Matt Stoller
ELIZABETH CATTE’S ESSAY on the left-wing tradition in Appalachia is not so much a political argument as a beautifully written reflection on an important cultural tradition of dissent. She is part of a trend of thinkers and organizers who have come to reject capitalism per se as an immoral system that must be overthrown.
I believe in market systems and commerce. But I get why a large chunk of younger people think capitalism is bad. Most have never seen anything but crappy political economy policy organized by hypocrites and bureaucrats. If you are in your twenties and thirties, every political leader and op-ed writer and labor organizer and academic you have heard has told you that Obamacare—with its nightmarish copays and coinsurance and weird extractive bureaucracy—is the best you can get.