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A magnifying glass on C. Wright Mills's book "The Power Elite."

Whatever Happened to the Power Elite?

The trio of interests atop business, military, and government depicted in C. Wright Mills’s postwar critique is no longer united in setting the national agenda.
by Peter Dreier via The New Republic on May 5, 2025
Still frames from the film Sinners spliced with photos depicting a whites-only sign and a group of African American families

The Jim Crow Economy Is the True Horror in 'Sinners'

The film illustrates the near-impossibility of upward mobility during the segregation era.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on May 2, 2025
McKinley poster that reads "Prosperity at home, prestige abroad."

Trump, Historians, and the Lessons of U.S. Tariff History

The omissions in Trump's historical narratives reveal how he views national wealth: only the people at the top of the socioeconomic ladder matter.
by Elizabeth McKillen via LaborOnline on May 1, 2025
The words "the world you were born in no longer exists" covering Trump's eyes.

The Present Crisis and the End of the Long '90s

On the constitutional settlement that governed America from the end of the Volcker Shock in 1982 to the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024.
by Samantha Hancox-Li via Liberal Currents on April 24, 2025
Exhibit

Economic Inequality

Histories of wealth disparity in the US, those who have challenged it, and those who have exploited it.
Knight on horseback fights a dragon.

The Georgist Roots of American Libertarianism

How did libertarians come to embrace Henry George, a thinker championed by political coalitions ranging from early zionists to the global Green Party?
by Reed Schwartz via Asterisk on April 15, 2025
Political cartoon showing a dog named 'income tax' running from a can called "supreme court decisions."

No, President Trump, the Income Tax Wasn’t A Mistake. But It Was an Accident.

Trump claimed that the income tax was passed for “reasons unknown to mankind” and caused the Great Depression. Here’s the real history.
by Jesse Eisinger via ProPublica on April 8, 2025
An aerial view of houses in Jersey City, United States on July 13, 2024.

Is The ‘Predatory’ Property Tax An Instrument Of Oppression?

According to Andrew Kahrl, the property tax has been used to disposs black homeowners since the 19th century.
by Joseph J. Thorndike via Forbes on March 24, 2025
Farmer working a mule-drawn plow.

Racism Isn’t the Only Cause of the Racial Wealth Gap

Widening the lens to capitalism itself could yield insights on how to close the gap.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on March 6, 2025
Cartoon of well-dressed arm holding a lit match

The Gilded Age Never Ended

Plutocrats, anarchists, and what Henry James grasped about the romance of revolution.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on February 24, 2025
Group of white people carrying a sign that thanks Donald Trump

Make South Africa Great Again?

How the country’s post-apartheid politics may inform the world view of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
by Isaac Chotiner, William Shoki via The New Yorker on February 19, 2025
Trump and Reagan depicted as two halves of the same face.

The Dark Legacy of Reaganism

Conservatives might be tempted to hold up Reagan as representative of a nobler era. They’d be wrong.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The New Republic on February 19, 2025
A mustache and a monocle with the preamble to the Constitution in its sights.

The Other Fear of the Founders

America’s early leaders were worried not only about demagogues like Donald Trump, but about the rise of an antidemocratic, wealthy elite that goads such men on.
by George Thomas via The Atlantic on February 12, 2025
A moving truck on cinder blocks.

How Progressives Froze the American Dream

The U.S. was once the world’s most geographically mobile society. Now we’re stuck in place—and that’s a very big problem.
by Yoni Appelbaum via The Atlantic on February 10, 2025
A collage of rats, trash, rat exterminators, and a rat mascot.

Rats!

Baltimore's long history with its most polarizing pest.
by Lydia Woolever via Baltimore Magazine on January 2, 2025
Jimmy Carter in the 1970s visiting a town in Brazil that commemorates Confederate expats.

Jimmy Carter, 1924-2024

As an individual, Jimmy Carter stood as a rebuke to our venal and heartless political class. As a politician, his private virtues proved to be public vices.
by Tim Barker via Origins of Our Time on January 1, 2025
An eagle in its nest of the American flag, which holds eggs representing the states.

From Woke to Solidarity

On two new books that critique identity politics and seek a new vision of political culture.
by Michael S. Roth via Los Angeles Review of Books on December 24, 2024
Kamala Harris

The Democrats’ “Opportunity” Pitch Is a Dead End

The meritocratic pitch was emblematic of Democrats’ long march away from working-class voters.
by Lily Geismer via Jacobin on December 11, 2024
Tents in Resurrection City in Washington D.C., a protest encampment on the National Mall.

The Poverty of Homeownership

On both sides of the color line, to own one’s home remains synonymous with freedom—even as real estate has proven itself to be relentlessly unequal.
by David Helps via Public Books on December 4, 2024
Neon signage for Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort.
partner

The 2024 Election and America's Love Affair With Lotteries

Americans love games of chance, but history shows they're a poor substitute for a robust investment in public goods.
by Carly Goodman via Made By History on November 12, 2024
An artistic collage juxtiposing a transatlantic slave ship with a tenement in Harlem.

How the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Continues to Impact Modern Life

A new Smithsonian book reckons with the enduring legacies of slavery and capitalism.
by Jennifer L. Morgan via Smithsonian on November 7, 2024
Leatherface swinging a chainsaw branded with the American flag.

It Might Be the Scariest Movie Ever Made. There’s Never Been a Better Time to Watch It.

The vibes right now are very "Texas Chain Saw Massacre."
by Emily C. Hughes via Slate on October 29, 2024
A view of Wall Street and Federal Hall in the Financial District in New York City.

In the 1970s, the Left Put a Good Crisis to Waste

In "Counterrevolution," Melinda Cooper reads the 1970s economic crisis as an elite revolt rather than proof of the New Deal order’s unsustainability.
by Scott Aquanno, Stephen Maher via Jacobin on October 24, 2024
Statue of Jefferson Davis next to other leaders in Statuary Hall in the Capitol.

Many Wealthy Members of Congress are Descendants of Rich Slaveholders

Researchers measured lawmakers’ wealth and found that those whose Southern ancestors owned slaves before abolition have a higher net worth today.
by Neil K. R. Sehgal, Ashwini Sehgal via The Conversation on October 23, 2024

Eroticize the Hood

A new book revamps Newark's reputation as unsexy, violent, destitute, defiantly declaring it “a place of desire, love, eroticism, community, and resistance.”
by José Sanchez via n+1 on October 8, 2024
A World History Encloypedia graphic image/illustration of The Feudal Society in Medieval Europe.

American Feudalism

A liberalism that divides humanity into a master class and a slave class deserves an asterisk as “white liberalism.”
by Paul Crider via Liberal Currents on October 2, 2024
Caesar's profile is eerily set against the Great Seal of the United States.

US President or American Caesar?

American democracy has been haunted by the spectre of a Caesar-type figure since the birth of the republic. Have such fears ever been justified?
by Ian McDaniel via History Today on September 25, 2024
Donald Trump speaks at a rally in July in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

What’s the Matter With the Democrats?

Two new books reveal the shortcomings at the heart of the liberal critique of Trump voters.
by Sean T. Byrnes via Dissent on September 23, 2024
Portrait of Julius Rosenwald hanging on a wall.

Finding Philanthropy’s Forgotten Founder

Julius Rosenwald understood that charity is not just about giving, but about fixing the inequalities that make giving necessary.
by Darren Walker via The Atlantic on September 9, 2024
Photograph of young students getting off a school bus.

Public Schools Really Can Save America

America's public schools were founded on the ideal of uniting rich and poor, but inequality persists due to racial, income, and systemic divides.
by Adam Laats via Current (religion and democracy) on September 5, 2024
Alain Locke.

A Century of Cultural Pluralism

How an unlikely American friendship should inspire diversity, equity, and inclusion.
by David Weinfeld via U.S. Intellectual History Blog on August 21, 2024
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