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The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule | 
 enlarge | Author: Thomas Frank
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $15.84
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Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 161
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.3
ISBN: 0805079882
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.92
EAN: 9780805079883
ASIN: 0805079882
Publication Date: August 5, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
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Product Description
From the author of the landmark bestseller What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a jaw-dropping investigation of the decades of deliberate—and lucrative—conservative misrule In his previous book, Thomas Frank explained why working America votes for politicians who reserve their favors for the rich. Now, in The Wrecking Crew, Frank examines the blundering and corrupt Washington those politicians have given us. Casting back to the early days of the conservative revolution, Frank describes the rise of a ruling coalition dedicated to dismantling government. But rather than cutting down the big government they claim to hate, conservatives have simply sold it off, deregulating some industries, defunding others, but always turning public policy into a private-sector bidding war. Washington itself has been remade into a golden landscape of super-wealthy suburbs and gleaming lobbyist headquarters—the wages of government-by-entrepreneurship practiced so outrageously by figures such as Jack Abramoff. It is no coincidence, Frank argues, that the same politicians who guffaw at the idea of effective government have installed a regime in which incompetence is the rule. Nor will the country easily shake off the consequences of deliberate misgovernment through the usual election remedies. Obsessed with achieving a lasting victory, conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state. Stamped with Thomas Frank’s audacity, analytic brilliance, and wit, The Wrecking Crew is his most revelatory work yet—and his most important.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
3.5 stars-Correct title is " How Libertarians Misrule " August 26, 2008
Michael Emmett Brady (Bellflower, California ,United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Frank shows that the last 30 years of economic and banking public policy in the USA has resulted in a disasterous wave of privatization and deregulation that has resulted in the USA reverting to the type of boom-bust speculator economy dominant in the 1880's-early 1890's and 1920's. President Carter started the dismantling of the regulatory apparatus set up in the mid 1930's to contain and prevent the speculator type of economy that had resulted from the deregulation and privatization carried out during the Harding-Coolidge administration during the 1920's.The result was the creation in the mid 1920's of housing and stock market bubbles financed by new balloon payment loans(read subprime and Alt-A loans) and margin account financing.The result was the perfectly predictable and inevitable banker financed bubble- mania-panic-crash-recession or depression pattern that has been repeating for about 450 years throughout the world
However,Frank has incorrectly identified the political affiliation of the individuals who view government as the problem .It is not conservatives who seek to do away or eliminate or have a g-string sized government.It is the libertarians ,masquarding as conservatives,who are responsible for the current near collapse of the financial and banking system in the USA.These libertarians identify themselves,not as libertatians,but as " supply side " or " public choice " or " University of Chicago " economists.None of these anti-government groups are conservative in the sense of Adam Smith,Edmund Burke, George Washington,Alexander Hamilton,Franklin,Madison,Jay,the Adams brothers,Monroe,Lincoln,Theodore Roosevelt,Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford.These anti -government groups hark back to the empty rhetoric of Paine ,Henry ,Mason,Randolph,Shay's Rebellion of 1786-87,the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791-1794,and the Confederacy of 1861-65.
Practically all of the founding fathers were Federalists.They believed in a strong central government,a strong and independent(from both government and the private banking industry)central bank,as well as the use of large revenue tariffs and retaliatory tariffs ,as advised by A Smith in 1776 in his the Wealth of Nations on pp.434-439(Modern Library(Cannan)edition.
I have deducted one and a half stars due to Frank's failure to devote some part of his book to discussing what the historical connotation of the word " conservative " means.Conservatives are not anti government;libertarians are.Jack Abramoff is most likely a libertarian.He is certainly not a conservative
 Another liberal emoting about freedom and capitalism August 25, 2008
Ted Baiamonte (New York, NY)
3 out of 14 found this review helpful
A very silly and transparent attempt to smear Republicans in a completely non-intellectual way. He actually says things like, "the free market is not wonderful ,...in my opinion". As a liberal it does not even occur to him to explain why Communist China and the USSR have switched to the free market or why most recent Nobel Prize winners prefer the free market. He delights in the Bush scandals and explains them in great detail but merely assumes they are the result of Republican philosophy.
When asked about the scandals of Bill Clinton, Elliot Spitzer, John Edwards and William Jefferson he is absolutely silent. When asked about all the big city Democratic machines the have long been plagued by corruption, he acknowledges that it occurs but insists, for no reason whatsoever, that it is different from the Bush Scandals. When asked about the best period of Democratic dominance he sites the 1930's seemingly not aware of FDR's 10 year long Great Depression, which featured 20% unemployment rates and led to WW 2. When asked what he is for, if not Republican freedom , he says, "democracy". Then he explains that some people now earn so much money while others are struggling. You assume he wants to take the money from the rich and give it to the less rich and poor, but he does even suggest how to do socialism without getting the socialist results that the USSR and Communist China are trying so hard and so successfully to avoid. Of course there is the obligatory sadness about the undemocratic decline of organized labor but he does not suggest how Ford and GM could avoid bankruptcy and compete on the world stage while paying higher union wages. He insists that Bush's outsourcing and privatizing is a dastardly deed and perhaps the symbol of Republicanism, but does not even allude to why a bureaucratic government monopoly, of all things on earth, would be more efficient or less corrupt. In the end, there is not one word in this book that would make a Republican think. If someone wanted to learn to think about political philosophy he would be very familiar with "Free to Choose," "Freedom and Capitalism", and "Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal." Democrats must try to grasp and respond to the arguments in these books, not completely ignore them out of an amazing and perhaps justified fear, if they want to make a contribution to our democracy.
 A smart defense of liberalism August 25, 2008
Kenneth D. Gartrell (Boston, MA USA)
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
What I like about this book and its author is that he can state a case for Liberalism and Government that creates a framework for intelligent discussion as to the clash between the free markets and the Central Government. At the extremes, this is the divide between Capitalism and
Communism.
The book makes the case that Conservatives have conspired to destroy the Government, and the confidence the public has in it, by beating it over the head with a set of specious and unsupported claims about market functions.
I am the kind of economist that the author would be afraid of. I admit that I do not believe that Conservatives "use" the market. I believe, on the contrary, that it is the markets that actually use the Conservative politicians.
I would go even further to say that what the author fails to recognize is that the markets are far more democratized than he believes. He has the very weak opinion that the markets are nothing but a "shield for the oligarchy of the rich" However, what he does not see is that the same middle class he bemoans are the same people with retirement funds and 401ks that spread the ownership of capital around to a degree that Marx and Lenin never imagined when they were opposing the Czars and the Kings of Europe.
The thesis of this book is greatly diminished when one sees clearly how the American consumer takes political actions by complex consumption decisions. The same is true when one sees clearly that, despite a few easy to observe examples, it is not the situation in the world today that there is a "wealthy oligarchy."
Sure there are very rich people, but their wealth depends on the economic performance of the business they once created and now own significant shares, but not controlling interests in. Those organizations are in fact "owned and managed" predominately by a wide array of small share owners who make up giant ownership positions that breath life into and control the policy of the companies. These companies are managed by professional managers, apart from the owners. The large block owners benefit from the combined efforts of management and the free flow of capital which oversees or "controls" the efficient allocation of the organization's resources by market-based investment decisions.
What is missing in the view of this book is a complete understanding of how wealth is created by capital markets in the modern world, and how the consumer makes democratic economic/political decisions on a daily and continuous basis by simple choices such as whether (for example) to buy Dove soap or Ivory soap, etc.
What is most wrong with the left today is that it, (in the immortal words of its latest icon, Barack Obama), "clings" to the historically discredited, and now just plain "stupid," Marxist/Communist idea that capitalism can not find a way to democracy.
Libertarians Rule! (I wish) August 24, 2008
Michael Gooch (Texas, USA)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I rated this book five stars because I love books that stir my emotions. This one certainly did that. I was raised a Democrat, converted to Republican in my 30s and now at 52 I am an unabashed Ultra-Libertarian. Far be it from me to join a party that may actually have control of this mess.
Like the books by conservative Ann Coulter, this one is just another one of the ranters only from the left. While I certainly don't agree with Mr. Frank's views, it is well-researched and a fun read. And as previously stated, it got my blood boiling a few times and that is a good thing.
While we fight among ourselves over which side has the lowest IQ or is the most evil, we are leaving the backdoor unguarded as the Chinese slip inside. This should be the topic for Mr. Frank and Ms Coulter's next book. Michael L. Gooch, SPHR Author of Wingtips with Spurs
CONSERVATIVES???/EXPOSED August 23, 2008
FRANK (USA)
0 out of 7 found this review helpful
A MUST READ BOOK. ONLY A BRAIN DEAD PERSON WILL DENY WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR TAX DOLLARS. BECAUSE IT'S HAPPENING BEFORE OUR EYES. THIS BOOK DOCUMENTS THE EVENTS. CONSERVATIVES PRETEND TO BE AGAINST BIG GOVERNMENT, ARE REALLY FOR BIG WASTE OF TAX DOLLARS. THEY RUN THE GOVERNMENT LIKE A CORPORATION. AS IF CORPORATIONS DON'T GO BANKRUPT. THEY PRIVATIZE THE GOVERNMENT FOR PROFIT SO IT FAILS.THEN SOCIALIZE THE LOSSES. THEY GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY DESERRVE, THAT'S NOTHING. EVEN IF IT HURTS THEM. IF THEY COULD, CONSERVATIVES WOULD TAKE US BACK TO THE 12 CENTURY. THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF HAVES & HAVE NOTS. THEY ARE BRAIN DEAD, MEAN SPIRT, DITTO HEADS. WHO WORSHIP LEADERS. NO QUESTIONS ASKED. DARE THEY. THINK OF THE CONSEQUENCES. GOVERNMENTS DON'T LIE? ONLY PEOPLE DO.
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