In your book, you make vividly clear that the men gathered really fear democracy. What did they mean by the word democracy? And why do we have to understand that it did have an economic component to them very, very explicitly? The elites of the founding generation used that term for a number of different things.
Astra Taylor interviews William Hogeland on his book Founding Finance: How Debt, Speculation, Foreclosures, Protests, and Crackdowns Made Us a Nation. Hogeland recovers a fascinating crop of mostly-forgotten rebels, the movements they led, and their radical demands that put the landlords and lenders of their day on edge. He also recounts the complex and sometimes deadly machinations that went into suppressing them in order to create a nation that was safe for the owning and investing classes.
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