Bookforum Omnivore - America, Land of Inequality

This collection of links is nearly three weeks old, so you may have read some of these articles. Even so, there is some good stuff here. As usual, they come from Bookforum's Omnivore.

I highly recommend the In These Times article, The Welfare State of America: A manifesto on building social democracy in the age of austerity:

A movement to expand the welfare state has the potential to foster a new majoritarian Left coalition. Republicans know this—that’s why they manipulate the way welfare is perceived at every turn.

The reality is that 96 percent of Americans have benefited from government programs, but the Right works hard to hide that fact. It’s part of a deliberate strategy to divide the country into two camps by convincing the majority of voters that their labor is benefiting parasites dependent on the social safety net.

Democrats have too often bolstered this effort by echoing calls for “welfare reform” and “fiscal responsibility,” and by supporting policies that channel benefits through the tax code (such as the home-mortgage deduction) and private organizations (such as employer-provided health insurance). The result is a system that provides few benefits, makes them largely invisible and disproportionately benefits the more affluent.

In the face of this neoliberal consensus, the Left’s counter-mission must be to show that social democracy benefits everyone. Though this has been the errand of generations of liberals, their efforts have rarely gone beyond rebranding and messaging. Few have pushed for the structural changes necessary to build a strong welfare state.

America, land of inequality

Oct 29 2012
9:00AM

• From In These Times, Peter Frase and Bhaskar Sunkara on the Welfare State of America: A manifesto on building social democracy in the age of austerity (and a response by Frances Fox Piven). 
• Beyond the welfare state: Martin O’Neill and Thad Williamson on Rawls’s radical vision for a better America. 
• The rich and the rest: American inequality is a tale of two countries. 
• J. Bradford DeLong on America, land of inequality. 
• Chuck Marr of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has posted a breakdown of the "47 percent" of Americans (actually, 46 percent) who don't pay federal income taxes. 
• From Vanity Fair, William D. Cohan and Bethany McLean go inside Jamie Dimon’s post-London Whale rallying. 
• The Randian and the Bailout: Bob Benmosche was perfectly happy to while away his retirement on his Croatian vineyard — but the image of AIG employees being beaten up for their bonuses was just too much to bear. 
• William D. Cohan how to crash an economy and escape the scene. 
• William Pesek on putting America’s bankers out of business now. 
• The critic Wall Street loves to lunch with: Noreen Malone on Felix Salmon’s foppish war on the banks.