That is the destiny of our era,” he said. So, they withdraw from the public sphere, believing their cherished private liberties remain. Most Americans, though, “know their society is rotten … and is not working for them. I can’t think of any other way,” he said, noting that a small number of engaged Tea Party members have effectively influenced many political races. “We can have mechanisms to prevent the iron cages from emerging … things can get done … even just a little rise of black Americans voting made a huge difference” in the 2008 presidential race, Patterson said. Quoting philosopher Thomas Paine, he said, “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” “Nothing better secures the locks on the twin cages of capitalism” than disenchanted voters dropping out of the political system, he said, adding, “This is what depresses me.” Voters have disengaged, as evidenced by falling voter turnout rates, as they see private money swaying elections and, in effect, taking charge of the nation-state. It is that incredible symbiosis I find frightening,” he said. “It’s amazing these two processes have converged. The 2008 fiscal crisis and continuing fallout can be blamed on growing control of the nation’s political and economic systems by the wealthy, he said. This is what voters see happening around them. This symbiosis of the economic and political systems has produced “unrelenting inequality and corruption. This is not a real democracy anymore,” said Patterson, a sociologist. The other cage is ruled by politicians who need a constant infusion of money to ensure their re-elections and spend most of their time pursuing it, rather than serving the people who elected them, he said. Bankers are supposed to be managing, but they diverted the process toward enhancing their own incomes.” In one cage, he said, borrowing a metaphor from sociologist Max Weber, “bureaucrats are running the (economic) system not on behalf of workers, but in their own interests. In modern capitalist culture, two mutually reinforcing iron cages controlled by a wealthy few have gained control, Patterson told more than 160 historians and academics from across the nation.

Bush, going shopping in reaction to 9/11. The American notion of freedom, according to Patterson’s survey research, has become driving off alone in one’s car or – at the behest of then-President George W. 7.Īmericans are intensely committed to the idea of personal freedom but decouple it from the democracy designed to protect that freedom, Harvard professor Orlando Patterson said at the Cornell Conference on the Histories of Capitalism on campus Nov. Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson speaks at the Conference on the Histories of Capitalism Nov.

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