The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan Aftermath (Random House, 262 pp., $19.95) is a bitter commentary on what its author, Kevin Phillips, calls the “upward redistribution of wealth” during the Reagan Era. Mr. Phillips argues that the current American political structure is at a crossroads, as a result of twenty years of industry deregulation and tax-code restructuring that worked to the advantage of the wealthy.
Mr. Phillips cites two previous periods, the 1920s and the 1880s, as the precedent for his predictions about the political consequences of unbridled capitalism, and concludes that Republican popularity may be in jeopardy unless GOP policymakers “break through the failed consensus into a tough new domestic and international candor.” The Democrats traditionally follow trends and act as “collaborators without inspiration” during Republican “heydays.” So while Mr. Phillips blames the GOP for the nation’s fiscal woes, he chides the Democrats for failing to capitalize on the “decadence” of the upper class— for failing to make class distinctions their dominant issue.
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