Cause to the Crisis: Reason Behind the Recession

In the article "Inequality, Power, and Ideology," Arthur Macewan addresses an issue that is being discussed around the nation and the world, the United States current economic crisis. This article is addressing something that is still taking place at this time so the reason for writing it seems to be to introduce three main factors that played a part in weakening our economic structure. Arthur describes the involvement of inequality, power and ideology in the current economic crisis. He also includes information on our country before it began to decline in economic growth. In addition to the three main issues introduced, he brings up and important point about credit expansion which also helped bring down the economy. Two other points were made as well including the government's failure to regulate and the housing bubble which eventually bust. Lastly, he offers solutions to the issue at hand.

After reading this article a couple times, I found evidence that supported the article being normative and positive. In the beginning of the article, the author includes information about how the nation is and how it was in the past. He then talks about how things currently are in our economic structure and how they became that way. While getting to the end of the article, I realized that he has offered solutions to the economic crisis. He talks about what needs to be done, points out an opportunity for change, discusses how to break the viscous circle which has contributed to our downfall, and shifting power among classes. These points take up an important percentage of the article so it is evident that this article has a normative purpose with positive, or descriptive, references. I believe that a good article should have both elements included, although one could outweigh the other.

Arthur introduced three causes for the economic crisis which were ideology, inequality, and power. The problem with ideology is that people had this idea that we should keep the government out and leave it to the market, regulation failure. It was believed that government regulation was hurting the industries. Inequality began with the unions getting weaker, firms hiring immigrants for lesser pay, less buying power for minimum wage, deregulation and lack of regulation. Lastly, was the governments power trip post WWII. The nation's economy was weakening while Japan and Europe were recovering from the war. Therefore, the firms and wealthy shifted the economic costs to the low-income population.

Macewan provides a conclusion for each issue that he described. Regarding the ideology issue, he concludes that the "leave it to the market" idea is not so much as a guide to policy but more of a basis for decision. Trying to keep the government out of market decisions has proven to be a major cause in the economic downfall. The government must take a role in regulating the activity in the economy. With this new outlook on government involvement, it makes it possible to start new programs to further aid the reconstruction of our economic structure. Next, in efforts to break inequality, social programs are helping by providing benefits to low-income people and to help people get better jobs with better wages. He also discusses the idea of making unions stronger and raising minimum wage.

If unions are stronger and have a greater role in the economy, Macewan believes that this would fix the conditions of the current crisis. His last statement regarding the change in power talks about how not all regulation is good regulation but there still needs to be some present. People are afraid of the government becoming involved so that "over-regulation" can be avoided. But with little to no regulation, it actually hurts the economic structure.

He provides support for his conclusion by stating that the government's stimulus plans will help open opportunities for the expansion of support for the programs he spoke of earlier regarding shifts in ideology. He also mentions the Employee Free Choice Act that could be very useful step in strengthening the role of unions by creating a union-friendly Department of Labor and national Labor Relations Board. Some of the author's main points really revolve around shifting the power in our current situation, and strengthening the U.S. workers. This is putting power into the hands of the workers and letting the government re-regulate some of the activity going on in the economy.