Taking Down Oligarchy - Metacrisis Salon #14

​**This Salon is taking place on a Thursday to accommodate Jeffrey's schedule**

​Jeffrey Winters has spent a career studying oligarchy: how does a handful of people hold power over everyone else, in broad daylight, without anyone stopping them?

His new book, The Blind Spot, has the answer, and it's not the one you're expecting. Democracy didn't get broken by oligarchy. It was built to protect it. Real participation and stable inequality, held together from the start, and still running today.

In this salon, you'll learn about: what oligarchy actually is, which is older and closer to home than you think. How the machine runs, through the lawyers and accountants and lobbyists Winters calls the Wealth Defense Industry. Why the obvious strategies to fight it get people killed, from Guatemala in 1954 to Chile in 1973, none of them revolutions, all of them elections that worked. Where the cracks are, starting with the fact that feudal lords kept private armies and today's oligarchs don't. And finally what to build now, and what to have ready for when the ground shifts.

Across every democracy on earth, thousands of organizations are fighting... and yet nobody has ever founded anything you could call an Institute for Doing Something About Oligarchy. This is what we'll be focused on.

Every salon we host sells out. Don't wait to get a ticket.

Evening Flow
6:00 PM, Arrival & mingling
7:00 PM, Welcome & framing
7:15 PM, Presentation Part 1
7:40 PM, Q&A + Activity
8:00 PM, Presentation Part 2
8:20 PM, Q&A
8:40 PM, Community Announcements + Close
8:50 PM, Book Signing + Break
9:00 PM, Community Deepening
10:00 PM, End

Community-made vegan & gluten-free dinner, snacks, and drinks provided.

We have a handful of FREE tickets for Volunteers who want to help with setup (4 PM) and/or cleanup (10 PM). DM me if you're interested.

Copies of The Blind Spot will be available to buy and sign.