Books & ideas

Party, Capitalists and Class in China

Émilie Frenkiel — 2015-10-29T08:00:00Z

According to Australian specialist of social classes David S.G. Goodman, China is still far from a capitalist country. In this interview, he maps out the connections between the Chinese middle classes, the upper class and the Communist Party and their political implications.

Understanding the American State

Richard W. Lachmann — 2014-10-06T08:00:00Z

Two recent books, focusing on the American corporate elite & high-technology innovation in the US, reveal much about the particular characteristics and operation of the US state. With diverging but compatible approaches, they provide bases for understanding why the US is in decline.

Plutocracy in America

Isaac William Martin — 2013-02-25T08:48:08Z

Is American democracy controlled by a rich minority of plutocrats? Has it drowned in money in the past thirty years? Studying the behavior of rich Americans in politics, three recent books answer these questions and prove that, yes, plutocracy has become a real threat in America.

A French New Deal?

2011-01-21T07:52:13Z

France, too, had its New Deal: that is the thesis argued by the American historian Philip Nord, in a book that clarifies both political and cultural aspects of the strengthening of the French state from the 1930s to the 1950s. This is a thought-provoking reexamination of the past, appearing at a time when the institutions bequeathed by the French “new deal” seem to have been weakened.