(Coinciding with Trump’s first 100 days in Office — a period of time historically used as a benchmark to measure the potential of a new president — PRA will share readings, videos, and tools for organizing to inform our collective resistance based on principles for engaging the regime, defending human rights, and preventing authoritarianism. Daily readings will be posted on our Facebook and Twitter accounts and archived HERE.)
Week 10: Economic justice
What would our democracy look like without the influence of corporations and industrialists? It has become nearly impossible to imagine an answer to this question. As the late political scientist Jean Hardisty wrote in 2014, neoliberalism—or deregulated market capitalism—”seeks to replace democracy with oligarchy”. Indeed, corporate money and influence are remaking our democratic institutions, from the dark-money lobbying groups and think tanks pushing limitless deregulation, to individual wealthy donors putting their thumbs on the scales of public policy in state legislatures and using new Voter ID laws to suppress the vote. As progressives contemplate how to build a movement for justice that can effectively counter such forces, it is necessary to understand how the Corporate Right—what we might term the Chamber of Commerce wing of the conservative movement—is collaborating with others on the Right to advance its agenda.
Featured resources
- From the New Right to Neoliberalism: The Threat to Democracy Has Grown by Jean Hardisty
- “Faith-Washing” Right-Wing Economics: How the Right is Marketing Medicare’s Demise by Mariya Strauss
- Dark Money, Dirty War: The Corporate Crusade Against Low-Wage Workers by Mariya Strauss
- The Religious Right Has Been Pushing Anti-Union Right to Work Laws for A Century by Mariya Strauss
Additional Readings
- See our Economic Justice Portal Page!
Engage
Well aware that organizers on the ground often encounter threats and intimidation from the Right Wing, we have compiled a variety of resources from our staff researchers and allies HERE.