Part One:
UNREGULATED CAPITALISM HAS DEVASTATED RURAL COMMUNITIES. WHY ARE THEY PERSUADED BY DEMAGOGUES TO BLAME “THE OTHER”?
We speak with Marc Edelman, professor of anthropology at Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center, about his article “How Capitalism Underdeveloped Rural America.” The extent of poverty and near-poverty in the U.S. (people living within 150% of the poverty line) is shocking — roughly 50%! Why do we not see more outrage from progressives — including from Democratic candidates?
Where did all the wealth go, as rural communities slid down the rabbit hole? The wealth was extracted from rural regions, moving upward in class terms and outward in geographical terms (toward big urban areas).
As the residents of these communities become more financially unstable, desperate and depressed, they become more amenable to accepting the preaching of demagogues, even when they’re spewing falsehoods and outlandish conspiracy theories. Instead of looking to the banks and large corporations which extract and centralize their financial lifeblood, a fearful and hopeless populace accepts the demagogue’s invitation to blame “the other,” those awful “welfare women.”
To put it another way, a toxic brew of economic suffering, racism, and community decline prepared the ground for authoritarian populism in America’s devastated rural areas. Edelman concludes that Trumpism will not be defeated unless the left can promote a progressive agenda to rebuild rural America.
Part Two:
TWO DIFFERENT PLANETS?
We talk to Christopher Michaelson, ethics professor at the University of St. Thomas, about his take on the World Economic Forum in Davos. It seems that CEOs, experts and philosophers are viewing the world’s biggest risks from two different planets. The Forum put environmental risks at the top of its agenda, while the world’s CEOs see overregulation as their biggest threat.
Michaelson explains how meaning and purpose in life and at work can improve our own lives as well as the lives of other people and our planet.
