Embarrassment of riches.

• Author: Reed, Bruce
• Position: 'Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich'

WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY: A Political History of the American Rich by Kevin Phillips Broadway Books, $29.95

IF KARL MARX HAD WANTED TO lay the groundwork for class uprising, he could hardly have done a better job than George W. Bush. First, take power in a disputed election, then move quickly to give the very rich a big tax cut. Raid the Social Security Trust Fund so multimillionaires can keep their trust funds. Look the other way while Enron executives make a bundle driving their company into the ground while swindling workers out of their jobs and pensions.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the class war: The rich won, and the rest of the country hardly noticed. If the masses are about to storm the gates, they forgot to tell their representatives in Congress. This month, the Senate will decide whether to make permanent the repeal of the estate tax, and Republicans are just a few votes short. The man for our times is Gatsby, not Marx. In the words of that great compassionate conservative, the Duchess of Windsor, "You can never be too rich or too thin."

Not every Republican likes the way the GOP is leaning. Back in 1969, a young Nixon strategist named Kevin Phillips wrote The Emerging Republican Majority, which presaged two decades of conservative dominance. Phillips has been trying to make Republicans class-conscious ever since. In 1990, he wrote The Politics of Rich and Poor, a populist call to arms that Democrats gleefully used to skewer the elder George Bush.

Twelve years later, Phillips still can't seem to follow the White House talking points. His new book, Wealth and Democracy, is a history of the silver spoon that predicts Republican greed will be America's downfall. When it comes to doing the greatest good for the fewest number, he writes, "The world has no other political party with anything like the same record over the last century and a half."

Phillips is a big believer in political cycles, since he made his career predicting one. He sees American history as one long cycle of boom and reform, alternating between "the avid businessman's pursuit and the populist complaint." When the economy swells, the rich grab as much as they can; when it goes south, the little guys rise up to take something back. The rich get richer, and the poor get Democrats.

History does repeat itself in interesting ways. A century ago, when Senators were chosen by legislatures owned and operated by powerful interests, there were 25 millionaires in the...