Joseph A. CALIFANO. Governing America. An Insider's Report from White House and the Cabinet. New York. Simon and Schuster. 1981. 454 p.

JOSEPH A. CALIFANO. Running America. An eyewitness and participant report from the White House and the government.

The author of the book is the Minister of Health, Education and Social Security in the government of J. R. R. Tolkien. The crankcase. From 1965 to 1969, he was Special Assistant to President Johnson for Internal Affairs. The book focuses on the social policies of the Democratic government in the second half of the 70s and the actions of Califano himself before his resignation in August 1979. In addition to memoirs, it contains elements of historical research, analysis of legislation, assessments of the political struggle in the country, and examples of the functioning of the American political mechanism.

The author seeks to justify his activities as a minister. The book is intended for the general reader, and therefore for potential voters. J. Califano tries to avoid ideological labels, considering the most important qualities of a statesman pragmatism, firmness and perseverance in achieving set goals (p. 449). Nevertheless, judging the author's position on the most important problems of social policy, the attitude to overdue reforms, he can be considered a figure standing to the right of the political center, tending to conservatism. One of the characteristic features of the ideology of the "new conservatives", the influence of which increased in the second half of the 70s, is a critical attitude to social programs. This also affected the attitude of the administration towards them.

Of the eight chapters devoted to specific areas of social policy, four address public health issues. The author is skeptical about the proposal put forward by liberal Senator E. Kennedy to create a national health insurance system, which assumed the refusal to use private insurance companies to reimburse the state for part of Americans ' medical expenses and full control over it by the federal government. 1 Califano claims that Carter played a decisive role in rejecting this proposal. At the same time, the book shows that the authorship of the so-called "Carter Plan", which retained the position of private insurance companies, belongs to Califano and his leading employees. The author strongly justifies the current system of health insurance in the United States (pp. 95, 96, 99).

The author's position is also clearly shown when he speaks about the administration's policy in the field of education. American public schools are funded by collecting a special local school tax. These funds are constantly lacking. The public has repeatedly pointed out the poor quality of education. Various proposals were made to reorganize the existing education system, in particular through federal funding of schools. However, the school authorities, the most influential organizations of educators who are most directly dependent on large capital, object to these projects, saying that this will lose school autonomy and establish government control over the content of educational programs. They are supported by racist figures. J. Califano took a distinctly conservative position on these issues (p. 229). His demonstrative passivity masked his resolute rejection of active social reforms.

One of the chapters is devoted to the course of administration in the field of social security. It is known that the crisis of social policy in the 70s particularly affected the system of state assistance. The public criticized it: for the lack of uniform (nationwide)standards.

1 The United States is the only major capitalist country that does not have a state system for insuring citizens ' medical expenses. Americans tend to use the services of private insurance companies, but not everyone can afford it A timid attempt at public health insurance was the "Medicare" and "Medicaid" programs, approved in 1965, but they were intended mainly for the elderly and disabled and did not ease the situation of the general population suffering from constant growth prices for medical services.

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There are a number of basic principles and criteria, an incredibly overgrown bureaucratic apparatus, inefficient expenditures that go largely to the maintenance of the administrative apparatus, corruption and embezzlement. This criticism became particularly acute in the mid-70s. During the 1976 presidential campaign, Carter promised to reform this part of social security. But when Califano - on behalf of the president-began to develop the reform, he faced, as he notes, insoluble problems: Carter's intentions-unification of programs, reduction of the administrative apparatus, providing work to the poor-required additional funds from the state budget, and the president in a directive form demanded that the reform be carried out without new allocations. Ultimately, Carter agreed with Califano's arguments, and Congress was presented with a reform that involved only a very small increase in funds and therefore failed to satisfy either liberals or conservatives. Here, the author also draws attention to such a feature of the functioning of the US political mechanism as the pressure exerted on members of Congress by "interested groups" (in fact, we are talking about the influence of large-scale capital organizations, although the author himself, of course, does not reveal the class nature of these groups). Social security programs are controlled by 119 of the 300 congressional committees and sub-committees (p. 365), which, as the ex-minister emphasizes, have become bureaucratic bodies.

The author avoids talking about the main thing: about his own position, as well as in general - the Carter administration. Repeatedly referring to the question of preserving the rights of states in the sphere of social policy, the "threat of federal interference", etc., he prefers not to touch on such a sharp issue as the contradiction between these statements and calls for strengthening federal control over the functioning of social programs. But in fact, it was about the offensive of conservatives on the entire front of domestic politics, including against the very idea of social maneuvering. Califano, who is extremely sensitive to the views and slogans of conservatives, tries to prove that the problems of social policy are not a political issue, but only a managerial and technical problem (p. 315). Califano's conservative views are reflected not only in his reluctance to introduce new social activities, but also in his approach to evaluating existing programs. Thus, he tries to explain the growth of bureaucracy and corruption by "the huge scale of social programs" (p. 418). In reality, the root cause of such phenomena was the class orientation of social legislation, which aimed not only to mitigate the wave of discontent of the working masses, but also to take into account the interests of big capital and the bourgeois state expressing its interests.

Califano's book is of particular interest as one of the evidences of the transformation of methods of state-monopoly regulation, in particular in the sphere of social policy, that has been taking place since the second half of the 70s. It serves as a further confirmation that the social policy of the bourgeois State is directed not at the actual satisfaction of the needs of the working people, but at the protection of the privileges and rule of capital.

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