Winner-take-all Politics: How Washington Made T... May 2026

Elite interests didn't always need to pass new laws. Often, they just had to block updates to old ones—a tactic called "drift"—letting inflation and market changes erode middle-class protections like the minimum wage or labor laws.

For decades, Americans were told that rising inequality was an inevitable result of —the idea that computers and globalization naturally reward the highly educated while leaving others behind. However, the authors argue that this "suspect" has an alibi. If technology were the only cause, we would see similar inequality spikes in all advanced nations, yet the U.S. remains a stark outlier. The Investigation: The "Yachts vs. Dinghies" Economy Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made t...

The authors found that economic growth didn't just favor the "educated"—it favored the , and even more so the top 0.1% . Elite interests didn't always need to pass new laws