How America's Corporate Class Became Legally Unaccountable (w/ Marie Gottschalk) | TCHR

How America's Corporate Class Became Legally Unaccountable (w/ Marie Gottschalk) | TCHR

From The Chris Hedges Report by Chris Hedges

July 23, 2026 · 47 min · Episode 111

About this episode

Chris Hedges interviews Professor Marie Gottschalk about the connections between state violence, economic decline, and the rise of mass incarceration in America.

Compared to other wealthy Western nations, the United States stands out for its high incarceration rates and military spending and declining standard of living. In her new book, “Crime and No Punishment: Wealth, Power and Violence, in America”, Professor Marie Gottschalk connects the dots between the “twin evils of state violence at home and imperial violence abroad.” She chronicles the rise of President Trump as a manifestation of the failures of the Democrats to stem police violence and address economic insecurity when they had opportunities to do so, and illustrates how the tendrils of US Empire permeate the current crises. Chris Hedges explores this history with University of Pennsylvania Professor Gottschalk in this episode of The Chris Hedges Report. They begin with Frederick Engel’s concept of ‘social murder’ in which the state creates conditions of social decline that shorten the lifespans of the general population. Hedges and Gottschalk point to deindustrialization during the mid-twentieth century and the oligarchic class’s fears of popular backlash as precursors to mass incarceration. They also discuss the growing militarization of policing as returning veterans were…

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