A "Big Bang" - or a Whimper?

Fm pleased to have the opportunity to enter into the debate between G. William Domhoff and Theda Skocpol over the nature, shape, and origins of the twentieth-century political economy. With good reason, Domhoff has taken me and my book, A History of Retirement (Graebner, 1980) for allies in this academic version of "Gunfight at the OK Corral." But rather than dust off the hardware and start blasting away at Skocpol for whose work I have great admiration I would like to begin with a comment about the quality of evidence in this controversy. (Here, as elsewhere, I will confine my remarks to the only arena in which I have substantial expertise: the history of pensions and old-age insurance).