Trickle-Down Delusion

John Seip is a lawyer and oil and gas landman and regulatory practitioner whose career has been spent entirely in a corporate setting, including having spent several years working with corporate lobbyists, congressional staffers, trade groups and agencies in Washington, DC on energy projects. He worked as a Republican volunteer in the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan in 1980, supported Libertarian Party candidate Ron Paul in the presidential campaign of 1988, and worked as a Democratic volunteer in the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. He has a B.A. in Sociology from Louisiana State University and a J.D. from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University.Dee Wood Harper, Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Criminology at Loyola University New Orleans. His research has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Sociological Spectrum, Annals of Tourism Research, International Journal of Law and Information Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Applications, Criminal Justice Review, Homicide Studies, Deviant Behavior, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, and American Behavioral Scientist. He is also the co-editor and co-author of several books including Violence: Do We Know It When We See It? and Why Violence: Leading Questions Regarding the Conceptualization and Reality of Violence in Society,Crime and Criminal Justice in Disaster, 3rd edition (2015), the foremost book on this topic, Fundamentals of Criminology: New Dimensions, 2nd edition (2015), Preventing Lethal Violence in New Orleans, a Great American City, 2015 and Toward a Criminology of Disaster under contract and coming in 2016. He earned a B.A. from George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. He is also a life-long Democrat whose father, upon graduating from the University of Georgia in 1934 in the midst of the Great Depression, went to work with the Civilian Conservation Corp, cutting firebreaks in the south Georgia piney woods.

• Preface: A Call to ActionAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Triumph of the Delusion That to Help the Middle Class and Poor PoliciesMust Help the RichRebirth of the Delusion that to Help the Middle Class and Poor Policies Must Help the RichIdeology and TerminologyThe Metric and the ArgumentPART I: THE DELUSIONAL TRICKLE-DOWN CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN VIRTUAL REALITY BUBBLE AND LIBERAL REFUSAL TO CONFRONT ITChapter 1: The Delusional Trickle-Down Conservative Republican Virtual Reality Bubble and the 2012, 2014 and 2016 Elections and BeyondThe Romney-Ryan Campaign: “We Built It” On Deception Conservatism’s Moral Universe of “Makers” versus “Takers”Chapter 2: Democrats Must Elaborate on and Sustain an Anti-Trickle-Down Narrative to Defeat RepublicansBarack Obama versus Trickle-DownThe Liberal Preference to PsychoanalyzeThe Liberal Inability to Communicate with Middle AmericaPART II: THE TRICKLE-DOWN DELUSIONSChapter 3: Trickle-Down: Enabling Realization of the Dream to Make the “Holy Rollers Lie Down with the High Rollers”The Shared Authoritarian Hierarchical Vision of Trickle-Down Conservatism’s ElementsConservatism’s Melding of Godliness and Selfishness Trickle-Down Conservatism Mirrors Sixties Liberalism Chapter 4: Trickle-Down Conservatism versus the FactsFacts Confronting the Delusions Supporting the Trickle-Down Delusion How the Facts of Trickle-Down’s Failure Were Hidden in Economic TheoryChapter 5: Trickle-Down Conservatism versus the Classical Liberalism It Claims for Inspiration Liberal Democracy’s Trickle-Up Vision versus the Illiberal Vision of Trickle-Down How Trickle-Down Conservatism Undermines Liberal DemocracyThe Parallel Evolutions (for the Worse) of Hayek and ConservatismChapter 6: Trickle-Down Conservatism versus Public Opinion The View from Inside the Bubble: Stay the Trickle-Down CourseA Call for a Conservatism That Is Fact Based, Not Faith BasedChapter 7: A Narrative of Trickle-Down Failure: The Productivity/Wage DisconnectThe Productivity/Wage DisconnectFailure to Share the Revenues from Productivity Growth Yields Massive Growth in Inequality Why Revenues from Productivity Growth Are Not Shared: We Demand They Not BeModels Illustrating the Effects of Trickle-DownAusterity Causes Slow Growth, Which Increases DeficitsA Summary Narrative of Trickle-Down FailureChapter 8: Trickle-Down’s Rule of Law: Power to the Propertied and PowerfulIntroduction to the Rule of Law The Privilege Accompanying Property OwnershipInstitutionalization of the Political Process as a “Free Market”—Rigged in Favor of the PropertiedThe Bush v. Gore “Second Bite” Doctrine Enunciating Equal Protection Weighted in Favor of the PropertiedHow “Freedom” Becomes an Anti-Democratic Bludgeon Wielded on Behalf of the PropertiedExtending the Rule of the Propertied and Powerful by Other Means The Rule of Law in the “War on Terror”PART III: TRICKLE-UP: THE WAY THE WORLD REALLY WORKSChapter 9: The Information Revolution, Globalization and Trickle-Down Versus the Poor and Middle ClassThe Importance of a Job to Social Status and Self-EsteemThe Negative Effects of the Information Revolution and Globalization Compounded by Trickle-Down Why the Conservative Culture of Poverty Theory Fails Chapter 10: How Liberal Institutions Work for the Poor and Middle ClassThe Constancy of Connectedness—and Conflict How Institutions Help Us Prevent Self-Interest from Destroying Humanity Institutions as Mediating Structures and How Conservatism Undermines Them Illiberal Democracy and Totalitarianism“Coercive Democracy” or the “Shock Doctrine”: Trickle-Down’s Ignorance of the Importance of Institutions Applied Abroad with Missionary ZealMaximizing Institutional FunctioningChapter 11: The Liberal Value of Equality—and Why Government Policies MustSupport a Strong Middle ClassInequality Undermines Our Economy, Democracy, Institutions and HealthInequality Undermines Economic Growth and Social Mobility and Economic and Socio-Political StabilityEquality Is a Matter of Life and Death Because Inequality Impairs Health and Shortens Life SpansThe Necessity of a Strong Middle Class—in Theory and Evidence Conclusion: Inequality Causes Inequality and Other Problems, Requiring Government SolutionsChapter 12: The Liberal Values of Checks and Balances, Knowledge, Tolerance, Peace and the Rule of LawThe System of Societal Checks and BalancesRespect for Knowledge Tolerance Peace and Nonviolent Resistance Rule of Law Conclusion: Liberal Values are Necessary Complements to Capitalism and DemocracyChapter 13: Trickle-Up: A Bottom-Up, Post-Bubble Growth Model Based on Growing the Middle ClassPreliminary Thoughts on Liberalism and Trickle-UpTrickle-Up Theory from Smith, Tocqueville and Others A Trickle-Up Narrative Chapter 14: Liberal Reclaiming of the American DreamDomestic Policy Recommendations“If You Want to Live Like a Republican, You Have to Vote Democrat”Index