Capitalism

Nordic Social Democracy Is Good for Everybody Except the…

Thanks to social democratic policies, the bottom 60 percent of Danes are better off than the bottom 60 percent of Americans. Even middle-class Danes benefit from a strong welfare state. The only group that doesn’t? The rich. Comparing incomes across countries poses certain difficulties: incomes are paid in different currencies, products have different prices, tax

Democracy

On Social Spending, the Question Isn’t “Can We Afford…

When conservatives claim that we can’t afford new social programs, what they really mean is that they think individuals and families should figure out how to handle the costs of necessary care on their own. On November 19, the House of Representatives passed the $2.2 trillion budget reconciliation bill, which includes a broad package of

Democracy

Is Wisconsin Still a Democracy?

All signs now point to a full-court press by the GOP to rig state election rules in a bid to stay in power permanently. So far, Democrats have barely put up a fight. Last week, Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson appeared on local radio to declare his “loss of confidence” in the state’s elections commission and

Capitalism

We Can’t Blame the South Alone for Anti-Tax Austerity…

The South of slavery and Jim Crow is often cast as the major historical reason for the US’s stunted welfare state. But the most fanatical resistance to taxation and redistribution came from the Northern ruling class. To understand our current politics of austerity, we are better served to explore not the defeated ideology of slaveholders