The Blind Spot How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracy

An urgent and revealing examination of how the ultra-rich dominate democracies, hoard political power, and maintain inequality that “grips like a political thriller, warns like an alarm, and astonishes on every page” (Jonathan Eig, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for King: A Life).

The wealthy and powerful few have dominated the many throughout most of human history. This is now more starkly visible than ever—a time when the gulf between oligarchs and average citizens is larger than any gap that existed during infamous feudal and slave societies of antiquity. We are hurtling ever deeper into a state of inequality that oligarchs of past eras could only have dreamed of; but for the first time in history, this domination is being accomplished through democracy. We aren’t in open revolt against the system—in fact, we seemingly keep voting to prop it up. Why?

In The Blind Spot, political scientist Jeffrey Winters delivers a timely, “provocative, accessible” (Kirkus Reviews) account of how we reached this era of in-your-face oligarchy. Tracing the evolution of wealth power through the modern democratic era, he demonstrates how domination by oligarchs isn’t a flaw in our democracy, but rather a foundational feature—one that allows the wealthy to limit the agenda, control the marketplace of ideas, and rewire the law to defend, hide, and increase their money and power.

“A work of fearful urgency” (Yanis Varoufakis, author of Technofeudalism), The Blind Spot ultimately sounds a clarion call for change, arming us not only with a vital lens through which we can understand just how bad our political reality has become, but also with bold ideas for how we might shift the balance of power.

Jeffrey A. Winters is a professor of political science at Northwestern University and the Director of the Equality Development and Globalization Studies Program at Northwestern’s Buffett Institute for Global Affairs. Renowned for his groundbreaking work on oligarchs and elites, Winters wrote the influential book Oligarchy, which reintroduced the term to modern audiences and won the 2012 Luebbert Prize for the best book in comparative politics. His insights have been featured in major media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NPR.