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Les Leopold, author and co-founder of the Labor Institute, talks about his new book, Runaway Inequality: An Activist’s Guide to Economic Justice.We begin with a discussion about the “financial strip-mining of America”, a recurring theme in the book. Leopold cites the expanded gap between the pay of CEO’s and average workers, and explains that until the Reagan era, payment of stock options to corporate executives was considered illegal.
Leopold’s book is loaded with handy charts and graphs that depict the woes of working Americans. He makes strong connections between economics and social injustice, noting that the criminalization of poverty, mass incarceration and, exposed in Ferguson, the extraction of fines and fees from low income residents to offset reduced taxes for the rich.
While Leopold is not connected to the Sanders campaign in any way, Leopold clearly supports the Sanders economic agenda, and argues that we need to build a movement beyond the 2016 race to fight the long-term struggle with the plutocrats.
Get more info here, where you can also order the book for less than Amazon charges, with free shipping.