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John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy

Amazon.com Price:  $22.29 (as of 19/04/2019 17:53 PST- Details)

Description

Long before “the one percent” became a protest slogan, American founding father John Adams feared the power of a class he known as simply “the few”―the wellborn, the beautiful, and especially the wealthy. In John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy, Luke Mayville presents the first extended exploration of Adams’s preoccupation with a problem that has a renewed urgency as of late: the way in which inequality threatens to corrode democracy and empower a small elite. By revisiting Adams’s political writings, Mayville draws out the statesman’s fears about the danger of oligarchy in The united states and his unique understanding of the political power of wealth―a surprising and in large part forgotten theory that promises to light up as of late’s debates about inequality and its political consequences.

Adams believed that wealth is politically powerful in brand new societies not merely because money buys influence, but also because citizens admire and even sympathize with the wealthy. He thought wealth is powerful in the same way that beauty is powerful―it distinguishes its possessor and prompts reactions of approval and veneration. Citizens vote for―and with―the wealthy not because, as is regularly said, they hope to be wealthy in the future, but because they esteem the wealthy and submit to their wishes. Mayville explores Adams’s theory of wealth and power in the context of his broader concern about social and economic inequality, and also examines his ideas about how oligarchy could be countered.

A compelling work of intellectual history, John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy also has important lessons for as of late’s world of increasing inequality.

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