Page 18 RAIN July 1981 RESEARCH ---- -- - --- Power Brokers .in the Rockies: Private~yminded·in the Public Interest, NMPE Power Structure Report #11, by Beth Wood and Tom Barry, 1980, 24 pp., $1.50. New Mexico, The Military, and The Bomb, NMPE Power Structure Report #16, by Savannah Davis, Naomi Harmon, and Craig Simpson, 1980, 36pp., $3.00, both from: New Mexico People and Energy P.O. Box 4726 Albuquerque, NM 87196 505/266-5009 High quality research is in short supply these days, and locating an organization which does the kind of quality research evidenced by these power structure reports is a rare find indeed. New Mexico People & Energy (NMPE) is a group you'll want to remember, along with the Pacific Northwest Research Center in Oregon (see RAIN VI:10 :4). The resource-rich western states of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico-called by some the Intermountain West-are the home of a few very powerful organizations which have formed to protect "individual ' - - - - - --- ---------- ECONOMICS . ------- ·------ Socia'l Stratification in t7!e United States, 35"x45" color poster, by Stephen Rose and Dennis Livingston, 1978, $5.00 to individuals, $12.00 to institutions. Social Stratification in the United States, An Analytic Guidebook, by Stephen Rose, 1979, $2.00 to individuals, $3.00 to institutions, inquire for bulk rates, both from: Social Graphics Company 1120 Riverside Ave. - Baltimore, MD 21230 It's never been easy to find a straight answer ACCESS liberty and economic freedom. II The rallying of the West and the organizing ofcorporate power are indicated by th.e two groups targeted in Power Brokers: The Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) and the Western Regional Council (WRC). Before his appointment as Secretary of the Interior for the Reagan Administration, James G. Watt was president of MSLF. Among the companies represented by the MSLF Board of Directors are Boise Cascade Corporation, Public Service Co. of New Mexico, Albertsons, Arizona Public Service, Walker Bank & Trust, Coors, Day Mines and Kennecott Minerals. The "decidedly right-wing" Foundation concerns itself with legal issues facing the West. The 45 corporate Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) which make up the Western Regional Council, on the other hand, devote themselves to lobbying, influencing and policy-making. "Private enterprise groups like Mountain States and WRC cross party-lines, economic sectors, and even competitive barriers that • · once existed. It's surp:i;ising that the question of anti-trust laws hasn't been raised.... Despite the rhetoric of individualism, facing the Western energy frontier alone is not the style of the high-flying CEOs. They have joined together to parcel out the West." N~w Mexico, Th/Military·, And The Bomb is a truly impressive document, overflowing with facts, figures, maps and charts detailing the current role of New Mexico in the national nuclear and non-nuclear weapons program. If you're wondering what on the distribution of income and wealth in this land of plenty. Bits and pieces of infor:- mation are always bandied about, but getting a handle on the big picture is difficult. Sometimes the information is not even there: the single government study on wealth holdings in the United States since World War II was done almost twenty years ago! The large, colorful Social Stratification poster is probably the first time all the basic information on income, wealth and occupation in the·U.S. have been brought together in one simple-to-comprehend, but infinitelydetailed graphic. Here the viewer can quickly learn what kinds of households, of what sex, color or marital status, working what-kinds of jobs, make what kinds of money. Beside the all-too-obvious facts-e.g., the heavy concentration of retirees, people of color, and single women below the poverty line_:.one happens to that cutback social service money after 'it goes to the Pentagon, this is the place to look. Outlined are intricate connections between New Mexico's Defense Depart.ment (DOD) installations, the activities of the De~ partment of Energy (DOE), and the defense/ military contracting sector: the weapons labs, private firms, and universities (see boxes) . In spite of bountiful military spending, New Mexico ranks among the poorest states, with an average per capita income of $6,582 in 1979. The enormous amount of defense spending also inc~eases inflation, since huge 1 sums of private and federal capital are poured into military products that no one can use or buy, creating a defense/welfare state. It also makes New Mexico into a military sacrifice area, especially if the MX missile project goes through the state. Half of New Mexico's population is nonwhite, half is female. "Employment figures for all major DOE and DOD installations in New Mexico reveal that over 75 percent of those employed are white men." As js too often the case, the decision-makers are far removed from the people affected by their decisions. NMPE has published over 30 power stru'cture reports on land, industry, finance, federal and state government, and resources, as well as a series of nearly 25 corporate profiles. Their staff is also available for research. These NMPE reports are excellent, and I look forward to seeing their other publications. -MR can explore all manner of fascinating relationships: how many single, minority women who run their own households make over $24,000 (not many); how many John and Yoko (hubby stays at home) households there are (a lot more than you might believe); or how many single profe~sional people fall below the poverty line (Voluntary Simplicity in the flesh ?j. As a companion piece, the Social Stratification guidebook complements the poster's visual impact with a detailed statistical analysis using tables based on a number of government documents. It's information has been adjusted to reflect 1980 conditions. Precisely because the guidebook is so straightforward and unpolemical, its social observations are •all the more provocative. Among its conclusions: one-third of the U.S. population falls below the "low budget"
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