Russell Sage Foundation
Starving the Beast: Ronald Reagan and the Tax Cut Revolution
Key Metrics
- Monica Prasad
- Russell Sage Foundation
- Paperback
- 9780871546920
- 8.9 X 5.9 X 1.1 inches
- 1.35 pounds
- Social Science > Sociology - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Drawing on never-before seen archival documents, Prasad traces the history of the 1981 tax cut--the famous supply side tax cut, which became the cornerstone for the next several decades of Republican domestic economic policy. She demonstrates that the main impetus behind this tax cut was not business group pressure, racial animus, or a belief that tax cuts would pay for themselves.
Rather, the tax cut emerged because in America--unlike in the rest of the advanced industrial world--progressive policies are not embedded within a larger political economy that is favorable to business. Since the end of World War II, many European nations have combined strong social protections with policies to stimulate economic growth such as lower taxes on capital and less regulation on businesses than in the United State. Meanwhile, the United States emerged from World War II with high taxes on capital and some of the strongest regulations on business in the advanced industrial world. This adversarial political economy could not survive the economic crisis of the 1970s.
Starving the Beast suggests that taking inspiration from the European model of progressive policies embedded in market-promoting political economy could serve to build an American economy that works better for all.
Author Bio
Monica Prasad's areas of interest are political sociology, economic sociology, and comparative historical sociology. She has written three award-winning books using comparative and historical methods to examine the political economy of the United States and Europe, including the history and divergent trajectories of welfare states, the rise of “neoliberalism,” and the origins of distinct patterns of economic growth in different countries and their consequences for redistribution.
Her scholarship has received the Fulbright award, the National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and several other grants and awards.
Her new book, Problem-Solving Sociology, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Education
- Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2000 (Sociology)
- M.A. University of Chicago, 1995 (Sociology)
- M.A. Johns Hopkins University, 1993 (Writing Seminars)
- B.A. Yale University, 1991 (English and Religious Studies), summa cum laude
Source: Northwestern University
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