ARLIE RUSSELL HOCHCHILD ON HOW TO FIX DEMOCRACY

Arlie Russell Hochchild is one of America’s leading sociologists. So it was great relish that I interviewed her for our HOW TO FIX DEMOCRACY series about the American white working class and its discontents.

Andrew Keen: In our second series — . In our second How to Fix Democracy Series, we’ve really been focusing on the relationship or perhaps lack of relationship between capitalism and democracy. Many of the people we’ve spoken to have suggested that the inequities of capitalism have created a permanent underclass of people who have been so left out of the system that they’ve lost faith with democracy. Many of them though have spoken perhaps anecdotally about these people perhaps from New York Times articles or from other media pieces or from experiences online. Very few of them have actually spent time with the losers in the global capitalist system. I’m really pleased that our guest today on How to Fix Democracy, Arlie Hochschild, a distinguished academic sociologist, has also spent a lot of time with this underclass. Her prize-winning latest book, Strangers in Their Own Land was a reflection of the five years I think she spent in Louisiana. Is it fair though Arlie that many people, particularly on the left — we’re talking to each other in Berkeley, the heart of the American left — that many people on the left, and I get the sense that this in part at least drove your book or your decision…