Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America

by Kurt Andersen

I don’t think it was coincidence that this happened simultaneously with the U.S. political economy metaphorically turning into a winner-take-all casino economy. The gambling hall replaced the factory floor as our governing economic symbol, a flashy, totally temporary gathering of magical-thinking individual strangers whose fortunes depend overwhelmingly on luck instead of on collective hard work with trusted industrious colleagues day after day. Risk-taking is a good thing, central to much of America’s success, but not when the risks are involuntary for everyone except the people near the top, required rather than freely chosen, and when those at the top have arranged things so they don’t have much serious downside risk. As Americans were herded into literal casinos, they were simultaneously being herded en masse into our new national economic casino, where the games were rigged in favor of the well-to-do players.