What We Can Learn From Sam Pizzigati’s Book “The Rich Don’t Always Win”

I met Sam Pizzigati in the mid-1970s when he was the founder and editor of the Newfield News in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. We both lived in Newfield. Since then, we have been friends. Although we are the same age, I consider him a mentor.

In 2012, when “The Rich Don’t Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph Over Plutocracy That Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970” came out, I read it as soon as I could get a copy. Today, the book is even more relevant than it was 12 years ago.

There are too many people who are hiding behind the myth that there is nothing they can do. This myth has many expressions. “I’m only one person.” “The system is so rigged that the wealthy will always get what they want.” “It has always been this way.” “I’m looking for strong national leadership.”

If you are tempted by this myth, then you need to read Pizzigati’s 2012 book, “The Rich Don’t Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph Over Plutocracy That Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970.” He uses the word “Plutocracy” because it is the word that was chosen by people like William Jennings Bryan and the Populist Party at the end of the 19^th century and beginning of the 20^th century. Since ancient times, the word has been used to describe a society that is governed by the wealthy.

What makes this book particularly important at this moment is that we have made the undeniable transition, in just a few months, from being an oligarchy (a system of government controlled by a small group of people) to being a plutocracy (a system of government controlled by a small group of wealthy elite people). 

The American founders thought the few people who held power should be white men who owned property, the wealthy. This changed over the years with the 15^th and 19^th amendments to the Constitution (which granted voting rights to African American men in 1870 and to women 50 years later), but, for the most part, white men have continued to control the government. However, when President-elect Trump announced that the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, would play a major role in his administration, America became a plutocracy again.

This is not the first time the rich have claimed control of the American government. Pizzigati describes the Gilded Age, the period from about 1865 to 1902, which occurred between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive era, and the early 20^th century, with the consequential Great Depression. While we have not yet reached the level of desperation of the Great Depression, today the rich are attempting to transform society to give free range to the wealthy. “The Rich Don’t Always Win” describes how the transformation from plutocracy to the prosperity of the middle of the 20^th century was accomplished. Obviously, things are different today, and we will need to work out relevant strategies, but we can learn the fundamentals from Pizzigati. They start with building strong local and national institutions committed to democracy and equity. Most important are the local groups of labor unions, specific-issue activist groups, political organizations that support local progressive politicians, and similar grassroots strategies.

This is the primary answer to the myth that individuals don’t make a difference. History shows us that the broad efforts of activist groups, ordinary people at the local level, were essential in defeating the plutocrats in the early 20^th century.

Now, as then, it is essential to find and support national leaders who articulate a new future. This involves ordinary people supporting voices that have a vision for America where money no longer influences government policy and actions. Franklin D. Roosevelt was part of the wealthy class, but his leadership was critical. To be clear, the lesson of history is that defeating the plutocracy is not just defeating the Republican Party. Loyalty to the two party system needs to be abandoned, so there can be creativity in third parties and in independent thinking and acting politicians.

The most important lesson to learn from “The Rich Don’t Always Win” is the critical importance of the structure of taxation. After the New Deal, taxes were raised on the rich until 1944 when the top marginal income tax rate reached 94%. The result was that the benefits of the growing economy after World War II did not all go to the rich.

Pizzigati uses my father, Berkley Bedell, to illustrate that high taxes on the wealthy do not discourage middle class people from taking initiatives and investing in building the economy. My father’s family was far from wealthy. He grew up during the depression where, like my mother, he learned the value of frugality. Dad loved to tell people that he started his business with $50 he got from winning a contest for selling subscriptions to the Des Moine Register. After serving in the army during World War II, he returned to his hometown of Spirit Lake, Iowa. As Pizzigati says, “In the high-tax 1950s, Bedell constantly invested in his business, not himself … He had done just fine for himself and his family during the soak-the-rich years” (pg. 268).

By the time I graduated from high school and headed off to college, my father was the largest employer in our small town. Taxes on the rich didn’t deter him from building his business and supporting the economy of the town. I agree with Pizzigati, the middle-class lifestyle that my parents provided for me, my brother and sister was “just fine.”

I have a daughter who is building her own business from scratch. I see many of the same entrepreneurial characteristics in her that her grandfather had. But the environment she faces is very different from my father’s experience. The plutocrats are working hard and fast to make it impossible for her to succeed. I know that we can never go back to exactly what it was like in the 1950s. There were many problems with those times, like sexism and racism, that still need attention. But there is no better time than now to take on the plutocracy to create an America that is a true democracy with an equitable economic system without poverty or the super wealthy. “The Rich Don’t Always Win” has a lot to teach us.