IN THE MAGAZINES
P., S.
"The Other Economy: America's Working Poor," by Gus Tyler. New York: NEW LEADER, a biweekly, May 8, 1978 (Special Issue), 75e. "The Future That Never Was," by Daniel Bell. New York: PUBLIC...
...The question is put sharply by the author: "Have the institutional structures of British society become so encrusted, and the economic deficits (in capital stock, plant equipment, and skills) so great, that no government, socialist or Tory, can reverse the situation...
...but for him this situation arises basically out of the clash between the two economies...
...Now these assertions have become familiar to us since the New Deal '30s...
...The July 1978 Issue is devoted to the Indian countryside and "The Rural Challenge," and edited by Romesh Thapar...
...New Delhi: SEMINAR, a monthly (P.O.B...
...Accompanied by drawings, this article reveals "the major uses of mud in buildings as structural material in walls and foundations, roofing materials, insulation as ceiling and curtain walls, plaster, flooring materials, and binding/ cementing material...
...In view of the fact that the new Janata government of India is pledged to organize a massive shift of priorities away from heavy industry and to the countryside, this issue is of major importance...
...The five or six essays that follow—all competent, scholarly, and documented—take up the complex questions of rural economy and technology, touching upon such issues as land tenure and holdings, facilities, pricing systems, marketing, cooperatives, rural planning, and the condition of the mass of landless laborers...
...Tyler then moves on to a lengthy section entitled "The War Against Poverty Revisited...
...338, New Delhi, India), July 1978 (Special Issue), $10.00 per year...
...the other, embodied in comparatively minuscule operations such as marginal manufacturing, local retailing and individual contracting, is virtually invisible as it struggles to stay alive in the shadow of its celebrated sibling...
...Further, by redefining the government's notion of poverty to include families earning only 25 percent more than the official poor (or an annual income of $6,500 for a family of four in 1976), Tyler points out that the number living in poverty jumps from 25 million to 35.5 million, and he records an increase of 43.6 percent...
...Conclusion...
...the second generally goes unnoted, even unnoticed, although this Other Economy embraces well over 90 percent of all enterprises and employs a majority of the wage and salaried people in the private sector...
...The first is generally depicted as the American Economy...
...The first is rich, large-scale, pays good wages, and controls its markets...
...In his opening paragraphs Tyler presents his thesis: The United States has two economies: One, incarnated in colossal corporations such as General Motors, du Pont, AT&T, IBM, Gulf and Western, and Exxon, is highly visible...
...The conclusion that maldistribution of income and wealth between the property-owning class and the working mass is echoed as well in the maldistribution of wages and salaries is verified by the detailed statistical data presented by Tyler...
...The first is capital-intensive, oligopolistic, and has access to ready financing...
...Even accepting the obvious enormity of the unemployment problem, "the prime reasons for poverty are low pay and unsteady work...
...He leans toward solutions presented by John Kenneth Galbraith, which aim at organizing and bringing order into the so-called Other Economy through setting fixed prices, a major increase in the minimum wage, state credits, etc...
...has been minimal on income distribution...
...the singular fact is that while England was thefirst country to industrialize, it never became a full industrial nation...
...the second is poor, small-scale, pays low wages, and is controlled by its markets...
...The Rural Challenge," edited by Romesh Thapar...
...Tyler's thesis is a radical one—bolstered by a striking array of statistical evidence—that the real roots of poverty in America lie in the "Other Economy," that 75 percent of our people derive little or no benefit from our affluent society, that while America is a "land of plenty" its national income distribution is so lopsided as to deny most people the fruits of our income as a nation and, finally, that our ". . economic elite enjoys an obscenely disproportionate portion of total national income because it owns [author's emphasis] America—especially the great producing, distributing and financial corporations that dominate the country's economy...
...The establishment of a welfare state by the Attlee Labour government starting in 1945, and the consumer boom of the 1960s...
...I I n May the New Leader published a whole issue devoted to a superb study by Gus Tyler, vicepresident of the ILGWU, entitled "The Other Economy: America's Working Poor...
...the second is labor-intensive, competitive and at the mercy of the money lenders...
...One essay this reader found especially fascinating is entitled "Mud Architecture"—a study of indigenous village architecture in which mud constitutes the major building component...
...The two sections together promise to form the most searching and informative study of England produced in recent years...
...This leads directly to the next section on "Maldistribution of Income and Wealth...
...In its opening statement Seminar states the problem in blunt terms: The village today is synonymous with open drains lined with shit, clouded over with flies that can't choose between the drains and the mounds of open sweetmeats, ill ventilated homes, naked children, their eyes misty with the dust and the sand, and all this juxtaposed with nylon and bicycles and bell-bottomed trousers, with schools where the rural young are speedily being taught to forget the skills of their fathers...
...But inflation and poor economic performance in the last few years have hastened the downward slide of the British economy and brought about a long period of stagnation...
...Postwar England, states Bell, underwent two "social revolutions...
...Of course, it has been the tendency of contemporary social analysts to widen the definition of what is meant by unemployment to include irregular work periods and intermittent employment...
...The first part is written with grace and a good deal of humor—the pages on Bell's family run-ins with English bureaucrats and their efforts to stave off family starvation on a Bank-holiday weekend are especially amusing...
...Whether use of mud is the answer to the wellknown housing problem of India's 500,000 villages is a question beyond our immediate competence...
...In the several scenarios presented that have the objective of closing the gap between the two economies there is no effort to touch upon the complex political and ideological questions that would inevitably be raised...
...A majority of Americans is denied "the airs of affluence," and balancing the budget is a strain for 75 percent of our families despite the frequent shift to more than one income per family The effect of social reform, trade unionism, transfer payments, changes to a more progressive income tax, etc...
...For the current annual budget of the country has begun this shift in practice...
...THE SPRING ISSUE of the Public Interest contains the first section of a long, two-part essay by Daniel Bell, "The Future that Never Was," which attempts to locate England's position in the world today...
...The next section of "The Other Economy" is a down-to-earth study of "The Non-Affluent Americans," their living standards, income distribution in relation to poverty cutoff, etc...
...So much for the "success" of the war on poverty...
...In any case, Tyler's main objective is to focus attention on the existence of what he calls "the duality of our economy," which, to him, is the root evil of our capitalist society...
...Examining the question of unemployment Tyler concludes, contrary to popular belief, that it is neither the sole nor even the major cause of poverty...
...It is a kind of wayward prosperity amidst the dirt—for it's dirt all the way, particularly in the whole of the northern belt where prosperity entered the village with the Green Revolution...
...III FINALLY, A MAGAZINE largely unknown in this country but highly reputed in India, where it appears each month, ought to be mentioned...
...New York: PUBLIC INTEREST, a quarterly, Spring 1978, $3.00...
...And although Marx wrote about the English industrial economy in Capital, in the 35 years he lived in Britain . . . he never looked out of his window at English society...
...In probing this major issue, Bell writes perhaps the most interesting pages of his long essay as he examines Marx's approach to English capitalism...
...S. P. 0 433...
...While England became a middleclass country, it never became a bourgeois society in the terms that Marx described...
...Seminar, published in New Delhi, handles one issue at a time...
...432 Tyler's concluding section ("Scenarios for a Solution") is concerned with ways of equalizing power between the two economic sectors he has described...
...All author's emphasis.] There is a great deal more in this provocative essay that will fascinate anyone who has visited England or knows something of its history and economic development...
...But what is new about Tyler's study is his stress on the "Other Economy" and the link between this and the social problem of America's millions of working poor...
...The second part, to appear in the Summer 1978 Issue, will examine the changes in Britain's social, occupational, and political structures...
Vol. 25 • September 1978 • No. 4
