Sasha Lilley

Acclaimed historian Kim Phillips-Fein argues that there's a long U.S. tradition promoting wealth inequality that has once again moved from the shadows into the mainstream.[upbeat music] From the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California, this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.

I'm Sasha Lilley.

In recent years, we've seen the increased concentration of wealth into the hands of billionaires and multimillionaires, while at the same time, the unabashed proliferation, from some of the same people, of the idea that the rich are rich because they are more deserving than the rest of us, and that social inequality is the natural and desirable order of things.

To make sense of it all, I recently spoke with Kim Phillips-Fein, professor of history at Columbia University and the author of Country of Lords: Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight Against Equality in America.

So I think it's just always important to remember that especially when looking at these really nasty, ugly ideas, that there were always people who saw them for what they were and called them out throughout.

Historian Kim Phillips-Fein is my guest.

We're discussing "Country of Lords: Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight Against Equality in America." She's professor of history at Columbia University, also the author of "Fear City" and "Invisible Hands." And I'm Sasha Lilley, and this is "Against the Grain." So I'd like to turn Kim to two iconic figures of industrial American capitalism, and that is Frederick Winslow Taylor on the one hand, the inventor of so-called scientific management, and on the other, the automaker Henry Ford Can you talk about those two figures and how they saw their anti-egalitarianism in relationship to modern capitalism and the corporation?

Yeah.

[upbeat music] From the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California, this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.

I'm Sasha Lilley.

We're living in dire times in which organized movements are essential to push back against the immediate threats of authoritarianism and the climate crisis at the very least.

And while we've seen mass upsurges of protest mobilization, many are still grasping to figure out how to create sustained movements.

Chris Dixon is my guest.

We're discussing For the Long Haul: How to Stay in the Fight for a Better World.

I'm Sasha Lilley, and this is Against the Grain.

So Chris, we know that, you know, going back to the 1930s, the 1940s, the far right, the intellectual right, started planning their comeback.

[Instrumental music playing][gentle music] From the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California, this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.

I'm Sasha Lilley.

Each year, the iconic yellow public school bus carries 23 and a half million kids to and from their elementary, middle school, or high schools, traveling well over 4.3 billion miles in doing so.

While school buses were one of the most visible images during the desegregation of public schools, especially in places like Boston where busing was violently opposed, the key role of the school bus in the lives of children mainly flies under the radar.

He's associate professor in Stanford's Graduate School of Education.

We're discussing his book, All Through the Town: The School Bus as Educational Technology.

I'm Sasha Lilley, and this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.

So you started to touch on this, but I wonder if you could tell us who tends to ride school buses, and do we have any sense of how much of their day they're on the bus? Obviously it varies, but any averages?

From the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California, this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.

I'm Sasha Lilley.

Through much of US history, people have dissented, stood up to power, and demanded a different world.

But in the last few years alone, we've seen the largest social movements and mass protests in US history.

Here's more of my conversation with longtime activist Annie Leonard.

I'm speaking with longtime activist Annie Leonard, co-author of Protest: Respect It, Defend It, Use It.

I'm Sasha Lilley, and this is Against the Grain.

So Protest includes stories like that of Rosa Parks that we know, but also some that I think most people don't know.

From the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California, this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.

I'm Sasha Lilley.

How can the federal government use unrestrained power over immigrants, as we've seen under the Trump administration? The answer, as shown in Races by Design, Two Centuries of U.S.

Immigration Control, is that it's long held such powers based on fears of insurgency from below.