Oligarchy in America

Luke Winslow is an associate professor of rhetorical studies in the Department of Communication at Baylor University. He is author of American Catastrophe: Fundamentalism, Climate Change, Gun Rights, and the Rhetoric of Donald J. Trump, Economic Injustice and the Rhetoric of the American Dream, and coauthor of Children as Rhetorical Advocates in Social Movements.

• Preface Introduction Chapter 1. The Rhetoric of Democratic Oligarchy Chapter 2. Survival of the Fittest and the Rhetoric of Herbert Spencer Chapter 3. Natural Law and the Rhetoric of Andrew Carnegie Chapter 4. The Road to Oligarchy and the Rhetoric of Friedrich Hayek Chapter 5. Judicial Oligarchy and the Rhetoric of James J. Kilpatrick Chapter 6. Cultivating Political Power and the Rhetoric of Lewis F. Powell Chapter 7. The Laws of Science and the Rhetoric of Milton Friedman Chapter 8. Conjoint Depletion and the Rhetoric of James M. Buchanan Chapter 9. The Science of Success and the Rhetoric of Charles Koch Chapter 10. Class Consciousness and the Rhetoric of Tucker Carlson Conclusion: The Oligarchy We Deserve Acknowledgments Appendix Notes References Index

“Oligarchy in America explains how arguments as diverse as Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinism and Tucker Carlson’s anti-elitism, suture the interests of the ultra-rich to state politics and disenfranchises the ordinary electorate, upending the arithmetic of democracy. It is a must read for those interested in rhetoric and the increasingly fraught politics of democracy.” —Catherine Chaput is author of Market Affect and the Rhetoric of Political Economic Debates