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nwhikerWinner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob S. Hacker, Paul Pierson.
Alas this book was published in 2010, which means it misses some of the more awful developments of the past 8 years, the 2010 midterm rout, Merrick Garland, Trump and Russian interference.... Still, much of the historical stuff is relevant and informative as to how we got into this situation where the super-rich are taking more and more, and the rest of us had to divide a smaller and smaller section of the pie.
One interesting point is that the reason things have gotten so bad for the middle class is not, in fact, globalization and trade, but is more rooted in politics, and one party being willing to do whatever it takes to further the agenda of the super-rich, while the other is too passive and allows the laws of unintended consequences to create a playground for the rich and especially the financial industry. There are some good insights into what bits and pieces of legislation had the most effect in furthering inequality, and names are named as to the players that had their hands in the cookie jar.
My biggest gripes with the book, aside from the fact that it's a bit dated (see above!)
1. Both-sideism. The authors do clearly put the larger share of the blame on this situation where it belongs, with the Republicans, but there is still a tendency to apportion more blame to Democrats than I think, having lived though some of the times they're talking about, Dems deserve. They were by no means perfect, but they also often didn't truly have a chance at making any substantive or positive change.
2. No mention of the media, and how the obstructionism was aided and abetted by the media clearly refusing to do their jobs and call out what needed to be called out. The 2016 election was the end point of that, but Newt and his Contract on America got a lot more positive press than they deserved and a lot less scrutiny than they needed.
3. Social issues. There was a tendency in the book to gloss over social issues. They did discuss abortion to a certain extent, but there was no mention of the birtherism and the virulent racism that people started spewing as soon as Obama was elected (though... I remember watching on CNN as a reporter asked an old Southern guy why he didn't like Clinton -Bill- and the guy said "well, I think he's going to be too nice to the n---".) Racism and hated of "others" is a fundamental motivating factor in the division of America. I think that any analysis of how we let the inequality get so bad has to take into account that for a large segment of the US population, they're fine sleeping under a bridge... as long as the black or immigrant family, or the gay couple is under a leakier bridge. This is what allows the Republicans to manipulate them, with Trump being the current end point.
I listened to the audiobook, and the reader was good.
Recommended. The book pulls together a lot of ideas and gives a detailed but also broad picture of how we ended up in this situation.
Alas this book was published in 2010, which means it misses some of the more awful developments of the past 8 years, the 2010 midterm rout, Merrick Garland, Trump and Russian interference.... Still, much of the historical stuff is relevant and informative as to how we got into this situation where the super-rich are taking more and more, and the rest of us had to divide a smaller and smaller section of the pie.
One interesting point is that the reason things have gotten so bad for the middle class is not, in fact, globalization and trade, but is more rooted in politics, and one party being willing to do whatever it takes to further the agenda of the super-rich, while the other is too passive and allows the laws of unintended consequences to create a playground for the rich and especially the financial industry. There are some good insights into what bits and pieces of legislation had the most effect in furthering inequality, and names are named as to the players that had their hands in the cookie jar.
My biggest gripes with the book, aside from the fact that it's a bit dated (see above!)
1. Both-sideism. The authors do clearly put the larger share of the blame on this situation where it belongs, with the Republicans, but there is still a tendency to apportion more blame to Democrats than I think, having lived though some of the times they're talking about, Dems deserve. They were by no means perfect, but they also often didn't truly have a chance at making any substantive or positive change.
2. No mention of the media, and how the obstructionism was aided and abetted by the media clearly refusing to do their jobs and call out what needed to be called out. The 2016 election was the end point of that, but Newt and his Contract on America got a lot more positive press than they deserved and a lot less scrutiny than they needed.
3. Social issues. There was a tendency in the book to gloss over social issues. They did discuss abortion to a certain extent, but there was no mention of the birtherism and the virulent racism that people started spewing as soon as Obama was elected (though... I remember watching on CNN as a reporter asked an old Southern guy why he didn't like Clinton -Bill- and the guy said "well, I think he's going to be too nice to the n---".) Racism and hated of "others" is a fundamental motivating factor in the division of America. I think that any analysis of how we let the inequality get so bad has to take into account that for a large segment of the US population, they're fine sleeping under a bridge... as long as the black or immigrant family, or the gay couple is under a leakier bridge. This is what allows the Republicans to manipulate them, with Trump being the current end point.
I listened to the audiobook, and the reader was good.
Recommended. The book pulls together a lot of ideas and gives a detailed but also broad picture of how we ended up in this situation.
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