomic Institute's Conference: The Macrodynamics of Inequality in the Industrialized and Developing Countries. October 1999.

Stone, I. F. The Haunted Fifties. New York: Vintage Books, 1969.

Veblen, Thorstein. The Writings of Thorstein Veblen: The Theory ofthe Leisure Class. Fairfield, New Jersey, 1991.

AUTHOR_AFFILIATION

MARC-ANDRE PIGEON

Parliamentary Library (Canada)