larry bartels, unequal democracy (2008)

chapter 1

(2): economic inequality shapes politics is half of this book. other half is that politics profoundly shapes economics.

(3, 30, 60): claim #1--partisan politics have had a substantial impact on the economic fortunes of the middle class and the poor. real incomes of working poor families have grown six times as fast under democrats, real incomes of the middle class have grown twice as fast. a great deal of economic inequality is attributable to republican policies and priorities. (chapter 2) [there is an acknolwedgement on pg. 30 that some of these differences have been 'muted'--this begs explanation]

(3-4): claim #2--party image of white conservative working-class is largely mythical. this group has become more democratic. (chapter 3)

(4): claim #3--there are three reasons that republicans have fared so well over the past half-century, despite this (chapter 4)

1. myopic focus of voters on recent economic performance
2. high sensitivity to income-growth, which means that Republican's success in generating election-year income growth helps them
3. responsiveness of voters to campaign spending rewards Republicans' advantage in campaign fund-raising

(4): claim #5 (#4 is views on inequality--see chapter 5)--public income regarding the tax cuts was remarkably confused, despite egalitarian beliefs (chapter 6)

(5): claim #6--puzzle of the federal estate tax--which would have been repealed much earlier, had the political system been responsive to peoples' preferences. (chapter 7)

(5): claim #7--a 40% decline in the real value of the minimum wage since the late 1960s, despite consistent and strong public support for it. (chapter 8)

(5): claim #8--US Senators views are explained much better by their own partisan preferences than by the preferences of their constituents. where their constituents do matter, it is their affluent and middle-class constituents (the views of ordinary citizens have no discernible impact) (chapter 9).

(6): this book provides strong evidence that economic inequality has a profound impact on the political process.

(7): massive cumulative influence in divergent real income growth over the past half-century (real incomes of 20th percentile increased by less than 15,000 dollars; at the 9th percentile, 130,000 dollars) [see the charts on pages 8 and 9]

(9): much of the income growth that did appear was attributable to increases in working hours.

(13): the dramatic economic gains of the past 30 years have, in fact, been concentrated among the extremely rich

(14): [very deceptive use of polling data here -- 'many americans', when really the figure is quite low, and less than those who disagree that income differentials are necessary]

(15): 255 of the 400 richest people were 'self-made' -- interesting...

(17): citing Krugman to make clear that income stagnation is not explained by technological/sectoral change (how do you explain stagnation of mathemeticians and computer scientists; while CEO salaries jump by 100%?)

(19-20): tendency to totally ignore the 'political dimension' [again, this is important -- but it needs to be tempered. welfare cuts? glass-steagall?]

(22-23): interesting bit about media and inequality (how can you have ads for vacations to the caymans interspersed with analyses of inequality?)

(24-25): importance of government fiscal policy, taxation, central bank operations, debt management, banking, trade and tariffs, bailouts -- all this is agreed, no doubt. but needs, again, tempering [can we think about the 'autonomy' of the State, as it relates to this discussion? in other words, we might have a proxy for partisan effects in strength of labor movement, or even something else?]

chapter 2

(29): key--you need a response to this book's emphasis on political facts that can accomodate both

1. the limits of those partisan effects (and here can enter talk of state 'autonomy')
2. the underlying structural 'facts' (and here can enter some assessment of the narrowness of the regimes he's talking about -- really, the only Democrat that enters this analysis is Clinton. differences may be important (the EITC, for example), but the similarities are critical too (failed health reform, welfare reform, etc.)

(30): nice chart illustrating partisan difference

(35): and a nice chart, also, to problematize the question of Democrats in the neoliberal age [under carter inequality jumps (volcker shock, anyone?); under clinton it's steady, though if there hadn't been a decline in the first year there would have been an increase (what explains this blip?). this is quite strong evidence for point 2, above. part of the problem is the 'blackboxing' of social and technological trends, which allows him to talk about the long-term trends without any notion of partisan complicity. we need to respond to this point, as well]

(41): income growth for the 95th percentile has been remarkably stable, across regimes and across time.

(44): example of richard nixon, certainly, is illustrative--he pursues a contractionary policy before pursuing an inflationary policy confronted with the election campaign. here, certainly, we can agree that partisan effects mattered.

(45): same with gerald ford -- launches the whip inflation now policy, before calling for a one-year tax rebate in 1976

(46): the portrayal of Carter is deceptive -- where is the Volcker shock? the shock to the economy is presented as exogenous.

(50): unemployment and GNP growth preferable under democrats; inflation roughly equal.

(53): the 'honeymoon' effect -- first-year of their terms is when presidents have their most significant effects

(58): important--noting that it has become more difficult for presidents to influence pre-tax income. this is an important point about the neoliberal age, which is left implicit in the rest of the argument, i think. but obviously the other point, about taxes and the partisan policies, is important and shouldn't be neglected.

chapter 3

(66): argument--three questions, answer to all is no.

1. has the white working-class abandoned the democratic party?
2. has the white working class become more conservative?
   
3. do moral values trump economics as a basis of working-class?
   

(68): Brooks' definition of the 'white working class', clearly suspect; Bartels offers three reasons on 69-70.

(72-74): to the first question, no--it has not, the opposite trend is observed when you split the data up the way Bartels has. Republicans, in fact, win by 18 percentage points amongst high-income whites.

(77-78): what we have seen has everything to do with an erosion of Democratic support in the South, where the party's stance on civil rights and Jim Crow cost it the white vote. this is quite stark, actually.

(78-83): to the second question, no--hese are his attempt to assess views on gov't spending, etc., and he sees little evidence on the core issues [would have been preferable to use a cumulative measure, here]

(84, 86, 89): to the third question, no--combined weight attached to the economic issues exceeds the importance given to cultural issues by voters. he does find that american politics is increasingly about cultural issues, but still primarily about economic issues. evidence that higher-income voters attach more importance to cultural issues, than lower-income voters.

(90): to a fourth question, also more-or-less no--churchgoers might attach more importance to cultural issues, but this obscures differences amongst churchgoers.

(95): class politics are alive and well in the US--in fact, citing a huber and stanig study that shows that the gap in right-wing electoral suport is larger in the US, than Europe.

chapter 4

(98-99): argument--the puzzle of republican success despite their terrible performance is explained by three forms of myopia that characterizes voters:

1. voters responds most to income growth in election years
2. election-year income growth is more consequential for affluent families--much more so than for middle-class and poor families. part of this is the special kind of false-consciousness he adduces, it would seem (see graph on 105)
   
3. voters are swayed by campaign-spending (pg. 120)
   

(107): in a FN he says that Nixon presided over a booming economy--really?

(111, 125): a special kind of false-consciousness--american voters most sensitive to the fortunes of high-income voters

chapter 5

(129): argument-- two important conclusions from this chapter

1. strong evidence of the importance of egalitarian values in American political culture
2. at the same time, the increasing inequality of the last three decades hasn't had a marked effect on public perceptions (this is a place to talk more about false-consciousness, ideology, etc.)

chapter 6

(164): argument--example of the Bush tax cuts is an excellent example of disconnect between egalitarian sentiments and policy preferences (most people, in fact, hadn't thought about the cuts--page 188). there is considerable latitude given to the political system, he's arguing [this is the wrong way of interpreting this, i would argue]

chapter 7

(198): argument--perplexing story of the estate tax repeal. most people in favor of repeal, though it would benefit only the super-rich. in fact it proves the stubbornness of the political system.

chapter 8

(226-227): argument--paradox of why minimum wage hasn't been raised. explanations include:

1. declining stregnth of labor unions (pg. 240)
   
2. partisan politics--republican presidents and republican congresses (pg. 243)
   
3. alternative policy, like the earned income tax credit (pg. 246)
   

(228): study shows that moderate increase in the minimum wage didn't have the effect anticipated by the orthodoxy.

(248): he notes the critical importance of lobbying and corporate interests [strange that this doesn't figure in the explanation, directly.]

(251): demonstrates the unresponsiveness of political institutions in the US

chapter 9

(253): the premise of this presentation is emphatically pluralist--it is the miliband-style critique, of the sort that poulantzas scorned.

(253-254): argument--senators in this period (late 80's, early 90's) were vastly more responsive to the their affluent constituents, than to their constituents of modest means. (see the stark graphs on pg. 261 and pg. 270)

(262): "equal representation of incomes" not "equal representation of citizens"

(277): divergent knowledge levels is not an explanation

(280): important--if senators responded only to campaign contributions, they would respond in a way that accords with the data seen in this chapter.

chapter 10

(285): preferences of low-income people have no discernible impact on the political process.

(287): schumpeter quote

(288-289): bright spots--there are many affluent people with egalitarian views

(290): speaking of 'ideological polarization' -- but this is fundamentally not helpful. all he is saying is that party unity has hardened. push back here.

(292): push back here, too--Democrats have pursued policies for the have-nots(!), Republicans for the haves -- again, this is a clear case where he is not being nuanced in the conclusions drawn from his data.

After investing some three billion dollars in Afghanistan's destruction during the Cold War, Washington and its allies now proved parsimonious in the reconstruction funds they offered. At that 2002 Tokyo conference, international donors promised just four billion dollars of an estimated $10 billion needed to rebuild the economy over the next five years. In addition, the total U.S. spending of $22 billion for Afghanistan from 2003 to 2007 turned out to be skewed sharply toward military operations, leaving, for instance, just $237 million for agriculture. (And as in Iraq, significant sums from what reconstruction funds were available simply went into the pockets of Western experts, private contractors, and their local counterparts.)

On average, a tanker fills up six times a day, Sagar said, siphoning as much as 41% of the city's daily water supply, an amount that generates $43 million annually for tanker owners, according to Orangi.

problem, again, is to adduce a structural mechanism by which the State would align itself with the capitalist class.

in Poulantzas, we have the mechanism of 'atomization', via 'citizenship' (but this doesn't explain how the capitalist class is 'organized', as a counter-tendency).

we are left with an account of disorganization, then, but not what we're looking for.

- - - - -

this week's readings also take on 'instrumental' theories, as did Poulantzas. Offe raises an additional problem—it will have to be accompanied by a 'masking' effect (otherwise the State will run into a legitimacy problem). Offe does not take a clear position, though; more sets the stage.

Block adduces a mechanism. the need to maintain 'business confidence'--to maintain a healthy economic climate. if policies are proposed which have the effect of convincing firms and investors that will bring in a less-than-acceptable rate of return, the reaction will be to slow down the pace of investment, to exit, or even to go on an investment strike. all this spells disaster, for the regime. States will find it in their own interests, in short, to attend to the preferences of capitalists.

this is a feature of the Capitalist state, insofar as the State doesn't possess an independent source of surplus generation.

in the actual practice of State reproduction, State managers internalize the imperative of keeping 'business confidence' alive. they know that the key to their success, is this—State managers actively solicit the cooperation of capitalists. You don't hazard approaching those limits (in this sense, it doesn't work so much as a 'constraint'). And this reinforces the class-bias of the State.

To the untheoretical observer, this may look like 'influence'. But this is not the case.

Regardless, all this raises a question. How do you get the New Deal? How do you get Social Democracy? Block's answer is class struggle.

But this needs to be filled out, a bit.

The mere existence of class struggle will not induce the effect of concession. It is only when class struggle is able to make it cheaper to enact reforms than to oppose them (when it imposes 'costs') that this happens. When mobilization gets to the point that political demands are made, it is better to appease workers than to risk losing power altogether.

To an extent, for politicians, the mobilization of the working-class counteracts the power of the capitalists. Aggregation of the working-class cannot be ignored (in other words, the worker has to overcome the constitutional collective action problem).

At the same time, this also imposes two costs on politicians:

1. they may lose tax revenues

2. workers represent blocs of political power, that might threaten the politicians.

In other words, 'space' is opened up for the State. 'Autonomy' from the ruling class is increased (the State, don't forget, is always autonomous from labor—the puzzle, for Marxists, is when it can be more or less autonomous from capitalists)

The structural theories of the State don't mean to explain the whole gamut of State action. Argument here is that they make themselves apparent at critical junctures. You rarely actually 'see' them. A set of 'nested constraints'. [Not sure this makes sense to me]

Regardless, when labor's power increases, these regular constraints widen.

Jason stanley, "comrades or competitors?"

(12): challenges to solidarity in global market, for three reasons

1. inequality is greater in global market
2. cross-border immobility--capital mobility increases price elasticity for labor, from perspective of capital [but would they not still be competing, for jobs, even if there were mobility?]
3. an appreciating currency increases the price of labor; workers have no control over appreciation/depreciation, yet it will provoke cross-border hostility

(23-24): in the aftermath of the Auto Pact--because of appreciation in the US dollar beginning in the mid-70's, real wage costs were lower in Canada till the mid-80's. this made the crisis of the late 70's less severe, and the recovery of the early 80's stronger. [in this narrative, currency appreciation is at the forefront -- but not clear how labor immobility is working to undermine solidarity? isn't it more like divergent skill?]

(30-31): since cabotage routes were not part of the liberalization agreement and since freight was a small part of the IBT for american workers, there was muted response, on their part. canadians were more up-in-arms after liberalization of their half in the late 80's--in '86, a nationalist proposal was defeated; but in '89, it passed. importance of political economy ftw!

ralph miliband, "state power and class interests" (1983)

(57): guiding question--"how great a degree of autonomy does the state have in capitalist society?"

(58): two views in Marx

1. State as instrument of a ruling class
2. State as 'independent from and superior to all social classes' (Bonapartism as extreme example)

(58): in dialogue with Poulantzas, a distinction, Miliband is arguing, had to be made between:

1. the State acting on behalf of the ruling class (defensible)
   
2. the State acting on behest of the ruling class (vulgar deformation)

(59): the question of whether Marxist theories share a problematic with democratic pluralist views of the State [this is what Block and Offe are concerned with, too]

(60): Theda Skocpol's view of the State, two readings (first favorable, second excessive)

1. the interests that the State may have, on its own, and the question of how that intersects with the interests of the ruling class (important amendment, miliband is saying)
   
2. the possibility that the State possesses interests that are fundamentally opposed to the interests of all forces in society (excessive conception of autonomy)

(61-62): at some level, my reading is that he is suggesting here that, in Marxism thus far, there have been, in a sense, two sources of the autonomy of the State:

1. class struggle--the extent to which struggle challenges the hegemony of the ruling classes
2. also, functional--to better serve the existing order and the dominant class
   

(61): US as the country which comes closest to total capitalist hegemony (no feudal heritage, weak labor movement)

(62): key--this does not satisfy him--yes, the foregoing bit about sources of autonomy is important, and yes, the dynamic of State action is explained by the imperative requirements of capitalism and the pressure of captialists--but this is not the whole story. there are to main impulses that give the State an 'autonomous' kind of interest [whereas the previous autonomy had everything to do with capitalism, in a sense, this is more about the State, it seems]

1. self-interest--people in power wish to retain it.
   
2. the 'national interest', as a motivation for those in power [this is much weaker than the first, I think--can be thought of as a 'legitimation', in fact. for the 'national interest' is naught but ideology, surely]

(64): "these twin concerns encompass, or at least seek to encompass, capitalist class interests: but this is not the same as saying that state action and these class interests coincide."

(65): and thus, key: he is going to argue we must think of this as a "partnership between two different, separate forces, linked to each other by many threads, yet each having its own separate sphere of concerns" [this loses so much of the force, really--no conception of the inequality and the deep differences between the two institutions. the State is much more dependent on the capitalist class, than the other way around, surely? unless we are thinking of a State which owns sources of surplus? and is even that sufficient? quite confusing formulation, i think]

(65): we have to find space between, in short, a 'class-reductionist' position and a 'state-reductionist' one. "I seek to avoid both forms...", in speaking of a partnership.

(66): Skocpol, and the State living 'for itself'

(67): mistakes of Statecraft are not evidence of 'fundamental disagreements' between the ruling class and the capitalist class [two examples: war in Vietnam, and Hitler's expansion]

claus offe, "structural problems of the capitalist state"

(106): principal take-home point. individual capitalist are limited in three dimensions (vis-a-vis larger capitalist rationality)

1. competition amongst each other
2. time-wise -- they are predisposed to think in the short-term
3. politically, there may be interests of which they're unaware that are in the interests of the class, at-large