The principal new form of legalized gambling in the past twenty years is the lottery. This article uses a Marxist framework to explain the spread of state-sponsored lotteries since 1964. It develops a complex understanding of a variety of events in the past 20 years to explain the recent popularity of lotteries. Among the phenomena of interest are state and local fiscal crises, caused in part by deindustrialization and capital mobility, and a system-wide crisis characterized by falling real earnings and rising unemployment. The first crisis influenced some states to want to use lotteries for revenue, while the second crisis helped overcome opposition to the legalization of lotteries. Understanding the appeal of lotteries in each case requires brief analyses of the causes of fiscal crises and the ways in which needs are created and satisfied in capitalism.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abt, Vicki
, James F Smith, and Eugene Martin Christiansen. 1985. The Business of Risk. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
2.
Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations
. 1977a. Measuring the Fiscal "Blood Pressure" of the States - 1965-1975. Washington: United States Government Printing Office.
3.
Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations
. 1977b. Significant Features of Fiscal Federalism 1976-77 Edition. Washington: United States Government Printing Office.
4.
Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations
. 1984. Significant Features of Fiscal Federalism 1982-83 Edition. Washington: United States Government Printing Office.
5.
Bloch, Herbert A.1951. The Sociology of Gambling. The American Journal of Sociology57:215-222.
6.
Bluestone, Barry
, and Bennett Harrison. 1982. The Deindustrialization of America. New York: Basic Books.
7.
Bowles, Samuel
. 1982. The Post-Keynesian Capital-Labor Stalemate. Socialist Review65:45-72.
8.
Bowles, Samuel
, and Herbert Gintis. 1982. The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: The Case of the United States. Politics and Society11(1):51-93.
9.
Bowles, Samuel
, David M. Gordon, and Thomas E. Weisskopf. 1984. Beyond the Waste Land. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press.
10.
Brinton, Howard J.1964. Lotteries - An Ancient Device Revived as States Seek New Revenues. Magazine of Wall Street November 14, 1964:200-203.
11.
Cohen, Joshua
, and Joel Rogers. 1983. On Democracy. New York: Penguin Books.
12.
Commission on the Review of the National Policy Toward Gambling
. 1976. Gambling in America. Washington: United States Government Printing Office.
13.
Ezell, John Samuel
. 1960. Fortune's Merry Wheel. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
14.
Goffman, Irving
. 1967. Where the Action Is. In, Interaction Ritual. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
15.
Goodman, Robert
. 1979. The Last Entrepreneurs. New York: Simon and Schuster.
16.
Harrison, Bennett
. 1984. Regional Restructuring and "Good Business Climates": The Economic Transformation of New England Since World War II. In, Sunbelt/Snowbelt, Larry Sawers and William K. Tabb (ed.). pp. 48-96. New York: Oxford University Press.
17.
Hirschman, Albert O.1982. Shifting Involvements. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
18.
Johnson, Douglas
, Paul R. Picard, and Bernard Quinn. 1974. Churches and Church Membership in the United States. Washington: Glenmary Research Center.
19.
Kallick, Maureen
, Daniel Suits, Ted Dielman, and Judith Hybels. 1976. Survey of American Gambling Attitudes and Behavior. In, Gambling in America, Appendix 2, Commission on the Review of the National Policy Toward Gambling. Washington: United States Government Printing Office.
20.
King, Rufus
. 1969. Gambling and Organized Crime. Washington: Public Affairs Press.
21.
Leiss, William
. 1976. The Limits to Satisfaction: An essay on the problem of needs and commodities. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
22.
Lipset, Seymour Martin
, and William Schneider. 1983. The Confidence Gap. New York: The Free Press.
23.
Matthaei, Julie
. 1984. Rethinking Scarcity: Neoclassicism, NeoMalthusianism, and NeoMarxism. Review of Radical Political Economics16 (2 and 3):81-94.
24.
National Association of State Lotteries
. 1983. 1983 Annual Report and Directory. Rockville, MD: Public Gaming Research Institute.
25.
O'Connor, James
. 1973. The Fiscal Crisis of the State. New York: St. Martin's Press.
26.
O'Connor, James
. 1985. Capital, Crisis, Class Struggle. In, Rethinking Marxism, Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff (ed.). pp. 273-293. Brooklyn: Autonomdeia.
27.
Parkin, Frank
. 1971. Class Inequality and Political Order. New York: Praeger.
28.
Phares, Donald
. 1980. Who Pays State and Local Taxes?Cambridge: Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain.
29.
Preteceille, Edmond
, and Jean-Pierre Terrail. 1985. Capitalism, Consumption and Needs. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
30.
Scitovsky, Tibor
. 1976. The Joyless Economy. New York: Oxford University Press.
31.
U.S. Bureau of the Census
. 1973. Census of the Population: 1970. Characteristics of the Population. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
32.
U.S. Bureau of the Census
. 1979. Current Population Reports, P-20. Demographic, Social and Economic Profiles of the States, Spring 1976. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
33.
U.S. Bureau of the Census
. 1982. Census of the Population: 1980. Characteristics of the Population. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
34.
U.S. Bureau of the Census
. 1984a. State Government Finances in 1983. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
35.
U.S. Bureau of the Census
. 1984b. State Tax Collections in 1983. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
36.
U.S. Department of Commerce
. (various years). Survey of Current Business. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
37.
U.S. Department of Labor
. 1982. Education and Training Report of the President. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
38.
U.S. News and World Report. 1983. Gambling Rage - Out of Control? May 30, 1983:27-29.
39.
Walker, Richard A.1978. Two Sources of Uneven Development Under Advanced Capitalism: Spatial Differentiation and Capital Mobility. Review of Radical Political Economics10, 3:28-37.
40.
Weinstein, David
, and Lillian Deitch. 1974. The Impact of Legalized Gambling. New York: Praeger.
41.
Weisskopf, Thomas
. 1981. The Current Economic Crisis in Historical Perspective. Socialist Review57:9-53.
