Between 1945 and 1975, the vast majority of American politicians were Keynesians, and Americans as a whole were still benefitting from FDR's New Deal, especially programs like the G.I. Bill, which provided free college education to many thousands of men who would have never otherwise had the chance to attend college and get a degree.
So, with Reagan's election to the presidency in 1980, the Republican movers and shakers had their work cut out for them. Their task was to change popular opinion away from being thankful for, and appreciative of, all this government intervention, which had helped build up and increase the size of America's middle class so astoundingly well, and begin programs that would reduce its size and potential political power. As per Lewis Powell's brilliant if diabolical suggestions they did this by spending billions of dollars on a network of think tanks and media outlets that would shake the country out of what it had learned during and since the Great Depression having to do with Keynesian economics and its applications. Never forget what President Nixon said in 1969 when some complained about how much the country was spending (including on social programs): "We're all Keynesians now."
In a very real sense, Reaganism was just a reversion to the political-economic philosophy of President Warren Harding, who said in 1920: "Less government in business; more business in government." In other words, "Deregulate and privatize." And toward that end, the Harding administration was able to drop the top marginal tax rate from 90% down to 25%, which is pretty much what the Reagan administration did 60 years later, after the lessons of the Great Depression were too far in the past for most voters to worry about. (Remember that a marginal tax rate applies only to that income which is in excess of some specified amount, say $3 million in today's dollars, which is the figure FDR used when he raised the marginal rate to 90%.)
Why Revolutionary Changes Re: Corporate Ownership and Decision Making Are Essential
We can't deal effectively with the enemies of the kind of society we want, if all we accomplish is to have the government periodically intervene, but still leave all the basic power and decision making in the hands of big corporations of the traditional kind -- which then suck ever more profits into the hands of their boards of directors and their chief stock holders. It is fundamentally naà ¯ve not to understand that they will use these profits, and the positions they have, to undo the very accomplishments of Keynesianism that "so much" irritates them and that costs them "so much" in the way of high taxes. Unless we can find an effective way to deal with the corporate ownership and control issue, then even when (after years of struggle) we manage to get a Keynesian-based political-economic system (by way of an FDR and another New Deal), we will not be able to keep it, for the reasons described.
Conclusion: We must not only take big money out of politics (by repealing Citizens United and by other means as well), we must also find some way to greatly reduce the vast and growing gap in income and wealth that has been allowed to develop since the mid-1970s. Why is this so important? Because as long as there is such a large gap in wealth and income, the folks with big money will get laws passed that favor their interests and continually increase their power, all at the expense of most everyone else. Many economists, encouraged by the now famous Thomas Piketty, now predict that unless this continuing upward transfer of wealth and power is stopped, and turned around, we will inevitably end up in a kind of neo-feudal society in which 50 families own 90% of the nation's wealth, as well as virtually all the members of Congress.
Professor Wolff's belief is that the main way we can begin to reduce the income and wealth gap is through the development of ever more cooperatives and ever more worker ownership. Here
Here is a long list
of cooperatives in the USA. For more on this
solution of his, go to his web site .
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