You did gain focus over the first draft, which was a significant
improvement. But an economic history of the postwar US, constituted
mostly of citations to Mother Jones and Vanity Fair, is not very
closely researched or reasoned yet, I think. It would be hard to
write about the subject of inequality's roots in this era without
mentioning Thomas Piketty, I think, given the overwhelming response
to his work, but you managed it. Somewhat to your disadvantage, I
think, both because he is rigorous in his research and doesn't rely
on Mother Jones for his facts, and also because he shows that the
growth of inequality has occurred in societies whose tax policies
bear no relation to those of the US.
This somewhat undermines the idea that lowering capital gains taxes,
or the 1986 reforms to eliminate capital gains treatment altogether,
or their abandonment to return to complexity in the successor
administration, are the source of the problem. If, indeed, the
concentration of wealth and power had been created by tax policy
alone, it would be hard to understand your subsequent claim that the
concentration cannot easily be addressed within the current political
system.
Do you really mean to assert that "The past four decades have
witnessed the rise of a two-tiered justice system that shields and
immunizes the elite from the consequences of their criminal acts, yet
subjects ordinary citizens to very harsh criminal sanctions"? Are we
to imagine that in 1960, or 1910, or 1850, or 1800, or 1450, that
wasn't true? Why would you present this most fundamental injustice
as a recent development; surely you know that's wrong.
This was, I think, a good first draft. The route to improvement is
more precision in argument, more reliance on reliable research and
less reliance on magazine journalism and Glenn Greenwald (if those
are not synonymous). Senator Sanders could do what he did on the
basis of sentiments, but you are writing on the basis of fact.