TY - BOOK ID - 29322961 TI - Pocketbook politics PY - 2007 SN - 9780691130415 9780691086644 0691130418 0691086648 1400843782 1299987591 9781400843787 9781299987593 PB - Princeton, N.J. Woodstock DB - UniCat KW - Income distribution KW - Purchasing power KW - Consumption (Economics) KW - Consumer demand KW - Consumer spending KW - Consumerism KW - Spending, Consumer KW - Demand (Economic theory) KW - Current purchasing power KW - Currency question KW - Money KW - Prices KW - Cost and standard of living KW - Income KW - Money illusion KW - Distribution of income KW - Income inequality KW - Inequality of income KW - Distribution (Economic theory) KW - Disposable income KW - History KW - United States KW - Politics and government KW - Economic conditions KW - Consumption (Economics) -- United States -- History -- 20th century. KW - Income distribution -- United States -- History -- 20th century. KW - Purchasing power -- United States -- History -- 20th century. KW - United States -- Economic conditions -- 20th century. KW - United States -- Politics and government -- 20th century. KW - Revenu KW - Pouvoir d'achat KW - Consommation (Economie politique) KW - Répartition KW - Histoire KW - Etats-Unis KW - Politique et gouvernement KW - Conditions économiques UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:29322961 AB - "How much does it cost?" We think of this question as one that preoccupies the nation's shoppers, not its statesmen. But, as Pocketbook Politics dramatically shows, the twentieth-century American polity in fact developed in response to that very consumer concern. In this groundbreaking study, Meg Jacobs demonstrates how pocketbook politics provided the engine for American political conflict throughout the twentieth century. From Woodrow Wilson to Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon, national politics turned on public anger over the high cost of living. Beginning with the explosion of prices at the turn of the century, every strike, demonstration, and boycott was, in effect, a protest against rising prices and inadequate income. On one side, a reform coalition of ordinary Americans, mass retailers, and national politicians fought for laws and policies that promoted militant unionism, government price controls, and a Keynesian program of full employment. On the other, small businessmen fiercely resisted this low-price, high-wage agenda that threatened to bankrupt them. This book recaptures this dramatic struggle, beginning with the immigrant Jewish, Irish, and Italian women who flocked to Edward Filene's famous Boston bargain basement that opened in 1909 and ending with the Great Inflation of the 1970's. Pocketbook Politics offers a new interpretation of state power by integrating popular politics and elite policymaking. Unlike most social historians who focus exclusively on consumers at the grass-roots, Jacobs breaks new methodological ground by insisting on the centrality of national politics and the state in the nearly century-long fight to fulfill the American Dream of abundance. ER -