Does modernity require inequality? Or can we build totally modern societies that respect solidarity and community? A review of Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age by Steven Hill.
Some Americans get all bent out of shape when they hear someone label the United States a ‘plutocracy.’ But if we have an honest-to-goodness democracy, where the people really rule, then how can we explain Goldman Sachs?
The lackluster financial reform bill now nearing a floor vote in the U.S. Senate includes a surprising provision that could help reframe and revitalize the struggle against outrageously excessive CEO pay. Read more . . .
The White House wants to require firms that do business with the government to pay decent wages. That could work — if we go after all pay that’s indecent.

Congress may be gridlocked, but the Obama administration has the power, even without congressional action, to take on the CEO set — and the windfalls that are so enraging average Americans.
Unfortunately, lawmakers aren’t doing too well either — and the big bank bonus grab has once again shifted into overdrive.
Amid double-digit joblessness, two top U.S. corporations cut still another mega merger deal that enriches executives and tosses workers, by the thousands, out onto the street.
Can excess on Wall Street ever be ended? Maybe. Some lawmakers in France have a plan that could end it.
In a new network of ‘Common Security Clubs,’ activists are stitching together a challenge to Tea-Bagger rage — and the staggering inequality that breeds it.