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We are more like Russia than we think. We are not quite a kleptocracy, but in 2007 we showed signs of being on our way. We are not yet an autocracy, but Donald Trump has used the presidency to bribe the president of Ukraine to provide evidence of corruption on a political opponent, and then convinced the Senate that he had the right to do this. We are not yet a one-party state, but we are currently governed by a minority party that seeks to retain power indefinitely--regardless of the price. We are not yet a police state, but we have done little to stop the militarization of the police. We have not yet engaged in ethnic cleansing, but politicians at the highest level think nothing of stigmatizing immigrants and minorities for political advantage. We are not yet a fascist state, but we are standing in the doorway.  

The super-rich—the 1 (or 0.1)% in current lingo—have gotten immensely rich not through sheer ingenuity, or inordinate intellectual ability, but by extracting wealth from the real economy

where most of us live and work. Historically, much of the wealth of the ultra-wealthy has been based on inheritance, tax evasion, political influence, or just plain theft. In the last four decades, the menu has expanded. The owners of wealth, whether financial, intellectual, or physical, have largely succeeded in destroying competitive markets and deregulating large parts of the economy, creating large “rents” for themselves.

They have forged virtual monopolies in telecommunications and energy, producing outsized profits or “rents” for them.  They have insisted that banks retain the right to speculate on derivatives, ensured that credit card companies not be bothered by pesky usury laws, expanded the shadow banking system so that hedge funds and private equity firms remain unregulated and virtually invisible. Their credit card companies have suppressed usury laws limiting interest rates. They have successfully resisted more efficient, less expensive, and fairer single-payer healthcare systems (in the USA), while defending for-profit health insurance that is unaffordable and inequitable for many millions, producing vast rents for their health insurance companies. The super-rich have been granted patents on drugs, even when their drugs are no better than those already on the market. They have won undeserved subsidies for themselves in agribusiness. Their seed companies have established near monopolies over the genetically modified seed market, using political leverage to limit or to eliminate competition. The super-rich who control corporations have practiced wage theft, fought minimum wage laws, weakened unions, outsourced jobs, resorted to temps and contract labor, and preached free trade so the commodities they produce in China and elsewhere can be brought to the USA with minimal duties. The super-rich have lowered (or escaped) inheritance taxes, shifting much of their income to lower-taxed capital gains. They have created tax havens where trillions of dollars remain untaxed and invisible. And multinational corporations have transferred profits of their intellectual and financial property

to subsidiaries in low-tax regimes, where they often remain permanently untaxed.

The Great Forgetting: The Past, Present, and Future of Social Democracy and the Welfare State reminds us that we were much happier when we were more equal, shared common goals, and trusted that government would be there for all of us when we needed it. The Great Forgetting emphasizes that economic policy must be about more than getting government out of the way so some people can enrich themselves-often at the expense of the rest of us. The Great Forgetting explodes the myth that globalization is the cause of inequality and that the state can do little to protect us. It demonstrates that the 1 percent are not the wealth creators they claim to be; they own much of their wealth through inheritance, tax concessions, and the ability to protect wealth in tax havens or through investments abroad. Inequality is lethal, but it can be fixed by a state that belongs to all of us and not just the 1 percent who use their wealth to acquire the political power that we once shared more.

The Great Forgetting is dedicated to the 99 percent. It should appeal to everybody who wants to stop coddling the super-rich and who worries about her future retirement, or the healthcare of her family. The Great Forgetting suggests a way forward by urging people to reclaim the political power that should be theirs by right. 

This interpretive essay was originally born as a response to Francis Fukuyama's essay, "The End of History." It asserts that the major development of the 20th century was, and is, the World Revolution of Westernization. It asserts that many parts of the globe are successfully Westernizing (modernizing), but even more parts of the globe are saying 'modernization wherever possible, yes, but according to non-Western values such as Islam.' The study is divided into three sections: Europe, Russia, and much of the developing world outside the West.​

T​​​he writings of Karl Marx explored the tensions between the laws of socialist science and a utopian longing for socialism; between a science of history and a prophetic hope based on moral and ethical ideals. His writings examined history and argued for the necessity of communism to achieve the moral ideal of utopia. Although Marx was the last great utopian, his work has been adapted in Russia and China to rationalize and justify totalitarian regimes, but it has also inspired Western utopian writers like Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, and Ernst Bloch.What's Left? Marxism, Utopianism and the Revolt against History, explores what remains of the Marxist and Utopian Left after the death of totalitarian utopianism and authoritarian state socialism and how Marxism still provides a powerful critique of present day globalization.