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massive public investment and permanent employment projects, and
taxes on wealth as well as income are among the possibilities that come
to
mind, if never to public debate. (We shall see that Thurow himself
favors some of these reforms.) The point is not that big business
exercises finger-tip control over public policymaking.
It
is simply that
private capitaI'possesses the initiatory power, in the realms of pricing,
investment, technology, and industrial relocation, that permits it to
evade or subvert objectionable policies of federal, state, or local
governments. Every new policy represents an intrusion that produces
an equal and opposite reaction in the private sector.
In
the policymak–
ing process itself, for that matter, the formation ·of the Business
Roundtable in 1972 has given the
Fortune
500 more cohesion and
credibility at the federal level than earlier business organizations
(National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
American Iron and Steel Institute, among others), which exhibited
considerable corporate divisiveness on important policy issues and an
inability to cope with the industry-wide regulatory reforms of the 1970s
(Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Environmental
Protection Agency, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,
Consumer Product Safety Commission).
Whether agenda-shaping or actual policy formulation, the great
inflation of 1966-1980 provides a classic case of business domination
over social options. Nowhere in
The Zero-Sum Society
is there ade–
quate recognition of the history-making impact of this long, accelerat–
ing inflation, which has shifted the boundaries of practicable economic
policy in very significant ways. "The fight against inflation" now
justifies government budget austerity and cutbacks of municipal
services, which would have been inconceivable ten years ago (even in a
nation where public services have been, at best, marginal). Fiscal and
monetary policies, which are supposed to combat inflation and unem–
ployment even -handedly depending on the phase of the business cycle,
have been monopolized by the "anti-inflation" forces, with a resulting
increase in joblessness which would have been feared by both Demo–
crats and Republicans as " political suicide" a decade ago. The " losses"
imposed on large numbers of people in the name of inflation control
are unmistakable. For reasons Thurow does not consider, the business
sector appears to be succeeding where the "political process" cannot.
The most disconcerting aspect of
The Zero-Sum Society
is that its
author is anything but unaware of this fundamental power imbalance.
In
post-Keynesian, or Marxian, terms, Thurow rejects the orthodox
theorem that the community of individual savers determines the
