The Price of Freedom: How Inequality Is Stealing Your Liberty (This Week’s Inequality Roundup: June 13, 2025)
Each week, Untrickled curates essential stories on inequality in America. This edition explores how economic control and cultural authoritarianism often come from the same source.
Untrickled is about income inequality, but more and more I see that subject melding with the question of freedom. Recent pieces by people like , and many others explicitly make that point.
Economic freedom isn’t the same thing as religious or personal freedom, but the same forces that want to tell you what you can read, what you can say, how you can worship or who you can love are the same ones restricting you financially.
This is a country built on freedom, yet we are quite close to throwing it all away. I don’t know if we can still yank it back, because it turns out a whole lot of people are scared to death of freedom.
Erich Fromm’s Escape From Freedom is one of the books that’s had the biggest effect on shaping who I am. He wrote it just after World War II.
Here’s a quote from Chapter 1: “We have been compelled to recognize that millions in Germany were as eager to surrender their freedom as their fathers were to fight for it; that instead of wanting freedom, they sought for ways of escape from it; that other millions were indifferent and did not believe the defense of freedom to be worth fighting and dying for.”
I curate this weekly roundup of memes and analysis every Friday. Subscribe now and never miss another roundup. In addition to the roundup, I also post original work on this subject every Tuesday and Thursday. Every Saturday, look for my new feature, Poverty and Privilege. As always, if you find a new Substack you love, subscribe now!
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When Did TV Stop Worrying About Money?
Emily J. Smith, Unresolving
Historically, TV was a place to see yourself and everyday life reflected back on a screen. But increasingly, we’re flocking there to escape it.
And one can imagine why. If we watch a show about an average American worker today, we may have to stare into our own dismal realities: that we either dislike our jobs or fear losing them or both, while not making nearly enough to buy a home or start a family. As the wealth disparity continues to rise and the middle class continues to shrink, late-stage capitalism increasingly squeezing people for all their worth, no more chit-chatting at the water cooler, we’ve gotten to a point where reality for most people is quite unpleasant. And executives are betting that we don’t actually want to watch it.
Understanding Inequality, Part II
Paul Krugman
For more than a generation after World War II income disparities in America were relatively narrow. Some were rich and many were poor, but there was nothing like today’s extreme inequality, economic fragmentation and class warfare.
Then, beginning around 1980, inequality surged, leading to the incredibly high levels we see today. As I documented last week, not only have the top 1% in the income distribution pulled away from the remaining 99%, but within the top 1% the top 0.1%, the top 0.01% and the top 0.001% are pulling even further away. And this concentration of wealth at the top is corrupting our politics. Elon Musk’s claim that Trump would not have won in 2024 without him is quite plausible, while those currying favor with Trump by giving millions to his inaugural fund and buying his crypto-coins are clearly receiving favorable treatment.
When Only the Rich Can Afford a Dog
Michelle Teheux, Untrickled
Dogs may now be the only thing we all still agree on. We used to all agree on things like democracy and the rule of law, but that’s gone. Many’s the time I’ve disagreed with every single thing a Republican says, but we could at least share common ground on dogs.
What We Are Losing and Why We Must Protest
Joan Demartin, The Poverty Trap
The history of “we the people” protesting our government and its policies has been a strong and fairly successful one, steeped in the human desire to be free and to affect societal change. The U.S. is a representative democracy, and if those we elect don’t do our bidding, it is our right under the First Amendment to peacefully protest their policy choices and actions and to eventually vote the current batch of representatives out of office.
The Rat Who Tried to Save America
Michelle Teheux, Untrickled
“Your entire society has been turned into a giant cage. Nobody is happy. Unhappy people are much like unhappy rats. They abuse drugs. They fight each other. They don’t get along with others. They feel lonely. They kill themselves. They kill others. They don’t take good care of their pups, er, children.”
Don’t miss my current special series, Poverty and Privilege, which comes out every Saturday. Start with Part 1, Unlikely Allies in an Unequal America, and Part 2, The Country Club Lunch.
About Michelle Teheux
I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here and on Medium. I also have a new Substack aimed at authors who want to self-publish books, called The Indie Author. My most recent book is Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class. My most recent novel is The Trailer Park Rules. If you prefer to give a one-time tip, I accept Ko-fi.
All wealthy families are alike; each poor family is poor in its own way.
— Leo Tolstoy, if he had written about a trailer park
For residents of the Loire Mobile Home Park, surviving means understanding which rules to follow and which to break. Each has landed in the trailer park for wildly different reasons.
Jonesy is a failed journalist with one dream left. Angel is the kind of irresponsible single mother society just shakes its head about, and her daughter Maya is the kid everybody overlooks. Jimmy and Janiece Jackson wanted to be the first in their families to achieve the American dream, but all the positive attitude in the world can’t solve their predicament. Darren is a disabled man trying to enjoy his life despite a dark past. Kaitlin is a former stripper with a sugar daddy, while Shirley is an older lady who has come down in the world and lives in denial. Nancy runs the park like a tyrant but finds out when a larger corporation takes over that she’s not different from the residents.
When the new owners jack up the lot rent, the lives of everyone in the park shift dramatically and in some cases tragically.
Welcome to the Loire Mobile Home Park! Please observe all rules.
Wow! I read Escape from Freedom in the late 60s. I don't remember if I read it in Danish or English!
Love this post and sent it to a friend - we were talking about the relaunch she saw. I enjoyed the original very much. Thx for the info anout the Log Lady