Chrystia Freeland, Journalist/Author Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else joins Thom Hartmann. How did America's wealthy elite - the 1 percenters - rise to power - and what can be done to lower this nation's record high levels of income inequality?

Capitalism is in crisis, again. Do the writings of Karl Marx still have relevance as to why? Historian & Sociologist Robin Blackburn of the New Left Review joins Thom to discuss.

Wendell Potter, Nation On the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It (w/Nick Penniman)/Center for Public Integrity/Center for Media and Democracy, joins Thom. The United States of America is now - for lack of a better word - the best democracy money can buy. Billionaire oligarchs like the Koch Brothers now outspend political parties - members of congress spend most of their day begging for donations instead of writing new laws - and lobbyists make millions and billions selling access to the commons. Needless to say - this is not the world our founding fathers envisioned when the declared a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." We are now - as my guest for tonight's Conversations with Great Minds has titled his new book - A "Nation on the Take." So how did we get to this point? And how can we reform our campaign finance system to reclaim the democratic institutions our founders created?

For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

My guest for tonight's Conversations with Great Minds is one of the world's leading political scientists. Currently the Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University - Robert D. Putnam, who has been called "the most influential academic in the world." He has advised three U.S. presidents - and has won a number of distinguished awards. Professor Putnam's 2000 book Bowling Alone is considered a classic of its kind - an was a national besteller. His new book - "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis" - is a fascinating and challenging look at our nation's deep crisis of opportunity.

For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

Thom is joined by Jeff Shesol, author, Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court. He'll talk about how President Obama may be soon facing a crisis with the Supreme Court like one Franklin Roosevelt took on - and how it may play out. To watch this conversation again - as well as other Conversations with Great Minds - go to our website at www.conversationswithgreatminds.com

Pamela Haag PhD, The Gunning Of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture. Many Americans - even those who want more gun control - probably think that America's gun culture is something - well - uniquely American. Regulations might stop some shootings - the thinking goes - but they'll never undo the fact that Americans love guns - and have loved them ever since the pioneer days. Guns are just part of our cultural DNA - and there's nothing we can do about it. But is that really the case?

For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

Robert Borosage, Campaign for America's Future & Richard Eskow, Campaign for America's Future join Thom Hartmann. There's an old saying that once the last man who remembers the last great war dies, the next great war is inevitable. Have we reached that point in American politics? After Boomers like Henry Waxman retire, will anyone stand up for the policies that used to make our country prosperous? Let's talk about that period of post-War prosperity in America. Was it an accident of history or a conscious decision by people like FDR to create a middle class?