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Contours of Descent: US Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity, by Robert Pollin. New York: Verso, 2004. $21.00; paper, $11.17. Pp. xiii, 229.
Pollin's book is a vivid and intensely interesting discussion of the policies and performance of Clinton and the second Bush, plus the policies of the IMF and World Bank in the third world. The story is told from a Marxist theoretical viewpoint, but without any use of jargon.
The examination of the Clinton administration begins by looking at the dominant neoliberal policy view. The critique makes it clear that neoliberalism is another name for a particular brand of conservatism. Neoliberals advocate elimination of government deficits, of safeguards of labor rights, and of all regulation of financial markets; they also back free trade among countries. Pollin argues that the Reagan and first Bush administrations pursued these policies in a harsh manner, but the Clinton administration also followed the same "neoliberal" policies, though in a softer manner.
Pollin describes economic growth during the Clinton administration as good, but not much above the previous administrations. Moreover, the long expansion of the 1990s witnessed no great rise in real wages until 19972000, when wages rose and poverty declined somewhat. During most of the Clinton years, the gap between rich and poor actually widened.
Many commentators claim that the Clinton policies brought ever-lasting prosperity, continual profits for business, and a stock market that never declines. Pollin shows that the system of unequal power leading to greater inequality means that the system becomes more and more...