Rich People's Movements: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent

by Isaac Martin

Overview

On tax day, April 15, 2010, hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets with signs demanding lower taxes on the richest one percent. But why? Rich people have plenty of political influence. Why would they need to publicly demonstrate for lower taxes-and why would anyone who wasn't rich join the protest on their behalf?

Isaac William Martin shows that such protests long predate the Tea Party of our own time. Ever since the Sixteenth Amendment introduced a Federal income tax in 1913, rich Americans have protested new public policies that they thought would threaten their wealth. But while historians have taught us much about the conservative social movements that reshaped the Republican Party in the late 20th century, the story of protest movements explicitly designed to benefit the wealthy is still little known. Rich People's Movements is the first book to tell that story, tracking a series of protest movements that arose to challenge an expanding welfare state and progressive taxation. Drawing from a mix of anti-progressive ideas, the leaders of these movements organized scattered local constituencies into effective campaigns in the 1920s, 1950s, 1980s, and our own era. Martin shows how protesters on behalf of the rich appropriated the tactics used by the Left-from the Populists and Progressives of the early twentieth century to the feminists and anti-war activists of the 1950s and 1960s. He explores why the wealthy sometimes cut secret back-room deals and at other times protest in the public square. He also explains why people who are not rich have so often rallied to their cause.

For anyone wanting to understand the anti-tax activists of today, including notable defenders of wealth inequality like the Koch brothers, the historical account in Rich People's Movements is an essential guide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199389995
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2015
Series:	Studies in Postwar American Political Development
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	298
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Isaac William Martin is Professor of Sociology at the University of California-San Diego. He is the author of The Permanent Tax Revolt: How the Property Tax Transformed American Politics.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: The Riddle of Rich People's Movements
Chapter One: The Revolution of 1913
Chapter Two: Populism against the Income Tax
Chapter Three: The Sixteenth Amendment Repealers
Chapter Four: The Most Sinister Lobby
Chapter Five: The Power of Women
Chapter Six: The Radical Rich
Chapter Seven: Strange Bedfellows
Chapter Eight: The Temporary Triumph of Estate Tax Repeal
Conclusion: The Century of Rich People's Movements

Editorial Reviews

U.C. Davis sociologist Martin (The Permanent Tax Revolt: How the Property Tax Transformed American Politics) recounts a century of efforts to repeal or sharply curtail the federal income tax, which was instituted in 1913. His book pays homage and is a worthy counterpart to Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward’s classic Poor People’s Movements. The anti-tax movement, which “defined the rich as the constituency sought to benefit” and which was led by community organizers from the right, borrowed methods of mobilizing local groups from such liberal causes as women’s suffrage. While the anti-tax advocates never succeeded, they had a real impact when their cause was linked with related initiatives, such as a federal balanced-budget amendment. (In 1982, the Senate passed a constitutional amendment that combined the two proposals, but it wasn’t backed by a two-thirds majority in the House, as is required for it to be enacted.) And the movement influenced tax legislation—especially laws advanced by Coolidge, Reagan, and G.W. Bush, who were all sympathetic to the cause. Reagan’s 1981 tax cut, for example, reduced marginal rates for the wealthiest from 70% to 50%. Martin explores the movement’s influence on the GOP during the past 30 years, noting that the party has come to be dominated by “anti-tax campaigners” and predicting that “rich people’s movements will continue to influence public policy... and perhaps even increase... the extremes of inequality in America.” 6 b&w illus. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"...deeply engages questions about the causes and consequences of movements and brings into sharp focus an influential set of movement campaigns that scholars have ignored... It is must read for anyone wanting to understand the causes and consequences of movements and their campaigns as well our current political predicament." — Mobilization

From the Publisher

Martin (Sociology/Univ. of California, San Diego; The Permanent Tax Revolt: How the Property Tax Transformed American Politics, 2008, etc.) asks why the already powerful and influential wealthy in America would resort to outsider tactics of protests and petitions to further their economic interests and why those of lesser means would protest on their behalf. The tea party movement, writes the author, is but "the newest expression of an old tradition," a "peculiar mix of populist tactics and militant anti-egalitarian demands." Since the 1913 ratification of the 16th Amendment--which allows for a federal tax on income--the rich and their allies have consistently fought to limit tax rates on the rich and even for the repeal of the amendment. This libertarian right turned to populist tactics when other strategies to meet such common policy challenges failed. But they had to be taught such tactics. In large part, Martin's book is the story of these "experienced movement entrepreneurs" who developed and carried out grass-roots campaigns on behalf of the rich. Most such entrepreneurs had participated in or experienced the radical left movements of their times: James Asbury Arnold, the original organizer for the right, was a veteran of the agrarian protest of the early 20th century; Edward Aloysius Rumely, a later organizer, came from a similar radical background. Grover Norquist, today's powerful anti-tax organizer, learned many of his tactics from the Angolan Marxist revolutionary Jonas Savimbi. The rich pursued such tactics because they worked, especially when sympathetic presidents were in power, be it Calvin Coolidge or George W. Bush. With the capture of the Republican Party by anti-tax zealots, writes Martin, more rich people's movements, and widening inequality, can be expected. While at times lapsing into social science–speak (e.g., "logistic regression analysis"), Martin by and large tells his tale in an approachable manner. An important contribution to understanding the contentious politics of today.

Kirkus Reviews