WATCH: How the ultrawealthy keep failing up
Talking with Chris Hedges about the Jeffrey Epstein files, the culture of elite impunity, and how to remind Americans that capitalism operates because of democracy — not the other way around
This week, Anand talked to journalist Chris Hedges about the latest revelations from the Epstein files, and how what’s been exposed continues the story told in Winners Take All: how society turned over the work of delivering public goods and the responsibility for the biggest decisions affecting humanity — the traditional responsibilities of governments — to an oligarchic class of business leaders, who in turn have eviscerated governments, accelerated inequality, and commodified human relationships ever further, all in the name of progress.
The files and emails that have been released over the past month add another angle to the portrait of a power elite convinced that its interests were those of humanity, whether the rest of humanity liked it or not. The glimpse into the private lives of the Epstein class reveals that the real superpower of the power elite — who have long inhabited a Market World increasingly removed from the real world — is looking away from the pain of everyday people — whether that comes in the form of economic inequality, environmental disaster, financial crisis, forever wars, or the abuse of young girls.
The way out of that trap? Reviving the idea that government can do good, can achieve great things, from clean air and water to Social Security, and that capitalism functions only because democracy makes it possible — not the other way around.
It’s a conversation you won’t want to miss.
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