INSIDE HERE IS a CLOUD NO LARGER Than a California Initiative in the Sky
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Tax Debate EDITED BY · MICHAEL HARRINGTON May 1979 ~ 02 Vol. VII No. 5 Is Clouded By Michael H arrington INSIDE HERE IS A CLOUD NO LARGER than a California initiative in the sky. It is one of many in Changes in National Staff, p. 4 the gathering storm over bud Although 1t has been denied that the 1ob is get balancing either through reserved for people with the initials JC, it state-wide initiatives or a Con is true that Jack Clark will hand over the reins stitutional amendment. It is of office to Jim Chapin this month. Marjorie Paul Gann's proposal to limit Phyfe made the Democratic Party take notice spending increases by any jurisdiction in with DEMOCRATIC AGENDA . Now she will California to the rise in inflation and pop do similar work for the Machinists. ulation. ''One does not per Fighting the Corporations, p. 5 Gann, of course, is the co-author of suade people to go While corporate powers urge people to eat Proposition 13. In making this move, beyond Franklin Roose cake, Massachusetts Fair Share organizes he is pioneering an approach that is gain velt's New Deal by working class and middle income people ing on the Right and raising issues that around bread and butter issues. Ron Bloom touch upon the national debate on tax pandering to Herbert looks at Fair Share's strategies. policy. Hoover's critique. ,, Socialist Notes, p. 7 That debate has tantalized some seg DSOCers around the country take part ments of the Left, for it holds out the in many fights. theoretical possibility that the federal budget could be balanced by cutting mili SALT II: Needed for Defense, p . 8 tary outlays and increasing the effective Unless those who defend SALT II also show rate of taxation on the rich. that they understand the real threat of Soviet militarism, the arena of debate could move It is, I think, exceedingly foolish for perilously Right, argues Alex Spinrad. the Left to seize upon this very, very theoretical possibility and join a budget Steel Bends Workers, p. 9 limitation movement whose fundamental \Xt'hen German steel workers went on strike premises are reactionary and whose po- this winter, management responded with 1itical victory would plug up that theo lockouts and a public relations blitz against retica l loophole. One does not persuade the strikers. Andrei MarkoYits and Chris people to go beyond Franklin Roosevelt's Allen analyze the issues in the stnke New Deal by pandering to Herbert What's Left to Read, p. 10 Hoover's critique of it. \VI ere the Bolsheviks really bourgeois? Is The Gann and the reactionary tax move N e11 1 Rep11blic turning Right ~ Ron Radosh ment in general make it extremely im covers some strong opinions. portant that the democratic Left be clear about the complex issues involved. To 1959 and 1965, as Walter Heller pointed There is a certain truth to the expen that end, let me focus upon three crucial out recently, the federal government ran diture argument. However, it applies to themes: deficits and inflation; tax cuts sizable deficits and inflation rose at a rate corporations, not to the government. The and productivity; and full employment of little more than 1 percent a year. Be basic flaw of the capitalist economy is and stagflation. tween 1974 and 197 6, Hellernoted, there that unplanned production periodically were enormous deficits-$135 billion in outraces consumption in a market deter Deficits Not Inflation Cause three years-and yet inflation fell. To this mined by the maldistribution of wealth, I ... ould add the fact that in the period itself the precondition and the result of Federal deficits, it is said, by Jerry leading up to the 1974 double digit price the production system. Since the Thirties, Brown as well as by Barry Goldwater, are rise, Richard Nixon was jamming on the the answer to this problun has been for the cause of inflation. Therefore, if you fiscal brakes. The 1973 deficit was rough Washington to create effective demand cut back on spending in Washington, by ly one-third of 1972's figure. sufficient to absorb that output. It has which everyone means social spending, Secondly, if federal deficits in general done so by enormously facilitating pri you will have dealt with a major prob were not the cause of inflation, social vate, and particularly, corporate debt. lem. This argument can be used to favor spending in particular was most certainly Public debt as a percentage of GNP, tax cutting which reduces the resources not responsible. In 1976, Charles Ernest Mandel documents in The Secortd available to the government, or to justify Schultze pointed out that all of the con Slum, has declined by about two thirds outright spending limitations of the type troversial "welfare" expenditures be since 1946 (from 129.4 to 46.0 percent), Gann has urged in California. It is one tween 1965 and 1977 came to an extra while private debt has soared from 73.6 of the most ubiquitous half-truths of 8.5 percent in the 1977 budget-or 1.7 percent of GNP to 152.8. Governor these times. percent of the Gross National Product. Brown's austerity sermons should be ad First, the data do not show a simple The sums involved, said Schultze, are dressed to the board room, not the wel dencit-inflation relationship. Between ''modest." fare office. In addition, as James O'Con- To the Editor: next sentence I went on to say that it is To the Editor: I like the new magazine and the unclear what "left" means in such a Tim Smart' s article on the gloomy news it contains of merger discussions context, "except a style and rhetoric prospects for health care legislation with the New .American Movement. The which tends to alienate the mainstream of (March 1979) does not go far enough. strength and weaknesses of the two or .American people from socialism and so In addition to support from the ganizations are very symmetrical and cialists." White House, the senator from Massa some sort of systematic working relation Incidentally, the NAM resolution chusetts and labor, as he noted, no sub ship is long overdue. I know it would was opposed for many other reasons: stantial improvement in our system of renew my activist impulses to see a more for example, the relatively small size of health care will occur until and unless unified democratic left emerging. N.AM, and the idea that we should let there is an organized grassroots move Charles Keil "a thousand radical flowers bloom." ment which can elect a progressive Con Buffalo, N.Y. NAM may well play an important role gress and effectively combat the corporate as an autonomous organization, which medical elite, typified by the .American ••• it could not play if it were swallowed Hospital .Association and the .American To the Editor: up by DSOC. Medical .Association. I was dismayed to see that I was .All in all, I do feel that the business Thomas }. Gagliardo quoted out of context in the March issue of the NAM merger is relatively mar Washington, D.C. of DEMOCRATIC LEFT, concerning a pro ginal and distracts us needlessly from posed exploration of a DSOC merger our main DSOC goal: bringing demo with NAM. Supposedly, I opposed the cratic socialism into the mainstream of Letters to the editor muJt be signed. We exploration because "NAM considers .American political and social life. reserve the right to edit for clarity t1nd itself to our left." Your correspondent, Alex Spinrad brevity. Please limit fellers to leu than however, neglected to report that in the Washington, D.C. 3.50 words. Michael Harrington DEMOCRATIC LEFT is published ten times a year Editor (monthly except July and .August) by the Dem ocratic Socialist Organizing Committee, 853 Maxine Phillips Broadway, Room 617, New York, N.Y. 10003. Managing Editor Telephone: (212) 260·3270. Subscription rates: Sustaining $10 per year; Regular $5 per year; Jim Chapin Limited income $2.50. Signed articles express National Director the opinions of the authors. ISSN 0164-3207. Second Class Permit Paid at New York, N.Y. 2 DEMOCRATIC LEFT May 1979 ture and new production capacity." Not too long after Palme made this comment, the New York Times confirmed it with particulars. The American rich, it said, were "hedging" against in.Bation by buy ing stamps, rare violins, art, ctc. Thus, leaving the basic contradictions of stagflation in place and lowering taxes will not have the impact of increasing productive investment and employment. It will most certainly exacerbate the maJ distribution of wealth. The reason for this is an utterly capitalist truth which capitalists today do not like to think about. People are not going to invest in productivity when every morning's news paper discusses not whether, but when, the next burst of stagflation is going to occur with soaring prices and rises in LNS/cpl unemployment. nor has shown, the government finds it chose to keep the higher figures because self in a "fiscal crisis" because it must that makes them look better on the mar socialize the costs and losses of a private ket! A week later, the London Econ01TliJI Full Employment Crucial challenged the whole notion of a profit sector which retains only benefits. This poses the question of the third "illusion." It cited a Citibank report main theme of this brief analysis: the which "calculates that in manufacture the Greater Profits Not Key relation between full employment and To Inflation Battle rate of return on net worth in 1978 was stagflation. higher than in any year since 19~0." Remember full employment? That was This leads directly to a second theme: These embarrassing facts are all the critical issue before the nation, as that greater profits and more tax deduc· brushed aside by the apologists for big Jimmy Carter saw it, during the 1976 tions for the corporations will result in business.