ABSTRACT
Rinder provides a critical survey of the main doctrines of the supply-siders, covering their advocacy of Say’s Law (the doctrine that there can be no involuntary unemployment due to shortage of demand), their theory of incentives, especially as it applies to taxation and the labor market, their treatment of government spending, particularly as regards welfare and regulation, concluding with their advocacy of a return to the gold standard. When she first wrote the article, she ended with a forecast of what we could expect from supply-side policies in practice: a disastrous recession, rising unemployment, an increase in poverty and crime, together with a worsening of pollution and more frequent environmental disasters. The first two years of the Reagan administration have borne her out very well.
