The Blind Spot: How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracy
Jeffrey A. Winters
The wealthy and powerful few have dominated the masses throughout most of human history. This is starkly visible now more than ever—today, the gulf between oligarchs and the average citizen is larger than any gap that existed during European serfdom or the slave society of Imperial Rome. We have arrived at the most blatant version of oligarchy that most modern states have endured, with politicians bought and paid for across the political spectrum.
The strange thing we aren’t in open revolt against this system. In fact, we keep voting to prop it up. Why?
In The Blind Spot, political scientist Jeffrey A. Winters delivers an urgent, incisive account of how we reached this era of in-your-face oligarchy, exposing how modern democracy was developed to protect the interests of the ultra-rich. By tracing the evolution of oligarchy across the globe and through modern history, he demonstrates how the rule of the wealthy isn’t just a flaw in our democracy, it has been built into its very foundations. Now, in an extraordinary paradox, we exist in a state of “participatory inequality”: a world in which 99.99% of us participate openly and freely—democratically, even—in our own ongoing exclusion and disenfranchisement.
But powerful change can begin when we have a clear understanding of where we are, and where we deserve to be. As well as shining a light just how bad our political reality has become, The Blind Spot introduces bold ideas for how we might shift the balance of power. While the rich and powerful do not cede power quietly, this period of shocking inequality is, Winters shows, an opportunity for transformation.
About the author
Jeffrey A. Winters
Jeffrey Alan Winters is an American political scientist at Northwestern University, specialising in the study of oligarchy. He has written extensively on Indonesia and on oligarchy in the United States. His 2011 book Oligarchy was the 2012 winner of the American Political Science Association’s Luebbert Award for the Best Book in Comparative politics.
