Word: connors
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...CONNOR, these political dynamics are intimately bound to economic interests, and The Fiscal Crisis begins with a breakdown of the economy into its public, competitive, and monopoly sectors. Each sector is scrutinized for the demands it makes upon the state, and for its access to political power...
Because long-term trends point to the ascendancy of the monopoly sector at the expense of the competitive, O'Connor focuses on the economic interests and political leverage of monopolies. Two economic pressures with major political ramifications emanate from this sector. First, the monopoly sector expands based on "increases in physical capital per worker and technical progress," not increased employment. Monopolies therefore grow without creating jobs, forcing the state to confront the needs and costs of high unemployment...
Within the private sector, for instance, monopolies can pass the incidence of corporate taxes back to their employees or forward onto the consumer. Competitive capital is less flexible however, and therefore more resistant than monopoly capital to increased corporate taxation. O'Connor argues that political tensions between the federal government and state and municiple governments reflect the split within the private sector as monopoly capital most strongly influences the executive level in opposition to competitive capital's foothold at the state and local levels...
...divisions also exist between workers in each of the three sectors. These tensions produce antagonisms between the suburb and the inner city, and by general private sector sentiment against wage increases in the public sector. O'Connor adds, however, that these tensions are superficial, suggesting several means whereby working people can unite to secure democratic control of state expenditures...
More generally, competitive business is hurt by high taxation, as are landlords and fixed income people. O'Connor suggests that eventually popular antipathy towards government spending programs and priorities can be organized politically, and will shift its emphasis away from drastic cuts in government spending and towards the reform of government spending priorities...