The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie How Capitalism Lost the Working Class
Apr 1, 2026
Brink Lindsey, senior fellow at the Niskanen Center and author of The Permanent Problem, explores how industrial-era abundance met rising pessimism. He discusses globalization’s winners and losers, slowing innovation and declining dynamism, the cultural fallout of capitalism, fractures between college-educated elites and others, falling fertility, and the social role of religion and community.
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Personal Family Stories Highlight Rapid Enrichment
- Lindsey shares family histories: his parents born in 1920 experienced poverty and privation, and his Thai wife's father came from a family of 17.
- These examples illustrate rapid demographic and material change across generations.
Educational Class Divide Shapes Social Outcomes
- A new class divide has emerged along educational lines, affecting marriage, family structure, and life outcomes.
- Lindsey links lower marriage rates and two-parent upbringing to being outside the college-educated elite.
Abundance Fueled Solitary Consumption Not Connection
- Increased leisure and abundance have been channeled into solitary, short-term digital gratifications rather than social connection.
- Lindsey notes rising screen time, obesity, and falling raw IQ scores as signs of diverted attention from long-term flourishing.
