inequality

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  8/1/2022
  

  Raymond Craib: Rich Tech Libertarians Have Fantasies of Escape, but a Desire for Power

  by Jacob Bruggeman

  The most striking lesson from the history of failed attempts to create societies without states is that the libertarian impulse to strip the state of its power to control capital has already profoundly reshaped every society on earth. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  5/23/2022
  

  Would We Be Better Off Without Philanthropists?

  Do the gifts of the super-wealthy cancel out the damage done by the unequal system that allows them to accumulate it? 

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  5/4/2022
  

  The Rent is Too Damn High(ly Central to Modern Economies)

  by Trevor Jackson

  Historian Trevor Jackson reviews Brett Christophers's book on rent, which places the power of the rentier class at the center of the inequality and dysfunction of modern capital and brings Marx's original investigations into the 21st century.

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  4/20/2022
  

  Lily Geismer: The Clinton Legacy is Well-Intentioned Failure

  "I wanted to challenge the common view that the story of US politics after 1968 is solely about the rise of the right, and that the Democrats adopted the policies that they did as a way of playing electoral defense."

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  4/4/2022
  

  Your House Makes More Money than You Do

  Rising real estate values are bringing more wealth to Americans than wages and salaries are. This is a big problem for economic equality.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/7/2022
  

  The Economy is Good, Actually

  by Zachary D. Carter

  An economic historian says that the recovery from the pandemic is historically good in terms of the share of gains going to low-income workers, but the politics are not working in the Democrats' favor. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  2/1/2022
  

  How the Left Lost the Constitution

  by Benjamin Morse

   Law professors Joseph Fiskin and William Forbath revisit the Reconstruction Amendments to argue that they represent a fusion of a "democracy-of-opportunity" tradition in the law that embraces an affirmative government duty to redistribute wealth. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  1/25/2022
  

  Abortion isn't a "Choice" without Racial Justice

  by Sara Matthiesen

  The recent failure of the broad social spending initiatives of Build Back Better and the impending judicial overthrow of Roe are connected, and signal the need for a movement for reproductive freedom that goes beyond "choice" to address systemic inequalities. 

• 
• 12/19/2021
  

  It's Time to Confront Special Privilege in Admission to Elite U.S. Colleges

  by Lawrence Wittner

  Merit-based admission at the nation’s most elite colleges is severely undermined by those colleges' preferential treatment of the children of the 1%. 

• 
• SOURCE: Noēma
  12/7/2021
  

  Michael J. Sandel on the Dark Side of Meritocracy

  by Nils Gilman

  "The growing awareness of the problems with meritocracy in recent decades is a direct result of the deepening divide between winners and losers. The divide has poisoned our politics and set us apart."

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  11/27/2021
  

  Selective Conscience: New Book Dissects Rawls's Theory of Fairness

  by Olúfémi O. Táíwò

  Katrina Forrester's book shows the influence of John Rawls on the study of ethics, but also reveals the limits of abstract theory for understanding historical injustice. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/5/2021
  

  The Lesson of Venice's 17th Century Plague? Tax the Rich

  by Yong Kwon

  By making only a temporary commitment to public works funded by taxing the city's merchant elite, Venice emerged from the plague with an overburdened workforce, less ability to attract labor, and a declining economy. 

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  9/16/2021
  

  Homelessness and Eviction in the Land of the Free

  by Liz Theoharis

  Homeless activists in the 1980s and 1990s began to push back against the narrative that mass homelessness reflected the defects of individuals instead of a profit-driven housing system. As the Supreme Court has thrown out a federal eviction moratorium, that lesson is more relevant than ever. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Drift
  9/14/2021
  

  XOXO, Ruling Class​: Gossip Girl, The O.C., and the New Gilded Age

  David Klion looks at TV producer Josh Schwartz's jump from "The OC" to "Gossip Girl" and argues that, after the 2007 financial crisis, popular culture was able to show the sociopathy of the super-rich. `

• 
• 9/19/2021
  

  Inequality Tends to Reach Political Tipping Points – Is That Happening Today?

  by Richard Vague

  "Proposals for a $15 minimum wage, more support for childcare and education, and even an alternative minimum income did not emerge out of nowhere as radical notions imported from Western Europe."

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/25/2021
  

  Not Everyone Can Afford to ‘Learn to Live With’ COVID-19

  by Kyle Harper

  "This two-track recovery, where protection against the disease mirrors wealth and power, unfortunately reflects a historical pattern that is several centuries old. The world’s only hope lies in breaking it."

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  8/19/2021
  

  The Real Political Danger of Inflation

  by Andrew Elrod

  Democrats have not lost elections because of inflation, but because they have imagined austerity politics as the only solution to inflation. 

• 
• SOURCE: Public Books
  8/18/2021
  

  Prison Tech Comes Home: Tenants and Residents in the Surveillance State

  by Erin McElroy, Meredith Whittaker and Nicole E. Weber

  Landlords have combined technologies developed for screening tenants in the 1970s with more recent digital surveillance and facial recognition systems developed in prisons to dramatically increase control over their tenants during an affordable housing crisis. 

• 
• SOURCE: TomDispatch
  8/17/2021
  

  Debt and Disillusionment

  by Rebecca Gordon

  "We know, in other words, that there are only a relatively small number of spaces in the cockpit of today’s economic plane. Nonetheless, we tell our young people that the guaranteed way to get one of those rare gigs at the top of the pyramid is a college education."

• 
• SOURCE: Commonweal
  8/17/2021
  

  Scrapping the Color Code: A Post-Racial America is Inevitable

  by Jim Sleeper

  The 2020 Census is showing that whiteness is no longer the civic and cultural norm, but also that bureacratic color-coding can't support a version of civic Americanism that can stand up to a growing white backlash.