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

by Kevin Phillips

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 Jefferson and our other Founding Fathers feared: a swollen capital city feeding off the country it should be governing. Throughout most of our history, the genius of American politics was that ballot revolutions every generation swept out failed establishments and created new ones. Now that can no longer happen. Feared and even hated by a majority of the citizenry, "Permanent Washington" has dug in. Using history as a chilling warning, Kevin Phillips parallels the present atrophy to that of formerly mighty and arrogant capitals like Rome, Madrid, andAmsterdam.,Unchecked, Washington will - like other great powers before it - lead the country to its inevitable decline and fall. To work again, Washington must be purged and revitalized. In his unique blueprint for a political upheaval, Kevin Phillips puts Washington on notice by sounding a cry for immediate action, offering us a wide variety of remedies - some quasi-revolutionary, others more moderate, but all sure to be controversial.

Genres: Politics, Economics, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

Reviews

[Astrid Galactic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arrogant Capital by Kevin Phillips was published in 1994. While reading this book in 2019, I had to keep pinching myself to be reminded that this book was written 25 years ago. The whole way through, I kept saying, "Honey, you ain't seen nothing yet!"

All of the corruption, backdoor deals, elite privilege, class separations, inflation, Wall St abuses, derivative banking scandals, extreme lobbying, nepotism, destruction of the Middle Class, unfair tax levies, broken political structures and many other areas involving political economics have only excelled at a shockingly exponential rate since then. By comparison, today makes 1994 look like the good old days.

Phillips makes the point that this tends to be the natural cycle of advanced societies as they grow and become ensconced in a system that protects and rewards its elite at the expense of the average citizen. He makes comparisons to ancient Rome, 18th century Netherlands and the fall of the Spanish Empire as well as various periods of rebellion and busts in American and English history.

Phillips offers what he believes would be changes we (specifically, in the USA) could make to prevent such troubles and make the country equitable for all. Some seem feasible while others I'm not all that sure of. My favorite was the "None of the above" choice for our elections. I know that's one I'd certainly make at times from the highest Federal elections to the smallest local area communities.

Definitely worth reading if you have an interest in US Politics and/or Economics. Don't let the date fool you because it's as relevant today as it was when it was published.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

He told you so.

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kevin Phillips, an astute, conservative, politica1 commentator, worries that a deep economic shift has occurred in the United States portending ominous changes in the future. Much of corporate downsizing and "leaning out" benefits speculators, lobbyists, investment bankers, and stock brokers, but does not create jobs or increase the employment base of the country.

"Firms once committed to long term thinking now faced money managers and speculators little concerned about existence beyond the life of a futures contract .... Corporations purged employees, especially older ones close to retirement, cut employee benefits, slashed real wages, and shut down plants in Terre Haute or Muncie .... For the first time in modem US history, stock prices decoupled from the real economy, enabling the Dow-Jones industrial average to keep setting records even as employees' real wages kept declining. Financialization has only a vague definition, but all of these burdens the erosion of wages, the agonies of families and communities - go into it."

Phillips points out that an explosion in wealth occurred in the eighties among the top half of one percent of incomes. Those in the bottom half of that top one percent - the $200,00000 $300,000 bracket-did not improve at all. "Virtually the entire gain went to the top one-half of one percent, the families with $4 million to $5-million net worth on up. Their investment capacity exploded." The economy has improved dramatically, but the median income has fallen when adjusted for inflation. The Perot constituency, in particular, has lost more ground economically than the average voter. Hence the anti-Bush, anti-Clinton, and (he suspects) 1996, anti-Republican vote, unless the polarization ceases or reverses.

[Ronald Wise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written fifteen years ago when the author was a regular commentator on NPR and Bill Clinton had been in office two years. At the time I half dismissed him as a Republican Clinton basher, but a careful reading of this book now reveals even more talent at political analysis and prognostication than I had come to respect in him from reading his more recent books.

In this one Phillips examines the growing frustration in America regarding its federal government. Not only does he convincingly isolate the troubling trends in our national's capital, but also provides compelling parallels to the declines of empires past.

What I found surprising is that Phillips was so accurate in his predictions regarding the growing impact of computer trading and financialization of the American economy, and this was before the Internet and Web had their impact. Phillips continued to warn of this trend into this decade, portraying the U.S. economy as a house of cards. Meanwhile, Alan Greenspan published his autoiography in 2007 with an optimistic forcast. Greenspan had to admit he was wrong by the end of 2008. So while there may be some aspects of this book that are now outdated, it also contains words of wisdom, which even in hindsight, are instructional.

[Karyn]

Pretty radical views but lots of validity mixed in. I couldn't read it all, it got too far into the trees for me, but it's an interesting collection of perspectives.