Steve Fraser, The Two Gilded Ages→

Tomdispatch featuring an article by Steven Fraser:

“Shareholder democracy” and the “ownership society” are admittedly more public relations slogans than anything tangible. Nonetheless, you can’t ignore the fact that, during the second Gilded Age, half of all American families became investors in the stock market. Dentists and engineers, mid-level bureaucrats and college professors, storekeepers and medical technicians — people, that is, from the broad spectrum of middle class life who once would have viewed the New York Stock Exchange with a mixture of awe, trepidation, and genuine distaste, and warily kept their distance — now jumped head first into the marketplace carrying with them all their febrile hopes for social elevation.

(Via I cite.)