WAYS FOR DEMOCRATS
Bensman, David
THE ZERO-SUM SOLUTION, by Lester Thurow. New York: Simon and Schuster. 414 pp. $18.95. Lester Thurow's The Zero-Sum Society (Basic Books, 1982) provoked a storm of protest from liberals and...
...Apparently Thurow listened to his critics, for his new book, The Zero-Sum Solution, demonstrates conclusively that liberalism can produce innovative and comprehensive proposals for economic growth with social justice...
...overhauling the bank regulatory system...
...Thurow does not ignore macroeconomic forces altogether: his analysis of the inflationary surge of the 1970s is thoughtful and illuminating...
...and defusing the Latin American debt bomb...
...Just when Reagan's mishmash of policies had brought the United States to the brink of collapse, as Thurow's book brilliantly demonstrates, the OPEC cartel fell apart...
...Gordon, Weisskopf, and Bowles argued in Beyond the Wasteland that economic growth in the industrial countries has been stagnant for the last twenty years...
...the inflationary consequences of the fall of the dollar, and is also allowing the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy, which is bringing down interest rates and should ultimately reduce the federal deficit, thereby also reducing U.S...
...boosting public and private investment and saving...
...reform of trade laws and of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade...
...q 527...
...If this is the case, proposals to increase U.S...
...dependence on foreign capital...
...Thurow's emphasis on reforming America's social institutions to increase productivity growth leads him to slight other causes of the recent slow growth of the American economy...
...In the last two years, as the Democratic party has sunk to ever-lower depths of cowardice and confusion, two writers with connections to party policy makers, Robert Kuttner and Lester Thurow, have provided a clear direction for reform...
...competitiveness, Thurow does not give sufficient attention to global economic problems...
...My second reservation is that by focusing on problems of U.S...
...He would have the federal government issue vouchers that would enable the "non-college bound" to pay tuition to approved employer training programs not only when they are young, but throughout their working lifetimes...
...These proposals are not simply the usual list of do-good items...
...I HAVE THREE RESERVATIONS about Thurow's analysis...
...federal support of industrial research and development...
...Thurow's program aims to produce a better coordination of America's social institutions...
...History has made Ronald Reagan the luckiest man and played a trick on Lester Thurow...
...banks...
...Is anybody listening...
...This fortuitous event is sparing the U.S...
...For instance, Thurow proposes federal funding for on-the-job training for people who don't go to college...
...public investment banking to fund new industries and restructure sick ones...
...By contrast, Robert Kuttner's The Economic Illusion argues that the industrialized world, including the U.S., may be suffering from the fact that hundreds of millions of poor workers in the Third World are entering the global labor market as cheap labor but are unable to purchase what they produce...
...Lester Thurow's The Zero-Sum Society (Basic Books, 1982) provoked a storm of protest from liberals and leftists who charged that Thurow's emphasis on the need for economic growth represented an abandonment of concern for working people and the poor...
...Suddenly, the international economy seems less unstable (at least for the time being, as long as Mexico can be saved from defaulting...
...social planning through industrial policy-making...
...Third, I would argue that lagging productivity growth is a symptom of America's economic problems as well as a cause of them...
...His proposals include substantial tax reform to channel investment into productivity enhancement...
...competitiveness may be aimed at the wrong problem...
...The first is short-term, but of political importance...
...increased funding for better public schools...
...Nevertheless, on the whole, Thurow gives less attention than he might to such problems as excessive military spending, high interest rates, the strong dollar, the rise and fall of oil prices, and the distorting impact of the flood of "hot" Arab dollars into U.S...
...If a Democratic administration cut military spending, drove down interest rates, kept the dollar down to realistic levels, and if oil prices remained low, many of the "institutional" problems Thurow describes would solve themselves...
...reducing corporate emphasis on short-term profit...
...All these welcome changes are saving Reagan's hide, and make Thurow's case for economic reform seem less compelling...
...international coordination of exchange rates...
...worker participation in corporate decision-making...
Vol. 33 • September 1986 • No. 4
