Revolt of the Rich S8 | E8

Radical Candor: Communication at Work

Radical Candor

Careers, Relationships, Society & Culture, Business

4.7 • 740 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While the podcast team is taking a Radical Sabbatical, Kim is interviewing authors of the books that have had a big impact on her in the past two years. Wealth concentration in the United States is top of mind these days. While it’s tempting to see this as a recent trend, it is instructive to look at what was happening in American politics decades ago and see how many of these forces were set in motion in the 1970’s. Kim talks with Prof. David Gibbs about his book, Revolt of the Rich, How the Politics of the 1970s Widened America's Class Divide. Prof. Gibbs reviews decisions that were made during the Nixon and Carter administrations that continue to reverberate in our world today. For example, during the first oil shock in the early 1970s, President Nixon actively worked to keep oil prices high to support the Shah of Iran and to prop up the dollar. The result was financialization and deindustrialization. Later in the decade, President Carter was central to the trend of deregulation. The net effect of these decisions was an erosion of the foundations of the American middle class. Technical note: we had an issue with one of the microphones on this interview that affected the sound quality. Sorry if this affects your enjoyment of this episode. Background on David Gibbs: David N. Gibbs is professor of history at the University of Arizona, whose past research has emphasized political conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and Afghanistan. He has published extensively in academic journals as well as the London Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Le Monde Diplomatique, Salon, and Jacobin. His third and most recent book is entitled: Revolt of the Rich: How the Politics of the 1970s Widened America’s Class Divide. His detailed personal website is at: https://dgibbs.arizona.edu/ Resources: Buy Revolt of the Rich on Bookshop.org (00:00) Introduction to the Radical Sabbatical Podcast (01:33) The Oil Crisis of the 1970s (04:46) Nixon's Role in the Oil Price Increase (09:59) Petrodollars and U.S. Economic Power (12:37) Financialization and Deindustrialization (15:05) Impact on Ordinary Americans (18:28) The Revolt of the Rich (21:34) The Shift in Economic Power (24:41) Political and Economic Alternatives (26:01) The Evolution of Taxation and Economic Policies (27:48) The Shift in Political Ideologies (30:18) Coalitions and the Rise of the Christian Right (32:30) Economic Conservatism and Social Issues (36:00 )Navigating Economic Uncertainty (40:43) Building Inclusive Economies (46:30) The Consequences of Inequality and Austerity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:04.8	Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Radical Sabatical podcast. This is Kim Scott, and while the Radical Candor
1:11.9	team is thinking about management topics to talk about, I'm going to be talking to the authors
1:17.5	of some of the books that I've read in the last year that have really influenced me. And I'm
1:22.7	thrilled to have with me today, David Gibbs, who wrote the book, Revolt of the Rich, how politics of the
1:31.1	1970s widened America's class divide. Welcome, David. Thank you for having me on to. Thank you so much
1:38.6	for being here. I have been thinking a lot about your book for about a thousand reasons since I read it.
1:46.1	It's, and in fact, I've come back to it a couple of times, but it's particularly top of mind for me right now, given my last trip to the gas station.
1:57.2	And given the anxiety that people are having about what the current administration is doing to the price of oil and what that is going to do to our economy. And one of the things that really surprised me that, I mean, maybe this, maybe everybody knew this except me. But when I read your book, is,
2:19.4	is during the oil crisis under Nixon, he actually wanted the price of oil to be high.
2:25.9	Can you tell folks what he did and why he wanted the price of oil to be high?
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