Chris Lehmann - In These Times

Chris Lehmann, is editor-in-chief at The Baffler and a former managing editor of In These Times. He is the author of The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American Dream (Melville House, 2016).

A former managing editor of In These Times, his work has also appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post and Slate, among other publications.

The Philanthropy Racket or: How The People Destroying the World Anoint Themselves Its Saviors

How the global elite cast themselves as do-gooders.

The Self-Help Guru Who Shaped Trump’s Worldview

How the commander-in-chief succumbs to the perils of positive thinking.

The White-Supremacist Roots of America’s Libertarian Right

The history of Koch-style libertarian economics is steeped in racism.

The Fairy Tales Capitalists Tell Themselves

The new book The Wisdom of Money amounts to morale-boosting capitalist agitprop.

How the Threat of Apocalypse Justifies American Empire

A new book argues that in the military's hands, warnings of world's end become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Our New Philanthropic Overlords

Why the donor class loves charter schools—and themselves.

To Form a More Corporate Union

The Land of Enterprise: A Business History of the United States shows that Trump's greed is no aberration.

George Saunders’ New Novel Follows Abraham Lincoln’s Son to a Buddhist Afterlife

In his first full-length novel, the short story virtuoso weaves U.S. history with the otherworldly.

Neoliberalism, Cranked up to 11

Jonathan Coe's Number 11 offers a bleak portrait of what Britain has become.

CNN’s New Book Is a Master Class in How Not to Cover an Election

The news network's instant retrospective on the Trump-Clinton race is as vacuous as their initial coverage was.

Thomas Friedman’s Latest Book Is a Tour Through His Troubled, Neoliberal Mind

We read 500 pages of corporate platitudes and ungainly metaphor so you don't have to.

Inside the Tax-Avoidance Racket of “Wealth Management”

A sociologist's new book reveals how the ultra-rich starve public coffers and undermine democracy.

Ted Cruz’s Speech Was the Final Sign of the GOPocalypse

The party of Lincoln is going up in flames--and embracing it.

Donald Trump’s Fingers Were Always Short

In business as in politics, there's never been much behind the splashy surface.

The View From Today’s Versailles

A new book by Michelle Fields, former Breitbart reporter, rightly skewers our political class—but suffers from a case of hypocrisy

The Case Against Using the GDP as a Measure of Economic Health

The GDP has always been a bitterly contested yardstick, explains Ehsan Masood in a new history.

Even a Time Finance Columnist Is Now Questioning American Capitalism

Rana Foroohar's "Makers and Takers" breaks down crisis-prone U.S. economy

How Not To Write About Gun Culture

Iain Overton's book on gun culture completely misfires

After Decades of Bigotry and Antipolitics, the GOP Got What It Deserves in Donald Trump

With Trump, the GOP is reaping what it sowed over the last seven years. But there's no time for schadenfreude: Trump is now everyone's problem.

Forget Techno-Optimism: We Can’t Innovate Our Way Out of Inequality

Hillary Clinton's former 'senior advisor for innovation' sees our Uber-ized future through rose-colored glasses

Trapped in the Prison of Right-Wing Pundit Dinesh D’Souza’s Paranoid Mind

A stint in the slammer convinced the conservative author that liberals are crooks, as he lays out in his new book Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me About Obama, Hillary and the Democratic Party.

The Most Disappointing Thing About Submission Isn’t Islamophobia, But Its Tedious Sexism

Any nuanced discussion about the intersection of cultures in Michel Houellebecq's new book is buried under its tiresome narration

How California Birthed the Modern Right Wing

Many of 20th-century conservatism's tricks were honed in 1930s agribusiness's fight against farmworkers

Who’s Behind the Smithsonian Museum’s $63 Million Ode to American Capitalism?

Just who you would think.

If the GOP Wants To Attract Young People, Maybe It Should Stop Screwing Them Over

Kristen Soltis Anderson’s The Selfie Vote suggests Republicans use "microtargeting" to win over the youth.

A Century After Ota Benga’s Captivity, Elites Still Don’t Understand White Supremacy

Over a century after a Congolese man was displayed at the Bronx Zoo monkey exhibit, white elites still stubbornly believe they are benevolent, not supremacist.

Why Silicon Valley Won’t Solve the World’s Problems

In Geek Heresy, former Microsoft do-gooder Kentaro Toyama reconsiders tech-based social-change initiatives.

Bitcoin: Digital Fool’s Gold?

Silicon Valley investors are betting heavily on the online currency. But is it a libertarian boondoggle?

A Cover Artist, Discovered—40 Years Later

Mingering Mike had all the requisites for a legendary music career, except the music.

The Dude Abides

Kent Russell seeks to lay claim to the raw, serious stuff of the American male past.

Land of the Free and Home of the Enhanced Interrogators

We need a truth and reconciliation commission to deal with our torture problem.

Sleight of the Invisible Hand

Stock market fraud is as old as the stock market.

Reports from Inside First Look Media Suggest That Maybe Silicon Valley Shouldn’t Manage Journalists

Feverish speculation surrounds First Look's recent troubles. But perhaps the most obvious culprit is its reliance on truckloads of tech money.

New Deal, Same Spiel

Ken Burns' documentary about the Roosevelts is heavy on fable but light on fact.

Failing the Midterms

The Democrats can't win by cutting class.

Trojan Hobby Horse

Courts don't just treat corporations as people--they treat them as sweethearts.

Nationalize the Ivy League

We need to go further than the meritocratic reforms proposed by William Deresiewicz.

Piketty and Meatballs

What we talk about when we talk about Capital.

Artisanal Union-Busting

Whole Foods has attempted to crush anything resembling a union drive among its employees.

A Cubicle of One’s Own

Nikil Saval's new book, Cubed, shows us the future of the workplace.

The Minor Leagues’ Major Malfunction

Curt Flood's landmark antitrust suit transformed the Major League, but the Minor League is still bound by archaic rules.

Faux Vox Populi

Will Obama's promises to fix inequality turn out to be as hollow as Clinton's were?

What Glenn Beck and Malcolm Gladwell have in common.

A Very Adult Social Security Tantrum

Centrist Dems are horrified by Elizabeth Warren's plan to raise benefits. But populists aren't backing down.

The Age of Amazon

Has Jeff Bezos thrust us into a nightmare version of a consumer utopia?

Experts Needed; Knowledge Optional

How the Beltway media embraced a fake Syria expert.

The Zombie Economist

Alan Greenspan is baa-ack.

Rats in the Laboratory of Democracy

State legislatures are gaining power, but not for the people.

1 2 →