economic inequality

Welcome to the End of Democracy and It's Not Trump's Fault

Tällberg Foundation — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 11:45:16 -0500

"We may remain, as we are now, nominally democratic, but be ruled by a technocratic class empowered by greater powers of surveillance than those enjoyed by even the noisiest of dictatorships.”

Those words were written by Joel Kotkin in a recently published essay on democracy’s demise. Donald Trump is not the villain of the piece, as most pundits want us to believe, nor other populists outside the United States. Rather, Kotkin argues that the withering of democratic process and institutions reflects the deeper transformation of American and European societies: the emergence of a ruling technocracy; the use of the pandemic and the environmental crisis to constrain individual rights; the new concentration of power in governments, and the growing distance between the governing and the governed. All of it is made worse by the mind-boggling concentration of economic wealth, which is as much an issue in China as it is in the United States.

Kotkin’s analysis deserves our attention. What do you think—not about Trump, but about democracy? Who can do what to bend the arc away from the dystopian end game that he and others describe?

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Read 'Welcome to the End of Democracy'

The Tällberg Foundation, launched in 1981, exists to explore the issues that are challenging —and changing— our societies. Today, those challenges are profound: the world that we have known since the mid 20th century, which produced unprecedented peace as well as human advance, is changing at a pace and in directions that threaten to evolve towards Orwellian dystopia.

Restoring the California Dream

Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 17:32:25 -0500

Join us for a webinar on January 21st, hosted by Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky to learn how we can restore the California Dream for middle and working class Californians. Following the presentation of the report, there will be an all-star panel led by Jeff Ball, new CEO of the Orange County Business Council.

Panel participants include Raul Anaya, Joe Hensley, and Karla Del Rio.

Feudal Future Podcast: America Under Biden's New Tax Plan

Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky — Mon, 10 May 2021 11:35:55 -0400

On this episode of Feudal Future, hosts Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky are joined by Hank Adler, Associate Professor of Accounting for Chapman University, and Steven Malanga, City Journal’s senior editor, to discuss Biden's new tax plan.

Hank Adler was in public accounting for thirty-four years, the last twenty as a tax partner at Deloitte & Touche. He joined the faculty of Chapman University in 2003. Mr. Adler has served on several corporate and community boards of directors. His research has been published by The Wall Street Journal, Tax Notes, Prentice Hall and Tax Magazine. His interests include theories of taxation and board governance.

Steven Malanga is the George M. Yeager Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and City Journal’s senior editor. He writes about the intersection of urban economies, business communities, and public policy. Malanga is the author of The New New Left: How American Politics Works Today (2005); The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan than Today’s (2007), coauthored with Heather Mac Donald and Victor Davis Hanson; and Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer (2010).

[ 3:17] High Taxes and California

[ 6:45] The concentration of wealth in California

[16:30] Biden's porposal on capital gains

[29:08] Entrepreneurial growth in America

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Learn more about the Feudal Future podcast.
Learn more about Marshall Toplansky.

Learn more about Joel Kotkin.

Learn about Hank Adler.

Learn about Steven Malanga.

Join the Beyond Feudalism Facebook group.
Read the Beyond Feudalism report.
Leran about Joel's book, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism.