Date: Fri, 17 Mar 1995 08:00:41 -0800 (PST)
From: Scott London <london@rain.org>
Subject: ARROGANT CAPITAL by Kevin Phillips


Book Review:
~~~~~~~~~~~~

ARROGANT CAPITAL
Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politics
By Kevin Phillips
Little, Brown and Company, 1994, 231 pages


The failure of Washington politics "goes far beyond simplistic talk of
gridlock," according to Kevin Phillips.  The growing ineffectiveness of
American government is part of a larger "reversal of fortune" where
political and economic influence has shifted from the grassroots of
America to a new "guardian class" in Washington.  Since the 1940s,
Phillips observes, Washington has become increasingly dominated by an
interest-group elite which is now so deeply entrenched and so resistant to
change that the proper functioning of government is impossible.  For
example, Phillips points out that the District of Columbia bar had fewer
than a thousand members in 1950; today it has over 60,000.  The number of
journalists in Washington soared from 1,500 to 12,000 over the same
period.  Since 1970, congressional staff has nearly doubled.  And one
recent estimate put the number of lobbyists in Washington at 91,000. 

     The Founding Fathers warned of the dangers of an overgrown capital. 
Jefferson noted that when government is "drawn to Washington as the center
of all power," it renders "powerless the checks provided of one government
on another," and becomes "as venal as the government from which we
separated."  Phillips believes that the natural order of American politics
and the unique genius of the system is that "bloodless revolutions at the
ballot box" every generation purge the government of failed establishments
and create new ones.  Quoting Jefferson, he holds that "each generation
has the right to choose for itself the form of government it believes most
promotive of its own happiness."  Although it is high time for Washington
to undergo one of its periodic renewals, the concentration of
interest-group power and today's "Permanent Washington" make that
impossible.  Today, Phillips writes, our capital has become a city "so
enlarged, so incestuous in its dealings, so caught up in its own privilege
that it no longer seems controllable or even swayable by the general
public." 

     Phillips draws a number of portentous historical analogies between
Washington and other great capitals that have seen the rise and fall of
power.  He points to the degenerative corruption that pervaded such cities
as Rome, Athens, Alexandria, Hapsburg Madrid and The Hague.  "There is no
point in mincing words," he charges, "aging great-power capitals often
become parasitic cultures" and today's Washington "is beginning to
resemble those wayward governmental centers of previous declining
empires."  He describes four "pillars" of the American political system
which were "once ingredients of its youthful success" but have now become
"weak foundations in old age":  1) the traditional separation between the
legislative and executive branches; 2) the two-party system; 3) America's
patchwork system of local governments and bureaucracies; and 4) the
judicial and legal system which today "has saddled the country with a
globally unique and crippling weight of judges, jurisprudence, lawyers,
litigation, and rights." 

     In the final chapter of the book, Phillips outlines a "blueprint for
a political revolution" in the form of ten proposals:  1) decentralize and
disperse power away from Washington; 2) modify the Constitution's
excessive separation of powers between the legislative and executive
branches; 3) shift representative government more toward direct democracy
and open up the outdated two-party system; 4) curb the Washington role of
lobbies, interest groups, and influence peddlers; 5) diminish the
excessive role of lawyers, legalism, and litigation; 6) Remobilize
national, state, and local governments through updated boundaries and a
new federal fiscal framework; 7) regulate speculative finance and reduce
the political influence of Wall Street; 8) confront the power of
multinational corporations and minimize the effects of globalization on
the average American; 9) reverse the trend toward greater concentration of
wealth and make the tax system fairer and more productive; and 10) bring
national and international debt under control. 


                                   Scott London * london@rain.org