Peter Van Buren provides an absolutely outstanding rundown of the New Gilded Age, even if he doesn’t use the term. An excerpt to remind you of the glories of 21st century America: Last year eight Americans—the four Waltons of Walmart fame, the two Koch brothers, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett—made more money than 3.6 million […]
Tag: new gilded age
There’s really no reason for the plutocracy to pretend it’s not the New Gilded Age. What are you going to do about it if you don’t like it? Nothing. Go read your Horatio Alger novel
I talked a bit about the emissions problems at the Sriracha factory last fall. In short, residents living near a chile sauce factory that is indifferent to emissions violations do not have a good life
David Graeber has an interesting essay basically getting after Thomas Piketty from the left, saying that the now famous economist’s essential acceptance of capitalism is a problem because it ignores what actually tamed the income inequality that he bemoans: fear of revolution: Back in the 90s, I used to get into arguments with Russian friends […]
The long-term unemployed are doomed to poverty by Republicans who will not pass any bill extending unemployment benefits. This sort of Republican governance advances their program to recreate New Gild
National Review troll Amity Shlaes, who you may remember from such arguments as “true freedom is a worker choosing to labor 70 hours a week,” in lamely attempting to write the “human
What? Why does the United States only have the 4th highest level of income inequality in the (rather broadly defined) developed world? This nation did not steal half of Mexico in 1848 in order to see it best us in this crucial category of plutocracy. I know a Christian version of Erdogan is the kind […]
For controlling the world, today’s plutocrats sure do scare easily: Whether it’s this cover or comparing mild criticism of income inequality to Krystallnacht, the elites in this New Gilded
I have a piece up at Bill Moyers’ site connecting the exploitation that led to the Ludlow Massacre of 1914 with coal companies exploitation of labor and degradation of nature today: In recent ye
Next week will mark the 100th anniversary of the Ludlow Massacre. While it seems like a long time ago, in the New Gilded Age, it remains disturbingly relevant because the conditions that created such horrors in 1914 are returning to the United States of 2014. The historian Thai Jones gives an overview of the event […]
My thought on the McCutcheon case’s importance is as follows. Liberals need to quit whining about the money. I’m not saying the case isn’t a big deal. It is. But I am saying that the
I can’t recommend this Stephen Bezruchka essay on structural inequality and infant mortality strongly enough. Just a quick excerpt: Everyone in a society gains when children grow up to be health