Talking Points Memo published an important four-part series in December, The March to Inequality: How did we get here? It’s one of my Christmas week readings, which I recommend despite its distinctly un-merry description. To balance the darkness, I also recommend bell hooks’ recent New York Times interview. But first, Josh Marshall’s introduction to the terrible inequality of today’s economy:
“Half a century ago, the US political economy was profoundly different. Wealth and income inequality were at historically low levels. The US still had the immense advantage of being the factory for rebuilding the world after the devastation that scarred much of the globe during the Second World War. And unions were a pervasive feature of the industrial economy. So how did we get from there to here?”