Winner-take-all politics : how Washington made the rich richer-and turned its back on the middle class / Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson.

First paperback edition by Simon & Schuster.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [311]-340) and index.

The thirty-years war -- The puzzling politics of winner-take-all -- The winner-take-all economy -- How the winner-take-all economy was made -- A brief history of Democratic capitalism -- The rise of winner-take-all politics -- The unseen revolution of the 1970s -- The politics of organized combat -- The middle goes missing -- Winner-take-all politics -- A tale of two parties -- Building a bridge to the 19th century -- Democrats climb aboard -- Battle royale.

The very rich have gotten a lot richer these past few decades--even during the current economic crisis--while most Americans haven't. How have they managed to restructure the economy to reap the lion's share, tearing new holes in the safety net and saddling all of us with increased debt and risk? In an innovative historical departure, Hacker and Pierson trace the rise of the winner-take-all economy back to a major transformation of American politics in the late 1970s, under a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress. With big business and conservative ideologues organizing themselves to undo the regulations and progressive tax policies that had helped ensure a fair distribution of economic rewards, deregulation got under way, taxes were cut for the wealthiest, and business decisively defeated labor in Washington. And this transformation continued under Reagan and the Bushes as well as Clinton.--From publisher description.