This is a must read. It's all from jp of American Samizdat (and dumbmonkey.)

The Power Elite
WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY
A Political History of the American Rich
By Kevin Phillips

It is a truth universally acknowledged that as individuals become more successful, more established and older, they generally become more attached to a socio-economic order that rewards success. It is unusual and extraordinary, therefore, for an individual, while living comfortably, to grow increasingly critical of the existing order.

Such is the case with Kevin Phillips, who has been one of the most distinguished and thought-provoking commentators on the American political scene for more than 30 years. With roots firmly anchored in the Republican Party, Phillips became a young chief political analyst during the 1968 presidential campaign, which culminated in Richard Nixon's victory. In light of that campaign, he wrote his first major work, "The Emerging Republican Majority" in 1969, a daring book that peered through the tumults of radical protest, the women's movement, human-rights campaigns and antiwar feelings to see that the Democratic party was losing much of its traditional base and that the South and West could fall increasingly into the Republicans' lap.

Twenty-one years and four books later, a different sort of Phillips emerged in the form of "The Politics of Rich and Poor." The title itself was a giveaway: In some Republican circles, the mere mention of "the poor" is bad form, but here was Phillips discussing the socioeconomic clefts that had emerged by the end of the Reagan era and raising the issue of fairness. This did not cause the already rich and successful to pause, nor did those who frantically endeavored to emulate them during the Wall Street boom of the 1990s lose their eagerness to become rich. It did, however, make Phillips something of a maverick and a doomsayer. One critic called him a Nostradamus. Cassandra might have been better.
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NOW with Bill Moyers
Transcript: Kevin Phillips

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Wealth and Democracy

Rags to riches stories have always been the favorite folklore of the American economy. But what happens when the riches end up in just a few pockets and the rest are left wearing the rags? That's what Wealth and Democracy, a Political History of the American Rich, a new book by Morning Edition commentator Kevin Phillips, tries to figure out. Host Bob Edwards talks with Phillips about his book and the somewhat controversial theories it contains.
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