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Jack Newfield, author, editorSubject:. "A POPULIST MANIFESTO"
SOUTHERN EDUCAnONA~ COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION
The FIRING LINE television series is a production of the Southern EducationalCommunications Association, 928 Woodrow St., P.O. Box 5966, Columbia, S.C.,29250 and is transmitted through the facilities of the Public Broadcasting Service.Production of these programs is made possible through a grant from theCorporation for Public Broadcasting. FIRING LINE can be seen and heard eachweek through public television and radio stations throughout the country. Checkyour local newspapers for channel and time in your area.
SECA PRESENTS (@)
FIRinG Line
Host: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.
Guest: Jeff Greenfield, authorJack Newfield, author, editor
Subject: "A POPULIST MANIFESTO"
Panelists: Dr. Kenneth R. Stunkel, Department of History and Government,Monmouth College
Dr. Donald Kelly, Department of Political Science, MonmouthCollege
Dr. Richard Wescott, Department of American History, MonmouthCollege
FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL
This is a transcript of the F IRI NG LIN E program taped in l\Jew York City onMay 15, 1972, and originally telecast on PBS on May 28, 1972.
MR. BUCKLEY: The candidacy of GeorgeMcGovern is off to a ripping start largelybecause of the appeal of what they arenowadays calling the "new populism." Byhappy coincidence for the authors, theybrought out, during the same season, a bookon the new populism called A PopulistManifesto: The Making of a New Majority.
In a previous book, one of the authors,Mr. Jeff Greenfield, describes how the newpopulism is going to carry Mayor JohnLindsay triumphantly to the Democraticpresidential nomination in Miami; but, we allmake mistakes - some of us more thanothers (laughter) - and the current volumecarries a testimon ial on the front cover bythe renowned economist and politician,Jimmy Breslin.
Mr. Greenfield is an honors graduateof the University of Wisconsin and the YaleLaw School, who went almost directly fromschool to ghostwriting for Senator RobertKennedy. After the Senator's assassination,he went tq the staff of Mayor Lindsay and ayear or so ago retired to do free-lancewriting. He is, of course, familiar to viewersof FIRING LINE as a regular panelist over aperiod of two years.
Mr. Jack Newfield is a graduate ofHunter College, who has been an associateeditor of The Village Voice since 1964, andhas been widely published in the mostconspicuous and the most inconspicuousjournals in this country. He has written threebooks, including A Prophetic Minority andRobert Kennedy: A Memoir. It has been saidabout him that his profession is anger andhis hobby, indignation.
I should like to begin by focusing onsome of the economic analyses of A PopulistManifesto, and I wou Id like to ask Mr.Newfield whether he wants to take moneyfrom those who have it primarily because hedoesn't want them to have it or because themoney is itself critically needed elsewhere.
MR. NEWFIELD: The premise we beganwith in this book was the notion of equalityand fairness and, in most points in the book,we try to make a distinction between earnedincome and unearned income; therefore, likethe chapter on tax reform - we think it isfair and just. For example, in 1970, Gulf Oilhad a net income of $990 million and paid arate of taxes of 1.2 percent. The womanwho scrubs the floors in the halls ofStandard Oil makes $6,500 per year andpays a tax rate of 15 or 17 percent. Thatseems to me unfair.
MR. BUCKLEY: Was there a substantial rise
in the price of Gulf Oil that year?
MR. NEWFIELD: I don't own a car, 1don'tknow.
MR. BUCKLEY: You don't know? Howcome you didn't look it up? You see, it'svery important. Because if, in fact, it was awindfall, then the price of the stock wouldhave gone up; but if it wasn't a windfall -
MR. NEWFIELD: The cleaning womandidn't own stock anyway.
MR. BUCKLEY: No, we're not talkingabout the cleaning woman. Right now, we'retalking about Gulf Oil.
MR. GREENFIELD: Are you talking aboutthe price of the oil, Bill, or the price of thestock?
MR. BUCKLEY: I'm talking about the priceof the stock.
MR. GREENFIELD: Well, the price of thestock in 1970 probably didn't rise, becausethere was a general decline in the market. Ithought you were going to mention the riseof oil prices which is part of their other formof unearned wealth, the oil import quota. Iknow you're opposed to that on free marketgrounds.
MR. BUCKLEY: But, you see, it seems tome that just to deal with this as a symbol when we say that Gulf Oil had $964million -
MR. NEWFIELD: $990 million, net income.
MR. BUCKLEY: Well, $990 million - call ita billion, how's that? - and paid no taxes -
MR. GREENFIELD: Ten million dollarsmeans nothing to you?
(laughter)
MR. NEWFIELD: To him, it means nothing!
MR. BUCKLEY: And paid no taxes-
MR. NEWFIELD: No, they paid a rate of1. 2 percent.
MR. BUCKLEY: I think it is important todistinguish whether this was a windfall orwhether this was a normal reaction to asituation, the context of which wouldsupply an explanation of this.
MR. NEWFIELD: Well, all through theSixties, they paid between one and fivepercent rate of tax. The point I am trying tomake is that the average workingman in thiscountry will pay - I paid a 26 percent rateof tax. Somebody who earned $8,000 peryear probably paid 14 percent. There's abasic unfairness.
MR. BUCKLEY: You are, I think - I hopeyou are familiar with the ratherfundamental economic analysis which is thatcorporations don't really pay a tax at all.They just hoist the price of their productsand pass it along to the consumer. After all,in a competitive economy - and oil is, ofcourse, competitive - they can't afford topay, actually, a tax. They simply pass thatalong to the consumers. So, there is a sensein which if they paid no tax at all and thevalue of oil, therefore, went down, the priceof gasoline would go down, and this wouldbenefit you and me and the washerwoman.
intangibles which reduces its effective rate oftaxation enormously.
Now, the evidence on the price of,let's say, home heating oil, which is abusiness of Gulf and many other companies,is that it is substantially hard, particularly onthe East Coast, where the import quota hasits greatest effect - and the interesting thingis that the profits are not passed along to theconsumer. What has happened is that theconsumer is put into the position where hepays an unfairly high rate because of oneform of what we would call unearnedwealth.
MR. BUCKLEY: Well, but has it occurred toyou that the consumer might be paying anunnecessarily high rate because depletionallowances are not as great as they might be?You do, presumably, subscribe to thegeneral principle that the more abundant thecommodity, the less the price of it to theconsumer in non-monopoly situations.
uninterrupted sentences or, rather, seconds,and I'll tell you why.
MR. GREENFIELD: That would take thewhole show, with your sentences.
MR. NEWFIELD: Tell us, then, already.Come on.
(laughter)
MR. BUCKLEY: In the first place, thedepletion allowance dropped seven points in1969.
MR. NEWFIELD: Five points.
MR. GREENFIELD: You must make a lotof money. Ten million dollars - that makesa lot of difference to the oil companies.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, let's be grand about itand discuss the figures -
depletion allowed in trade. When it goesdown to 22 percent, the shares go down; butthere is nothing in the world to preventanybody, assuming this is productive use offree money, from proceeding to look for oiland gas if the tax structure is such as toencourage the search for it.
So for you to say, "You would thinkthat they would go out and look for gas andoil since the government makes it soprofitable for them," begs the question,"Why don't they?" Who's telling them theycan't?
MR. GREENFIELD: No, I said I wouldthink if the oil companies were telling us thetruth, that would be the result. The facts areotherwise.
MR. BUCKLEY: An oil company is you andme and a lawyer to whom we pay $25.00and we constitute ourselves an oil company.You are aware that there are thousands -
MR. GREENFIELD: Yes, which, in fact,doesn't happen.
MR. BUCKLEY: It's just a gathering system- the corporation taxes.
MR. GREENFIELD: Yes, but the interestingthing about that is that when you talk aboutoil, you talk about one of the moreegregious examples of what we would call"unearned" wealth; that is, in a business
sense, wealth which is accumulated not byinitiative or the turning out of a superiorproduct, si nce in the case of gasoli ne therereally almost is no such thing, but -
MR. GREENFIELD: Right. And whatmakes the position of the oil companies sohypocritical is that while the depletionallowance is supposed to encourageexploration within the United States forso-called national security purposes, which isthe premise of the oil import quota, too,Morton Mintz of the Washington Postfound that their explorations have beenmuch greater overseas, where they werepaying virtually confiscatory rates toArabian governments. One of the reasons forthat is yet a third sou rce of un ea rn edwealth -
MR. BUCKLEY: Tax rebates.
MR. GREENFIELD: No, let's be factual,Bill - five percent.
MR. BUCKLEY: All right. It dropped.
MR. GREENFIELD: Five percent.
MR. BUCKLEY: All right, it dropped fivepercent, and if it had dropped seven percent,what? Tell me where in my analysis it wouldhave made a difference if I had leaned onseven rather than five percent, okay - as Igo along? It dropped five percent as theresult of which, obviously, it became lessrewarding to oil entrepreneurs to go out andlook for oil - point one. Point two -
MR. GREENFIELD: They may be you,babes, but they ain't me.
MR. BUCKLEY: There are people muchpoorer than you, my friend, who have goneout and struck oil. H. L. Hunt was one ofthem. And if there is any -
MR. GREENFIELD: You mean J. PaulGetty, don't you?
MR. BUCKLEY: Some people write booksand some people -
MR. GREENFIELD: Bill, you do mean J.Paul Getty, not H. L. Hunt.
(laughter)
MR. NEWFIELD: At what rate?
MR. BUCKLEY: I mean H. L. Hunt. H. L.Hunt was much poorer than you when hestruck oil. I know; my father lent himmoney.
(laughter)
MR. BUCKLEY: Now, the fact of thematter is that you choose to write books andsome people choose to look for oil, but youalways introduce the mystique of the largeoil companies -
MR. GREENFIELD: Oh, no, but there's adifference, Bill.
3
MR. GREENFIELD: And I said that it wasnot, in fact, the case.
MR. BUCKLEY: - if we establish acorrelation - you said a moment ago thatthe purpose of it was to encourage aneconomic correlation. Since you -
MR. GREENFIELD: Point one, which iswrong; but go ahead.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, yes, and you said youwould think that people would proceed tolook for oil with all of those inducements inthe tax law, to which I reply that the taxlaw, in the first instance - it came in underRoosevelt - is now 40 years old, so that themarket has "d iscounted" that incentive andthe shares al ready reflect the 27 percent
MR. GREENFIELD: - the dollar for dollartax rebate. So, a lot of times there are thingsthat ought to happen. I mean one reallywould expect, with a 22 percent depletionallowance and an abnormally low tax rate abnormally low as compared to othercorporations, 8.8 percent versus almost 50percent - the price of oil and gasoline to bedropping. And the fact is that the price ofoil and gas in the United States is notdropping; it is rising.
2
MR. GREENFIELD: Not necessarily,particularly in view of the point which I wasmaking. My point is more general and, Ithink, more important. As apart frommarketing a superior product, one is in asystem where the government protects youfrom imports through an oil import quota,which I know you're familiar with, andprotects the income of a company by givingit a depletion allowance and other
MR. GREENFIELD: Well, let me concludethe point.
MR. BUCKLEY: I should think somebodygot awfully enterprising to go up there tobegin with.
MR. BUCKLEY: Well, do you consider it. initiative to discover oil in the Arctic Circle?
MR. BUCKLEY: The answer is that if youwant to go out and look for oil. you hireyourself a geologist and then you put out aprospectus and you go out and look formoney. People put up the money or theydon't put up the money, depending upontheir expectations of return. And the moreprofitable it is in terms of the rates of returnin case they are successful, the more oil andgas which is going to be discovered.
MR. GREENFIELD: Bill, that's charming, Imean it really is - like the picket fence andthe apple tree. But the way you get oil todayis to form a cartel and go to a sheikdom, andyou pay them a confiscatory rate and deductit from your income tax.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, but that's oildevelopment; I'm talking about oildiscovery. You do know the difference?
MR. GREENFI ELD: I'm talking about - allright.
MR. BUCKLEY: Discovery of oil is, for themost part, done by small companiesventuring out; then, when they strike, theyturn it over, traditionally, to the majorcompanies for development.
MR. GREENFIELD: And now, we're at, Ithink, a basic point, which is that if the taxlaw wants to encourage those kinds .ofpeople, one can develop a tax system to doso.
MR. BUCKLEY: And I'm saying that yourwhole point, like your whole book, is largelya phony because it is based, in my opinion,on a terribly naive understanding of
. economics. You say, "Why shouldn't thecorporations pay more?" The answer is,"What in the hell do the corporations carehow much they pay, in the last analysis?"They care, in this sense: that it's going toprice the product up. If it prices the productup, you are eventually victimized by anydemand unless it's inelastic, and you have ahell of a time selling outside. And if youdon't sell outside, you get the devaluation ofthe product and you get, ultimately, thedevaluation of the dollar, and you getinflation.
So, it was Kennedy and Johnson, bothof whom you once lionized, who said, "Forheaven's sake, let's decrease the tax oncorporations."
MR. GREENFIELD: As a matter of fact,
what we said -
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, you decided they havetoo much style. You're against style now.
MR. NEWFIELD: We explained how theirtax policies hurt middle America - bothKennedy and Johnson.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, I know. It's yourdemonstration and theirs and it's still moot,which is correct. All I'm saying is that in theideal situation, the products that aremanufactured in this country would sell foras little as possible, and they're going to sellfor as little as possible only if you relievethem of the tax bu rden. But in a perfectlycompeting society, provided the appl icationis uniform - and I recognize the distinctionthat you bring up about the corporationsthat are taxed only 25 percent - they aresimply going to increase the price of thetomatoes uniformly, and everybody's goingto pay more for tomatoes. But somehowthey're going to think, "Well, at least thecorporations are paying." That's nonsense.It's just ridiculous.
MR. GREENFIELD: Which is why, ofcourse, following the biggest tax cut tocorporations in modern history, we hadinflation, right? I mean there were otherreasons for inflation, but -
MR. BUCKLEY: That's right.
MR. GREENFIELD: - the fact is that afterthe 1964 tax cut, prices didn't go down;they began their steepest rise since WorldWar II.
MR. BUCKLEY: We also had a $50 billiondeficit during the succeeding five years.
MR. GREENFIELD: I know that, but whatI'm trying to say is that there was noevidence of price reduction even amongthose busi nesses that got the benefit of thetax cut. What we're dealing with is a basicconflict, and if you want to call ourinterpretation phony, that's one thing -
MR. BUCKLEY: Do you have the figures onthe recapital ization of some of thosecompanies in 1964-65-66? In the first place,the reform tax did not come in until 1964,correct?
MR. GREENFIELD: That was when itpassed.
MR. BUCKLEY: So, the effects were notfelt really until 1965. During that period,and during the period of the investmentcredit, a certain amount of money went intoward new plants and equipment andtoward the increase in the capitalization perjob. This is the key index of the productivityof a country.
MR. GREENFIELD: And, of course, what agreat deal of it went into, also, was dividendsfor shareholders.
MR. BUCKLEY: Well, in the first place,dividends for shareholders did not riseparipassu with the GNP during most of thoseyears. Dividends for shareholders, as youknow, have oscillated considerably duringthe last two or three years. During the yearsthat your high dudgeon was being lit, in fact,profits went down 40 percent, but wagesdidn't go down 40 percent. God knows thewages of government employees, who arethe executors of the new populism, didn't godown. They went up 42 percent.
MR. GREENFIELD: Yes, well, we'll get tothat later. But, in fact, Bill -
MR. BUCKLEY: They were 25 percenthigher than industrial wages.
MR. GREENFIELD: You see, note thedistinct.ion you were raising - the distinctionbetween business per se, which is not thetarget of this book, and those enterprises,business, government, labor, et.al., that holdillegitimate degrees of concentrated power.
MR. BUCKLEY: Okay, let's talk.abo"ut that.My thesis is that the new populism dependsupon a hobgoblin. The name of thehobgoblin is "The Rich and The PowerfuL"The general assumption is that those peoplewho are rich are also powerful. In fact, that'snonsense. Both of you have much moreinfluence than H. L. Hunt. The third generalassumption is that all you have to do is electGeorge McGovern or John Lindsay or -
MR. NEWFI ELD: No. I can explain what wetry to do with this book.
MR. BUCKLEY: And you simply change allthe taxes arou nd, and all of a sudden themoney starts gushing -
MR. GREENFIELD: Hold it.
MR. NEWFIELD: But, Bill, can I have a few
uninterrupted -
MR. BUCKLEY: Surely,
(Iaughterl
MR. NEWFIELD: The first sentence of thebook says-
MR. GREENFIELD: And he quotes.
MR. BUCKLEY: That you're waiting to givesome of your money away.
MR. NEWFIELD: No.
MR. GREENFIELD: No.
MR. BUCKLEY: No? That's the secondsentence.
MR. GREENFIELD: No.
MR. NEWFIELD: "This manifesto is aplatform for a movement that does not yetex ist. It is not a book about the 1972campaign or a blueprint for Utopia."
MR. BUCKLEY: Well, you wrote'it beforeyou knew McGovern was going to besuccessful. .
MR. NEWFIELD: We wrote this book lastsummer. We say that we believe that thereare certain long-term trends in this society.There is a certain consciousness that isdeveloping among blue collar workers thatthey have been screwed. The burgeoningregistration of young people, the blacks,women - there are all ki nds of movementsin the society which are in the veryembryonic stages of self-consciousness andself-definition.
We bel ieve that if there is going to be anew populism in this country, it's going tobe a movement which will spread overseveral years. It wi II not be connected to onepolitician or one party. PartS of it will beelectoral; parts of it will be the ecologicalmovement, the women's movement, theconsumer movement that Nader is trying toorganize, new kinds of union leaders, likeCaesar Chavez. It is not particularly tied toelectoral politics.
MR. BUCKLEY: No, I'm not saying thatyou intended so to tie it.
MR. GREENFIELD: You said that we saidthat all you had to do was elect George
MR. NEWFIELD: That is the last thing it's exactly what we're not saying.
MR. BUCKLEY: Well, all right. RobertTownsend, who is enthusiastic about yourbook, says all you have to do is elect GeorgeMcGovern. How's that?
MR. GREENFIELD: Well, go talk to RobertTownsend. I mean, you know, you'reputting other people's burdens on us.
MR. BUCKLEY: I don't think anybody willfind it hard to accept that George McGovernis the symbol of the new populism, and youhappened to have written a thing called "thenew populist manifesto." There isn't asentence in that book that I know of thatwould be disowned by George McGovern.
MR. GREENFIELD: There's a wholechapter, a whole chapter - on labor.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, of course. And Israel,I suppose, if you have something on Israel inthere. (laughing)
MR. NEWFIELD: Have you read it?
MR. GREENFIELD: That's interesting, youknow. I mean I notice these sort of modalpoints at which your quantified modifiers ofwhat you've just said become qual itative.
MR. BUCKLEY: I'm trying to make yOl,Jrbook relevant.
MR. GREENFIELD: Thank you.
MR. NEWFIELD: Could I try to make itrelevant?
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, go ahead.
MR. GREENFIELD: With friends like you,who needs...
(laughter)
MR. NEWFIELD: There are a few centralideas, I think, on which the book eitherstands or falls. First is the notion that powerand wealth are unfairly distributed in thecountry. I don't pretend to be an economistor a theoritician, or an ideologue.
MR. BUCKLEY: How do you define unfair?If you work 10 hou rs a day and I work one
hour a day, is it fair for you to have 10 timesas much as I do or not?
MR. NEWFIELD: That's not how I woulddefine unfair. I want my children, the daythey are born, to have as much of a chanceto succeed in life as the children of CarterBurden or Ted Kennedy or NelsonRockefeller. They should not, the day theyare born, whether they have a 40 10 or a140 10, have one billion dollars to s tar twit h-
MR. BUCKLEY: If that's the case, the onlything to do is to consult a eugenic bankevery time one has a child because, in pointof fact, a person's intelligence and industryand odd combinations of the two tend toaccount much more for his success than hisparents. As you know, there are an awful lotof idiot rich parents. Because you know howto corner the soybean market doesn't makeyou rich.
MR. GREENFIELD: And their children areidiot rich, right? And their children do notgo on welfare.
MR. BUCKLEY: And therefore they marrythree or four people and have polo poniesso what do you care? Does that reallydisturb you?
MR. NEWFIELD: Or they buy acongressional seat.
MR. BUCKLEY: Whom have they bought?
MR. NEWFIELD: Have you met Andy Steinlately?
MR. BUCKLEY: Andy Stein, the last time Iheard of him, was giving a party for CaesarChavez.
MR. NEWFIELD: He paid $250,000 to runfor the Assembly in New York City, becausehis father happened to be a millionaire. IfJeff wanted to run for that seat -
MR. BUCKLEY: Oh, so he bought a seatlike Ottinger, eh?
MR. NEWFIELD: Right.
(laughter)
MR. BUCKLEY: And bought the presidency
like Rockefeller.
MR. GREENFIELD: I have a feeling that-
MR. BUCKLEY: Rockefeller beat Nixon, I'dforgotten that.
MR. GREENFIELD: Again, with friends likeyou, you don't need enemies; with friendslike Nixon, you don't need to be rich, youknow.
MR. BUCKLEY: I'm simply saying that ifyou want people to start fairly in the race,you are much better off going to a eugenicbank and getting the relevant things andhaving test-tube babies. Because that'sgoing to do a hell of a lot more for equalitythan money, I assure you.
MR. GREENFIELD: That's not serious.
MR. BUCKLEY: You can take $25,000,let's say, which might be the capitalizationof a job, and simply give it to somebody andthat's not going to give him a breaknecessarily.
MR. NEWFIELD: I'm just talking abouteverybody starting fairly in the race in lifewhen they're born. It depends upon theirimagination, their 10, their endurance, theirtemperament.
MR. BUCKLEY: Well, what's fair aboutthat? If it were scientifically ascertainablethat Mary and John would result in little Joewith a very, very low 10, why would youaccept that unfairness? It seems to me anatural extension of your philosophy ofintervention.
MR. NEWF IELD: I didn't write a naturalextension of it. I wrote what I thought in aparticular period of time.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, but I'm urging you tothink more.
MR. GREENFIELD: No, you're not.
MR. NEWFIELD: You're playing a debater'strick.
MR. BUCKLEY: You say we should treatpeople equally. All right, you say it in yourbook and, in effect, you're saying, as GeorgeMcGovern says, that if somebody earns$51,000 per year, he ought to be taxed at amuch higher rate than somebody who earns$49,000 per year. How are you treatingpeople equally?
MR. GREENFIELD: Fairly. Look, this mayshock you. Get a good grip on yourself. If abusinessman goes out and builds a bettermousetrap, he's entitled to a profit. That'sright, because this is not a socialistmanifesto, and it's not even a collectivistmanifesto in most parts. It's quite thereverse. We think that the case for fairnesscan be made on a progressive income tax, ona series of grounds with which you, I'm sure,have debated ad nauseam; namely, that theless percentage of one's income is needed fornecessities - if you make $300,000 per yearthan if you make $6,000 - that there is acertain expl icitly redistributive factor there.You try to collect taxes in such a way thatvou start the next generation out something.:Iose to the starting line.
We don't think that you can create a'society - perhaps you could, but oneshouldn't try, certainly not in America where everyone gets coupons at the start ofhis Iife or any given year and spends eightcredits. That's not what we're talking about.But, when you have a situation whereconcentrated economic power in industriesboosts up the prices for necessities, then wesay it makes sense to pass legislation to dosomething about that.
MR. BUCKLEY: G.ive me an example.
MR. GREENFIELD: Steel, auco - cereals.
MR. BUCKLEY: Okay, steel.
MR. GREENFIELD: No, let's take breakfastcereals. It's much better. It's much more,of anecessity - breakfast cereals.
MR. BUCKLEY: Okay.
MR. GREENFIELD: If you accept theeconomic evidence that concentratedindustries tend to have inflated costs andprices - it's not just profits. It's a wholeother series of built-in extra costs; namely,the fact that they are insulated from marketcompetition. If these inflated costs andprices boost the price of necessities, thenthere are remedies at hand for that. There isa way to make the economic societysomewhat fairer - not equal, and certainlynot equal in a communalist sense, you know,where everybody gets the same. It's just thatone can erase some of those kinds ofu nfa irness.
MR. BUCKLEY: Okay, let's be moreconcrete and discuss it. Are you saying that
MR. BUCKLEY: Well, then, let's not talkabout it, because I'm only interested intalking about competitive enterprises.
MR. GREENFIELD: Then you'd better getsome kind of economy other than thecurrent American economy.
MR. BUCKLEY: If you mean let's beef upthe monopoly laws, I'm all for it. And I'vebeen urging Democratic administrations todo that for years.
MR. GREENFIELD: Okay and you're right.They failed miserably because they've beensucked into this dream of technologicalmanagement instead of pol icy decision.We're onto something, Bill. That's twochapters right there. Let's keep going.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, however, I don'tconcede that there is an inelastic demand forbreakfast cereals. I've gone five yearswithout having a breakfast cereal, and here Iam. So, it seems to me -
MR. GREENFIELD: What conclusion doyou draw from that, Bill?
(laughter)
MR. NEWFIELD: He sleeps late.
MR. BUCKLEY: It's obviously, therefore,something one can do without, and if onecan do without it, then the effects ofmonopoly aren't particularly -
MR. GREENFIELD: You can do without it.Well, can I give you a better example?
MR. BUCKLEY: No, wait, are we throughwith Post Toasties?
MR. GREENFIELD: No, not yet, exactly.(laughter) Let's take bread. Have you gonewithout bread for the last five years?
MR. BUCKLEY: No.
MR. GREENFIELD: Okay. Now, let's take a
city like Seattle, where bakers got together,the distributors, and they drove up the priceof bread in Seattle 20 percent, as opposed toneighboring cities. So, a family paid forbread - which is a staple, right? - 20percent more. The anti-trust laws ought tooperate to break up that price-fixingconspiracy, right?
MR. BUCKLEY: Are you going to become alaw and order man at this stage in yourcareer? Because if you are, I welcome youto our ranks.
MR. GREENFIELD: At this stage!
MR. NEWFIELD: May I say something?
MR. GREENFIELD: Bill, you didn't readthe book.
MR. NEWFIELD: I believe that you've notreally read the book. I started to explainwhat we're trying to say in this book.
MR. BUCKLEY: I want you to say what's inthe book.
MR. NEWFIELD: We can debate, you know,not sperm banks or George McGovern'scandidacy, but what's in the book. One ofthe things we try to do is to redefine what'sleft and right and try to synthesize a fewideas, which are traditionally thought of asconservative, which I agree with and whichwe agree with in this book. There is a wholechapter on crime. I happen to feel verystrongly about street crime. I bel ieve thatboth liberals and the new left have coppedout on the problem of street crime.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, I know you do, andyou -
MR. NEWFIELD: And we've got to come upwith a program about it. I believe thatconservatives have been right aboutbureaucracy, about technocrats and experts,about the excesses of labor unions. That'swhat is in the book, not sperm banks.
MR. BUCKLEY: No, I didn't say spermbanks were in the book; I said that was anextension -
MR. GREENFIELD: You said, "Have yousuddenly become a law and order man?" Idon't know what that means.
MR. BUCKLEY: This is a reterence to yourpast which, if you want to forget about it I agree with you that we should.
(laughter)
MR. NEWFIELD: What past are you talkingabout?
MR. GREENFIELD: Wait a minute. What,what, what? What is this, Bill?
MR. BUCKLEY: You were probably justbeing provocative all those years.
MR. GREENFIELD: No, I was trying topoint out some logical inconsistencies, ofwhich there was a plethora wheneveryou spoke, but -
MR. BUCKLEY: I see.
MR. GREENFIELD: To say I am now a lawand order man is to say what, Bill? Have Irioted through the streets of a majoruniversity town? Have I busted up churches?Have I gone out and played Bonnie andClyde? Have I glorified the Black Panthers?What reference is that other than a rathershoddy, to be frank, debater's ploy?
MR. BUCKLEY: My reference is to the factthat we have, those of us who believe in lawand order, taken an awful lot of abuse -
MR. NEWFIELD: Did you say war andorder?
MR. BUCKLEY: Law and order - war,when necessary. We have taken an awful lotof abuse during the past four or five yearsfrom people who insist that, Ramsey Clarkwould be an example, our whole approach ispunitive and regressive and so on and soforth.
MR. NEWFIELD: I happen to believe thatRichard Nixon has been soft on crime. Iwish he would do more about the heroinproblem. I wish he would be tough aboutgun controls. I wish he would do somethingon prison reform.
MR. BUCKLEY: Do you think we shouldimpeach Warren?
MR. GREENFIELD: It's a little late forthat.
MR. NEWFIELD: Warren?
MR. GREENFIELD: How about the newchief justice?
(laughter)
MR. BUCKLEY: Let's talk about the newpopulism, gentlemen. This is the title of theshow.
MR. GREENFIELD: Bill, it's important andthe relevance of it is - just for youredification and greater euthenic information- that our view of what street crime does toits victims is, to use an overused term, that itoppresses them. You know, Jack and I havebeen to these kinds of neigh~orhoods.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, I said that when I ranfor mayor in 1965. I agree with you.
MR. GREENFIELD: And on that you mayhave been right; I .mean your solutions mayhave been bilge, but I don't remember,frankly. I was elsewhere. The fact is that aneighborhood that is locked in at night isoppressed.
MR. BUCKLEY: It deprives them ofsubstantial liberty.
MR. GREENFIELD: Right. they are victims,and perhaps some of our harshest language isreserved for those kinds of credit cardrevolutionaries who can get off, you know,on a kind of violence trip that theythemselves are too cowardly or outbred totake. They wouldn't do it, but when theysee a man stand up and pull a gun or shoutslogans or glorify every criminal as arevolutionary, it fulfills some kind of rathertwisted need.
Now, there is a direct and kind ofoutraged attack on that view in this book.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, I know, I know.
MR. GREENFIELD: That's why we've leaptat your shot that now w~'re law and orderpeople.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. Sometime along, Ithink, around Theodore Roosevelt's term, wepassed a law saying that those bakers inSeattle shouldn't be allowed to do that, andI'm all for that law. I'm all for strengtheningthat law.
nothing particularly new in your book, butthere are things that are newer than that inyour .book.
MR. GREENFIELD: Hopefully. At $5.95,you know.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. What you have inyour book, as I say, is the suggestion that awhole series of reforms that you favor canbe financed by simply turning certain taxfaucets, and there I think we ought to pause.
MR. GREENFIELD: Absolutely.
MR. BUCKLEY: Shall we - I don't meanfor a commercial.
(laughter)
MR. GREENFIELD: It's been a while.
MR. BUCKLEY: You've managed enoughcommercials for your book, probably, to getus kicked off public television.
MR. GREENFIELD: I haven't said the titleonce, and the one time you said it, you gotit wrong, so -
(laughter)
MR. NEWFIELD: There's another aspect ofthis which we haven't touched on. All thereviewers talked about the redistribution ofincome and wealth like it's the whole book.
At least half of our idea is the notion ofredistribution of power. We believe thatpower is now concentrated in certain eliteinstitutions, including· government, tradeunions, the military, the corporations,universities, foundations-
MR. BUCKLEY: How about the state?
MR. NEWFIELD: Government, I meant thestate by that.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, yes.
MR. GREENFIELD: That was the first one.
MR. NEWFIELD: We believe there arecertain remedies, which I would havethought you would agree with -
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, some of them, ofcourse, I do.
MR. NEWFIELD: - to transfer power down
into neighborhoods and plants and homes.
MR. BUCKLEY: All right, now we haveagreed that monopolies should be attackedas the law prescribes that they should be.Perhaps even we need more laws that define,slightly more sophisticatedly, what amonopoly is. Do you believe that a companyought to be prohibited from going intoactivities other than its own?
MR. NEWFIELD: You mean assemblingconglomerates?
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes.
MR. GREENFIELD: No, not per se. Can Igive you a good example of what we mean?
MR. BUCKLEY: Sure.
MR. GREENFIELD: One of the premises ofanti-concentration, and it sort of wasBrandeis' too, is that there is a certain levelat which bigness per se has political costs.We can put aside the econom ic data.Concentrating decision-making power is aproblem. There was an example that theHouse Judiciary Committee turned up,which we have stolen and put in our book.Gulf and Western, when it went on its bingeto acquire companies, hooked up with theChase Manhattan Bank, one of the largestcommercial banks, one of the two or threelargest, and got a credit line which wentfrom $500,000 to $84 million in the spaceof about two years. With that credit, theyhad the financial resources to acquirecompanies. Okay, once those companies,you know, little companies all over thecountry, were acquired, Gulf and Westernthen sent out an order to the acquiredcompanies saying, "You will take yourdeposits that you have in the smaller banksin different parts of the country and you aredirected to transmit them to a 'major bank'designated by Gulf and Western. Local banksmust not be used unless," et cetera.
So, what we say is that there is a kindof conglomerate activity which tends toshrink the sources of decision-making power,tends to fuel the growth of concentration,and that kind of activity, I think, has to belooked at with a very careful eye. I don'tknow whether the anti-trust laws as theystand now proscribe that, but I think theyought to.
MR. BUCKLEY: Probably very few peoplewould agree, since we know how much
"
disagreement there is among experts as towhether anti-trust laws proscribe certainki nds of >'Ictiv ities.
MR. GREENFIELD: Do you see what I'mgetting at? That's the kind of danger weworry about.
~~R. BUCKLEY: Sure.
MR. NEWFIELD: What troubles me is thecontrast between what an ordinary citizencan do and what a conglomerate like IT&Tcan do. An ordinary citizen, if he's got aproblem and wants to call the VeteransAdministration about his benefits or SocialSecurity, if he gets a secretary on the phone,he's left on a hold button for 20 minutesand gets lost, and his letters get lost. He hasno access to the people who have power tomake decisions in this country.
Contrast the problems an ordinarycitizen has with what ITT is able to do. Thepresident of ITT is able to have meetingswith four separate members of the Cabinet ifhe's got an anti-trust problem. He candestroy his own files without any legalpunishment. He can plan to overthrow thegovernment of Chile, to say nothing of thed eta iIs, you know, of the ITT case beforethe Judiciary Committee.
MR. BUCKLEY: Let's pause for a minute todiscuss this business of destroying one's ownfiles, because I don't know what's in yourfiles and I don't want to know, but I dothink that they -
MR. NEWFIELD: I saw the Jack Andersonshow. It was a good point.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, they happen to beyour property, and I certainly woulddestroy my files if I thought that The VillageVoice felt that it had total access to them,not because there's anything in them thatI'm frightened of sub specie aeternitatis.
MR. NEWFIELD: There might have beensomething in the ITT files, given the contextof the week those files were shredded,
MR. BUCKLEY: It may be that this is,indeed, a madwoman who left all kinds ofstuff in the files - the kind of thing thatTeddy Kennedy eats on for six months and it was much safer to destroy them underthe circumstances -
MR. GREENFIELD: Oh, of course. I'm sure
that was it, Bill.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, well, that may verywell be it.
MR. NEWFIELD: You know, there needs tobe a no-knock law for conglomerates.
MR. GREENFIELD: Even our civillibertarian types, because we're also for lawand order, recognize that flight is evidencesometimes of guilt. That is a legitimatepresumption that most judges will instructthe jury that they can take into account.
MR. BUCKLEY: Now, you say "evidencesometimes" and you move from that topresumption. They are different concepts.
MR. GREENFIELD: No, no, no. In otherwords, in a charge to the jury, a judge maysay, "You may take into account that flightmay create in your minds a presumption ofguilt," In other words, if a man runs awaywhen the cop comes, he may have beenrunning away because of an urgent call ofnature; he may have been running awaybecause he feared the arm of the law. Now,when a company -
MR. BUCKLEY: It's not presumption; it'sprima facie.
MR. GREENFIELD: No, no, no. I knowthat you don't have much respect for YaleLaw School, but I did get an LL.B. there, andI mean it creates a presumption. When acompany has a memo turn up and thenspends the next few hou rs busily feeding itsfiles into a paper shredder, one can drawseveral conclusions: one, they wereanticipating a New Year's Eve celebrationand wanted confetti or, two, they mighthave had something to hide.
MR. BUCKLEY: Well, they might havewanted -
MR. GREENFIELD: They might have beenshort of space. Who knows?
MR. BUCKLEY: No, now wait a minute.They might, indeed, have wanted to hidesomething for reasons that are perfectlyrespectable.
MR. GREENFIELD: I agree. That's whatthe Fifth Amendment's all about, which youare so eager to strip apart.
MR. BUCKLEY: There is a difference. It isone thing to hide something from a jury thatis trying you under a criminal charge. Thisyou are permitted, under the FifthAmendment, to do. It is something else tohave the privilege to hide something which isgoing to be discussed on programs like thisbecause Jack Anderson feeds it to us in themorning paper - something which issusceptible of the kind of embarrassment,for instance, that John Lindsay was put towhen one of his lieutenants taped aconversation during the 1965 campaign. Hewas talking about Micks and Kikes and Jewsand moving them from this district to theother district. Lindsay threw up his hands indespair at the fact that this leaked, and Ithink he had the right to keep that kind ofthing privileged.
MR. GREENFIELD: Oh, and I think areporter had every right to put it to thepeople. It was a reflection on John Lindsaythat was very bad..
MR. NEWFIELD: It was an illumination ofhis character.
MR. GREENFIELD: Sure.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, well, as a matter offact, of course, it was against the law,because the man who bugged theconversation was not permitted to do it. Heused a public telephone facility to do that.
MR. GREENFIELD: Yes, I understand.We're getti ng sl ightly astray.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, we're getting slightlyastray, but i do think that you deal instereotypes when you say that the idea isthat the ITT is necessarily bad because, forinstance, they go in there and they tear upall of the evidence and so on.
MR. GREENFIELD: Not necessarily. I justsaid that it creates a presumption in one'smind. Why do you do that? What need isthere to take one perfectly clear word andsubstitute another one which changes themeaning? For all I know, IT&T was treatedby the Federal Government withconsummate fairness. Jack was making apoint about access, that when you are the
eighth largest corporation in the world, youhave more access to high governmentofficials than an ordinary working stiff hasto a bu reaucrat.
MR. NEWF IE LD: What seems to me to begoing on in the country politically is thisfeeling of powerlessness that millions andmillions of people have.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, but I know all aboutthat. I've been writing about that for years.The reason people feel this sense ofpowerlessness is because you people havebeen shoving more and more authority onthe government by the truckload.
MR. NEWFIELD: What do you mean, "youpeople," white man?
MR. BUCKLEY: Exactly.
MR. GREENFIELD: Who do you think I am- Rexford Tugwell in drag? I mean, youknow, it's not me, Bill, honest!
MR. BUCKLEY: Every time you turnaround the idea is to expand the publicsector. Now, if you're going to choose thishistoric occasion to renounce -
MR. GREENFIELD: May I tell you a secret?
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes.
MR. NEWFIELD: I didn't come here todebate McKinley. Why are you debatingWilliam Jennings Bryan?
MR. GREENFIELD: Bill, get another gripon yourself. The surface transportationindustry was exposed as over-regulated bynone other than Ralph Nader. In fact, Naderhas been much tougher on public agenciesthan he's been on corporations.
MR. BUCKLEY: Because he says they arethe servants of the private agencies_
MR. GREENFIELD: But I favor, amongother things, deregulation of the surfacetransportation industry.
MR. BUCKLEY: I do, too.
MR. GREENFIELD: It costs us about eightbillion dollars to $12 billion a year.
MR. BUCKLEY: We came out for it in1958.
MR. GREENFIELD: Well, then that wasvery wise of you. And as we say in the book,Bill, this is not Hubert Humphrey'scampaign platform; it's not ADA's. Themost violent attack on this book is from aself-confessed liberal who is the Departmentof Government chairman at Harvard. Hehated the book.
MR. BUCKLEY: James Wilson, yes.
MR. NEWFIELD: Much of what we say goesagainst the mainstream of liberal thinkingfor the last 30 years. We have a wholechapter on how we have fundamentaldisagreements with the central ideas ofintellectual liberalism in the Fifties. Wedisagree with Daniel Bell's notion of the endof ideology, that all of the major problemsare solved and the Moynihan notion that it'sall the melting pot and now we see thisethnic rediscovery going on. Schlesinger'snotion is that now we get the politics ofleisure and that we don't have to worryabout the distribution of wealth any more.
MR. GREENFIELD: We could call this bookUp From Liberalism.
MR. NEWFIELD: The first chapter ends byquoting John Kennedy's speech at the Yalecommencement in 1962 in which he says themajor problems of the economy in thecountry now are technological andmanagerial. We say the exact opposite. Thisis a departure from theKen n ed y -Jo h n so n - Stevenson-Schlesingerkind of liberalism.
MR. BUCKLEY: All right. Let's grant thenthat there is a considerable differencebetween your program, though you callyours A Populist Manifesto, and the programof George McGovern which is better known,and he calls himself a populist. Let's thenisolate the differences. Would you pleasestart enumerating what it is that GeorgeMcGovern is going to the country and askingthem to vote for him for President for thatyou repudiate?
MR. GREENFIELD: I can tell you one thingthat I am waiting to hear him say.
MR. BUCKLEY: Tell us several.
MR. GREENFIELD: It's a negative, which is,I think,that the political -
MR. BUCKLEY: You want to hear him
attack the rich labor unions.
MR. GREENFIELD: Well, it's not so much"rich." Remember, rich is not always -
MR. BUCKLEY: Powerful, yes.
MR. GREENFIELD: I want to hear adiscussion about how the unions, andparticularly the building trade unions, havedriven up the cost of housing; how many ofthe craft unions have kept - and I wouldagree with you on this point, that it ismonopoly power - an unfair hold over thelabor force.
MR. BUCKLEY: Okay, good.
MR. GREENFIELD: They have blockedtechnological innovations, much as largecorporations have. I think there's a certainsense in which big institutions act like eachother whether they are governments,corporations, labor unions. Okay.
MR. BUCKLEY: Splendid. All right, now,tell me what he's said that you disagree with.
MR. GREENFIELD: I'm not at all sure, forinstance -
MR. NEWFIELD: We're here to debate ourbook. I support George McGovern forPresident.
MR. GREENFIELD: And so do I.
MR. NEWFIELD: So does Jeff.
MR. BUCKLEY: You do? Why do you getso nervous -
MR. NEWFIELD: Are you for Ashbrook orNixon this week?
MR. BUCKLEY: We're here to discuss thenew populism.
MR. NEWFIELD: Okay, let's stick to thenew populism.
MR. GREENFIELD: Let's not talk aboutGeorge McGovern's platform. I honestly -
MR. NEWFIELD: I think George McGovernis the most qualified man to be President atthis point in history. I did not draft hisplatform.
being so indignant when I associate you withhis program, okay?
MR. GREENFIELD: I like him because hisposition on the war and ours are quitesimilar. That's terribly important.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, I'm talking about thedomestic programs.
MR. GREENFIELD: Well, the domesticthing - I hate to mention this, Bill, but Irealized only this morning that the NationalReview had done the definitive view ofGeorge McGovern's program.
MR. BUCKLEY: Oh, that's all right.
MR. GREENFIELD: No, but it's not allright because frankly -
MR. BUCKLEY: You can pick it up fromthe press or from National Review.
MR. GREENFIELD: I think it's entirelypossible that he has a view of what taxloopholes ought to be cut that isn't mine. Ihaven't really read through his wholeprogram. And it's hard for us to tal k about itbecause we have our own view.
MR. BUCKLEY: You just think he'squalified then because of the Vietnam war.That's all?
MR. NEWFIELD: That's not what we said.
MR. GREENFIELD: No.
MR. NEWFIELD: Want to hear why I'm forGeorge McGovern?
MR. BUCKLEY: I'm trying to find out whatin the hell it is about McGovern that youlike, since you said that he is the bestqualified man to be President, because hecalls himself a populist.
MR. NEWFIELD: So does George Wallace.
MR. BUCKLEY: And every newspaper inthe country is talking about the newpopulism of George McGovern. You two areinvited to come here to talk about the newpopulism. I sneak in all kinds of plugs foryour book and now you don't want to talkabout the new populism.
MR. NEWFIELD: You haven't even read ourbook. You're talking about sperm banks and -
MR. GREENFIELD: Let's talk about thenew populism. I don't want to be a plaquefor George McGovern or anybody else.George Wallace calls himself a populist and I,you know-
MR. NEWFIELD: Humphrey's callinghimself a populist.
MR. GREENFIELD: I told you before theshow that by the time the paperback comesout, this will be nostalgia. We're beingoverrun by people seizing this banner. Thereare a lot of concepts -
MR. BUCKLEY: You mean like theSorcerer's Apprentice -
MR. GREENFIELD: Well, I've wonderedabout that.
MR. BUCKLEY: - who got your thing justslightly wrong?
MR. GREENFIELD: We didn't cast thespell. It's just that, you know, we think thatwe have a better version of it, primarilybecause it does not, as you consistently tryto force us to do, analyze these things frominstitutional biases. Harvard University is aliberal instituti on -
MR. NEWFIELD: The Ford Foundation is a·liberal institution.
MR. GREENFIELD: Okay, the whiteworking-class neighborhood around Harvardtends to vote conservative. But whenHarvard University takes the power ofeminent domain to knock down thatworking-class neighborhood, that's a case ofillegitimate power. So, you know, George-
MR. BUCKLEY: Now, wait a minute. It's acase of power illegitimate to use.
MR. GREENFIELD: Well, I'm not so sureHarvard should have the power to go inthere -
MR. BUCKLEY: Harvard doesn't have thepower to exercise eminent domain. Theyhave to go through the state legislature,don'tthey?
MR. GREENFIELD: Well, it has a hell of alot of power; but, all right, I'll accept thatdistinction.
MR. NEWF IELD: Here is another example
of the same thing. A few years ago I got veryinvolved in a situation in Corona, Queens,when the Lindsay administration wanted totear down the homes of 69 working-classItalian home owners so they could build anathletic field next to a high school. That'sthe kind of fight that began to develop myconsciousness of what populist politics is inthis country. These ordinary people had noconnections and I believe the people aroundLindsay had a snobbish attitude towardthem. Their homes and their neighborhoodwere going to be destroyed because of thecity planning commission and the board ofestimate, who, you know, couldn't findCorona, Queens, on a subway.
That kind of disproportionate power ispart of the problem.
MR. BUCKLEY: Are you challenging theconcept of eminent domain or the use of itin this instance?
MR. NEWFIELD: I'm challenging the use ofit in that situation by computers andtechnocrats and experts who don't knowwhat they're talking about.
MR. GREENFIELD: And the lack ofopportunity for a neighborhood to have theresources to challenge it, to make its caseheard.
MR. BUCKLEY: Professor Stunkel.
DR. STUNKEL: You admit in your bookthat the new majority is not yet operative onthe American scene, but that the elements ofit are in existence, right?
MR. GREENFIELD: Yes.
DR. STUNKEL: I guess you would alsoadmit that a coalition of diverse groupsdoesn't exist simply because they havecommon interests, even if those commoninterests are deeply felt economic interests;that is, the interests have to be perceived asinterests by all these groups and then theyhave to be acted upon in some tangible way.
That's an initiating statement there. InChapter Three, you talk about GeneralMotors as a state within a state, a countrywithin a country, enjoying illegitimatepower and tax benefits, and bilking theconsumer and polluting the environment.But isn't it the case that if this vasteconomic power were broken up in someway, in the ways that you suggest, and moremoney found its way into the pockets of
these dispossessed groups that the first thingthey would do is rush out and buy a GeneralMotors car, very likely? Not only that, theymay very well oppose any kind of really stiffanti-pollution law that required GeneralMotors to up the price of cars in order toput filtering devices on, as many motoristsdo now.
MR. GREENFI ELD: It's very possible.
DR. STUNKEL: So, what would happen tothe new majority as they began to edgetoward the enjoyment. of the ki nd ofeconomic power and the kind of economicadvantages which from a distance they mightscorn?
MR. NEWFIELD: Maybe what we're tryingto do is just to Iiberate people to a higherlevel of frustration. At this point, there are alot of people in this country who don't owna car. They don't have enough money to buya car. I've gone through sections of Queenswhere there's block after block where peoplecan't even afford an air conditioner - or inBrownsville. I don't think the kind ofpolitics we're trying to develop with thisbook stands or falls on the General Motorsproblem.
DR. STUNKEL: You see, the point I'mmaking is that General Motors has all thispower that you describe in your bookbecause people buy their automobiles. Thebest way to put General Motors out ofbusiness is to stop buying cars. If five millionpeople decided, in one year, not to buy anew automobile and to get along with theold one, that would cause the automobileindustry considerable pain, don't you think?
MR. BUCKLEY: To say nothing of the fullemployment business.
MR. GREENFIELD: This is why I wouldthink the kind of specific remedy that we'retalking about in the automobile industry isdeconcentration. In .other words, I thi nk theproblem I have with General Motors is notso much that it makes a lot of money, butthat it makes the money with anadministered price which is not responsive tothe market; and second, that its negativedecisions in the field, say, of pollution orauto safety have such an enormous publicpolicy impact.
MR. NEWFIELD: They are basicallyunaccountable to a larger public.
MR. BUCKLEY: Who said they've got anadministered price? Why do they have anadministered price? You sneaked that in.
MR. GREENFIELD: What it means is that Ithink what they can do is target a profit andprice to meet that, irrespective of marketforces.
MR. BUCKLEY: No, they can't.
MR. GREENFIELD: Yes, they can.
MR. BUCKLEY: No, they can't.
MR. GREENFIELD: Read the Kefauverhearings. That's exactly what they've beendoing for 15 years.
MR. BUCKLEY: No, they can't, because theKefauver hearings didn't take into accountthe second car market. The second carmarket is the principal competitiveinstrument of GM. If GM tries to get toomuch for a new car, you don't buy a newone. You buy an old one or one that's threemonths old. Professor Kelley.
DR. KELLEY: I was wondering about oneof the elements of the New Deal coalitionthat you don't discuss. You've accounted formost of them, but I find, aside from a fewlumps flung at Harvard for foreign policy, acurious lack of comment about theintellectual community.
MR. GREENFIELD: You do.
MR. NEWFIELD: Chapter Two.
DR. KELLEY: Well, not quite. Where doesthis community fit in? Does it just sit in thebackground and articulate a kind of newpopulist philosophy and tell the blacks andthe medium and low income whites whattheir philosophy is, or are we to beconsigned as those giant intellectualcorporations, like the foundations, to theestablishment and, therefore, presumablymore to the rightist side of the continuum?
MR. NEWFIELD: I don't think you can dealwith intellectuals as a social class or as agroup.
DR. KELLEY: Or is it done up with thepower of-the larger institutions?
MR. GREENFIELD: No, no. I just don'taccept that. That whole outlook is certainly
at odds with what we are talking about.
MR. NEWFIELD: Are you trying to say thebook is anti-intellectual?
DR. KELLEY: No, the book has not gotanything to do with the group, and I wonderwhat happened to it. Either you've written itoff to a kind of nonpolitical attitude or itstays in the background and does as youhave done - articulate what the philosophyought to be for other segments of thesociety, or potentially the third alternative,which sort of defects to Richard Nixon.
MR. GREENFIELD: No, I think thatdefinition of intellectuals as some ki nd ofclass with a common interest is silly. You'vegot people working in Washington nowtrying to unearth the issues we're tal kingabout and you've got people whom youwould call intellectuals fiercely resisting thisconcept. I think it's just too diffusive agroup to talk about that way.
DR. KELLEY: So what you're saying, inessence, is that as an element they neverfitted into the coalition. They were a kind ofbogus -
MR. GREENFIELD: They supplied a lot ofthe theoretical undertaking for some of theNew Deal stuff and the Great Society.
MR. NEWFIELD: Some of the best things inthis country and some of the worst thingsI mean counterinsurgency and free fire zonesand all that stuff - come out of an uncertainintellectual tradition, and a lot of the - .
MR. BUCKLEY: So much for whC!t's goodthat they've done, what about the badthings?
(laughter)
MR. GREENFIELD: The most criticizedsentence in the whole book has been theforeign policy chapter opening which is thatthe sons of Harvard sent the sons of Bostonand Watts to die in South Vietnam.
MR. NEWFIELD: It seems to me aself-evident fact. You would even agree withthat, wouldn't you, just as a fact of history?
MR. BUCKLEY: As metaphor, I wouldaccept it, yes.
MR. GREENFIELD: Okay, well, that's what
it is. It is a metapnor.
MR. BUCKLEY: Professor Wescott.
DR. WESCOTT: I'm not sure whetheryou're predicting or calling for theappearance of a new populism. If you'repredicting it-
MR. NEWFIELD: We say in that firstsentence in the book that the movementdoes not yet ex ist. We see that there arecertain -
MR. GREENFIELD: Let him finish.
MR. NEWFIELD: I'm sorry. Go ahead.
MR. GREENFIELD: I sympathize with himbecause I was there.
DR. WESCOTT: There is a question, then,that comes to my mind, depending uponhow you answer that. I don't know whetheryou know or not but in your first few pagesyou give a brief synopsis of populism inAmerican history. Back in the 1850's, theRepublican party was a kind of populistparty, drawing on a lot of diverse elements,but at its earl y stage of development it wasreferred to in some states as the "People'sparty."
Suppose that what happens is thatthere is a realignment - let's assume we're ina realignment era - and out of this comes anew party called the Populist party or thePeople's party or whatever. What's going toprevent that party from ending up the sameway the Republican party did?
MR. NEWFIELD: Nothing. One of thethings we try to do in this book is to behumble and modest and say, "We don't havethe answer to everything. This is what wethink about this now." We even changedsome of our ideas as we wrote the book. Wewrote this book at a time when there arecertain current political notions about wherethe country is going politically. KevinPhillips had one notion that there is anemerging Republican majority, a permanenttransformation of the political base in thecountry; that Nixon plus Wallace will equal anew permanent majority. I think that isbeing disproved now by the number ofpeople who are torn between GeorgeMcGovern and George Wallace.
Scammon and Wattenberg wrote abook saying that the social issue would bedominant in American pol itics; liberals had
to move to the center; that children wouldvote like their parents. I think that is nowbeing disproved. Children are voting muchmore liberal, and issues like unemploymentand tax reform and inflation are having agreater pull on the electorate than theyforesaw. Now, we have another view of it.We may be right, we may be wrong. But wethink, the way politics is going in thecountry now, that there is a feeling ofpowerlessness. White working-class peoplefeel screwed; they feel that events are out ofcontrol. And we think that the blue collarworkers, the blacks, the young, the middleclass will together constitute a new majority.We think that at this point there's probablymore evidence for our point of view than forthe Phillips view or the Scammon andWattenberg view.
MR. GREENFIELD: And we may be wrong.See, it's not only that we may well bewrong, but it's important to say thatpopulism as a movement is a part of what wethink has to be done in the country. I meanthere is so much more. To be perfectlyfrank, as Richard Nixon says when he lies tous, it may not even be the most importantthing. I mean there are whole questionsabout the nature of work, what it is we dowith our lives, how we've trapped ourselvesinto a whole pattern of living, that populismmay not speak to at all. There are greatissues about civil liberties, war and peace,and ecology and crime that populism maynot have anything to say about at all. It is apart of what we think has to be done. Thehumility and modesty is relative, given thetwo of us; but, you know, we don't say -
MR. NEWFIELD: Speak for yourself.
(laughter)
MR. GREENFIELD: Okay. It's not TheGreening of America or Pray Your WeightA way or Thirty Days to a More PowerfulCountry. You know, it's tentative.
MR. BUCKLEY: Do you object also to thatpart of populism which is characteristically"know-nothing"? Presumably, you do.
MR. NEWFIELD: Of course, we say in thatintroduction that populism historically hasbeen stained by anti-Catholicism, racism,anti-immigrant feeling, and we hope that anew populism would not go the way of aGeorge Wallace.
MR. GREENFIELD: Indeed, not only that,but I think, as somebody who supportedwhat we see as the three most importantmovements on the left in the last decade the anti-war, black equality, and women'smovements - that all of them have had theseeds of hysteria, excess, totalitarianism, andthere's no reason to think that populism isany different.
MR. BUCKLEY: Professor Stunkel.
DR. STUNKEL: Yes, I have one otherquestion I would like to ask. Do you assumethat this potential new majority, if it wereraised to a sufficiently high level ofconsciousness - and I assume that yourbook is, in part, an attempt to create such aconsciousness among these diverse elements- would actually. perceive the breakup ofthese concentrations of economic power a3in their real interest rather than, say,perceiving communism as the chief threat totheir well-being and thus justifying anenormous defense expenditure every year?Or, rather, would they continue to perceivethe real threat to them as more and moreblacks and poor whites going on welfare andsomehow imagine that this comes out oftheir pay checks?
MR. G REENFI ELD: That's the question.
MR. NEWFIELD: For me, this book grewout of my own experience. I grew up in apoor white family in Bedford-Stuyvesant,and I see the problems my own family has interms of not being able to pay hospital bills.I could not have gone to college if the cityuniversity had not been free. I have friendswho are cops and I see the problems theyhave. I think there is a crisis going on in thiscountry for people who earn between$6,000 and $11,000 per year, and there's notelling how it's going to end up. But I think,in terms of our perception, that they deservea greater share of the power and affluence ofthis country. They lead half-lives; they haveproblems of crime, industrial safety,pollution.
DR. STUNKEL: I think what is mostdisturbing to me about your book is thatyou don't really explain how this program ofreform is to be carried off.
MR. NEWFIELD: Send in two boxtops.
MR. GREENFIELD: That's the next book. Imean, you don't blow your whole wad.
There are professors who make a history oftheir Ph.D. theses.
DR. STUNKEL: Even if George McGovernwere fortunate enough to become Presidentof the United States, if the concentration ofeconomic power is as great, factually, as youdescribe it, even he, on a white steed ridingacross the desert, would have great difficultybreaking it up.
MR. NEWFIELD: That's why electoralpolitics is not the whole answer. If GeorgeMcGovern became president tomorrow, andI pray that he does, that would not affectHarold Geneen being president of ITT oraffect the board of directors of GeneralMotors.
DR. STUNKEL: It wouldn't affect theinterlocking of economic with pol iticalpower. That's what I mean.
MR. NEWFIELD: I agree. That's why thebulk of this has to be an extra-parliamentarymovement that changes consciousness, thatchanges attitudes, and that is the power, wehope, of ideas. Ideas have the power tochange institutions and change attitudes.What we're talking about in this book is anidea.
MR. GREENFIELD: It would meansomewhat more resistance. My view of theNixon Administration is that, you know,there's a difference between rape andnymphomania, and we're talking about thelatter with Richard Nixon.
MR. NEWFIELD: Back to the sperm banksagain.
(laughter)
MR. GREENFIELD: But, you know, theother important thing to say quickly is thatwe've gone through a period, particularlyamong intellectuals of liberal persuasion,when we romanticized the black movementto the point that anybody with a dashiki andviolent rhetoric got paid $1,000 to do histhing. We seem to be coming out of thatnow. I think part of the women's movementis banking on collective male guilt of anunhappy sort. I haven't heard many anti-warpeople protest the North Vietnameseshell ing of civilians and the destruction ofAn Loc, which bothers me as somebody whohas been against the war for 10 years.
And, similarly, we may be in a process
where, particularly because of the necessitiesof the Democratic party appealing to labor,we're going to romanticize, you know, everyworking-class guy as a hero instead ofrecognizing that there are limits there too;that there is selfishness, there is racism, thereis anti-intellectualism, there is the willingnessto beat up in the streets a demonstrator wholooks funny.
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, but I think, be for ewe-
MR. GREENFIELD: I knew that last onewould get you.
MR. BUCKLEY: - go off about howsuperior we are to the people in Boston,"we" presumably meaning people fromHarvard -
MR. GREENFIELD: Bill, I'd rather begoverned by the first 2,000 names in theBoston phone book than Harvard University,and that's true. It's called democracy.
MR. BUCKLEY: Okay, but I think it issignificant at a moment when you're tryingto appeal to the people. We have a pollpublished this morning that showed that it'sbetter than two to one enthusiastically infavor of what Mr. Nixon did last week onthe matter of - and I think it's quite true.I also think it's -
MR. NEWFIELD: Oh, Bill, that isinstitutional loyalty for the office of thepresidency; that is, Nixon's speech is anothershot of methadone for a junky, and it'sgoing to fade in two weeks.
MR. BUCKLEY: No, I think it's somethingother than that. I also say that the reasonthat you have had to worry about a war for10 years instead of, say, just for six months,is that the people of Harvard rather than thepeople of Boston conducted it.
MR. GREENFIELD: That's right, but thepeople of Boston would never have gotteninto it.
MR. BUCKLEY: Making due allowancefor -
MR. GREENFIELD: Do you know aboutthe poll that says, by three to one, that theAmerican people think the war is immoral,and what does that prove to you?
MR. BUCKLEY: No, I don't know about
the poll, but I'd like very much to talk tothe pollster and see exactly how he framedthat question.
MR. GREENFIELD: It's true. How aboutthe pollster who found out the people likedthe mining of Haiphong Harbor? Don't youwant to talk to him too?
MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, and the people whoare for McGovern and also for Wallace. It'sall very confusing.
MR. GREENFIELD: Yes.
MR. BUCKLEY: But anyway, thank youvery much, Mr. Greenfield, Mr. Newfield;gentlemen, and ladies and gentlemen.
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