From the vault: Class
I wrote this for The Baffler back in 1998. A little old, but still full of truth. This is what I submitted; the published version was edited modestly. On the first page of his awful book, One Nation, After All, Alan Wolfe writes, “According to the General Social Survey, at no time between 1972 and 1994 did more than 10 percent of the American population classify themselves as either lower class or upper class.” He says this to prove that the rest, 90%, are middle class. But they’re not. Wolfe forgot to say that… Read More
From the vault: the gold fetish
With the Republicans indulging their gold fetish, I thought this would be a good time to reprint the “currencies” section of the first chapter of my book Wall Street (Verso, 1997). The book is available for free download here. Numbers and institutional details are, of course, out of date, but the conceptual frame is as fresh as a daisy. For a psychoanalysis of money, credit, and gold, see From the vault: money and the mind, a psychoanalysis. currencies Trading in currencies is the largest and probably the oldest market of all. It used to be that the… Read More
From the archives: the small business myth
This is a piece I wrote years ago for the mostly right-wing Canadian paper The National Post. Though more than a decade old, it’s still mostly true and relevant. Sorry—no links to sources and such. National Post (Canada)—September 23, 2000 SMALL IS NOT BEAUTIFUL Forget the romantic view of small business: for employees, big firms are less nasty places to work Doug Henwood Everybody loves small business. Well, maybe Fortune 500 CEOs and the investment bankers who serve them don’t, but practically everyone else does. Across the political spectrum, it’s celebrated for… Read More
LBO News from Doug Henwood 