Arrogant Capital: Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politics

by Kevin Phillips

Book Overview

Everyone knows that Washington is completely out of touch with the rest of the country. Now Kevin Phillips, whose bestselling books have prophesied the major watersheds of American party politics, tells us why. Washington - mired in bureaucracy, captured by the money power of Wall Street, and dominated by 90,000 lobbyists, 60,000 lawyers, and the largest concentration of special interests the world has ever seen - has become the albatross that Thomas...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316706027
• ISBN13: 9780316706025
• Release Date: September 1995
• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

4.5 stars-A more nuanced study than " Boiling Point".

Phillips's book get closer to identifying what the core problem facing the USA is than he did in his earlier "Boiing Point".The problem has been building ever since President Jimmy Carter embarked on his ill advised decision to deregulate and privatize the financial sector of the economy.This simply let the speculative genie out of the bottle.It will be very difficult to rein him in.Phillips correctly goes to the heart of the matter in his recommendation number 7, presented on pp.201-204. "During the 1980's and early 1990's the Fed emerged as a reliable ally of the banks,the financial markets, and speculative finance at the expense of consumers,farmers,small businesses and homeowners "(p.203;1994).This is the heart of the problem.It directly ties in to Phillip's recommendations 4 and 8,respectively, concerning the curbing of Washington lobbies and globalization.Both of these latter problems can only be fixed if the Fed is truly independent from government,Wall Sreeet,and the big commercial banks.Only then can it carry out its task . I have deducted 1/2 of a star because Phillips is unaware of the fact that Adam Smith had already discussed this problem in great detail in 1776 in his path breaking The Wealth of Nations.Smith's Requirement number 1 is that all loans must be cut off from speculators.Otherwise,the savings the loans represent will be " ...wasted and destroyed...", instead of being transformed intertemporally into the needed plant and equipment required to reestablish American industrial , manufacturing,and agricultural capacity ,which is what the wealth of nations consists of(Smith,Modern Library(cannan)edition,pp.339-340).The wealth of nations does not consist of " financial services " resulting from massive speculation and securitization undertaken by Wall Street investment banks and their allies within the Federal Reserve System.

An Angry Call For Radical Reforms To Shake Up Washington

The author Kevin Phillips is an exemplary example of a frequent Washington type: the former insider turned angry, prophetic outsider. Trained as an attorney, experienced as a a Republican Congressional aide at the modern lowpoint of Republican strength in Washington, acclaimed as a key strategist in Richard Nixon's 1968 Presidential comeback, the author has long been given to gathering masses of data and reaching bold new conclusions with a stunning certainty that is only partially vindicated by subsequent events. The author's top six suggested governmental reforms are "(1) dispersing the capital and having Congress meet in another city for part of the year; (2) allowing congressmen and senators to vote from their home states and districts; (3) establishing a mechanism for national referendums; (4)concentrating a major attack on the hired-gun culture in Washington; (5) reining in abusive finance and its political influence by regulating electronic speculation, curtailing the nonaccountability of the Federal Reserve Board and establishing a federal financial transactions tax; and (6) fudning deficit-reduction largely by taxing its obvious beneficiaries." The author's top ten broad proposals are "(1) Decentralizing or dispersing power away from Washington; (2) Modifying the U.S. Constitution's excessive separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches; (3) Shifting U.S. representative government more toward direct democracy and opening up the outdated two-party system; (4) Curbing the Washington role of lobbies, interest groups, and interest peddlers; (5) Diminishing the excessive role of lawyers, legalism, and litigation; (6) Remobilizing national, state, and local governments through updated boundaries and a new federal fiscal framwork; (7) Regulating speculative finance and reducing the poltical influence of Wall Street;(8) Confronting the power of multinational corporations and minimizing the effects of globalization on the average American; (9) Reversing the trend toward greater concentration of wealth and making the tax system fairer and more productive; (10) Bringing national and international debt under control." To get to these and numerous other reforms and secondary goals, the author gives us a sweeping tour of what ails America, full of a unique collection of facts ( for instance, the decade by decade growth of governmental employment and population in the Washington metropolitan area), world historical parallels (comparing the broad trends of American economic history with that of Holland, Great Britain, Spain, and other countries), and American historical parallels (declaring frustration that as our country ages there is not the sweeping change with new administrations that there was with the administrations of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.) The author tends to see Washington interest groups as part of a kind of vast conspiracy, focusing on its own interests at the expense of the public interests. He g

History is repeating itself, unfortunately !

This has to be one of the best books on contemporary politics. Kevin Phillips did extensive research into the historical pattern of rise and subsequent decline of great powers and found uncanny similarity to where America is today. However, he did suggest 10 solutions that hopefully would arrest the decline of this nation and hoped those would be carried out in the 90s (this book was written in 94). Guess what ? None of his 10 solutions was implemented even to the slightest degree. If anything the problems he mentioned in the book have become even more serious in the past decade.The decline of this nation is now inevitable. There is no need to shed tears over it, though. It happened to Rome, Greece, Spain, and most recently Britain. To think we can somehow escape was probably wishful thinking to begin with but the failure to take positive action to even to try to slow the decline just makes the ultimate fate that much more certain !

A little off the mark

This book came out in 1994 and its eminently readable today, especially today. Phillips is one of those tireless workers today in America much like the other crusaders like Nader and Michael Moore who keep the truth front and center of what is being done to this country by our so called representatives in Washington. There is one problem with the Phillips prognostication in this book. In 2003 with 20/20 hindsight it becomes clear that Phillips was far too optimistic in his expectation that the body politic here will make a move for change and reform. Alas! he seems to have under estimated or should I say, mis-underestimated the power of the cancer that is now raging rampant in Washington. He prophesies that in the twentyfirst century the two party system will be over. Not only is it ever more full of life blood but a conservative wave is sweeping the nation with the Christian Coalition in full cry. The wolf in sheep's garb leading the faithful on the heels of wherever society may go in the hands of the GOP. Considering this, in my opinion, America is finito. Its over. The ... we send to Washington every election cycle, they will never stop a-... and the people who benefit from this..., viz K-Street and all the corporations will see to it that reform will not even be a whisper a 100 miles from Pennsylvania Avenue. 95% of the seats in Congress are non-competitive, this means that third party candidates are forever shut out. Try running a Green candidate in Orange County. You might have to take out a life insurance policy before doing that. Most of the Senate represents only 16% of the country, i.e. mid-western states in terms of population. Witness the farm bill pork that goes out without fail every year. So, read this book, its a great book but remember America is on a downward spiral, a very long spiral and revolution is probably at the end of that. Look at California right now, they are getting probably 40 cents to every dollar they send to Washington in federal taxes, this burden is going to only increase not decrease. Now, extrapolate that into the future another 10-20 years, what we will have then will be squalid ghettoes in portions of California where there will be a complete breakdown of services. Sewers in San Diego are even now 20-25 years old and there is little sign that they will get fixed in the near future....well you get the picture.

One of the best political books on this topic I have read

I am a political science major at Oregon State University. I had to read this book for a class and was pleasantly suprised at how well written and interesting this book is. The author gives a loud and clear call to arms for the American people to change our government. The comparisons to other world empires hit very close to the present day US. His proposals for change are interesting and well thought out. I reccomend this book to anyone who is fed up with Washington and the power of interest groups, financial groups, and lobbyists.