By Alan Cohen

The United States was intended by its founders to be the answer to an age-old problem: inequality. The founders’ solution was first to state the self-evident — that all men are created equal. Then democracy, the balance of powers, and the federal system were all intended to assure, insofar as possible, equality of opportunity, of impact on our government (of, by, and for the people) and before the law. There were the two threats to be protected against: “mob rule” and rule by the rich.

The system worked reasonably well until corporations escaped from their carefully drawn charters after the Civil War. It took the Populists, the Progressives and then Franklin D. Roosevelt to build systems that put the genie back in the bottle. And from 1935-1975 we were the most successful c

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