As usual with your work. Frank, you're looking around the corner that I can't even see.
Having said that, I have a different perspective in so far as I am a native New Yorker who has been living in Canada for 39 years.
When I first moved up here in the mid-1980s, even at that time the brass rang for worker bees was to get a job with the federal government.
I clearly remember saying at the time, " if your best jobs are with the government, your economy is not strong".
Well, it took almost 40 years for me to be proven right. Everything you're describing in this article is happening in Canada right now. Especially at the federal and state level, up here. We say federal and provincial level.
Now I live in the city of Kingston, Ontario. Most of what I deal with with respect to the government is keep my roads clear, give me police protection, take my garbage away. I pay a fortune in real estate taxes for a small house but I'm not complaining.
On the other hand, to deal with the federal government can only be described as atrocious. I won't get into this pacifics of my personal experiences, but that's how it is.
I could go on forever about the fact ual so-called civil servants could not possibly make anything close to the money they're currently earning in private industry. And yet, between 40 and 60% of my income is paid in taxes. Is 30% income tax. On top of that, are the taxes that I pay at the cash register. In Ontario? That's an extra 13% on disposable income. That includes cars as well as homes.
In addition, I pay an extra 10% every time I gas up my car. I truly could go on and on but I think you guys get the picture.
What's happening in California? Happens in Canada every year. And to tell the truth, the government is less forthcoming when disasters and such strike.
I think the term you employed in your article is terrific. I'm not going to bother repeating it now because I'm trying to dictate this.
However.... I also think that the enshitification that you described reflects as much on human nature as it does. Or government ability.
The dynamic you described and how in past uears it has been dealt with, well that's accurate.
However, I truly believe that the revolution already occurred in the United States with Trump's election, the spirit of that Revolution is reverberating around the world.
Thanks, Jim! The way I see it is a lot of people really do want to do the work to be excellent, but our culture and systems prioritize other things. Everyone is making everything terrible and frustrating when they don't have to. In many ways, that's hopeful because it means it's not just human nature and we can fix it to make everything work a little better.
Well... I don't agree that people want their work to be excellent after a while.
Look, I don't have data to back that up, BUT I DO hate watch/listen to Scott Galloway often enough to know that his experience in higher ed has shown the exact opposite:
He's said many, many times that university instructors and faculty, like other professionals, seek to rationalize why they deserve higher pay and fewer responsibilities.
AND THAT'S THE FREAKING IVY LEAGUE!
So, there's nothing in that critique about 'Excellence'.
Here's how I see it-- and I've been involved in both private industry as well as Silly Service:
Currently, in our economy, there's been a concentration of business power unlike anything seen since the Gilded Age, and I'm willing to bet (based on their stratospheric wealth) that the income gap is even more pronounced today.
As Matt Stoeller has described countless times, when the number of players in a market shrinks, quality, innovation and value for buck suffers. This is b/c that company's 'customer' has been relegated to a 'resource' to mine for profit. Zuckerberg's description of Apple Inc at the last 45 mins or so of his appearance on Joe Rogan is a good encapsulation of that dynamic.
In short, they become decadent. A perfect example is main stream media. Five corporations control about 90% of MSM; and look at how they've deteriorated to become mouthpieces for Big Pharma and the DNC. "Sharp as a tack!"... 'nuff said.
The demand for excellence makes for hard driving bosses. Check out Isaccson's bio of Elon to see examples of 'hard core'. One thing not mentioned in the bio, nor in the current H1B debate is how well are Musk's employees compensated. I'm curious about that, but I digress...
ANYWAY... Jobs had a reputation for being a real SOB when he was working on a new product. My reading bios of Walt Disney and Milton Hershey show that same kind of obsessive drive from the top.
Today?
HA
People 'want' to be excellent? Yeah, well tell that the the astronauts stranded on the ISS b/c Boeing's products suck.
LEADERS make us excellent, Frank. Someone with a vision of what can be who inspires others to follow him. It's only at the conclusion of the work that we look back and go 'WOW'.
My understanding of human nature is that people will work just hard enough to keep from getting fired, and employers will pay just enough to keep you from quitting.
This year's deadly wildfires were predicted and unnecessary.
J.D. TUCCILLE | 1.13.2025
(Abstract)
"Proactive measures like thinning and prescribed burns can significantly reduce wildfire risks, but such projects are often tied up for years in environmental reviews or lawsuits," Shawn Regan, vice president of research at the Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), told me by email. "In places like California, these delays have had devastating consequences, with restoration work stalled while communities and ecosystems burn to the ground. Addressing the wildfire crisis will require bold policy changes to streamline reviews, cut red tape, and ensure these projects can move forward before it's too late."
For example, as I've written before, under the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), members of the public and activist groups can formally object to proposed actions, such as forest thinning, through a bureaucratic process that slows matters to a crawl. If that doesn't deliver results, they move their challenges to the courts and litigate them into submission. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) creates additional red-tape hurdles at the state level, imposing years of delays.
Regan and his colleagues at PERC have frequently addressed this subject-presciently, you might say, except that everybody except California government officials saw this moment coming.
California has failed to effectively manage its forests. "Decades of fire suppression, coupled with a hands-off approach to forest management, have created dangerous fuel loads (the amount of combustible material in a particular area," Regan wrote. Ominously, he added: "With conditions like this, all it takes to ignite an inferno is a spark and some wind."
In 2020, Elizabeth Weil of ProPublica also named California's forest management as a serious concern.
"Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California," Weil noted. "Between 1982 and 1998, California's agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres." She emphasized that "California would need to burn 20 million acres—an area about the size of Maine — to destabilize in terms of fire.
In 2021, Holly Fretwell and Jonathan Wood of PERC published Fix America's Forests: Reforms to Restore National Forests, recommending means to address wildfire risks in California and across the country. To claims that the wildfire problem is overwhelmingly one of climate change, they respond that a "study led by Forest Service scientists estimated that of four factors driving fire severity in the western United States, live fuel 'was the most important,' accounting for 53 percent of average relative influence, while climate accounted for 14 percent." Climate matters, but other policy choices matter more.
Fretwell and Wood recommend restricting the scope of regulatory reviews that stands in the way of forest restoration, requiring that lawsuits against restoration projects be filed quickly, and excluding prescribed burns from carbon emissions calculations that can stand in the way of such projects.
"There is broad agreement on the need for better forest management, but outdated policies and regulatory hurdles continue to delay critical restoration efforts," Regan told me.
If government officials finally take these hard-learned lessons to heart and ease the process of providing and storing water, restoring forests, and fighting fires, Californians might be spared from future disasters. They seem poised to work with the incoming Trump administration on exactly that. But reforms will come too late for those who have already lost lives, homes, and businesses.”
“The Pyramid of Power and the Coming Reckoning: A Psychological and Political Analysis of the Climate Crisis”
In the shadowed corridors of power, a quiet war rages—not one fought with armies, but with influence, obfuscation, and the controlled flow of capital. Oil and gas companies, and their bedfellows in finance—BlackRock, Vanguard, and their ilk—operate as the architects of inertia in the face of an accelerating climate crisis. Their strategy is as insidious as it is effective: buy the loyalty of political leaders, shape narratives through media control, and dismantle the democratic tools that might otherwise hold them accountable.
The Methodology of Control
From a psychological perspective, the mechanisms at play mirror a classic model of learned helplessness. By engineering systems of dependency—economic, political, and informational—these entities have conditioned the global population to accept a false binary: economic growth versus environmental sustainability. Politicians, rendered impotent or complicit by the lure of campaign funding and lucrative post-political appointments, become the unwitting (or willing) marionettes of a larger agenda.
BlackRock and Vanguard, with their unparalleled stakes in global industry, represent not just capital accumulation but the consolidation of power into a plutocratic elite. This elite, representing less than 1% of the population, wields its wealth not merely as a tool, but as a weapon. Climate change, for them, is not a crisis but an opportunity—a chance to privatize resources, displace populations, and profit from the chaos they have orchestrated.
Historical Parallels: Lessons from 1789
This dynamic, however, is not without precedent. History offers a chilling parallel in the French Revolution. When the masses—disenfranchised, impoverished, and ignored—reached a breaking point, their response was neither measured nor merciful. The guillotine became not only a tool of justice but a symbol of revolutionary fervor. Today, the psychological and economic pressures exerted by the 1% are creating a similarly volatile undercurrent.
The Anatomy of Revolt
The inevitable consequence of this systemic exploitation is revolt. As climate disasters grow more frequent and severe, the facade of control maintained by the elite will fracture. The masses, emboldened by a growing awareness of their exploitation, will target not only the institutions but the individuals responsible. CEOs and upper management of oil and gas companies, along with financiers who have profited from environmental degradation, will find themselves in the crosshairs.
This revolt will not be confined to symbolic protests or legal challenges. It will be visceral and direct, echoing the collective fury that toppled the ancien régime. The psychological tipping point—when hope is replaced by rage—will lead to an unprecedented challenge to the structures of power.
The Warning to the Elite
For the architects of this exploitation, there is still a path to redemption. Transparency, systemic reform, and the relinquishment of disproportionate power are not just moral imperatives but survival strategies. However, if these steps are not taken, the elites must prepare for a reckoning far beyond the reach of their gated communities and private security forces.
The psychology of revolution is clear: when the gap between the rulers and the ruled becomes insurmountable, the result is upheaval. The choice is theirs to make—but time is running out.
The people are awakening, and the guillotine of justice, whether literal or symbolic, waits in the wings.
This Movie will end in the usual historical fashion.
I will also point out that the people who run things are not TRYING to make things worse. Entropy is a fact of life, things go to shit unless actively prevented from doing so. History is a process that follows the logic of cultural evolution. Policymakers can influence its direction by interventions that change the environment in which the evolution takes place. That is what the New Dealers did (and what the Neoliberals after them did).
Personally, their goal isn't to make things worse. They're indifferent to their duties and responsibilities and prioritizing other things, which in practice means making things worse in the name of other goals. So while it's not the goal, it's the inevitable result and might as well be the same thing.
This is closer to where I come from. The objective of capitalism under shareholder primacy culture is to grow shareholder value. Executives are incented to focus on share price through generous stock option compensation. Growing shareholder value can be done through growing sales and profits by producing great customer experience, but it can also be done through direct manipulation through stock buybacks. Today virtually all earnings are used for stock buybacks (BB) and dividends, none goes to investment (see table below).
S&P500: Billions of $
Year ERN . . DIV . BB's . .Retained
2018 1119 . 456 . 806 . . . -143
2019 1158 . 485 . 729 . . . -56
2020 784 . . 483 . 520 . . . -219
2021 1675 . 511 . 882 . . . 282
2022 1453 . 565 . 923 . . . -34
2023 1616 . 588 . 795 . . . 232
Avg : 1301 . 515 . 776 . . . 10
In the postwar era, we operated under stakeholder capitalism culture. Stock buybacks were illegal, so one had to focus on sales & profits. Also, higher marginal tax rates meant much larger option grants would be needed to provide the same after-tax income increase. Without buybacks, such large grants would excessively dilute EPS, cratering the stock. Hence large stock option compensation was not a desirable option for boards. CEOs simply got much less compensation that they do today, yet there was no shortage of people willing and able to do the job (and the economy grew strongly so they were doing something right). CEOs were not incented to pay special focus on share price and focused instead on beating the competition by producing better or cheaper products and services than the other guys. That is, they considered the interests of multiple stakeholders (customers, employees, communities) as well as shareholders in forging business strategy.
I really think you could benefit from some of the stuff I cover in my Substack. For example, you write you are interested in the Progressive movement. It's still here, but what it has evolved into is not a useful IMO.
The New Dealers achieved much of what you want (for their time), but they then lost it because they did not know how it worked. To produce a real renewal of the republic we need to understand how this stuff works, so as to pursue policy that might achieve the desired outcome.
As usual with your work. Frank, you're looking around the corner that I can't even see.
Having said that, I have a different perspective in so far as I am a native New Yorker who has been living in Canada for 39 years.
When I first moved up here in the mid-1980s, even at that time the brass rang for worker bees was to get a job with the federal government.
I clearly remember saying at the time, " if your best jobs are with the government, your economy is not strong".
Well, it took almost 40 years for me to be proven right. Everything you're describing in this article is happening in Canada right now. Especially at the federal and state level, up here. We say federal and provincial level.
Now I live in the city of Kingston, Ontario. Most of what I deal with with respect to the government is keep my roads clear, give me police protection, take my garbage away. I pay a fortune in real estate taxes for a small house but I'm not complaining.
On the other hand, to deal with the federal government can only be described as atrocious. I won't get into this pacifics of my personal experiences, but that's how it is.
I could go on forever about the fact ual so-called civil servants could not possibly make anything close to the money they're currently earning in private industry. And yet, between 40 and 60% of my income is paid in taxes. Is 30% income tax. On top of that, are the taxes that I pay at the cash register. In Ontario? That's an extra 13% on disposable income. That includes cars as well as homes.
In addition, I pay an extra 10% every time I gas up my car. I truly could go on and on but I think you guys get the picture.
What's happening in California? Happens in Canada every year. And to tell the truth, the government is less forthcoming when disasters and such strike.
I think the term you employed in your article is terrific. I'm not going to bother repeating it now because I'm trying to dictate this.
However.... I also think that the enshitification that you described reflects as much on human nature as it does. Or government ability.
The dynamic you described and how in past uears it has been dealt with, well that's accurate.
However, I truly believe that the revolution already occurred in the United States with Trump's election, the spirit of that Revolution is reverberating around the world.
Yeah yeah.... Americans are fat and lazy
Until they're not.
Great article, thanks for putting it up.
Again, please forgive the typos
Thanks, Jim! The way I see it is a lot of people really do want to do the work to be excellent, but our culture and systems prioritize other things. Everyone is making everything terrible and frustrating when they don't have to. In many ways, that's hopeful because it means it's not just human nature and we can fix it to make everything work a little better.
Well... I don't agree that people want their work to be excellent after a while.
Look, I don't have data to back that up, BUT I DO hate watch/listen to Scott Galloway often enough to know that his experience in higher ed has shown the exact opposite:
He's said many, many times that university instructors and faculty, like other professionals, seek to rationalize why they deserve higher pay and fewer responsibilities.
AND THAT'S THE FREAKING IVY LEAGUE!
So, there's nothing in that critique about 'Excellence'.
Here's how I see it-- and I've been involved in both private industry as well as Silly Service:
Currently, in our economy, there's been a concentration of business power unlike anything seen since the Gilded Age, and I'm willing to bet (based on their stratospheric wealth) that the income gap is even more pronounced today.
As Matt Stoeller has described countless times, when the number of players in a market shrinks, quality, innovation and value for buck suffers. This is b/c that company's 'customer' has been relegated to a 'resource' to mine for profit. Zuckerberg's description of Apple Inc at the last 45 mins or so of his appearance on Joe Rogan is a good encapsulation of that dynamic.
In short, they become decadent. A perfect example is main stream media. Five corporations control about 90% of MSM; and look at how they've deteriorated to become mouthpieces for Big Pharma and the DNC. "Sharp as a tack!"... 'nuff said.
The demand for excellence makes for hard driving bosses. Check out Isaccson's bio of Elon to see examples of 'hard core'. One thing not mentioned in the bio, nor in the current H1B debate is how well are Musk's employees compensated. I'm curious about that, but I digress...
ANYWAY... Jobs had a reputation for being a real SOB when he was working on a new product. My reading bios of Walt Disney and Milton Hershey show that same kind of obsessive drive from the top.
Today?
HA
People 'want' to be excellent? Yeah, well tell that the the astronauts stranded on the ISS b/c Boeing's products suck.
LEADERS make us excellent, Frank. Someone with a vision of what can be who inspires others to follow him. It's only at the conclusion of the work that we look back and go 'WOW'.
My understanding of human nature is that people will work just hard enough to keep from getting fired, and employers will pay just enough to keep you from quitting.
Backatcha' bud!
Reason Magazine
California's Fire
Catastrophe Is Largely a
Result of Bad
Government Policies
This year's deadly wildfires were predicted and unnecessary.
J.D. TUCCILLE | 1.13.2025
(Abstract)
"Proactive measures like thinning and prescribed burns can significantly reduce wildfire risks, but such projects are often tied up for years in environmental reviews or lawsuits," Shawn Regan, vice president of research at the Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), told me by email. "In places like California, these delays have had devastating consequences, with restoration work stalled while communities and ecosystems burn to the ground. Addressing the wildfire crisis will require bold policy changes to streamline reviews, cut red tape, and ensure these projects can move forward before it's too late."
For example, as I've written before, under the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), members of the public and activist groups can formally object to proposed actions, such as forest thinning, through a bureaucratic process that slows matters to a crawl. If that doesn't deliver results, they move their challenges to the courts and litigate them into submission. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) creates additional red-tape hurdles at the state level, imposing years of delays.
Regan and his colleagues at PERC have frequently addressed this subject-presciently, you might say, except that everybody except California government officials saw this moment coming.
California has failed to effectively manage its forests. "Decades of fire suppression, coupled with a hands-off approach to forest management, have created dangerous fuel loads (the amount of combustible material in a particular area," Regan wrote. Ominously, he added: "With conditions like this, all it takes to ignite an inferno is a spark and some wind."
In 2020, Elizabeth Weil of ProPublica also named California's forest management as a serious concern.
"Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California," Weil noted. "Between 1982 and 1998, California's agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres." She emphasized that "California would need to burn 20 million acres—an area about the size of Maine — to destabilize in terms of fire.
In 2021, Holly Fretwell and Jonathan Wood of PERC published Fix America's Forests: Reforms to Restore National Forests, recommending means to address wildfire risks in California and across the country. To claims that the wildfire problem is overwhelmingly one of climate change, they respond that a "study led by Forest Service scientists estimated that of four factors driving fire severity in the western United States, live fuel 'was the most important,' accounting for 53 percent of average relative influence, while climate accounted for 14 percent." Climate matters, but other policy choices matter more.
Fretwell and Wood recommend restricting the scope of regulatory reviews that stands in the way of forest restoration, requiring that lawsuits against restoration projects be filed quickly, and excluding prescribed burns from carbon emissions calculations that can stand in the way of such projects.
"There is broad agreement on the need for better forest management, but outdated policies and regulatory hurdles continue to delay critical restoration efforts," Regan told me.
If government officials finally take these hard-learned lessons to heart and ease the process of providing and storing water, restoring forests, and fighting fires, Californians might be spared from future disasters. They seem poised to work with the incoming Trump administration on exactly that. But reforms will come too late for those who have already lost lives, homes, and businesses.”
“The Pyramid of Power and the Coming Reckoning: A Psychological and Political Analysis of the Climate Crisis”
In the shadowed corridors of power, a quiet war rages—not one fought with armies, but with influence, obfuscation, and the controlled flow of capital. Oil and gas companies, and their bedfellows in finance—BlackRock, Vanguard, and their ilk—operate as the architects of inertia in the face of an accelerating climate crisis. Their strategy is as insidious as it is effective: buy the loyalty of political leaders, shape narratives through media control, and dismantle the democratic tools that might otherwise hold them accountable.
The Methodology of Control
From a psychological perspective, the mechanisms at play mirror a classic model of learned helplessness. By engineering systems of dependency—economic, political, and informational—these entities have conditioned the global population to accept a false binary: economic growth versus environmental sustainability. Politicians, rendered impotent or complicit by the lure of campaign funding and lucrative post-political appointments, become the unwitting (or willing) marionettes of a larger agenda.
BlackRock and Vanguard, with their unparalleled stakes in global industry, represent not just capital accumulation but the consolidation of power into a plutocratic elite. This elite, representing less than 1% of the population, wields its wealth not merely as a tool, but as a weapon. Climate change, for them, is not a crisis but an opportunity—a chance to privatize resources, displace populations, and profit from the chaos they have orchestrated.
Historical Parallels: Lessons from 1789
This dynamic, however, is not without precedent. History offers a chilling parallel in the French Revolution. When the masses—disenfranchised, impoverished, and ignored—reached a breaking point, their response was neither measured nor merciful. The guillotine became not only a tool of justice but a symbol of revolutionary fervor. Today, the psychological and economic pressures exerted by the 1% are creating a similarly volatile undercurrent.
The Anatomy of Revolt
The inevitable consequence of this systemic exploitation is revolt. As climate disasters grow more frequent and severe, the facade of control maintained by the elite will fracture. The masses, emboldened by a growing awareness of their exploitation, will target not only the institutions but the individuals responsible. CEOs and upper management of oil and gas companies, along with financiers who have profited from environmental degradation, will find themselves in the crosshairs.
This revolt will not be confined to symbolic protests or legal challenges. It will be visceral and direct, echoing the collective fury that toppled the ancien régime. The psychological tipping point—when hope is replaced by rage—will lead to an unprecedented challenge to the structures of power.
The Warning to the Elite
For the architects of this exploitation, there is still a path to redemption. Transparency, systemic reform, and the relinquishment of disproportionate power are not just moral imperatives but survival strategies. However, if these steps are not taken, the elites must prepare for a reckoning far beyond the reach of their gated communities and private security forces.
The psychology of revolution is clear: when the gap between the rulers and the ruled becomes insurmountable, the result is upheaval. The choice is theirs to make—but time is running out.
The people are awakening, and the guillotine of justice, whether literal or symbolic, waits in the wings.
This Movie will end in the usual historical fashion.
Enjoy the Show
GQ
I will also point out that the people who run things are not TRYING to make things worse. Entropy is a fact of life, things go to shit unless actively prevented from doing so. History is a process that follows the logic of cultural evolution. Policymakers can influence its direction by interventions that change the environment in which the evolution takes place. That is what the New Dealers did (and what the Neoliberals after them did).
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/how-economic-culture-evolves
As for enshitification, this I believe is a natural consequence of shareholder primacy culture selected for by neoliberal economic policy.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/what-is-neoliberalism-an-empirical
I bring up enshitification in this context here:
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/why-progress-seems-stalled
Personally, their goal isn't to make things worse. They're indifferent to their duties and responsibilities and prioritizing other things, which in practice means making things worse in the name of other goals. So while it's not the goal, it's the inevitable result and might as well be the same thing.
This is closer to where I come from. The objective of capitalism under shareholder primacy culture is to grow shareholder value. Executives are incented to focus on share price through generous stock option compensation. Growing shareholder value can be done through growing sales and profits by producing great customer experience, but it can also be done through direct manipulation through stock buybacks. Today virtually all earnings are used for stock buybacks (BB) and dividends, none goes to investment (see table below).
S&P500: Billions of $
Year ERN . . DIV . BB's . .Retained
2018 1119 . 456 . 806 . . . -143
2019 1158 . 485 . 729 . . . -56
2020 784 . . 483 . 520 . . . -219
2021 1675 . 511 . 882 . . . 282
2022 1453 . 565 . 923 . . . -34
2023 1616 . 588 . 795 . . . 232
Avg : 1301 . 515 . 776 . . . 10
In the postwar era, we operated under stakeholder capitalism culture. Stock buybacks were illegal, so one had to focus on sales & profits. Also, higher marginal tax rates meant much larger option grants would be needed to provide the same after-tax income increase. Without buybacks, such large grants would excessively dilute EPS, cratering the stock. Hence large stock option compensation was not a desirable option for boards. CEOs simply got much less compensation that they do today, yet there was no shortage of people willing and able to do the job (and the economy grew strongly so they were doing something right). CEOs were not incented to pay special focus on share price and focused instead on beating the competition by producing better or cheaper products and services than the other guys. That is, they considered the interests of multiple stakeholders (customers, employees, communities) as well as shareholders in forging business strategy.
I really think you could benefit from some of the stuff I cover in my Substack. For example, you write you are interested in the Progressive movement. It's still here, but what it has evolved into is not a useful IMO.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/the-irrelevance-of-todays-left#:~:text=the%20Democratic%20Party.-,The%20Progressives,-%3A%20The%20third%20left
Portions of the progressive movement were useful. These successful elements became part of the establishment Democratic Party under the New Deal
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/the-abstract-versus-the-real-in-left
Unfortunately, the Democrats did not know how the New Deal worked, and they made serious policy mistakes in the 1960's that destroyed it.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/how-the-new-deal-order-fell
The New Dealers achieved much of what you want (for their time), but they then lost it because they did not know how it worked. To produce a real renewal of the republic we need to understand how this stuff works, so as to pursue policy that might achieve the desired outcome.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/summary-of-concepts-involved-in-addressing
Hopefully, the good folks at Substack read this.