Winner-Take-All: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class

[marmar]

via AlterNet:




Simon & Schuster / By Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
Here's why the economy become more risky and unreliable for most Americans even as it has created vast riches for the well-positioned and well-off.

April 1, 2011 |


The following is an excerpt from Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer - And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson (Simon & Schuster, 2011).


Americans like crime dramas, and for good reasons. There is an exciting discovery that immediately creates mystery. The scene has clues to pore over (increasingly, with the latest in forensic technology). Suspects are found and interrogated, their motives questioned, their alibis probed. And if the crime drama is worth its salt, there are surprises along the way—unexpected twists and turns that hopefully lead to a satisfying explanation of the once-mysterious felony.

This book starts with a mystery every bit as puzzling as that of the typical crime drama, and far more important for the lives of Americans: Why, after a generation following World War II in which prosperity was broadly distributed up and down the income ladder, did the gains of economic growth start going mostly to those at the top? Why has the economy become more risky and unreliable for most Americans even as it has created vast riches for the well-positioned and well-off? The mystery is dramatic. The scene is strewn with clues. And yet this mystery has continued to bedevil some of the nation’s finest economic detectives.

It’s not as if the post-1970s transformation of our economy has gone unnoticed, of course: Even before the economic crisis that shook the nation in 2008, scores of economists and experts in allied fields, like sociology and political science, were creatively crunching the numbers and fiercely debating their meaning. Yet again and again, they have found themselves at dead ends or have missed crucial evidence. After countless arrests and interrogations, the demise of broad-based prosperity remains a frustratingly open case, unresolved even as the list of victims grows longer.

All this, we are convinced, is because a crucial suspect has largely escaped careful scrutiny: American politics. Understandably, investigators seeking to explain a set of economic events have sought out economic suspects. But the economic suspects, for the most part, have strong alibis. They were not around at the right time. Or they were in a lot of countries, doing just the same thing that they did in the United States, but without creating an American-style winner-take-all economy. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/books/150378/winner-take-all_politics%3A_how_washington_made_the_rich_richer_--_and_turned_its_back_on_the_middle_class/

[MichiganVote]

1. K&R

[alp227]

2. I recently borrowed this book from library and can't wait to read it! n/t

[yurbud]

3. How is it a mystery? Banks and Wall Street did it through the Reagan Revolution and buying pols

in both parties since then.

It aint rocket science.