Decade of Decision
Judis, John
council's documents. Thus, it cannot be claimed to be the defined teaching of the church. As canon law puts it, only that teaching can be accepted as infallible which is manifestly so. Hence, it is...
...Harrington, author of nine books, including The Other America and The Vast Majority, and chair of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, attributes stagflation -- simultaneous inflation and unemployment--to a structural crisis in world capitalism...
...The non-professional middle class, Harrington points out, is increas- ingly divided from its working class cousins by little more than status illu- sions...
...The American defeat in Vietnam cast doubt upon U.S...
...And price controls could prevent corporate attempts to reap undeserved favors from the new demand...
...Just as these decades sloughed off past eras of capitalism, the 1980s will cast off the basic structures of New Deal welfare capitalism...
...Har-rington argues persuasively that both soaring deficits and declining productiv- ity were caused by rather than causes of the original stagflation...
...Harrington contends that social spending for housing, mass transit, and Commonweal: 280...
...The continued economic crisis of the 1980s might, Harrington hopes, make this clear to both groups...
...Decade of Decision is a long, well- constructed political argument...
...There is no discussion of foreign and military policy...
...Harrington argues that the possibility of a revived liberalism lies in the unifica- tion of the working class and the middle class...
...had entered a new historical period...
...health needs can provide the necessary stimulus for a flagging economy...
...Its principal weaknes- ses stem from incompleteness and from its argumentative structure, which occa- sionally prevents any clear statement of the author's assumptions...
...It could be financed through progressive tax re- form...
...Unless the Congregation deals explicitly with these two issues, it I will (1) give the impression that it has not grasped the import of K/ing's criterion of the Gospel, (2) confuse the Christian people into thinking that K/ing's a priori infallibility is actually the defined teaching of Vatican I, and (3) miss an opportunity to move toward reconciling Kting with church authorities...
...They were fwst contemplated by Richard Nixon and John Connally in the early '70s and could be- come the program of a 1980s Republican or even Democratic administration...
...Some of the alternatives presented-- wage-price-profit controls, gasoline ra- tioning, a federal energy corporation-- suggest new directions...
...These policies would be designed to enhance corporate profits and divide the employed from the un- employed, the white middle class from the minority underclass...
...Harrington doesn't repeat, however, the usual liberal error of then defending on purely humanitarian grounds a full- employment budget, while ignoring cor- porate rejoinders about skyrocketing in- flation...
...This follows from the fact that, according to Vatican I, infallibility primarily rests in the whole church and it is this ecclesial infallibility which the pope expresses in any irreformable doctrinal decision...
...As Harrington notes, the question is not whether such a program is inflation- ary, but whether corporations will countenance public sector competition and a redistributive tax policy...
...others--reduction in social spending, return to the gold standard, regressive tax breaks-- hearken back to pre-New Deal days...
...Harrington takes issue with the Ronald Reagans and the Jimmy Carter-style Democrats, who blame stagflation on federal deficits and excessive regulation, ignoring either the business cycle or the price-behavior of corporations...
...Harrington also argues convincingly that the vaunted Re- publican solutions to stagflation--regressive tax reductions d la Kemp-Roth--have not led and will not lead toward productive investment, but to- ward speculation in violins, gold, and real estate...
...In 1976, politicians ran on their sincerity and truthfulness rather than their record or proposals...
...The real question is political, not economic...
...Harrington sees his revived liberalism as one outcome of the 1980s, but he also sees another possibil- ity: a new reactionary agenda based on a regressive incomes policy and reduced social spending...
...It is the best current antidote to the most common liberal and conservativ e misapprehen-sions about welfare, the poor, the extent of unemployment in the U.S., and the plight of the cities...
...Nor were these two points addressed in the earlier declarations of the Congregation in 1973 and 1975 on the same issue of infallibility...
...In so faras the further escalation of the arms race DECADE OF DECISION Michael Harrington Simon and Schuster, $11.95, 354 pp...
...Harrington views the 1980s as a transi- tional decade, much like the 1890s or 1930s...
...Simultaneous inflation and unemployment, along with a declining dollar, defied policy-makers...
...But in 1980, the debate has begun to surface...
...In Decade of Decision, Michael Har- rington goes well beyond the current diagnoses of and remedies for America's ills...
...Hence, it is not true to say that according to Vatican I the pope is infallible whenever he says he is infallible or whenever he says he has fulfilled the criteria set forth by Vatican I. It is still possible to claim that the only certain evidence we can have that the pope has fulfilled the criteria is that his teaching actually resonates with the faith that lives in the whole church...
...A Roman Congregation has deprived New agenda for liberalism IIII II I Kfing of his canonical teaching mission in the church largely because of his views on infallibility...
...Unfortunately, the Congregation has not addressed itself to K/ing's basic affirmation of the criterion of the Gospel or to his basic denial of a priori infallibility...
...and he argues that only a revived liberalism that goes beyond New Deal reforms can achieve social justice and pull America out of its doldrums...
...There are two major omissions in De-cade of Decision...
...John Judis B Y the mid-70s, it was already apparent that the U.S...
...The Watergate scandal initially obscured the profound policy crisis that had arisen...
...imperial objectives...
Vol. 107 • May 1980 • No. 9
