Capitalism-Was: What Happened to the American Dream? With David Leonhardt

Is the famed American Dream still attainable for the immigrants and working class of today? What made America the land of opportunity - and if it isn't the same anymore, what happened to it?
Joining co-hosts Bethany and Luigi to discuss these questions is David Leonhardt, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of "Ours Was the Shining Future." In his book, Leonhardt describes what he calls today's "rough-and-tumble" capitalism and distinguishes its laissez-faire characteristics from a more bygone, democratic version. Charting shifts in manufacturing, labor power, and the perennial tension between immigration and wages, Leonhardt and our hosts deliberate over the ramifications of this story for progressive and populist movements in a tumultuous election year and offer potential pathways to rekindle the promise of prosperity and upward mobility.

[@rollinkendal8130]

Me too, I close my eyes and I can't see capitalism anymore.

[@adamhustler3639]

@3:45 .. in a way, more middle class and upper middle class people should be leading the charge for us low wage workers because we are the ones making so little that we don't have the time to go out and protest for weeks on end. They should listen to the low wage workers, but being so low wage, we have to keep working to pay the bills. I'd love to go protest but i literally can't afford to without risking the loss of my housing.

[@imperialmotoring3789]

Good point. All of these spoiled college kids can protest because they don't have lives. And to think they want us to pay their school loans!