INFLATION: The Permanent Problem of Boom and Bust

by Robert Lekachman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 9, 1973

A smallish essay which wastes no words explaining the causal nexus between inflation and ""private greed, the cowardice and stupidity of public men, specific characteristics of corporate and union organization, and systematic aggression by nation states."" Professor Lekachman (CUNY, Economics) -- as devastating and pessimistic as he is concise and readable -- hypothesizes that the post-industrial economy is perforce caught up in the mechanistic web of cyclical instability (the permanent Scylla and Charybdis of boom and bust), a situation desired and promoted by mogul interests, here and abroad: ""As ever in plutocracies, the gains of inflation [flow] mostly to businessmen and speculators""; on the other hand, ""The penalties of recession [are] inflicted primarily on the black, young, and female groups which are particularly vulnerable to unemployment."" Is it possible for industrial societies to achieve full employment, steady growth, and civilized wage-price behavior? ""Is it really possible to tame the strong in a capitalistic society?"" Of course we are today in the full bloom of Nixonomical despair, and fear and trembling comes rather more easily now than, for instance, during that ""happy interlude"" of 1961-65 when Kennedy and the New Economics seemed to have solved the boom-bust dilemma -- when for the first time an American president fully accepted Keynesian principles. But, as Leckachman correctly notes, Keynes devoted little attention to the problem of inflation; nor, it might be added, did he deal with the political element -- the raw, practical considerations of fat-cat influence. The answer then, says Lekachman (whose Age of Keynes is on almost everyone's supplementary reading list), is no, the problem of boom-bust appears to be a permanent part of the advanced nations' economic demarche. This deserves the attention it will get.

Pub Date: Oct. 9, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION