Dear Common Dreams Readers:
Steven Hill
Steven Hill is a Senior Fellow with the New America Foundation and a Holtzbrinck Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He is a political writer and author of five books, including Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers (October 2015) and the internationally praised Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age. His previous books include 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy; Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics; and Whose Vote Counts (with Rob Richie). He is co-founder of FairVote and former director of the political reform program at the New America Foundation. For more information, visit Steven Hill's website at www.Steven-Hill.com. Follow him on Twitter: @StevenHill1776
Articles by this author
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Views Friday, August 26, 2016 Here’s a Bold Idea for Hillary’s Troubled Campaign Hillary Clinton is ahead in the polls, but it's more due to Donald Trump’s many blunders than excitement with Mrs. Clinton. She has benefited from being the anti-Trump. But new allegations about the FBI finding another 15,000 missing emails, as well as evidence of a possible “pay-to-play” donation... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, August 24, 2016 Can Workers Get a Fair Deal in the Gig Economy? More and more businesses are exploiting what is known as the “1099 worker loophole”—hiring workers as “independent contractors” instead of as regularly employed workers. In some cases, companies have laid off all or most of their regular workers and then hired them back, but as independent... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, December 02, 2015 Are Uber Drivers Figuring Out a Way to Fight Back? The behemoth ride-sharing service Uber has jolted city after city like a mighty earthquake. It has gained a momentum that seems almost unstoppable. Some say it portends the future of the U.S. economy. At the least, taxi companies and their antiquated medallion system are being crushed. And yet Uber... Read more |
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Views Monday, September 14, 2015 How Stephen Colbert Blew It with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick Stephen, I realize it's only entertainment and that your job is to make people laugh. But when you bring on a very un-funny fellow like Travis Kalanick, it seems you and your production team should think a little more cleverly about how you put lipstick on that pig. This is not at all a defense of... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, September 09, 2015 How Uber Could Be Part of the Solution (Instead of Embroiled in Controversy) With an eye on future development, it becomes increasingly important to view our streets as a public utility, as much as our electricity, sewage and communication systems. The subways, buses, personal autos, trucks, taxis and now on-demand ridesharing vehicles together form a transportation system... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, August 17, 2011 Europe's Quiet Revolution The overarching challenge in the world today is: how do we advance the institutions and practices capable of enacting a desirable quality of life for a burgeoning global population of 6.5 billion people? And how do we accomplish that in a way that does not burn up the planet in a Venus atmosphere of our own creation? That is a tall order to fill, yet it is the defining task of the 21st century. RootsAction is calling for a bold jobs plan to address poverty. Read more |
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Views Sunday, May 08, 2011 Was Rahm Right (about Progressives)? In 2009, then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel infamously said that progressives are “fucking retarded.” Lately I’ve begun to think he was correct—though not for the same reasons as Emanuel, who thought that progressives held unrealistic expectations for his boss, President Barack Obama. Progressives are retarded because they had those expectations for Obama to begin with, and poured so many of their hopes and aspirations—not to mention dollars—into electing him. Read more |
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Views Sunday, January 23, 2011 China's Half Steps Towards Democracy During the state visit for Chinese President Hu Jintao, President Barack Obama pressed President Hu on human rights , but he also should have pushed a message about the importance of spreading democracy in China. If he had done that, he may have been surprised at what he would have heard. Read more |
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Views Saturday, November 20, 2010 Reconsidering Japan… Reconsidering Paul Krugman The New York Times is doing a series on Japan that it describes as an examination of "the effects on Japanese society of two decades of economic stagnation and declining prices." Reading the series is about as cheery a task as rubbernecking at a car wreck on I-95. But unfortunately the Times series simply repeats the "conventional wisdom" about Japan put out by the same economic experts who missed an $8 trillion housing bubble in the United States, and in fact have been wrong on most of the big economic issues over the past two decades. Read more |
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Views Friday, November 12, 2010 Europe Ponders US Elections Results For several weeks before the recent U.S. election, there was much nervous speculation among Europeans as they watched the fluctuations of the poll numbers. Now that the results are in, Europeans are perplexed by this turn back toward the politics of the Bush-Cheney era. Read more |