Re: Dems & the proletariat
On Oct 6, 2006, at 5:21 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
As I’ve pointed out many times before, by almost any measure (employment, wages, GDP, stock market), the economy has done better under Dem presidents than Rep ones since WW2. The only exception is that Reps are better for disinflation and the bond market.
What if we compared them since the mid-1970s? After all, 1945-1973 and 1974-Present belong to different eras of accumulation. How do Democrats and Republicans compare in the neoliberal era?
1973 wasn’t yet the neoliberal era - it was the beginning of the
terminal crisis of the Keynesian system. The neolib era really begins
with Volcker and Reagan in the US. So of the four neolib presidents -
Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II - Clinton comes out unambiguously on
top. Unlike all the others, real wages rose during his presidency,
and he has an edge on GDP growth over Reagan (3.6% vs. 3.2%).
Employment growth too.
Doug