We have developed the habit of thinking about the Declaration of Independence mainly as an event, an episode in the dramatic unfolding of the American Revolution. But it makes a cogent philosophical case for political equality, a case that democratic citizens desperately need to understand.
Twenty-four hours a day, across more than sixty free product “platforms,” Google is storing, indexing, and cross-referencing information about the activities of a billion people. What are the 30,000 prodigies at Google, Inc. doing with all that data?
In their responses to Michael Walzer’s “A Foreign Policy for the Left,” Eric Alterman and Jeff Faux make the case for the “default position”: minimal engagement, at least until we get democracy right here at home. Michael Walzer responds.
Ninety-five years ago today, Beijing students gathered in front of Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, and launched a mass movement against corruption and foreign bullying. Seventy years later, in 1989, student protesters would gather at the same spot to claim the May Fourth mantle—only to be brutally repressed.
Concluding our nine-part series on inequality, a crash course in the last 100 years of U.S. fiscal and monetary policy, from the creation of the Fed to the Phillips curve to the modern-day bloodletting known as austerity.
The new media gurus claim that everybody can remix and peer produce their way to a networked, cultural cornucopia. But thankfully, as sugar-coated paeans to the power of tech have proliferated, so have sharp, critical accounts. Astra Taylor’s new book, The People’s Platform, rises to the top of this list.
At a cost of several hundred millions of euros, the capital of Macedonia is undergoing a makeover that includes one of the largest statues in Europe, a new archaeological museum, and several works of public art, all financed by the government in an effort to paint their poverty-stricken state as the rightful inheritor of a distant grandeur. Critics have wondered whether the money could not be better spent in a country that, if it were to join the EU, would be the poorest member.
Between 1965 and 2000, CEO compensation grew by about 2500 percent, while worker compensation inched up only about 30 percent. This is a market malfunction, a democratic disaster, and a key driver of inequality, as the political currents that eroded the bargaining power of ordinary Americans have also buoyed the incentive and the opportunity of the richest 1 percent to pad their incomes.
Jesus of Nazareth was not the first or last to preach against empire, but he is the only revolutionary whose story has held such sway over millennia.
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.
