• • Author of “Pity the Billionaire” Maps Our Ideological Fantasy World 
Aaron Leonard, Truthout Capitalism  | Interview with Thomas Frank.[Frank:] Not surprisingly, class conflict in America has always been sharper and more violent than in Europe. Think about the history of the American labor movement. It was much more violent here than in Europe. The employer class in American never wanted to give an inch. You think of someone like Ayn Rand. She would basically be impossible in Europe. She could have written her books there - she was, in fact, a European - but she wouldn’t have become this enormous celebrity, this guru of the right, in the way she has in America. Why? Business has always been much more powerful in this country than it has in other places. Maybe that is one of the things that makes us different from other industrialized countries. The American right has been convinced for a long time that they don’t need to accept the welfare state in any way. You don’t need a welfare state, is their claim. The market will fix everything.   Published: 2012-01-09