Michael Lind is a professor of practice at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His latest book is The New Class War: Saving Democracy From the Managerial Elite.
In this wide-ranging conversation with James Strock, Lind declares that the political disruption signalled by the election of President Trump is part of a worldwide phenomenon. In Lind’s view the traditional class war analysis based on economics and finance is being displaced by a new class war in which the working classes are rebelling against the incompetence and disrespect of the meritocratic elite. He points to Brexit in the UK, as well as politcal developments in Poland, Hungary, Italy, France, Germany, the Philippines and other nations.
Lind previously taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. He has been assistant to the director of the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs at the U.S. State Department and has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New Republic and The National Interest. A co-founder of New America, along with Walter Mead, Sherle Schwenninger and Ted Halstead, Lind co-founded New America’s American strategy program, and served as policy director of its economic growth program. He is a former member of the boards of Fairvote and Economists for Peace and Security.Â
Lind has published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The International Economy and The Financial Times. He is the author of more than a dozen books of nonfiction, fiction, poetry and children’s literature, including several that were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. His studies of U.S. history, economics and foreign policy include The Next American Nation (1995), The American Way of Strategy (2006), and Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States (2012).Â
Image: New America Foundation, CCA2 via Wikipedia
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