How Has Racism Shaped the American Economy?

Eduardo Porter and Cynthia Greenlee Discuss Institutional Failures and a National Lack of Empathy

What is the relationship between American economics and American racism, and can it be severed? How will systemic racism, past and present, slow our emergence from the current downturn? New York Times journalist Eduardo Porter, author of the new book American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise, visited Zócalo with historian and writer Cynthia Greenlee to discuss economic disparities that have been centuries in the making.

The conversation, which streamed on Twitter Live earlier today, explored how Americans’ lack of generosity and empathy for vulnerable citizens has led to a …

How Deprivation and the Threat of Violence Made Sweden Equal

War and the Great Depression Spurred Its Embrace of the Welfare State

Sweden is almost universally regarded as a bastion of sensible people, temperate social policies, and steady, evenly distributed economic growth. So it surprises many to learn that the Scandinavian country …

This Is How We Saved the Middle Class in the 1980s

We Faced Inequality and Unemployment 35 Years Ago. What We Did Then Could Work Again Now.

It’s easy to think that, in the world of employment and anti-poverty programs, nothing ever changes, that the same joblessness continues even as the government spends billions of dollars each …