The Billionaires Have Two Parties, We Need a Party of Our Own
How working people can build independent political power
By Les Leopold
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About the Book
For more than fifty years, working people in the United States have seen their wages stagnate, their jobs disappear, and their political influence collapse—while billionaires consolidate unprecedented wealth and power. Today, millions of voters feel politically homeless, alienated from both major parties and skeptical that either one is capable of delivering real change.
In The Billionaires Have Two Parties, We Need a Party of Our Own, labor educator and political strategist Les Leopold argues that this crisis is not a failure of working people—but a failure of the political system itself.
Grounded in original polling of voters in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the book reveals a striking truth: working people across the political spectrum are far more economically progressive than either party leadership acknowledges. They support bold policies like banning mass layoffs at profitable corporations, capping prescription drug prices, expanding health care, and guaranteeing the right to a living-wage job—while rejecting the culture-war distractions that dominate elite political discourse.
Leopold traces how both Democrats and Republicans became vehicles for corporate power, how gerrymandering and money in politics hollowed out democracy, and why efforts to “save” one party or find the next charismatic leader are unlikely to succeed without a mass working-class movement behind them.
Most importantly, Billionaires Have Two Parties is a book about what comes next. It explores whether a new working-class political organization is feasible, how it could be built, and why unions—despite their limitations—remain essential to any serious democratic revival. Rather than offering slogans or shortcuts, Leopold lays out a realistic, bottom-up strategy rooted in worker education, solidarity, and democratic participation. He reveals a strategy for reaching working people in ruby-red Congressional districts.
Clear-eyed but hopeful, rigorous but accessible, this book speaks directly to union members, community leaders, faith organizers, and anyone who believes American democracy cannot survive without economic justice. The billionaires already have two parties. The rest of us deserve one of our own.
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Book Reviews
“[Leopold] makes a serious and convincing case for why labor should join the electoral battle by running candidates in general elections as independents, and how this could pave the way to building a new third party — a relatively rare argument these days… Leopold’s analysis of what has gone wrong shares much in common with the current progressive take on the party’s problems. But Leopold makes a more novel argument as he moves to prescribing solutions. For Leopold, the party’s brand is so tarnished among working-class voters that well-meaning candidates who run under its banner will be hobbled by a ‘Democratic penalty’ that makes their odds of election slim. The solution is to make a clean break with the party.”
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About the Author
After graduating from Oberlin College and Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs (MPA 1975), Les Leopold co-founded and currently directs The Labor Institute (1975), a non-profit organization that designs research and educational programs on occupational safety and health, the environment and economics for unions, workers centers and community organizations. Sign up for Les Leopold’s substack for more. He is author of:
The Billionaires Have Two Parties, We Need a Party of Our Own (JP Zenger Press (2026);
Wall Street’s War on Workers (Chelsea Green 2024);
Defiant German, Defiant Jew (Amsterdam Publishers, 2020);
Runaway Inequality (Labor Institute Press 2015, 2017, 2018);
How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Financial Elites get away with siphoning off America’s Wealth (John Wiley and Sons, 2013);
The Looting of America: How Wall Street’s Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It (Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009)
The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2006.)
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More Information
ISBN (Paperback): 979-8-9949705-2-2
ISBN (E-book): 979-8-9985796-9-1
Publication date: 04/14/2026
Pages: 172 pages
Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0 in
- POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Democracy
- POLITICAL SCIENCE / Labor & Industrial Relations
- POLITICAL SCIENCE / American Government / General
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