Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "conservative"

Men On Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream—and Why It Matters by Helen Smith, New York, Encounter Books, 2013. The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant, New York, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1968, 1996)Will Durant 1968

Page 73 tells Smith’s tale and suggests more clues to the 2016 election. On page 73 she reproduced a graph of Median Earnings of men 25 to 64. Whether they were working full time or not, their wages rose from 1965 to 1975, then dropped dramatically and were still dropping in 2010. (U.S. Census data and the Bookings Institute Hamilton Project).

This and other observations suggest why our productivity has risen but all its profits have gone to the wealthy. The solutions to the frustrations and rage this engenders become obvious as you read Will and Ariel Durant’s observations in their book The Lessons of History (New York, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1968, 1996). Note those dates.

Here’s a quote from page 92: “Taxes may be moved to the point of discouraging capital investment and production stimulus…[However,] The concentration of wealth may disrupt the nation in class or race war.”

The answer is clear—a reasoned balance between what is called “progressive” or “conservative.” We can’t let those labels keep us from finding workable compromises. Integrity, not identity, should be a personal goal so that minds and hearts can find a way to a secure future.

The Durants end their little book with this: “If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has credited it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all; and a martial government will engulf the democratic world.

by E.J. Dunne Jr., Simon and Schuster, N.Y., 2016.

This is a short summary of the author’s take on conservation history in the United States. --his review of the politics of the Reagan, Goldwater, Nixon, and Reagan years: I was surprised to read that, “Urged by Democrat Moynihan, Nixon pushed for the Family Assistance Plan…minimum guaranteed income for poor families.” Though skilled at arguing for a “conservative position,” he called “essential…all aspects of Social Security. At the same time he made cuts that “hit programs for low-income Americans.” A master of contradictions, he “could live with a good deal of cognitive dissonance between his public statements and his practice.”

Sound familiar.?

Bush was noted for raising the income rate from 28% to31%, whereas Reagan “established tax-cutting as a central…tenet of…Conservative dogma. Then came Clinton, calling Republicans the party of the rich and special interests. The author notes that “Republicans moved right” while Democrats took more of the center. “The white South…became solidly Republican.” In 1990 50% of white southerners had voted for Democratic House candidates. In 1994 “50% of white Southerners had voted for Democratic House candidates ; in 1994, only 36 percents did.” In 2010 that number was “down to 27%.” In Congress rules were changed to require “a three-fifths majority to pass a tax increase.” At the same time tax and welfare cuts were made.

President Clinton noted that “the new congress…was well to the right of the American people,” and would propose cuts in education, health care, and the environment in order to pay for tax cuts and defenses increases. Voters preferred the opposite . The problem continued to be that politicians mistake “…their own opinions for the views of the vast majority…” In the late nineties radio and television grew rapidly and widened the gap between the right and rest of the country.

We are still paying an ever-growing price for that gap. Immigration and differences in marriage issues increased as talk radio got into the fray. Suburbanites, swing voters, were 41% Democratic in 2002 and 51% in 2006. Conservation took a “hard right turn” in the Bush years. Then George W. Bush gave the banks a 700 billion bank bailout in 2008, enraging “free-market purists” Was this a slippery slope to corporate socialism? Such Big-government spending was seen by the left as a barrier to health coverage, poverty and inequality. In the Obama years the Tea Party was still struggling with stagnant wages.

Americans are still divided, as money enters the divide. The wealthy fear the country is moving toward “socialist oppression.” However, “Opposition to big government did not extend to …medicare and social Security. Meanwhile, abortion, religion, Hilary Clinton, and immigration joined the fray. Thinking was more “winner take all” than patriotism. Thinking on all topics grew mindlessly absolute hard edges.

This book suggests that we are better than that. As we face the dire challenge of the Covid virus, we should ease back and find well-thought out solutions for the future. We don’t need to let our voices distort the debate. We can ask honest questions, like why are American conservatives the only ones in any of the wealthy democracies to oppose a universal guarantee for access to health insurance?