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NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS
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Phillips Mauls The Facts Again
Daily Policy Digest

Government & Political Issues / Effects of Politics on Policy

Wednesday, July 10, 2002
For more than 20 years, Kevin Phillips has written books making the same argument about how the rich run everything and get richer by the day off the sweat of the working man's brow. His latest book, "Wealth and Democracy," is similarly long on overheated rhetoric and meaningless facts, and short on analysis and understanding of complex social, historical and economic trends.

  • He gets off on the wrong foot by quoting Abraham Lincoln about corruption by corporations leading to the destruction of the Republic -- perfectly suited to Phillips's view, but something Lincoln never said.
  • Phillips is no better as an economist, misunderstanding the Depression's causes and failing to mention the critical role of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in triggering the market crash and ensuing economic downturn.
  • He stresses the ups and downs in prices over the past two centuries, but neither converts monetary values from the past into current dollars nor puts figures into context -- because it would fail to reduce their shock value if he did.
Phillips dwells on rich people, as if this has some meaning without noting the heavy turnover on his lists, because it undermines his thesis that America has become a plutocracy. But as Alexis de Tocqueville observed 150 years ago, "the rich are constantly becoming poor" and "the rich daily rise out of the crowd and constantly return thither." Just look at all the Internet fortunes that have gone up in smoke lately.

As for Lincoln, here's what he actually said: "I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good."

Source: Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis, July 10, 2002

For a discussion of the phony Lincoln quotation: Matthew Pinsker, "The Bogus Quote Kevin Phillips Fell For,"
http://historynewsnetwork.org

For Bartlett text
http://www.ncpa.org/edo/bb/2002/bb071002.html

For more on the Effects of Politics on Policy
http://www.ncpa.org/iss/gov

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