The quotation for today opens a discussion about poverty, middle class, elites, capitalism and democracy.
"There are a lot of reasons to think that inequality will continue to worsen. The current concentration of wealth in the United States has already become self-reinforcing: as the economist Simon Johnson has argued, the financial sector has used its lobbying clout to avoid more onerous forms of regulation. Schools for the well-off are better than ever; those for everyone else continue to deteriorate. Elites in all societies use their superior access to the political system to protect their interests, absent a countervailing democratic mobilization to rectify the situation. American elites are no exception to the rule."
Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, and you can read more about Mr. Fukuyama here.
Mr. Fukuyama's comments are part of Thomas Edsall's New York Times article (citation below) on democratic capitalism and its inability to fairly distribute wealth and income.
Edsall, Thomas. "Campaign Stops: Is This the End of Market Democracy?." The New York Times 19 February, 2012: online edition.
Related information:
A Thousand Words, Vol.1, Issue 4. Exempli Gratia 19 February, 2012. This post highlights Jared Bernstein's graph on the inequality and its impact on poverty.
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