Can America Survive the Rule of a “Stupified Plutocracy”?

Lewis Lapham, who as editor of Harper's magazine made it essential reading, is without doubt our greatest living satirist, sardonic, erudite, righteous in the tradition of Twain, Mencken, Vidal and Hitchens. As the Times put it, "Lapham's portraits of his country are astute and his dry wit as sharp as a knife."

The occasion for this interview is the 30th anniversary reissue of his book of essays, Money and Class in America (with a new introduction by Thomas Frank), as essential a deconstruction of American political culture today as it was the moment it was first published in the decade that sent us spiraling down our current path.

Incidentally, Lapham Quarterly, the project of his "retirement," is out with a Special Issue: A History of Fake News.