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C. Wright Mills

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C. Wright Mills.

C. Wright Mills’s "The Power Elite" Still Speaks to Today’s America

Mills exposed postwar American power and warned of an authoritarian turn in the book, which speaks to our own moment of inequality and right-wing anger.

How 'Good Design' Failed Us

What's the role of functionality in design?
Trump and his cabinet sitting around a conference table.
partner

Why the Power Elite Continues to Dominate American Politics

Presidents of both parties stock their Cabinets with corporate leaders.
A group of birds with one standing on top of the rest.

Rules for the Ruling Class

How to thrive in the power élite—while declaring it your enemy.
Robert S. McNamara at a news conference in April 1966

Robert McNamara’s Son Reckons With a Legacy of Destruction

Craig McNamara’s family did not talk about the Vietnam War. He spent his life asking questions about it.
Choose your own adventure book covers with arrows pointing in opposite directions.

“Oh My God, It’s Milton Friedman for Kids”

How "Choose Your Own Adventure" books indoctrinated ‘80s children with the idea that success is simply the result of individual “good choices.”

Is Anti-Monopolism Enough?

A new book argues that US history has been a struggle between monopoly and democracy, but fails to address class and labor when decoding inequality.
Political cartoon depicting fat-cat tycoons sitting on money on a dock made of commodities held aloft by struggling laborers.

From Fat Cats to Egg Heads: The Changing American 'Elite'

American has long been suspicious of “elites”, but just who they are has changed a lot over the last 200 years.
Cubicles

The Moral Life of Cubicles

On the utopian origins of Dilbert's workspace.