The human crisis caused by extreme unequal distribution of wealth did not happen overnight. So why hasn't there been nation-wide populist movements like Occupy Wall Street until now?

Unemployment, foreclosures, distressed healthcare system and amounting debt—the human crisis caused by extreme unequal distribution of wealth did not happen overnight, so why hasn’t there been nation-wide populist movements like Occupy Wall Street until now? In this episode of Nation Conversation, Frances Fox Piven talks with The Nation‘s executive editor Betsy Reed about the intersection between a moment of human crisis and a moment of Americans’ renewed consciousness of class and inequality. For decades, Piven says, there has been a “culture battling” of the poor that demobilized those who suffer the most. Occupy Wall Street, a “moral movement” that raises moral issues such as economic inequality and corruption, galvanizes people through their action, their participation and camaraderie. Piven’s article appears in our special issue “Occupy the Safety Net.”

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—Jin Zhao