It’s no secret by now that the recent spike in American inequality, and the gains rapidly accruing to the wealthy, are driven in large part by “financialization.” Over the last generation, financial services have expanded not with economic growth, but with stagnation and crisis—and their spectacular rise has accounted for about half of the decline in labor’s share of national income. How did things get this bad?
For many social media critics, the “stream” and its never-ending rush of information are getting overwhelming. But as these critics pine for a return to a calmer, more curated media world, they fail to consider the voices that the old-guard media left out—women of color, for example. People like me.
Some 47.1 million people, or 15.1 percent of the U.S. population, now live in poverty—the highest number in fifty-two years, up from 11.7 percent of the population in 2000. It’s time to stop blaming the victims and wage a new war on poverty.
Yesterday, students ended a three-week occupation of Taiwan’s legislature. To help explain the causes and meaning of the protests, and place them in historical perspective, Jeffrey Wasserstrom speaks with Shelley Rigger, a political scientist, Taiwan expert, and author of Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse.
The tax system offers us a detailed and damning description of American inequality and, just as importantly, promises to do something about it. But the American system of public finance has always been weak and fragmented, and three decades’ worth of tax cuts haven’t helped.
On the heels of last weekend’s Fossil Fuel Divestment Convergence, we hear from two students active in campus and national divestment efforts. Chloe Maxmin sketches the contours of a rapidly growing movement and examines the case of Harvard. Kate Aronoff argues that students must situate themselves carefully within social movement strategy if they are to effectively leverage the power of their institutions.
The American welfare state is widely regarded as a poor cousin to those of its democratic peers. As the most unequal wealthy country, the United States also does the least to address that inequality through public policy—despite strong historical and international evidence that social spending programs can drastically reduce inequality.
Increasingly complicit politicians, businessmen, and professionals have allowed mafia groups to conquer significant sections of the market economy in Milan—far afield from their traditional base in southern Italy. But a growing anti-mafia movement, led by young people and championed by municipal politicians, is pushing back.
In 2005, the Navajo Nation passed its own version of the Defense of Marriage Act called the Diné Marriage Act. Navajo LGBT activists have recently reignited their struggle to overturn the law, hoping to capitalize on decisions legalizing gay marriage in Utah and New Mexico late last year. In the process, they have raised long-standing questions about the reach of the U.S. legal system onto Native lands.
American inequality is driven not just by the uneven distribution of wages, but also by the uneven distribution of job-based benefits. More than any other country, the United States relies on private employment and private bargaining to deliver basic social benefits—including health coverage, retirement security, and paid leave. The results—on any basic measure of economic security—have been dismal.
Octavio Paz spoke out against American imperialism in Latin America throughout his career, but his outspoken opposition to Stalinism and revolutionary violence got him smeared as a Reaganite. On the poet’s centenary, a look at his politics and his most comprehensive collection in English.
Fewer than 4,000 men and women have been formally designated as trafficked to the United States. This number obscures not only the tens of thousands of forced labor victims whose cases go unreported, but the millions of migrants who face comparable abuse—just not enough to fit the legal definition of trafficking. It’s impossible to tell the story of trafficking without telling their story, too.
Labor standards are a key buffer against inequality, setting both an economic and ethical floor. But, on both scores, the current minimum wage offers a pretty shaky floor. Its value—in historical and international terms—is meager; its coverage is uneven; and it is poorly enforced. How did we get here?
By now much of the world has heard of Toronto’s mayor Rob Ford. But the real story in Toronto is not Rob Ford. How did one of North America’s most diverse cities in one of the west’s most robust democracies come to elect a right-wing populist?
Under the New Deal order, unions not only sustained prosperity but ensured that it was shared. Since the 1970s, however, the attack on unions has reversed these gains. Today, both union membership and inequality stand roughly at 1920s levels.
