It is well established that 1980 was a seminal turning point in American socio-economic and political affairs. Around that time, the default position of our underlying governing premises shifted. From the New Deal through the 1970s, a Keynsian understanding of the world prevailed in the U.S. According to that shared understood, free markets would remain but government would take an active role in minimizing or smoothing out common market failures.

The 1980s saw the triumph of supply-side economics or neo-classical economic thought, a set of conservative views restated by the Mont Pelerin Group as early as 1947. Among other things, it called for minimal state intervention in the market place while raising the notion of homo-economicus to mythical proportions. According to that perspective, the individual ought to be free to pursue his or her own optimal wellbeing free of formal restraint or legal constraint. Corporations, which had adopted a stakeholder perspective over the prior several decades were persuaded to revert to a shareholder point of view. The only thing that mattered were the stockholders wellbeing, no matter the cost to workers, consumers, communities, or the environment.

We now have had some 46 years of experience (almost two generations) with the neo- classical approach to our existing economics systems and our governance structures. The promised utopia should have arrived by now. What we have seen, rather, is a loss of the earlier progress made during the post WWII era when poverty and inequality fell dramatically and a strong middle class emerged.

Instead of the economic utopia promised by the prophets of neo-classical economic thought, we are tottering on the edge of a fascist, authoritarian dystopia. Our national fabric is ripped apart while the very survival of the basic democratic protocols is open to debate. Most ominously, we are witnessing the rise of an economic oligarchy so powerful that our so-called government of and by the people is substantially endangered.

Neo- classical (or neo-liberal) thought ultimately rests on a beguiling and simple premise … each individual seeking to maximize his own utility will, in the aggregate, result in the most efficient set of economic outcomes. The invisible hand attributed to economics pioneer Adam Smith, though he employed that metaphor only once in his iconic work (The Wealth of Nations) suggested that the sum of untold individual decisions somehow translates into the best of all possible worlds. If market failures exist, market forces (untouched by artificial policy remedies imposed from without) will remedy them.

What we see all about us is something different. We have a society wracked by growing inequality where private fortunes of the elite soar to unprecedented levels while the public good is squeezed of even minimal support. The result is that the U.S. has fallen to 31st on standard Quality of Life international measures. We are low on educational outcomes, health outcomes, maternal deaths, poverty and inequality measures, and even freedom of the press. At the same time, we rank high on mass shootings, gun violence, and incarceration rates. The list goes on but you get the picture.

What went wrong? We can start with the simple notion that something is amiss when too much of what a society produces goes to a few at the top of the pyramid with what little remains being available for the rest of us. This is what we see in banana republics, not what we expect to see in a mature democracy.

Why are we not more like our European peers who outperform us on most quality of life measures and have citizens who are measurably happier than we Americans are. Finland typically ranks as the happiest people on the planet with other Scandinavian countries not far behind. The common denominator is they all have democratic- socialist forms of governance.

Contentment, after all, is relational in most situations. As individuals, we compare our situation to others. In that sense, we Americans have lost our way over the course of my lifetime. Since the 1980s, some $50 trillion dollars has been siphoned from bottom 90 percent to top 1 percent. This is a massive redistribution of wealth not seen since the gilded age or the pre- depression roaring 20s.

The top 10% of the income pyramid controls up to two-thirds of all wealth while the top 1% enjoys close to a third of the pie. Similarly, the top 10 percent enjoys half of all income earned in a year while the top 1 percent controls 22.4% of that particular pie. The bottom half of all Americans struggle along with 2 to 4% of the remaining crumbs. Economic growth means little if the goodies increasingly go to those at the very top.

Worse still, the trend toward economic and political inequality is accelerating. Jeff Bezos saw his net worth rise by $75 billion in one recent year. That is over $205 million each day and about $2,375 each second. He saw increases that exceeded twice the median annual individual income in America every minute, while earning more than my quite comfortable annual income flow in less than one single minute. Such examples put the wealth of the super rich in perspective.

Corporate profits, as reflected in today’s strong equity positions show the same trends. Companies are awash in cash, yet contribute little to the public good. Some 88 of the most profitable companies paid exactly $0 dollars in taxes last year, including Citigroup which made $4.5 billion in profits. No less a sage than Warren Buffet claims that if other companies paid the same as his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, the individual income tax might be virtually eliminated.

But no, we are financing this boon to the ultra-wealthy by borrowing on our future. In recent years, the treasury takes in around $5 trillion in revenue while spending $7 trillion. Our debt, as conventionally measured, now exceeds our annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Few countries, Japan is one, has a higher debt to GDP ratio. But that is only part of the story. As of end of 2025 fiscal year, we had $47.8 trillion in liabilities, including future obligations set by law with only $6.06 trillion in assets. If we were a private household, we would declare bankruptcy. That drain on future generations is largely due to a rigged system that refuses to ask our economic elite to pay their fair share.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way. By most measures, we are the richest nation on earth. Nor are we profligate spenders. Aside from military spending, our outlays are less than our peer nations on a per-capita basis. China, for example, has spent multiple trillions on upgrading its infrastructure. It recently has laid 45,000 miles of high speed rail tracks, capable of supporting trains that travel in excess of 300 mph if needed. During that same period, America has laid exactly 0 miles of similar track. What we do spend is often done poorly. Americans spend about twice as much for health care per-capita for mediocre outcomes. We should be outraged but quietly accept a very bad deal simply because we oppose socialized medicine.

No, we often delude ourselves that America is exceptional … a delusion based on long standing myths. Rather, we are in a classical cycle associated with hyper free-market systems where an oligarchic elite gets to call the shots and shape our dominant public perceptions. It is the single market failure that gets worse with time.

Think about Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Elon Musk (Twitter etc.), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Alex Karp (Palentir), Peter Thiel (Paypal & Palentir), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Sundai Pichal (Google), Steven Schwarzman (Blackstone) and others. These are the elite billionaires who are buying up our communications and social networks while spending untold fortunes to sway public debates in their favor. These are the techno-brothers who stood next to Donald Trump when he was sworn in in 2025. This in not the economic efficiency promised by the conservative prophets some half century ago, it is rampant greed on steroids.

How does this perverse economic function? It goes something like this. Economic inequality 》power inequality 》institutional control 》skewed information flows 》counter-intuitive voting patterns 》rigged economic decisions 》even more economic inequality.

Put in narrative form, it works like this . Rising economic inequality leads to power inequality. For example, in some recent elections, 40 percent of all political donations come from the top 1 percent … the economic elite. Believe me, they don’t do this out of a strong interest in good government.

The resulting power inequalities lead to control over key institutions … the courts, the media, educational systems, the military and police, the bureacracy. This in turn leads to skewed political information and a suppression of independent actions. That is, with dissent diminished and the bulk of information slanted, default political attitudes begin to reflect the perspectives of the economic elite. How predictable is that?

Then things really get interesting. Voting patterns, to the extent they still exist, begin to look counter- intuitive. That is, people seem to vote against their self interest in greater numbers. This leads to further rigging of the economy in favor of the elite and we have, in the end, a self-perpetuating cycle that further exacerbates fundamental inequality.

What is missing in all this? Well, that invisible hand that was supposed to magically create optimal economic and social outcomes. Perhaps it is invisible because it simply never existed.