For Christmas, my girlfriend bought me a book we've long been hearing about on the Thom Hartmann radio show (we both listen to religiously, by the way). Its "The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution Against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos" by the economist, Ravi Batra of the Southern Methodist University. What follows, dear reader, is both my review and (mostly) my polemic.
The book is Ravi Batra's indictment against the dominance of supply-side economics in our culture and its weighted heavily with cogent arguments, deft facts, and swift groin-kicking for the endless pro-supply punditry that has been the staple of American media. Is it even accurate to say that Reagonomic, suppply-side dogma has been a part of our media? Its been more than that. Much more. It has been infused into our culture from the bottom to the top, top to bottom. It has been inserted into our text books, rallied for by chair-holding professors at prominent universities, it has been indoctrinated into our youth, our working class, even our judicial system. In the short 30 years since its inception and dissemination by the right-wing thinkers, supply-side economics has become the very fabric of American trade, business, and politics.
Batra is not the only economist in the world with eyes on widening the discourse in the country, but he does have a keen pulse on the underlying currents: what's been causing this shift toward supply thinking. He's central argument is a simple one and a damning one, too. It is nothing short of corruption in the political system that is driving the call, and it continues still to this day, for Reagonomics and its supply-side fiddling.
We all feel it, we all know it: there is corruption rampant in our government today. We see its more obvious manifestations when our representatives are forced out of office, almost on a monthly basis, for some crime or misconduct or abuse of power. It's become so common the headlines barely draw the eye anymore. We accept the terms politics and corruption as near synonyms. But with The New Golden Age, Batra makes the case that corruption can only be tolerated for so long in society. Most importantly, he demonstrates from history how cycles of corruption and revolution change culture ever for the better. Unlike most books about current events these days, you put it down with a feeling of hope for the future rather than than disgust with the present. This is a real feat for a book that centers on the nasty and destructive tendencies of our economic system. Thank Batra's ever-present optimism for that. Reading the book, you feel that history his behind you, that though society may seem misguided and hopeless at the moment, that similar periods of history have been just as bad, if not worse, and have led with regularity into periods of drastic change for the better.
A central argument in the book is the concept of civilized history as cyclical. This is not a new idea, but Batra, primarily an economist, not a historian, turns it into a predictive tool. Dividing cyclical periods of historical change into class distinction of ruling parties, the books presents four periods that occur with clockwork regularity: the age of Laborers, the age of Warriors, the age of Intellectuals, and the age of Acquisitors. One inevitably follows the previous. He argues further, and I find it hard to deny, that we are currently advanced in a new age of Acquisitors, the entrepreneurial, money-making class.
Money pervades American society and the world at large. When we talk about economics, we talk about money. When we talk about politics and elections, we talk about money. When talk about religion, or medicine, business, science, entertainment, or relationships, money enters the conversation. Our democratic government, unique in all of history, has enabled this rise of monetary dominance. When an office of civil service is open for election, whether it be Senator, President, Mayor, or County Clerk, great favor inevitably goes to those with cash. Money buys airtime in the media, it buys the ability to control the dialog of ideas, it buys friends and support, and as we've seen with the recent Blagojevich case in Illinois it can sometimes allow the outright purchasing of an elected office. Nothing in a democracy, as it exists today, can occur without the presence of tremendous funding and every power of the government goes to those who have it. Do our intellectuals, laborers, or warriors have such opportunity? Hell no.
With power comes the favor of the other classes. Acquisitors dominate and in attempts to flatter, enable, and join them the other classes relent greater and greater concessions to them. Warriors fight acquisitor's resource wars and help send the spoils to the wealthy. Intellectuals devise models and philosophies that justify the behavior of acquisition and work to mute the moral compunctions that follow. Laborers labor, build the products and perform the services that generate wealth for those already wealthy. In reward, money flows from the ruling class to each of the subjugated classes.
Profit is never enough for the acquisitors, argues Batra (and me). As their age of dominance progresses, they demand more and more of the supporting classes. Labor intensifies as a sole means of substance in an economy for the middle class. Pursuits of the warrior (exploration, law enforcement, sports) and the intellectual (writing, research, religion) become more and more compromised by the need to survive in an economy that favors the rich. As a result, they are forced to work directly in the thrall of acquisition as manufacturers and service providers. There becomes only two classes at this point: the acquisitor and the laborer. Other historical ages of this sort come to mind, periods like the feudal Middle Ages and the Industrial revolution, periods of economic inequity where the wealth of countries is concentrated in the hands of a small population of rich and the mass of people struggle to survive on the scraps.
Supply-side economics, argues Batra, is little more than a intellectual justification of this trend. The wealth will "trickle down" say the affluent. "Tax cuts for the wealthy stimulates job growth," "what's good for the rich is good for the poor," are all mantras we've heard repeated over and over in the past 30 years. But to what end? Batra shows economic evidence that end has been precisely for the betterment of those already better off. Gross Domestic Product in America has slowed. Consumer confidence is at an all time low. Real wages have fallen. Job growth is the lowest its ever been. And yet the divide between the haves and have nots has never been greater. The percentage of wealth controlled by the top one percent of the population has doubled in the last 25 years to 40%. A man working for a living is taxed 35% through income (and pays payroll and sales tax as well) while a man earning dividends and capital gains is taxed hardly %15 at the most extreme. With sufficient loopholes in tax law, corporation pay hardly an tax at all. This is the current state of America and the bias for the wealthy is palpable, the disparity is glaring.
As the name "The New Golden Age," implies, not all hope is lost. At the end of the Middle Ages the peasantry revolted and enacted reform laws that stimulated the growth of the merchant class. At the end of the Industrial Revolution, unions banded together, raised wages, and formed the basis of the American middle class. And now it is our turn, argues Batra, to take up the warrior mantle and fight for our stake in the future of our own lives and country. I wonder though, will history play out the same as it always has. Have the times changed so drastically that the cycle may have fizzled? Are we too steeped in distraction of our time, television, internet, games? Are we too involved in the minutia of our daily lives, our relationships, our dramas, our creature comforts, our work, to step out of the status quo for a moment and realize our place beneath a giant heel? The peasantry never had cable television, two-car garages, or Campbell's soup. The unions never had weekends or energy drinks. The means of revolution are available to us, that much is for sure. We have the capacity, if we speak in one voice and act with one mind, to dethrone the greed, the inhumane, the selfish who have mired us in inequity. But in the end do we have the stomach for it? Do have the momentum, the inner drive, the balls?
Batra believes so. Me, I'm not so sure, but there's hope for me still.
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