Bridgewater Review

Volume 3 | Issue 2 Article 10

Jul-1985

Book ReviewsMargaret BarberBridgewater State College

Milton BoyleBridgewater State College

Charles FanningBridgewater State College

This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

Recommended CitationBarber, Margaret; Boyle, Milton; and Fanning, Charles (1985). Book Reviews. Bridgewater Review, 3(2), 19-22.Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol3/iss2/10

.BOOK REVIEWS

•

The Truth AboutSupply-SideEconomics

by

Michael K. Evans

Basic Books, Inc. - 1983

SUPPlY-Side economics has generated con­siderable controversy in recent years. It hasbeen promoted by some as a new cure for thenation's economic troubles -- a way of fight­ing inflation and unemployment at the sametime. Others have criticized its goals forbeing unrealistic and its methods for beingunfair. In The Truth About Supply-SideEconomics, Michael K. Evans, a well­known economic consultant and a developerof several important models of the U.S.economy, analyzes the success and failuresof the supply-side policies which have beenimplemented by the Reagan administration.

The U.S. economy experienced signifi­cant deterioration in the 1970s with thesimultaneous advent of high inflation, highunemployment, high interest rates and lowproductivity. Supply-side economists attrib­ute the weak performance ofthe economy tovarious factors, including high tax rates andexcessive government regulation. They sup­port policies which are aimed at reversingthese factors. President Reagan has adoptedmany of these policies in his economic pro­gram by lowering personal, corporate andcapital gains taxes and decreasing govern­ment regulation.

After outlining the Reagan program, Evansdiscusses some of the claims which weremade about how it would work. Most of themisconceptions he describes, such as theexpectation that corporate tax cuts wouldgenerate a rapid increase in investment andthat interest rates would fall, are related tothe timing of the results. Evans explains indetail why these events did not occur whenexpected.

In addition, the belief that the budgetwould be balanced by 1984 is analyzed.Evans asserts that a major flaw in the Rea­gan plan was to substantially overestimateboth the amount of non-defense spending

which could realistically be reduced and theincrease in tax revenues which could beexpected as the economy responded to thetax cuts. Increases in defense spending onlyexacerbated the problem. The resulting re­cord budget deficits kept interest rates highand caused many observers to doubt thevalue of supply-side policies. True supply­side economics, however, requires decreasesin government spending as well as in taxes.

With these "myths" examined, Evans thenpresents what he believes to be the "truths"of supply-side economics. Investment andsaving will increase as tax rates are lowered.Higher capital spending will raise the pro­ductive capacity of the economy, while highersaving levels provide the needed funds forborrowers and help keep interest rates low.

In addition, a lower capital gains tax facil­itates economic growth by encouraging theentrepreneur and venture capitalist to takethe risks to start new businesses. The increasein profits and decline in interest rates fromthe tax cuts will serve to increase economicactivity overall. In theory, this expansion ineconomic activity will increase tax revenuesand lower the budget deficits.

. .. a major flaw inthe Reagan plan wasto substantiallyoverestimate both theamount of non­defense spendingwhich couldrealistically bereduced and theincrease in taxrevenues which couldbe expected as theeconomy respondedto the tax cuts.

In the opinion of the author, lower taxrates not only raise productivity but alsoreduce tax sheltering and tax avoidanceactivity. Evans believes a lowering of tax

rates for the wealthy will actually increasetax revenues, whereas overall tax reductionswill tend to lower them. He suggest that asuccessful program will primarily gear itstax reductions to the rich rather than to alltaxpayers across the board.

In the closing chapters, Evans describeswhat he believes is the optimal balancedsupply-side plan. Government spending, aswell as taxes, should be reduced to avoid theproblem of budget deficits and high interestrates. Production will be stimulated andinflationary pressures will be lessened. Also,a flat-rate income tax should be adopted,since it could potentially raise more revenuethan the present system while improvingincentives to work, save and invest.

One shortcoming of the book is thatEvans presents only those facts which sup­port supply-side economics, while excludingmany others. For instance, when he exam­ines the causes of the economic problems ofthe 1970s, he fails to include the effects ofhigher energy prices resulting from the 0 PECcartel. Similarly, scant attention is given tothe significance of monetary policy, eventhough the Federal Reserve's control of themoney supply is an important tool in fight­ing inflation. Also, it is not clear that lower­ing the upper income tax brackets wouldappreciably reduce the present budget defi­cits, since most tax revenue comes from themiddle income group.

Another problem is that although Evansdescribes the expected benefits of supply­side economics in depth, he fails to giveserious consideration to the costs. He advo­cates deeper cuts in government spendingand tax rates than the Reagan administra­tion has been able to convince Congress tomake. If Evans' proposals are implemented,they are sure to have an impact on manygroups in the economy and on the distribu­tion of income. Th.is should be carefully con­sidered in addition to the projected macro­economic effects.

On the whole, Evans presents a clearoverview of the objectives and policy tools ofsupply-side economics. This informative andreadable book explains many relevant con­cepts in economics, and provides some use­ful historical background on the U.S.economy.

The debate about supply-side economicsis far from settled and readers should ap­proach this book with an open mind.

Margaret BarberInstructor of Economics

19

Religion In TheSecular City

byHarvey Cox

New York:Simon and Schuster, 1984

Two decades ago most prognosticators ofthings religious were proclaiming the immi­nent death of God and of religion as an impor­tant human expression in an increasinglysecular world. Religion, they said, would berelegated to family and private interpersonalrelationships and would no longer shapepolitical, economic and the larger socialinstitutions. One of those seers was Profes­sor Harvey Cox, Harvard theologian, who,inhis The Secular City (New York: MacMil­lan, 1965) articulated the assess­ments and expectations of many modernliberal theologians. Since 1965, however,many events have occurred that belie thosepredictions.

The chaotic uprisings of the late 60s andearly 70s seemed proof of religion's failures,but most observers failed to note the reli­gious fervor that undergirded them. Theanti-Viet Nam and civil rights protests werecertainly religiously oriented. The decadefrom 1965-1975 saw a number of holy warsin the Middle East and a resurgence of reli­gious conservatism culminating in the returnof the Ayatollah Khomeini to rule in Iran.Since then we have witnessed the religiousbattles with Lebanon, the continuing strifein Northern Ireland, the religious tenacity ofthe Catholics of Poland who defy even Rus­sian might, the near fanatical acclamation ofPope John Paul II wherever in the world hevisits, the rise of Jerry Falwell's MoralMajority and other fundamentalist religioussects and cults in America (and their perhapsdecisive influence on the 1984 presidentialelection), and the burgeoning influence of"Liberation Theology" in Central and SouthAmerica.

Professor Cox, in his most recent work,Religion in the Secular City: Toward aPostmodern Theology now proclaims thedemise of modern liberal theology and, fo­cusing on fundamentalism and liberation

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The Moon Is In The Eastern Sky----,

The moon is in the eastern sky.There are no storms tonight,no threat ofsnow;the thin-lipped bay has eatenall the clouds had left.

The space between the stars is deeper,all their violence flawless.There is no wind;each tree is perfect separatenessEach stone has grown a shadow.

I am further from the next house.My house has grown the shadowofa woman in a window.The thin body of the mercurymeasures this cold peace.

Faye George Hennebury--

Faye Geurge Hennebury currently works at Bridgewarer SrareCullege as a secrerary in the Humanities Department. Herpuetry has appeared in Yankee and Poet Lore. She haspublished alsu in the Anthology of Magazine Verse andYearbook of American Poetry (1980). featuring the "choicestpoetry of the year" selected from magazines across the UnitedStates and Canada. Her varied background includes radiocopy/continuity writing, and public relations work in humanservices and municipal government. She has two children andone grandchild.

Francis's mother twitched nervously in hergrave as the truck carried him nearer toher; and Francis's father lit his pipe, smiledat his wife's discomfort, and looked outfrom his own bit of sod to catch a glimpseof how much his son had changed since thetrain accident. Francis's father smokedroots of grass that died in the periodicdroughts afflicting the cemetery. He storedthe root essence in his pockets until it wasbrittle to the touch, then pulverized itbetween his fingers and packed his pipe.Francis's mother wove crosses from thedead dandelions and other deep-rootedweeds; careful to preserve their fullestlength, she wove them while they were stillin the green stage of death, then ate themwith an insatiable revulsion.

These are strange, fascinating novels, com­bining gritty realism in the Irish Americantradition of James T. Farrell, blase flightsinto supernaturalism as in the ,"magic real­ism" of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and occa­sional passages of compassionate lyricism,reminiscent of the fictions of William Goyen.In fact, a good epigraph for the series, forIronweed especially, is the revery of "Arcad­io," in Goyen's last novel of that name: "I layawake and thought about it, about turned­away things, things not taken, things thrownback or let go, or the light in them put out byfear."

The support of Saul Bellow and a Mac­Arthur Foundation "genius grant" (five yearsof economic freedom to keep writing) havemade William Kennedy famous (in a literaryway) and provided an audience for hisnovels, all of which were rejected many timesby many publishers over the past ten years.Now available in a single-format paperbackpackage from Penguin, Kennedy's threeAlbany novels emerge as a connected trilogywhich shares a setting, New York's down-at­the-heels capital city, a time frame, roughly1925 to 1938, and a vivid, various cast ofcharacters both dead and alive, bums andbootlickers and honest workingmen, newspaper­men, politicians, gamblers, and gangsters.

These three novels constitute a trilogybecause of the effect of focusing in and downthat reading them in sequence provides. Thefirst is a fictionalizing of the life of a real andfamous person: the notorious underworldfigure, Jack "Legs" Diamond, "not merelythe dude of all gangsters, the most activebrain the the New York underworld, but ...one of the truly new American Irishmen ofhis day; Horatio Alger out of Finn McCooland Jesse James, shaping the dream that youcould grow up in America and shoot yourway to glory and riches." The story of Legstakes in the six years, from 1925 to 1931, ofhis friendship with Albany lawyer MarcusGorman, who narrates the events. The accentis on the last three years, during whichGorman works for Legs and ending withDiamond's shooting death in Albany, but

Milton BoyleProfessor of Philosophy

and Religious Studies

The Matterof Albany

Billy Phelan'sGreatest Game

by William Kennedy(Viking, 1978)

Ironweedby William Kennedy

(Viking, 1983)

Legsby William Kennedy

(Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1975)

Lonweed' the third of William Kennedy'sAlbany novels, opens with a visit to SaintAgnes Cemetery by Francis Phelan, aged 58and a bum on the lam for twenty years. It isthe morning of Halloween, October 31,1938, and the visit does not go unnoticed:

Book Reviews Continued

Liberation theologians, like GustavoGutierrez and Juan Luis Segundo, speakfrom and to the anguish of all those enslavedby poverty and political ineffectiveness. Themovement has spawned a very large number(Cox estimates at least two-hundred thou­sand) of "base communities" -- which theauthor describes in fascinating fashion inChapter 8 -- reminiscent of old-time Prot­estant Bible study gatherings. In the basecommunity the laity are dominant. Clergyserve primarily as catalysts and advisors totheir religious ruminations which may lacktheological profundity, but contain marvel­ous insight into biblical truths and theirapplication to the plight of the masses, eachmember of which sees himself/ herself as onefrom whom Jesus personally lived and died.There is in all of this a stark challenge to therigid hierarchy and absolute authoritarian­ism of the Roman Catholic Church, as onemay well note from the sharp papal warn­ings issued from time to time to the Central/­South American bishops.

Harvey Cox writes with uncommon skill.He is at his best when describing humanevents, but he is no less adept at analyzingtheir causes and meanings, though his judg­ments will not be accepted by all students ofthe modern and post modern worlds, and heleaves some questions unanswered. I thinkhe discounts too heavily the future of fun­damentalism. He does not seem to note thatwhile they talk incessantly of the coming end

theology predicts a rising "postmodern"theology. Drawing on his personal contactsand with both movements Cox concludesthat each has sprung from the ashes of failedliberal religious thinking and practices. InAmerican fundamentalism he finds some~hings worthy of praise: its offering of hopeto the poor and lowly, its challenge to theexcesses of the secular and technologicalaspects of modern society, and, he notes, itsrespect for and use of reason. He also evincesadmiration for its "feisty vitality. Beatenback into its corner on many occasions it hasalways emerged again, picking up stones tosling at the Goliath of modernism."

Cox believes, however, that fundamental­ism bears the seeds of its own demise. It tiesitself too closely to things traditional andoutdated and consequently ignores modernintellectual and technological advances. Itsemphasis on the imminent end of the presentage and its fascination with the coming

."Rapture" leave it unable and unwilling todeal with a "this-worldly" future. For Cox,the hope of a vital postmodern theology liesinstead with the liberation movement soprominent now in Central and South Amer­ica.

I of the world, and while their eschatologicalI---------------------J viewpoints certainly color their theology,

fundamentalists live as much as anyone foreach day and plan for tomorrow as wouldany modernist. I question, too, his almostcomplete faith in the base community forshaping postmodern theology and the futurechurch. Change is surely imminent. Neitherabsolute papel authority nor sacred tradi­tion will stem its tide. There will be revolu­tionary political, economic, and social con­sequences -- perhaps even a new Reformation.If, however, as Cox believes, the base com­munity will provide the means for the poorand powerless to become affluent and mighty,who will minister to them?

Professor Cox's book is an important one,a worthy successor to The Secular City.Perhaps another two decades or so mustpass before we will know if his insights and pre­dictions are closer to the mark this time.They are certainly informative and stimulat­ing. Religion in the Secular City should beread by everyone interested in developingtheology and the future of the Christianchurch -- as well as religion generally.

21

Charles FanningProfessor of English

pool hustler to carry, but again, as with thestory of Legs Diamond, Kennedy is convinc­ing.

Finally, there is a progression to the least,and greatest, of the protagonists of theAlbany trilogy. Francis Phelan is an alco­holic vagrant, the accidental killer of twomen with a share of responsibility in severalother deaths, and a twenty-year deserter ofhis wife and two children. And yet Kennedycreates him as a plausibly heroic figure, inwords that come not from an identified nar­rator, but, seemingly, from the inarticulatesoul of Francis himself:

He believed he was a creature of unknownand unknowable qualities, a man in whomthere would never be an equanimity ofboth impulsive and premeditated action.Yet after every ad mission that he was a lostand distorted soul, Francis asserted hisown private wisdom and purpose: he hadfled the folks because he was too profane abeing to live among them; he had humbledhimself willfully through the years to count­er a fearful pride in his own ability tomanufacture the glory from which gracewould flow. What he was was, yes, a war­rior, protecting a belief that no man couldever articulate, especially himself; but some­how it involved protecting saints fromsinners, protecting the living from thedead. And a warrior, he was certain, wasnot a victim. Never a victim.

The two days and nights of this novel, AllSouls' and All Saints' Days of the year 1938,are eventful for Francis Phelan. He getssober and gets drunk, he eases the last hoursof two dying hobo-companions, he finds thebody of Helen, his on-the-bum girlfriend ofa decade, he kills a man, he comes home tohis wife and family for dinner for the firsttime since 1916. In addition, through thecourse of these forty-eight hours, Francismeets and converses with all of the impor­tant ghosts of his past -- from his parents, tocompanions of his youth, to those in whoseviolent deaths he has been implicated. Is thisdelirium tremens or is it "really" happening?The quality of the writing makes the ques­tion irrelevant. It is simply one more ofKennedy's successfully wrought paradoxesthat this least deluded of men has plausibleencounters with the dead.

one of this catches the texture of theseextraordinary novels. They must be read tobe appreciated. In all three, a place, a timeand a group of people are imagined withintensity and fullness. Driven by a visionaryimagination and an austere sense of values("IRONWEED: The name refers to thetoughness of the stem"), William Kennedyhas created a world that commands atten­tion and forces thought.

Driven by a vision­ary imaginationand an austeresense of values,William Kennedyhas created a worldthat commandsattention and forcesthought.

As for Billy Phelan, he seems to hisobserving narrator, Martin Daugherty,"more specific than most men," in fact,"fully defined at thirty-one." He refuses tojoin either side in the deadly kidnap gamethat turns the Albany underworld inside out,although the cost is ostracism from his joyand livelihood -- immersion in the city's hus­tling night scene. (Martin calls him "a gener­alist, a man in need of the sweetness of mis­cellany.") Martin also considers Billy "astrong man, indifferent to luck, a gamesterwho accepted the rules and played by them,but who also played above them, ... ahealthy man without need for artifice ormysticism," and (another paradox) "a seriousfellow who put play in its proper place: anadjunct to breathing and eating." And whenan inadvertent tip from Billy brings the kid­napping to a happy ending, Martin creditshim with unconscious, intuitive knowledge"touched with magic," and calls him "notonly the true hero of this whole sordid busi­ness, but ... an ontological hero as well." Tobe sure, this is a heavy load of meaning forthe life of a small-time bowling, cards, and

Book Reviews Continued

there are flashbacks all the way to Legs'slate-nineteenth-eentury childhood in the Phila­delphia Irish ghetto. The second novel, BillyPhelan's Greatest Game, describes one weekin late October, 1938, in the lives of small­time hustler Billy Phelan and journalistMartin Daugherty (the narrator here) whofind themselves mixed up in the kidnappingof the son of Albany's most powerful politi­cal boss. And the third novel, Ironweed,details two days, October 31 and November1, 1938, in the life of Billy's father Francis, analcoholic derelict and seemingly the leastconsequential of men. Here the narrative isomniscient and much more lyrical, and itincludes the final acts and thoughts of threeother homeless hoboes, whose deaths punc­tuate the book with resonant emotionalimpact.

Kennedy's uniquely moving prose needsto be quoted. Here is one piece where hedescribes Francis Phelan finding sleep out inthe open in sub-freezing weather, late on thefirst of the two nights of Ironweed:

The new and frigid air of November layon Francis like a blanket of glass. Itsweight rendered him motionless andbrought peace to his body, and the stillnessbrought a cessation ofanguish to his brain.In a dream he was only just beginning toenter, horns and mountains rose up out ofthe earth, the horns -- ethereal, trumpets-sounding with a virtuousity equal to theperilousness of the crags and cornices ofthe mountainous pathways. Francis recog­nized the song the trumpets played and hefloated with its melody. Then, yielding notwithout trepidation to its coded urgency,he ascended bodily into the exalted reachesof the world where the song had beencomposed so long ago. And he slept.

What the main characters in these threenovels have in common is integrity, of sorts.And a resolute refusal of illusion or self­delusion. By far the worst is Legs Diamond,an underworld potentate and cold-bloodedmurderer. And yet, in the eyes of MarcusGorman, he emerges as a true and admirableparadox: "He was a liar, of course, a perjurer,all of that, but he was also a venal man ofintegrity, for he never ceased to renew hisvulnerability to punishment, death, and dam­nation. It is one thing to be corrupt. It isanother to behave in a psychologically respon­sible way toward your own evil." A self­consciously mythic figure, Jack Diamond(born John T. Nolan) is a lot closer to JayGatsby (born Jimmy Gatz), who alsoemerged from his own Platonic conceptionof himself, than to "lesser later-day figuressuch as Richard Nixon, who left significanthistory in his wake, but no legend; whosecorruption, overwhelmingly venal and in­variably hypocritical, lacked the admirably

I white core fantasy that can give evil aI----------------------J mythical dimension." As Marcus Gorman

points out, "Only boobs and shitheads rootedfor ixon in his troubled time, but heroesand poets followed Jack's tribulations withcuriousity, ambivalent benevolence, and asense of mystery at the meaning of their ownresponse." This may sound like a romanti­cizing of hardness and violence, but it isn't.Kennedy's notable achievement here is thecreation of a true "sense of mystery," onerooted in another paradox -- the mixture ofrealism and self-generated fantastic legendthat Legs Diamond's life represents.

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