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Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.reviews
Date: 12 May 95 05:20:43 GMT
From: tanaka@nickel.ucs.indiana.edu (TANAKA Tomoyuki)
Subject: Greenberg: "The American political system: a radical approach"
Edward S. Greenberg.
[book] "The American political system: a radical approach
(5th ed)". Harper Collins, 1989. 392 pages. $37.35(?)
(and two books by Michael Parenti)
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Tanaka's introduction to the book.
in high school in southern California I was taught about what
the US government is supposed to be: the ideals of liberty and
justice, checks and balances, the federal elections,
... the USA as a healthy, pluristic polity.
these things I was taught helped me very little in
understanding what the USA is and what it does.
Greenberg's book is about what the USA *is*, not just what it
is supposed to be. (more comments at the end)
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some important points made.
I can not possibly summarize everything in the book.
I'll list some of the important points:
--- in the USA distribution of wealth and political power is
extremely uneven (see (1) and (2) below).
--- this uneven distribution and highly unequal class structure are
explicitly protected by the US Constitution (Chapter 4).
--- politicians in the federal government are overwhelmingly
from the upper business and professional classes (Chapter 8).
--- voting is ineffective because it only affects elected public
officials, a tiny fraction of the decision-makers.
the majority of public-policy decisions are made by business
leaders and non-elected public officials (Chapter 9).
--- the US two-party system has the following consequences:
1. in order to attract public support, the two parties become
very similar in political views.
2. parties that represent workers and disadvantaged don't
exist, as they do in other industrial nations. therefore,
dissident or minority views don't get represented.
(Chapter 9)
--- the US foreign policy and the policies of US multinational
corporations largely coincide (Chapter 13).
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Table of Contents:
(the actual Table of Contents provides one more level of detail.)
Part I: overview and analytic approach
1 capitalism and American politics: an introduction to
central themes
2 evaluating the American system: justice and democracy
Part II: the context and basis of American politics
3 the cultural milieu: America as a liberal society
4 the law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court
5 capitalism: theory and implications
6 economy and society: social class and inequality
7 economy and society: the giant corporations
Part III: the political process
8 the group process and the politics of unequal power
9 election amidst inequality
10 protest and disruption: the politics of outsiders
Part IV: the institutions of government
11 the presidency and American capitalism
12 president, congress, and bureaucracy
Part V: what does the government do?
13 managing economic growth and corporate profitability
14 the welfare state and the management of discontent
Part VI: beyond capitalism and representative democracy
15 toward justice and democracy
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(1) concentrated ownership of wealth in the USA.
income received by
the highest 20% of households: Japan 31.6%, USA 46.9%
the lowest 20% of households: Japan 10.9%, USA 3.8%
(source: "Britannica World Data, 1994")
uneven distribution is much more acute for wealth than for
income. wealthiest 20% in the USA own 76% of the total US
wealth and 96% of total corporate stocks.
(Greenberg, Page 102)
"[...] the United States is close to being the most
inegalitarian of all the industrialized nations (France being
our only close competitor)." (Greenberg, Page 99)
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(2) Michael Parenti quote on concentrated ownership of US media.
Michael Parenti [book] "Inventing Reality"
quoted in Greenberg (Page 154)
Ten business and financial corporations control the three major
television and radio networks, 34 subsidiary television
stations, 201 cable T.V. stations, 62 radio stations, 20 record
companies, 59 magazines including "Time" and "Newsweek", 58
Newspapers including "The New York Times", "The Washington
Post", "The Wall Street Journal", and "The Los Angeles Times",
41 book publishers, and various motion picture companies.
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Michael Parenti. [book] "Democracy for the Few" (St. Martin's Press)
(I'm looking at the 1988 edition; the newest is 1995 ($14).)
Michael Parenti's "Democracy for the Few" has similar
orientations and major themes as Greenberg's book, but there is
little overlap in the material cited, etc. Parenti's book,
unlike Greenberg's, contains no graphs or tables. one thing
that is discussed in more detail in Parenti's book is how the
US tax system favors the rich. another is deficit spending and
the national debt. Reagan tripled the national debt by (a) the
hundreds of billions in tax cuts given to rich individuals and
corporations, and (b) huge military budgets.
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additional comments on Greenberg's book
(the moderator of rec.arts.books.reviews demanded more
commentary/opinion.)
when I read Karel van Wolferen's [book] "The enigma of Japanese
power" several years ago, it immensely helped me understand
Japanese society and its political system. for years I was
looking for such a book for the USA and I finally found it in
Greenberg's book; I felt that, finally, I had a decent overall
grasp of the US power structure.
the book is excellently organized. unlike the many poorly
organized books whose tables of contents tell you next to
nothing (very common; an example is "Design of Everyday Things"),
the table of contents of Greenberg's book tells you exactly
what's in the book.
I found that reading Michael Parenti's books (cited above),
along with Greenberg's, helped my understanding by supplying
more details: about ownership of US media, tax system, deficit
spending and national debt, etc.
;;; (Mr.) TANAKA Tomoyuki (Tanaka is my family name.)
;;;
;;; WWW: http://copper.ucs.indiana.edu/~tanaka
;;; e-mail: tanaka@indiana.edu