More on neoliberalism as the root cause of our bad political system

Wendy Brown

neoliberalism has played a powerful role. Not just as an economic program that crushes labor, privatizes public services, deregulates industry, unleashes capital mobility, and slashes tax on the rich. But also, as Brown puts it, as a force that has

prepared the ground for the mobilization and legitimacy of ferocious antidemocratic forces in the second decade of the twenty-first century. . . . [T]he rise of antidemocratic politics was advanced through attacks on society understood as experienced and tended in common and on the legitimacy and practice of democratic political life.

Fantasy

Fantasy literature mainly originated with C S Lewis and Tolkien, Oxford friends.  Typically written along just a few plot styles.

A taxonomy

Granular view of US prosperity/distress

Distressed communities index

Cool tool to identify areas (down to zip code sized) along several metrics of economic prosperity and distress.