# The Book Club: How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracies

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Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373/the-book-club-how-oligarchs-dominate-our-democracies.md
Podcast: [Best of the Spectator](https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373)
Published: 2026-05-16T23:01:00+00:00
Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/best-of-the-spectator/episodes/the-book-club-how-oligarchs-dominate-our-democracies
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Duration seconds: 3457

## Resource

My guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is Jeffrey Winters, whose new book The Blind Spot: How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracies makes the case that democracy as it functions now isn’t, as many of us imagine, the only thing keeping the robber barons in check – it is, in fact, the very system that has enabled them to thrive. He tells me how the wealth gap in the US is now many multiples of that in ancient Rome, how extreme wealth translates into political power, and how reforming campaign finance laws is only a tiny part of the solution we need. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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