Palladium Podcast Digital Salon with Michael Lind: The New Class War
16 snips
Jul 1, 2020 Michael Lind, author and professor of practice at UT Austin known for books on American political economy, explores the new class conflict between managerial elites and the working class. He traces how managers gained power through credentials and corporate capture. He discusses unions, political mobilization, pathways for reformist cadres, and why elite cosmopolitanism complicates efforts to bind capital to labor.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Credentialism Created The Managerial Overclass
- Managerial credentialism defines the modern overclass as college and graduate-degree holders who control bureaucracies across corporate, nonprofit, and government sectors.
- Michael Lind ties institutional power to credentials, cultural habits, and leadership roles rather than merely shareholder ownership, shifting class identification to managerial status.
Managers Became Corporations' Real Power
- Corporate managers gained autonomy as widely dispersed shareholders and board capture reduced effective oversight, making managers de facto rulers of large firms.
- Lind argues moves like offshoring and rising executive pay often reflect managerial choices, not only shareholder pressure.
Three Pillars Of Midcentury Democratic Pluralism
- Mid-20th century democratic pluralism rested on three countervailing institutions: political machines, religious congregations, and private-sector unions.
- Lind shows those institutions amplified non-college working-class bargaining power and constrained managerial elites during the New Deal era.
