LONG SWINGS IN AMERICAN INEQUALITY - THE KUZNETS CONJECTURE REVISITED

In the two hundred year history of American macroeconomic development there have been four great surges in inequality. Each followed a stagf lation crisis and was accompanied by a turn of the electorate to more conservative commercially-oriented candidates for the presidency and c ongress. Each surge was followed, in rum, by an egalitarian backlash i n which a political agenda dominated by technological innovation, effi ciency and growth was replaced by one concerned with social innovation , equity and redistribution. These interlocking macroeconomic and poli tical rhythms point to a long-wave reinterpretation of the Kuznets con jecture on the relations of inequality and economic growth within the context of a continuing dialectic between capitalism and democracy in America.