Inequality

The Book That Explains Why Voters Are So Angry (and Why They Have a Right to Feel That Way)

Bill revisits a conversation with political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson that explains how Washington and big business colluded to make the rich richer and abandoned the rest of us.

The Book That Explains Why Voters Are So Angry (and Why They Have a Right to Feel That Way)

Here’s what the 2016 election should be about: Winner-Take-All Politics — How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. It’s a groundbreaking account of how our political system was hijacked by the super rich and engineered to work for them at the expense of everyone else. Two of our top political scientists – Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson – published it four years ago to wide acclaim.

Robert Solow, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics, said of it: “This book is a wake-up call. Read it and wake up.” Elizabeth Warren called it “must reading for anyone who wants to understand how Washington stopped working for the middle class.” I interviewed Hacker and Pierson at the time, and given how inequality has continued to grow and divide our country, what they wrote and said is more relevant than ever.

Take a listen and let me know what you think can be done.

— Bill Moyers


Listen to our conversation by clicking on the stream above. click to read the full transcript.

Bill Moyers

For more than half a century, Bill Moyers has been listening to America as a journalist, writer and producer. You can explore his body of work on the Bill Moyers Timeline. Follow his work on Twitter at @BillMoyers.

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