Matthew Stewart takes a deep dive into American cultural and political inequality for The Atlantic:
The source of the trouble, considered more deeply, is that we have traded rights for privileges. We’re willing to strip everyone, including ourselves, of the universal right to a good education, adequate health care, adequate representation in the workplace, genuinely equal opportunities, because we think we can win the game. But who, really, in the end, is going to win this slippery game of escalating privileges?
A great, long read exploring the accumulation of wealth and blindness to privilege, the rise of resentment in American culture, and the political maneuvering that keeps us headed that way.
The analogy here to America’s Gilded Age is apt. That brief period of comfort for the top decile of our population didn’t end well.
#SecondGuildedAge #aristocracy #culture #class #race
A Random Stroll 