universidade federal de santa catarina pós-graduação em letras ...

170In [E#1], the four words tax, inflation, unemployment, and debt, in the descriptionof the organization of the book serve as indicators of the four main arguments that thebook approaches:[E#1] (Sub-function 6A) The authors apply this insight to current economicpolicy questions, including tax collection, inflation policy, unemployment, andinternational debt. (Sub-function 7A) Their arguments with respect to thefirst two of these are especially persuasive. They describe, for example, how the1983 Massachusetts tax amnesty program was designed not only to collect backrevenues, but also to help restore respect for the tax code, making voluntarypayment more likely in the future. ...Civic values can be eroded, even destroyed. In a telling phrase the authors assertthat Gerald Ford's 1975 Whip Inflation Now campaign failed because "Thepublic saw the WIN campaign as a stunt, not a policy” (p. 138). They view thedeliberate unemployment, the assault on unions, the waves of deregulation, andthe decline of public ethics under Ronald Reagan as part of an assault on thecivic values, from which the polis may possibly, they fear, not recover. ......Their discussion of Third World debt suffers from an exaggerated fear of thedangers of Latin American default to the banking system...As the complementary relationship between Sub-functions 6 and 7, what ispredicted by Sub-function 6A is realized in 7A, i.e., the stretches of text marked as Subfunction7A discuss each of the four arguments mentioned in 6A.(ii) By using a chronological criterion. The reviewer discusses the content of thebook in terms of a succession of events, using chronology to mark the evolution of thetopic discussed in the book: