I came across this partially completed painting in Milano, Stream of Humanity by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo. I had seen this image before on a blog post by economist Brad DeLong that I riffed off of for a post We Are the 100%.
Stream of Humanity Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo
The painting I saw in Milano was an incomplete version of a better known final painting that Pellizza da Volpedo called The Fourth Estate, a painting of striking workers marching in the street.
The Fourth Estate Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo
The City of Milano purchased The Fourth Estate in the 1920s and it subsequently has become a bit of an iconoclastic image used for showing the potential power of the working class. Hence, Brad DeLong used it with the term we are the 100%. If only more of the political class would follow this motto, we would all be a bit better off. But that requires the same of the voters. And perhaps it also requires empathy for the 100% as well.
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