Category Archives: Books

It’s not often that a member of the .01% leaves the comfy fold and commits heresy by adopting a populist message. It takes some guts after all to turn on the dapper fellows down at the country club. But that is exactly what billionaire capitalist Nick Hanauer has done. In fact Forbes magazine has gone ballistic over it, directing all sorts of derisive epithets his way, including “ignorant” and “insane.” So what he is saying, and who he is, must have them really spooked:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html#.U8HyMI1dVqp

But never fear you members of the leisure class, the fix is in for the suits in America’s board rooms. It’s not just those at the top of the wealth pyramid that stand in the way of leveling the economic playing field. In actuality the bulk of their firewall is comprised of millions of folks who will never come close to being well-off. So why do so many people, predominantly rural and struggling, consistently vote against their own economic interests? Why do so many of those who should be first at the gates of the plutocratic castles instead fight to languish in a version of modern day feudalism? How are they so easily relegated to second-class economic citizenship (at best)? What spell has been cast that possesses them to disregard their own wallets and instead spend their precious votes opposing things that barely affect most of them– gay marriage, abortion, immigration and assault weapon laws– and some things that are designed specifically to help them- Obamacare, welfare, food stamps, minimum wage and student loans?  A most interesting, and quite entertaining, account of how this all came about can be found in “What’s The Matter With Kansas?” by Thomas Frank:

http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X

It’s a story about natural selection in reverse, survival of the un-fittest–  in fact, those “Kansans” who man the ramparts, millions of whom don’t believe in evolution, may themselves be the single best argument out there against the theory. But, as in the case of Nick Hanauer, the plutocrat with a heart,  it usually takes an inside job, a mutation from within, that causes an evolutionary leap. For instance, it was likely a mutation in the gene for the jaw in apes that forced them to switch to a less coarse diet, thus relieving the need for huge muscles for chewing, which allowed the skull to expand and the brain to grow. OK..so it might take millions of years to save those Kansans, but we have to start somewhere. Go Nick!

And this from NYT the following day…right on cue:

‘Kansas’ Ruinous Tax Cuts’