Politics in the Interest of Capital: A Not-So-Organized Combat.

Summary There is much to commend in Hacker and Pierson‘s (2011) analysis of a growing bias in US politics in favor of the wealthiest parts of society. However, the image of "politics as organized combat" draws our attention into the wrong direction. There is increasing evidence that organized groups are less pivotal in US politics than is generally assumed. Moreover, the insights on group politics do not travel well to Europe, where we find fundamentally different forms of political organization. Explaining rising inequalities in Europe requires understanding the structural features of finance capitalism rather than just political interactions.