Underneath all the discouraging news we hear and read these days, there’s a movement slowly building out there that shows real promise, especially for America’s working class. As is typical with big social steps forward, this one is emerging from the ashes of what’s been destroyed.

That destruction, at least regarding the American economy, can be encapsulated in a single paradoxical sentence: As economic inequality in America has gotten worse and worse, our two major political parties have been doing less and less to solve it.

The result is widespread frustration today with both Democrats and Republicans. Not surprisingly, these sentiments coincide with a steady growth in the portion of Americans identifying as Independents—a group whose most consistent issue is basic economic fairness. (It’s worth noting that 45 percent of the electorate now consider themselves Independents. That is a record high—and a serious threat to our traditional parties, which now split the remainder of the electorate, with only 27 percent apiece.)

Fortunately, a growing number of organizations in the U.S. seem to be heeding the Independents’ call. Before I introduce you to them, let’s orient this discussion politically.

There are plenty of organizations today, on both the political Left and the Right, that claim to be pushing for changes that will make the economy work better for everyone, especially the working class—a group that includes more and more people referred to as “the working poor.” As you would expect, both sides take very different approaches to inequality problems.

Those differences were summarized in a recent article in the California Post by Jesse Ramos, Senior Advisor for one of the leading conservative groups, Americans for Prosperity Action. “Conservatives generally argue for decentralization, lower taxes, lighter regulation, domestic energy production and more decision-making authority at the state, local, family and individual level,” Ramos wrote. “Liberals generally place greater trust in federal programs, centralized regulation, subsidies, mandates and national administrative solutions to social and economic problems.”

Setting aside any missing nuances here, I’d say this is a fair summary of America’s two competing political philosophies. If nothing else, it certainly reflects much of what’s so appealing about the conservative movement. After all, who wants higher taxes? Almost no one. And what business owner wants their decisions controlled by pesky regulators? Ditto.

This anti-tax, anti-government worldview has now guided our politics, and most of Washington’s legislative changes, for more than a generation. If it held true—in other words, if it produced the level of opportunity and prosperity, for everyone, that most conservative groups claim to want—the economy would be very different today. We wouldn’t have corporate executives making $20 million-salaries, then paying taxes at rates that are a fraction of what’s required of their employees. And we wouldn’t have close to 70 million people across the country—nearly half the workforce—working for less than a livable wage.1

If this level of inequality is the result of a deregulated, low-taxed society, maybe it really is time to make America great again. But wouldn’t that mean going back to the rules that governed our economy when it was great?

In the 250 years that the U.S. has been a nation, we enjoyed our greatest period of economic strength and growth—what’s often called “The Golden Age of Capitalism”— in the two to three decades that followed the Second World War. During this period, income tax rates on corporations and the wealthy were much higher than they are today—almost three times higher for the super wealthy; wages kept up with inflation; and a more aggressive regulatory system kept business competition humming, and runaway monopolies largely at bay. (We also had reasonable limits on campaign spending in those decades, so that corporate interests couldn’t treat candidates like real estate ventures, to be bought and sold for their own profit. Which is sadly the norm today due to the 2010 Supreme Court Decision infamously known as “Citizens United.”)

Thanks to the larger tax receipts collected during the post-war years, our leaders in Washington financed an entire network of programs that lifted people out of poverty, educated veterans returning from war, and built up America’s middle class. In the decades since, as labor unions have been weakened, the middle class has gradually shrunk (a trend that undoubtedly inspired the cartoon that opens this column).2

I realize the 1960s and 1970s had plenty of troubles and blind spots, but the point at issue today remains: economic growth back then was more robust—and, more important, the fruits of that growth much more widely shared—than is the case today. An updated version of that era, not the broken system we have now, is what the organizations I want to tell you about are trying to revive.

A word of warning: Most if not all of these organizations—which you will meet one at a time, starting today—are known as politically liberal. That said, and in light of the context I just laid out, I think you will see that their economic goals are anything but. So I hope you will focus on their work, not their identities.

The first organization I want to tell you about is The Working Families Party, which is one of the powerhouses in the movement to level the economic playing field in this country. Through its relatively rapid growth, the WFP is starting to fill the gaping void left by the failures of both Democrats and Republicans. To that end, the WFP recently released what they call “The Working Families Guarantee.” Not coincidentally, it promises a variety of policy changes—such as lower housing costs, universal healthcare, low-cost childcare, and strengthened unions—that have polled as widely popular, even among conservative voters.

The WFP’s agenda is light on specifics at this point, but it fits hand-and-glove with a similar set of proposals, introduced almost simultaneously, called “The New Affordability Agenda.” And this plan does include tangible ways to achieve its ends, through 10 different legislative bills, all with committed Congressional sponsors.

In the spirit of my message in this column, I should note that this agenda comes from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. While the CPC is often considered ultra-liberal (and some of its members definitely are, especially on certain social issues), the group’s economic plan is remarkably centrist. Like the Working Families Party, the CPC restricted its agenda to ideas that are widely popular—in its case, with at least 60% of Americans, on both the Left and on the Right. That strikes me as very promising, for all of us.3

See you next month. And in the meantime, please check out the WFP’s accomplishments, and let me know what you think.