The Paradoxical Politics of Inequality

In a speech at the Center for American Progress last December, President Barack Obama declared that economic inequality was “the defining challenge of our time.” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have made it the centerpiece of their politics. In his announcement speech for his surprisingly successful presidential campaign, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders called “the issue of wealth and income inequality... the great moral issue of our time.” During the first Democratic debate, frontrunner Hillary Clinton pledged “to do everything I can to heal the divides … economically because there is too much inequality.”