Future Hindsight

Non-Traditional Labor Several kinds of non-traditional labor in the US leave Americans vulnerable to coercion at work. Prisoners work during their sentence at reduced or even no wages. Student athletes also work hard in employment-like conditions but do not get remunerated. Workfare workers are forced to do menial labor in order to qualify for welfare. Graduate students also work for their advisors and don't qualify for minimum wage. Although not technically considered employment in the US, these are jobs and should be considered as such. Status Coercion Unfair treatment is allowed to proliferate in non-traditional workplaces because bosses hold enormous power. Prisoners are forced to work to keep their "good standing" status, and are denied the right to exercise, purchase better meals, or call loved ones. Student athletes are at the whim of their coaches and must strive to stay in their good graces to receive playing time. Workfare workers are forced to work the menial tasks set forth by their bosses or risk losing their welfare eligibility. Graduate students must stay in the good graces of the professor they work under or risk losing their work or place in the university. Reframing Coercive Work The first step to ending status coercion is to reframe how we think about work. We must acknowledge that graduate students and student athletes—no matter how lucky or privileged—are workers and deserve the protection other workers get. We need to acknowledge that prisoners are also laborers, and that workfare workers are performing real work. Once they are treated as workers, we must give them the tools to bargain collectively, assert their rights, and earn minimum wage. FIND OUT MORE: Erin Hatton, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her research focuses on work and political economy, while also extending into the fields of social inequality, labor, law and social policy. Hatton's new book, Coerced: Work Under Threat of Punishment analyzes four very different--and unusual--groups of workers: incarcerated, workfare, college athlete, and graduate student workers. Drawing on more than 120 in-depth interviews across these four groups, in this book she uncovers a new form of labor coercion and analyzes its consequences for workers in America. Her first book, The Temp Economy: From Kelly Girls to Permatemps in Postwar America, weaves together gender, race, class and work in a cultural analysis of the temporary help industry and rise of the new economy. You can follow her on Twitter @Eehatton.

Musical Chairs American poverty is a bit like a game of musical chairs. The US only has good opportunities for 8 out of 10 Americans, meaning 2 people always lose. Instead of adding new opportunities or chairs, we shuffle the opportunities around, but 2 of every 10 people still end up without the opportunities. This shows that poverty is a result of the systems we have in place, not personal shortcoming, and if we continue shuffling the opportunities, we will continue having a poverty problem. Poverty Myths Being poor in the US is subject to several damaging myths that make it harder to reduce poverty rates country wide. We think of a poverty rate between 10-15% of the US population, but shockingly 60-75% of Americans will spend at least one year of their lives in poverty. Another myth blames poor Americans for their own poverty, not the systems that maintain poverty in America. We also assume the costs of poverty are borne by the poor, but US taxpayers pay more than $1 trillion per year due to the externalities of poverty. Social Safety Nets The US has a much weaker social safety net than other developed countries. We view poverty as a personal shortcoming that is not to be rewarded with welfare programs or healthcare. Since we think the poor are undeserving of help, we do not invest in social safety nets, creating high rates of poverty. Social safety nets reduce poverty by 75-80% in other counties, whereas the US safety net only reduces it by 25-30%. The most successful anti-poverty program in the US is Social Security. FIND OUT MORE: Mark R. Rank is recognized as a foremost expert on issues of poverty, inequality, and social justice. His research on the life course risk of poverty has demonstrated for the first time that most Americans will experience poverty at some point during their lives. To date, he has written 10 books on a range of subjects, including an exploration of the American Dream, a new understanding of poverty and inequality, and the role of luck and chance in shaping the course of our lives. In addition, he has published articles in numerous academic journals across a wide variety of fields. He has provided research expertise to members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as many national organizations involved in issues of economic and social justice. His work has been cited by then-President Barack Obama, as well as Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. You can check out his book Poorly Understood here.

Ideal Peacebuilding The ideal peacebuilding model is context-specific. It heavily relies on grassroots peacebuilding efforts by the local community to address specific causes of violence. It also relies on outsiders using the traditional top-down approach to connect with government officials, elites, rebel leaders, and other power players. These responses should be led by locals with knowledge and supported by outsiders with resources. Communities must make the decisions that impact themselves, instead of outsider interveners. Bottom-Up Peacebuilding Bottom-up peacebuilding is a way to end conflict that focuses on identifying the roots causes of violence in a specific community, and addressing them directly. It engages all participants to reach long-lasting solutions to distinct and sometimes unrelated issues, resolve disputes through mediation, and work with outside organizations to help fund grassroots operations. Bottom-up peacebuilding has often succeeded where top-down peacebuilding efforts have failed. Peace, Inc. Peace, Inc. refers to the standard worldwide system of intervention and peacebuilding, also known as top-down peacebuilding. It focuses on brokering deals between elites, leaders, diplomats, and other high-level players, while ignoring the communities that are directly affected by conflict. It treats outsiders as experts and relegates locals to an inferior status. While outside intervention can bring expertise and resources to war-torn areas, Peace, Inc. tactics are often practically ineffective and can even result in harm. FIND OUT MORE: Séverine Autesserre is an award-winning author, peacebuilder, and researcher, as well as a Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of The Trouble with the Congo, Peaceland, and The Frontlines of Peace, in addition to articles for publications such as Foreign Affairs, International Organization, and The New York Times. She has been involved intimately in the world of international aid for more than twenty years. She has conducted research in twelve different conflict zones, from Colombia to Somalia to Israel and the Palestinian territories. She has worked for Doctors Without Borders in places like Afghanistan and Congo, and at the United Nations headquarters in the United States. Her research has helped shape the intervention strategies of several United Nations departments, foreign affairs ministries, and non-governmental organizations, as well as numerous philanthropists and activists. She has also been a featured speaker at the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the United Nations Security Council. You can follow her on Twitter at @SeverineAR.

Public-Private Paradox: America has clearly delineated public and private domains: the public domain is regulated, and the private domain is not. A public-private paradox occurs when a decision made in the private domain creates issues in the public domain. In the case of fracking, choosing to allow drilling in your land is a private decision. That decision creates many externalities such as overuse of roads, unwanted sights and sounds, contaminated well water for the neighborhood, which harms the public good. Tragedy of the Commons The Tragedy of the Commons explains how individual decisions pertaining to common resources can lead to degradation of that resource, hurting everyone. It's in everyone's own best interest to use as much of a common resource as possible, because if they don't, someone else will. Unfortunately, when everyone does this the shared resource is often quickly degraded. In the case of fracking, many landowners decided to lease land because their neighbors were doing it, and choosing not to lease would mean absorbing the externalities of fracking without any compensation. American Property Rights American landowners own their land "up to heaven, and down to hell," meaning they own both the air and subsurface rights along with their land. This is quite different from almost all other countries, where subsurface mineral rights are owned, regulated, and sold by government bodies. Landowners in the US make entirely private decisions to allow oil and gas drilling on their property without the consent of their neighbors, and in some cases without any regulation from local, state, or federal governments. FIND OUT MORE: Colin Jerolmack is a professor of sociology and environmental studies at NYU, where he also teaches courses on human-animal relations and chairs the Environmental Studies Department. His first book, The Global Pigeon explores how human-animal relations shape our experience of urban life. His second book, Up To Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town follows residents of a rural Pennsylvania community who leased their land for gas drilling in order to understand how the exercise of property rights can undermine the commonwealth. He also co-edited the volume Approaches to Ethnography: Modes of Representation and Analysis in Participant Observation with Shamus Khan. He lives in New York City with his wife and two sons. You can follow Colin on Twitter @jerolmack.

New Socratic Method Socrates used direct questioning to make ancient Athenians reflect critically on their views, which often made people look foolish. The New Socratic Method is a kinder, gentler version that can actually change people's minds without resentment. Clarifying questions can reveal why ideas are bad without antagonism. The New Socratic Method can be used to strengthen mental immunity and root out bad ideas. Reason's Fulcrum Reason's Fulcrum is a key part of the mind's mental immunity. It states that if two people have differing points of view, the one with the best reasons supporting their argument will "win" and the loser must reflect and change their mind. When Reason's Fulcrum is used, good reasons can change people's minds. When it isn't working, people lose the sense that speech and actions have accountability, and it becomes very difficult to change minds. Substantive Collaborative Dialogue One of the best ways to strengthen mental immunity in yourself and others is to have the difficult conversations you might otherwise shy away from. Asking hard and often philosophical questions like "What is a bad idea?" or engaging with family and friends who hold bad ideas can actually boost your mental immunity. Collaborative reasoning and exchanging honest dialogue is the best way to spread good ideas and build mental immunity. FIND OUT MORE: Andy Norman, Ph.D., directs the Humanism Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University. A public philosopher and award-winning author, he is developing the conceptual foundations of cognitive immunology—the emerging science of mental immunity. He thinks this science explains how demagogues short-circuit minds and how ideologies corrupt moral understanding. In his book Mental Immunity: Infectious Ideas, Mind-Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think, he identifies several mental immune disorders and develops the kind of mind-vaccine that could inoculate future generations against the worst outbreaks of viral nonsense. You can follow him on Twitter @DrAndyNo.

Thanks, HelloFresh! Go to HelloFresh.com/hopeful12 and use code hopeful12 for 12 free meals, including free shipping! The Erosion of America Since the 1980s America has experienced an erosion of government regulations, societal norms, and equality. Trickle-down economics created a massive wealth gap. The Iran-Contra scandal set a new, low accountability standard for the highest levels of government. 24-hour news appeared as the Fairness Doctrine fell. This background, coupled with reality TV and social media, provided the perfect conditions to mainstream someone like Donald Trump. Myth of American Exceptionalism Every country is susceptible to democracy decay. American exceptionalism has helped mainstream government corruption because it blinds us from warning signs like illegal government acts or the threat of authoritarianism. Pretending that institutional collapse cannot happen in the US, makes it difficult to admit that we have experienced decades of decline in our institutions. Trump: Political Insider The idea that Trump is a political neophyte is a PR fiction the media attached itself to in the run-up of the 2016 election. Trump was mentored by GOP operative Roy Cohn and flirted with a presidential run as early as 1984. He considered running again in 1988, and then ran in 2000, and again in 2012. Trump has a more than 40-year interest in politics and has remained close with political operatives like Roger Stone throughout. FIND OUT MORE: Sarah Kendzior is a writer who lives in St Louis, Missouri. She is best known for her book Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America, her reporting on political and economic problems in the US, her prescient coverage of the 2016 election and the Trump administration, and her academic research on authoritarian states in Central Asia. She is also the co-host of Gaslit Nation, a weekly podcast which covers corruption in the Trump administration and the rise of authoritarianism around the world. Since 2017, she has been covering the transformation of the US under the Trump administration, writing on authoritarian tactics, kleptocracy, racism and xenophobia, media, voting rights, technology, the environment, and the Russian interference case, among other topics. She is an op-ed columnist for the Globe and Mail, where she focuses primarily on US politics. She is also a frequent contributor to Fast Company, NBC News, and other national outlets. From 2012-2014 she was an op-ed columnist for Al Jazeera English. In addition to working as a journalist, she is a researcher and scholar. She has a PhD in anthropology from Washington University in Saint Louis (2012) and an MA in Central Eurasian Studies from Indiana University (2006). Most of her work focuses on the authoritarian states of the former Soviet Union and how the internet affects political mobilization, self-expression, and trust. You can follow Sarah on Twitter @sarahkendzior.

Evil Geniuses Influential conservatives have capitalized on a wave of cultural nostalgia after the turbulent 1960s to turn our economy into a version of extreme capitalism. Economists like Milton Friedman, politicians like Ronald Reagan and Mitch McConnell, and CEOs like the Koch Brothers have used money, policy, secrecy, and cultural movements to demonize the federal government and rig our economy for the rich. Together with neoliberalism from the left, the New Deal was replaced by the raw deal. Investing in America The US government is responsible for many of the greatest inventions of the last century, but does not capitalize on these discoveries. If the government acted like a private enterprise, it would have more money to invest in communities as well as support innovation. In Republican-led, individualist Alaska, royalties earned from natural gas and oil drillers is distributed to all Alaskans every year. The program is a form of socialism, a universal basic income. The government could use the Alaska model to reap the benefits of its assets, like charging industry for air pollution. Constant Engagement Continuous civic engagement is the way to undo decades of economic and civic destruction. Showing up to vote once every two or four years is not enough. Doing the steady work of championing good candidates who believe in the big ideas, and discussing the issues in a non-binary way are key to achieving basic fairness. Engagement looks different around the US, and what works in Queens, New York, will not work in Colorado or Nebraska. FIND OUT MORE: Kurt Andersen is a writer. He spent his first 20 years in Nebraska, and most of the rest in New York City. His most recent book is Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History, a companion volume to Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History, both of which were New York Times bestsellers. He was the host and co-creator of Studio 360, the cultural magazine show produced by Public Radio International from 2000 to 2020. It was broadcast on 250 stations and distributed by podcast to almost 1 million listeners each week. Andersen was honored twice by New York State Associated Press for the best radio interview of the year, and the program won Peabody Awards twice. As an editor, Kurt co-founded the transformative satirical magazine Spy and served as editor-in-chief of New York. He also co-founded Inside, a digital and print publication covering the media and entertainment industries, oversaw a relaunch of Colors magazine, co-founded the online newsletter Very Short List, and served as editor-at-large for Random House. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Rhode Island School of Design and Pratt Institute, and taught at the Art Center College of Design (where he was "Visionary in Residence") and the School of Visual Arts. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Anne Kreamer. You can follow him on Twitter @kbandersen.

We are launching an all-new authors' season, focusing on books that get into the weeds of America's most vexing problems. We'll be talking about everything from criminal justice, philosophy, to economics, labor, and poverty. Our first guest is the legendary Kurt Andersen, on his latest book: Evil Geniuses, The Unmaking of America: A Recent History. He looks under the hood of the movements that powered our continuous shift to the right, starting with a strong yearning for nostalgia. Sarah Kendzior, author of Hiding In Plain Sight, The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America, follows on the heels of that interview with a deep dive into how the former president was decades in the making. And after that, we speak to Andy Norman, the author of Mental Immunity, Infectious Ideas, Mind Parasites, and the Search for a Better Way to Think. He offers tools to inoculate our minds against the worst forms of ideological contagion. It will be a thought-provoking season of visionary and practical ideas to reimagine our future.

Being a Good Neighbor Solving community problems can begin with a simple, common goal of being a good neighbor. Deep human relationships with people make the hard conversations—where we don't agree—possible. Finding common ground with different backgrounds can be hard, but focusing on caring for your neighbors strengthens communities and personal relationships alike. Storytelling Personal stories are an incredibly powerful tool for community building. Stories are the ways we make sense of life. When you tell someone your story, they stop seeing you as an issue or an enemy, and look at you as a person. This shared humanity lets us see the world through others' perspectives, which is critical to being a good neighbor. Society's Full Potential Future Hindsight and Shelter in Place share a common goal: to help us realize our best selves. Shelter in Place focuses on the microscale through personal stories and motivation. Future Hindsight hopes to inspire listeners go from the personal to get engaged on the community level and help realize our society's full potential. Find out more about Laura and Shelter in Place: Many whose life has been overturned by the pandemic are struggling — yet the Shelter in Place team's response was not simply to flee, but to create. Narrated by Laura Joyce Davis, Shelter in Place is the podcast that follows their travels — physical and emotional — through the pandemic. Through open-hearted storytelling and with an inviting voice, Laura gives us the agency to face the day, with a friend. She writes to explore the triumph of the human spirit in a broken world. A Fulbright scholar, Laura also won the Poets & Writers Exchange Award, earned Pushcart Prize and Best New American Voices nominations for fiction, and was a finalist for WNYC's podcast accelerator. In previous lives, she was a running coach, a capella singer, and scholarship athlete. Laura's writing has often intertwined with nonprofit work. She writes for Micro Business Mentors, a nonprofit providing entrepreneurial loans and training in developing countries. As a Fulbright scholar to the Philippines in 2010, Laura spent a year working with sex trafficking survivors, whose courage in the face of corrosive injustice inspired her novel, which won the 2013 California Writers Exchange Award. You can follow her on Twitter @LauraJoyceDavis.

Campaign Finance Laws The Supreme Court often operates like a conservative activist group to help the GOP. One of the most egregious ways they've tipped the scales is in campaign finance. Starting with their infamous Buckley ruling in 1976, SCOTUS categorized corporate political donations as free speech. Their 2011 follow-up, Citizens United, removed almost all limitations on political spending, creating a vast increase in campaign spending. Rich Americans and corporations are now free to give as much as they want to whoever they want. This has greatly benefitted Republicans at the cost of electoral fairness. Poverty The liberal, pro-New Deal, Warren Court was replaced in 1969 by the conservative Burger Court. The contrast was stark. One of the Warren Court's last cases provided significant due process protections to poor Americans whose welfare benefits were in danger. As soon as the Nixon-appointed Burger stepped in, decisions changed. The Burger Court immediately heard a case involving family caps on welfare and ruled in the opposite direction. Families with more than four children could only receive benefits for the maximum cap of four children, exacerbating poverty for large families. With that ruling, a new tone was struck and SCOTUS has ruled against the poor ever since. Education The conservative Burger Court also devastated public education. It reversed a Texas decision, which had ruled that the state must fund rich and poor school districts equally. This SCOTUS decision essentially created a tiered school system with affluent neighborhoods on the top and poor ones on the bottom. Next, it ruled that desegregation efforts in schools could not cross urban/suburban lines. This transformative ruling undercut desegregation efforts and exacerbated schooling inequities. Today, many schools are segregated by both race and class because of these rulings. Find out more: Adam Cohen, a former member of the New York Times editorial board and senior writer for Time magazine, is the author of Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court's Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America. He is also the author of Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck and Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he was president of volume 100 of the Harvard Law Review. You can follow Adam on Twitter @adamscohen.