The Trickle-Down Delusion de John Seip

The Trickle-Down Delusion

John Seip

Dee Wood Harper

From inside the book: Since 1980, the economy has been growing, and productivity has been growing, but trickle-down values that we, the American people promote, pursuant to the Republican Party s conservative ideology have rigged the economy to continuously upwardly redistribute those revenues attributable to our increased productivity, yielding a productivity/wage disconnect, resulting in increased concentration of income and wealth at the top, in corporations and among older Americans (beneficiaries of income from Social Security, pensions and investments and continuing income due to delaying retirement), and the lowest percentage of GDP attributable to wages and highest attributable to profits since World War II. But trickle-down has not only distorted our economic thought; it has also distorted our political thought, our sociology and our concept of the rule of law. The result has been that the trickle-down policies promoted by the Republican Party are undermining our economy, democracy, institutions and health. "

Citește tot Restrânge

Notă biografică

John Seip is a lawyer and oil and gas landman and regulatory practitioner whose career has been spent entirely in a corporate setting, including having spent several years working with corporate lobbyists, congressional staffers, trade groups and agencies in Washington, DC on energy projects. He worked as a Republican volunteer in the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan in 1980, supported Libertarian Party candidate Ron Paul in the presidential campaign of 1988, and worked as a Democratic volunteer in the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. He has a B.A. in Sociology from Louisiana State University and a J.D. from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University. Dee Wood Harper, Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Criminology at Loyola University New Orleans. His research has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Sociological Spectrum, Annals of Tourism Research, International Journal of Law and Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Applications, Criminal Justice Review, Homicide Studies, Deviant Behavior, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, and American Behavioral Scientist. He is also the co-editor and co-author of several books including Violence: Do We Know It When We See It? and Why Violence: Leading Questions Regarding the Conceptualization and Reality of Violence in Society, Crime and Criminal Justice in Disaster, 3rd edition (2015), the foremost book on this topic, Fundamentals of Criminology: New Dimensions, 2nd edition (2015), Preventing Lethal Violence in New Orleans, a Great American City, 2015 and Toward a Criminology of Disaster under contract and coming in 2016. He earned a B.A. from George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. He is also a life-long Democrat whose father, upon graduating from the University of Georgia in 1934 in the midst of the Great Depression, went to work with the Civilian Conservation Corp, cutting firebreaks in the south Georgia piney woods.

Cuprins

Preface: A Call to Action Acknowledgements Introduction: Triumph of the Delusion That to Help the Middle Class and Poor Policies Must Help the Rich Rebirth of the Delusion that to Help the Middle Class and Poor Policies Must Help the Rich Ideology and Terminology The Metric and the Argument PART I: THE DELUSIONAL TRICKLE-DOWN CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN VIRTUAL REALITY BUBBLE AND LIBERAL REFUSAL TO CONFRONT IT Chapter 1: The Delusional Trickle-Down Conservative Republican Virtual Reality Bubble and the 2012, 2014 and 2016 Elections and Beyond The Romney-Ryan Campaign: ¿We Built It¿ On Deception Conservatism¿s Moral Universe of ¿Makers¿ versus ¿Takers¿ Chapter 2: Democrats Must Elaborate on and Sustain an Anti-Trickle-Down Narrative to Defeat Republicans Barack Obama versus Trickle-Down The Liberal Preference to Psychoanalyze The Liberal Inability to Communicate with Middle America PART II: THE TRICKLE-DOWN DELUSIONS Chapter 3: Trickle-Down: Enabling Realization of the Dream to Make the ¿Holy Rollers Lie Down with the High Rollers¿ The Shared Authoritarian Hierarchical Vision of Trickle-Down Conservatism¿s Elements Conservatism¿s Melding of Godliness and Selfishness Trickle-Down Conservatism Mirrors Sixties Liberalism Chapter 4: Trickle-Down Conservatism versus the Facts Facts Confronting the Delusions Supporting the Trickle-Down Delusion How the Facts of Trickle-Down¿s Failure Were Hidden in Economic Theory Chapter 5: Trickle-Down Conservatism versus the Classical Liberalism It Claims for Inspiration Liberal Democracy¿s Trickle-Up Vision versus the Illiberal Vision of Trickle-Down How Trickle-Down Conservatism Undermines Liberal Democracy The Parallel Evolutions (for the Worse) of Hayek and Conservatism Chapter 6: Trickle-Down Conservatism versus Public Opinion The View from Inside the Bubble: Stay the Trickle-Down Course A Call for a Conservatism That Is Fact Based, Not Faith Based Chapter 7: A Narrative of Trickle-Down Failure: The Productivity/Wage Disconnect The Productivity/Wage Disconnect Failure to Share the Revenues from Productivity Growth Yields Massive Growth in Inequality Why Revenues from Productivity Growth Are Not Shared: We Demand They Not Be Models Illustrating the Effects of Trickle-Down Austerity Causes Slow Growth, Which Increases Deficits A Summary Narrative of Trickle-Down Failure Chapter 8: Trickle-Down¿s Rule of Law: Power to the Propertied and Powerful Introduction to the Rule of Law The Privilege Accompanying Property Ownership Institutionalization of the Political Process as a ¿Free Market¿¿Rigged in Favor of the Propertied The Bush v. Gore ¿Second Bite¿ Doctrine Enunciating Equal Protection Weighted in Favor of the Propertied How ¿Freedom¿ Becomes an Anti-Democratic Bludgeon Wielded on Behalf of the Propertied Extending the Rule of the Propertied and Powerful by Other Means The Rule of Law in the ¿War on Terror¿ PART III: TRICKLE-UP: THE WAY THE WORLD REALLY WORKS Chapter 9: The Information Revolution, Globalization and Trickle-Down Versus the Poor and Middle Class The Importance of a Job to Social Status and Self-Esteem The Negative Effects of the Information Revolution and Globalization Compounded by Trickle-Down Why the Conservative Culture of Poverty Theory Fails Chapter 10: How Liberal Institutions Work for the Poor and Middle Class The Constancy of Connectedness¿and Conflict How Institutions Help Us Prevent Self-Interest from Destroying Humanity Institutions as Mediating Structures and How Conservatism Undermines Them Illiberal Democracy and Totalitarianism ¿Coercive Democracy¿ or the ¿Shock Doctrine¿: Trickle-Down¿s Ignorance of the Importance of Institutions Applied Abroad with Missionary Zeal Maximizing Institutional Functioning Chapter 11: The Liberal Value of Equality¿and Why Government Policies MustSupport a Strong Middle Class Inequality Undermines Our Economy, Democracy, Institutions and Health Inequality Undermines Economic Growth and Social Mobility and Economic and Socio-Political Stability Equality Is a Matter of Life and Death Because Inequality Impairs Health and Shortens Life Spans The Necessity of a Strong Middle Class¿in Theory and Evidence Conclusion: Inequality Causes Inequality and Other Problems, Requiring Government Solutions Chapter 12: The Liberal Values of Checks and Balances, Knowledge, Tolerance, Peace and the Rule of Law The System of Societal Checks and Balances Respect for Knowledge Tolerance Peace and Nonviolent Resistance Rule of Law Conclusion: Liberal Values are Necessary Complements to Capitalism and Democracy Chapter 13: Trickle-Up: A Bottom-Up, Post-Bubble Growth Model Based on Growing the Middle Class Preliminary Thoughts on Liberalism and Trickle-Up Trickle-Up Theory from Smith, Tocqueville and Others A Trickle-Up Narrative Chapter 14: Liberal Reclaiming of the American Dream Domestic Policy Recommendations ¿If You Want to Live Like a Republican, You Have to Vote Democrat¿ Index

Descriere

Trickle-down values have distorted not only our economic thought but also our political thought, our sociology and our concept of the rule of law. The trickle-down policies promoted by the Republican Party are undermining our economy, democracy, institutions and health. We, the American people, must return to liberalism that works.