The publications listed below are all published in 2012
and 2013. Each book offers a different slant on the current conditions of the
US Economy, the demise of the US middle class each offering in considerable
detail income inequity and economic inequality in the US. From time to time additional books and source material will be added.
Inequality and Mobility of the US Middle Class:
The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future [Hardcover] Joseph E. Stiglitz
(Author) Publication
Date: June 11, 2012
A forceful argument against America's vicious circle of growing
inequality by the Nobel Prize–winning economist.
The top 1
percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. And, as Joseph
E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care,
education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that “their fate is
bound up with how the other 99 percent live.”
Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable: moneyed interests compound their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, trampling on the rule of law, and undermining democracy. The result: a divided society that cannot tackle its most pressing problems. With characteristic insight, Stiglitz examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.
Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable: moneyed interests compound their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, trampling on the rule of law, and undermining democracy. The result: a divided society that cannot tackle its most pressing problems. With characteristic insight, Stiglitz examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.
Inequality in America: Facts, Trends, and International Perspectives [Paperback]
Publication Date: July 16, 2012 $19.95
Income inequality has been on the rise since the late 1970s, but
the economic and financial crisis of 2008 instigated an unemployment epidemic
that dramatically compounded this problem in the United States and catapulted
the issue to the center of debate. There is wide agreement across the political
spectrum that high inequality is contributing to undesirable circumstances such
as stagnated median household income, rising poverty rates, and increased
borrowing and debt; though there is much less agreement on remedies.
Inequality in America provides a snapshot of the
issues posed by growing economic disparity, focusing particularly on America
but drawing on international comparisons to help set the context. The authors
examine the economic, technological, and political drivers of inequality as
well as identify worrying trends associated with its rise, making the issues
surrounding income distribution accessible to a wider public.
The authors, each affiliated with Brookings or the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, demonstrate how specific factors have
exacerbated income inequality, including technological change, international
trade, changes in labor market participation, and the increasing role of the
financial sector.
"Tackling the worst effects of inequality and reestablishing
a measure of equal opportunity requires increased investment in crucial public
goods, beginning with education, a more progressive and simplified tax system,
and increased international cooperation to avoid a race to the bottom. Such
policies are pursued by other high-performing advanced countries and can be
shaped in a way that is fully consistent with an efficient and competitive
American economy."
Affluence
and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America
(Russell Sage Foundation Copub) [Hardcover]
Martin Gilens
(Author)
Publication Date: July 22, 2012 |
Series: Russell Sage Foundation Copub $28.10
Can a country be a democracy if its government only responds to
the preferences of the rich? In an ideal democracy, all citizens should have
equal influence on government policy--but as this book demonstrates, America's
policymakers respond almost exclusively to the preferences of the economically
advantaged. Affluence and Influence definitively explores how political
inequality in the United States has evolved over the last several decades and
how this growing disparity has been shaped by interest groups, parties, and
elections.
With sharp analysis and an impressive range of data, Martin Gilens
looks at thousands of proposed policy changes, and the degree of support for
each among poor, middle-class, and affluent Americans. His findings are
staggering: when preferences of low- or middle-income Americans diverge from
those of the affluent, there is virtually no relationship between policy
outcomes and the desires of less advantaged groups. In contrast, affluent
Americans' preferences exhibit a substantial relationship with policy outcomes
whether their preferences are shared by lower-income groups or not. Gilens
shows that representational inequality is spread widely across different policy
domains and time periods. Yet Gilens also shows that under specific circumstances
the preferences of the middle class and, to a lesser extent, the poor, do seem
to matter. In particular, impending elections--especially presidential
elections--and an even partisan division in Congress mitigate representational
inequality and boost responsiveness to the preferences of the broader public.
At a time when economic and political inequality in the United
States only continues to rise, Affluence and Influence raises important
questions about whether American democracy is truly responding to the needs of
all its citizens.
The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It [Hardcover] Timothy Noah
Publication Date: April 24, 2012 Edition:
1 $14.70
For the past three decades, America has steadily become a nation
of haves and have-nots. Our incomes are increasingly drastically unequal: the
top 1% of Americans collect almost 20% of the nation’s income—more than double
their share in 1973. We have less equality of income than Venezuela, Kenya, or
Yemen.
What economics Nobelist Paul Krugman terms "the Great
Divergence" has until now been treated as little more than a talking
point, a club to be wielded in ideological battles. But it may be the most
important change in this country during our lifetimes—a sharp, fundamental
shift in the character of American society, and not at all for the better.
The income gap has been blamed on everything from computers to
immigration, but its causes and consequences call for a patient, non-partisan
exploration. In The Great Divergence, Timothy Noah delivers this
urgently needed inquiry, ignoring political rhetoric and drawing on the best
work of contemporary researchers to peer beyond conventional wisdom. Noah
explains not only how the Great Divergence has come about, but why it threatens
American democracy—and most important, how we can begin to reverse it.
Tax
Reform:
Simon
& Schuster | 288 pages | ISBN 9781451646191 | January 2012 $20.80
The United
States Tax Code has undergone no serious reform since 1986. Since then,
loopholes, exemptions, credits, and deductions have distorted its clarity,
increased its inequity, and frustrated our ability to govern ourselves.
At its core, any tax system is in place to raise the revenue needed to pay the government’s bills. But where that revenue should come from raises crucial questions: Should our tax code be progressive, with the wealthier paying more than the poor, and if so, to what extent? Should we tax income or consumption or both? Of the various ideas proposed by economists and politicians—from tax increases to tax cuts, from a VAT to a Fair Tax—what will work and won’t? By tracing the history of our own tax system and by assessing the way other countries have solved similar problems, Bartlett explores the surprising answers to all of these questions, giving a sense of the tax code’s many benefits—and its inevitable burdens.
Tax reform will be a major issue debated in the years ahead. Growing budget deficits and the expiration of various tax cuts loom. Reform, once a philosophical dilemma, is turning into a practical crisis. By framing the various tax philosophies that dominate the debate, Bartlett explores the distributional, technical, and political advantages and costs of the various proposals and ideas that will come to dominate America’s political conversation in the years to come.
At its core, any tax system is in place to raise the revenue needed to pay the government’s bills. But where that revenue should come from raises crucial questions: Should our tax code be progressive, with the wealthier paying more than the poor, and if so, to what extent? Should we tax income or consumption or both? Of the various ideas proposed by economists and politicians—from tax increases to tax cuts, from a VAT to a Fair Tax—what will work and won’t? By tracing the history of our own tax system and by assessing the way other countries have solved similar problems, Bartlett explores the surprising answers to all of these questions, giving a sense of the tax code’s many benefits—and its inevitable burdens.
Tax reform will be a major issue debated in the years ahead. Growing budget deficits and the expiration of various tax cuts loom. Reform, once a philosophical dilemma, is turning into a practical crisis. By framing the various tax philosophies that dominate the debate, Bartlett explores the distributional, technical, and political advantages and costs of the various proposals and ideas that will come to dominate America’s political conversation in the years to come.
US
Economy:
Beyond
Outrage: Expanded Edition: What has gone wrong with our economy and our
democracy, and how to fix it (Vintage) [Paperback] ($8.49) Robert
B. Reich September 4,
2012
The problem with our economy is that it currently
works for the few—corporate and Wall Street elites—at the expense of the rest
of us, former labor secretary Reich argues. Elites not only receive higher
compensation but enjoy greater job security. “Regressives”—politicians who have
been co-opted by big money—have turned the question of American morality upside
down. These regressive forces push a divide-and-conquer strategy, primarily by
raising alarms over deficit spending and asserting a need to cut public
programs that benefit the middle class and the poor. Reich notes the blame
heaped on public employees for state budget crises in comparison to that
accorded either Wall Street practices that led to the recession or the Supreme
Court’s Citizens United decision that removed limitations on corporate
contributions to political campaigns. Reich recommends that politicians and the
public get out of their ideological bubbles and face the need to raise tax
rates on the wealthy, reduce military spending, and restrict the size of banks
to reduce the risk to taxpayers in case of failure. --Vernon Ford
Pinched: How the Great Recession Has Narrowed Our Futures and What We Can Do About It [Paperback] Don Peck
(Author) August 7, 2012 $10.00
The Great Recession is not done with us yet. While the most acute
part of the economic crisis is past, the recession's most significant impact on
American life still lies in the future. The personal, social, and cultural
changes that result from severe economic shocks build and manifest themselves
only slowly. But history shows us that, ultimately, shocks this severe
profoundly alter the character of society.
Don Peck’s Pinched, a fascinating and harrowing exploration of our dramatic economic climate, keenly observes how the recession has changed the places we live, the work we do, and even who we are—and details the transformations that are yet to come. Every class and every generation will be affected: newly minted college graduates, blue-collar men, affluent professionals, exurban families, elite financiers, inner city youth, middle-class retirees.
This was not an ordinary recession, and ordinary responses will not fully end it. The crash has shifted the course of the economy. In its aftermath, the middle class is shrinking faster, wealth is becoming more concentrated, twenty-somethings are sinking, and working-class families and communities are changing in unsavory ways.
We sit today between two eras, buffeted, anxious, and uncertain of the future. Through vivid reporting and lucid argument, Peck helps us make sense of how our society has changed, and why so many people are still struggling.
The answers to these questions reveal a new way forward for America. The country has endured periods like this one before, and has emerged all the stronger from them; adaptation and reinvention have been perhaps the nation’s best and most enduring traits. The time is ripe for another such reinvention. Pinched lays out the principles and public actions that can help us pull it off.
Don Peck’s Pinched, a fascinating and harrowing exploration of our dramatic economic climate, keenly observes how the recession has changed the places we live, the work we do, and even who we are—and details the transformations that are yet to come. Every class and every generation will be affected: newly minted college graduates, blue-collar men, affluent professionals, exurban families, elite financiers, inner city youth, middle-class retirees.
This was not an ordinary recession, and ordinary responses will not fully end it. The crash has shifted the course of the economy. In its aftermath, the middle class is shrinking faster, wealth is becoming more concentrated, twenty-somethings are sinking, and working-class families and communities are changing in unsavory ways.
We sit today between two eras, buffeted, anxious, and uncertain of the future. Through vivid reporting and lucid argument, Peck helps us make sense of how our society has changed, and why so many people are still struggling.
The answers to these questions reveal a new way forward for America. The country has endured periods like this one before, and has emerged all the stronger from them; adaptation and reinvention have been perhaps the nation’s best and most enduring traits. The time is ripe for another such reinvention. Pinched lays out the principles and public actions that can help us pull it off.
Inequality and Instability: A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis [Hardcover] James K. Galbraith (Author) Publication Date: March 30, 2012
Inequality and Instability demonstrates that finance is the driveshaft that links inequality to economic instability. The book challenges those, mainly on the right, who see mysterious forces of technology behind rising inequality. And it also challenges those, mainly on the left, who have placed the blame narrowly on trade and outsourcing. Inequality and Instability presents straightforward evidence that the rise of inequality mirrors the stock market in the U.S. and the rise of finance and of free-market policies elsewhere. Starting from the premise that fresh argument requires fresh evidence, James K. Galbraith brings new data to bear as never before, presenting information built up over fifteen years in easily understood charts and tables. By measuring inequality at the right geographic scale, Galbraith shows that more equal societies systematically enjoy lower unemployment. He shows how this plays out inside Europe, between Europe and the United States, and in modern China. He explains that the dramatic rise of inequality in the U.S. in the 1990s reflected a finance-driven technology boom that concentrated incomes in just five counties, very remote from the experience of most Americans-which helps explain why the political reaction was so slow to come. That the reaction is occurring now, however, is beyond doubt. In the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis, inequality has become, in America and the world over, the central issue.
This book does a great job of explaining why you feel like you are
working harder but earning less. It gives lots of data to show exactly how much
the working class has lost in the past three decades - and how much the top
fifth has gained. It explains how the onset of competition from overseas,
Wal-Mart, and tax policies have contributed to this trend. It relates many
personal horror stories from extensive interviews. It also advises the
government on what it should do to correct the situation.
How the American Dream Ends:
For nearly 70 years, the suburbs were as
American as apple pie. As the middle class ballooned and single-family homes
and cars became more affordable, we flocked to pre-fabricated communities in
the suburbs, a place where open air and solitude offered a retreat from our
dense, polluted cities. Before long, success became synonymous with a private
home in a bedroom community complete with a yard, a two-car garage and a
commute to the office, and subdivisions quickly blanketed our landscape.
But in recent years things have started to change. An epic housing crisis revealed existing problems with this unique pattern of development, while the steady pull of long-simmering economic, societal and demographic forces has culminated in a Perfect Storm that has led to a profound shift in the way we desire to live.
In The End of the Suburbs journalist Leigh Gallagher traces the rise and fall of American suburbia from the stately railroad suburbs that sprung up outside American cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries to current-day sprawling exurbs where residents spend as much as four hours each day commuting. Along the way she shows why suburbia was unsustainable from the start and explores the hundreds of new, alternative communities that are springing up around the country and promise to reshape our way of life for the better.
But in recent years things have started to change. An epic housing crisis revealed existing problems with this unique pattern of development, while the steady pull of long-simmering economic, societal and demographic forces has culminated in a Perfect Storm that has led to a profound shift in the way we desire to live.
In The End of the Suburbs journalist Leigh Gallagher traces the rise and fall of American suburbia from the stately railroad suburbs that sprung up outside American cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries to current-day sprawling exurbs where residents spend as much as four hours each day commuting. Along the way she shows why suburbia was unsustainable from the start and explores the hundreds of new, alternative communities that are springing up around the country and promise to reshape our way of life for the better.
America’s unique prosperity is based on its creation of a middle
class. In the twentieth century, that middle class provided the workforce, the
educated skills, and the demand that gave life to the world’s greatest consumer
economy. It was innovative and dynamic; it eclipsed old imperial systems and
colonial archetypes. It gave rise to a dream: that if you worked hard and
followed the rules you would prosper in America, and your children would enjoy
a better life than yours.
The American dream was the lure to gifted immigrants and the
birthright opportunity for every American citizen. It is as important a part of
the history of the country as the passing of the Bill of Rights, the outcome of
the battle of Gettysburg, or the space program. Incredibly, however, for more
than thirty years, government and big business in America have conspired to
roll back the American dream. What was once accessible to a wide swath of the
population is increasingly open only to a privileged few.
The story of how the American middle class has been systematically
impoverished and its prospects thwarted in favor of a new ruling elite is at
the heart of this extraordinarily timely and revealing book, whose devastating
findings from two of the finest investigative reporters in the country will
leave you astonished and angry.
Hendrick Smith, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter, explains how the
middle-class prosperity after WWII (the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s) was reversed in
the 1980s, ’90s, and 2000s because of a long period of sweeping transformations
both in Washington’s policies and in the mind-set and practices of American business
leaders. American corporations paid high wages and good benefits after the war;
millions of workers spent their money; and business investment increased, which
led to growth, expansion, and higher living standards. The 1980s ushered in the
era of job losses and a lid on average pay scales; hence, consumer spending
declined, and the nation’s economy was negatively affected. We learn the top 1
percent (3 million people) got two-thirds of the U.S. economic gain between
2002–7, and the 99 percent (310 million) got one-third. Smith concludes, “We
are at a defining moment for America. . . . We must come together and take
action to rejuvenate our nation and to restore fairness and hope in our way of
life.” An informative account. --Mary Whaley
Retirement
Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers
[Hardcover] Ellen E. Schultz
(Author) $15.85 Publication
Date: September 15, 2011
"'As far as I can determine there is only one solution [to
the CEO's demand to save more money]', the HR representative wrote to her
superiors. 'That would be the death of all existing retirees.'"
It's no secret that hundreds of companies have been slashing
pensions and health coverage earned by millions of retirees. Employers blame an
aging workforce, stock market losses, and spiraling costs- what they call
"a perfect storm" of external forces that has forced them to take
drastic measures.
But this so-called retirement crisis is no accident. Ellen E.
Schultz, award-winning investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal,
reveals how large companies and the retirement industry-benefits consultants,
insurance companies, and banks-have all played a huge and hidden role in the
death spiral of American pensions and benefits.
A little over a decade ago, most companies had more than enough
set aside to pay the benefits earned by two generations of workers, no matter
how long they lived. But by exploiting loopholes, ambiguous regulations, and
new accounting rules, companies essentially turned their pension plans into
piggy banks, tax shelters, and profit centers.
Drawing on original analysis of company data, government filings,
internal corporate documents, and confidential memos, Schultz uncovers decades
of widespread deception during which employers have exaggerated their retiree
burdens while lobbying for government handouts, secretly cutting pensions,
tricking employees, and misleading shareholders. She reveals how companies:
·
Siphon billions of dollars from their pension plans to finance
downsizings and sell the assets in merger deals
·
Overstate the burden of rank-and-file retiree obligations to
justify benefits cuts while simultaneously using the savings to inflate
executive pay and pensions
·
Hide their growing executive pension liabilities, which at some
companies now exceed the liabilities for the regular pension plans
·
Purchase billions of dollars of life insurance on workers and use
the policies as informal executive pension funds. When the insured workers and
retirees die, the company collects tax-free death benefits
·
Preemptively sue retirees after cutting retiree health benefits
and use other legal strategies to erode their legal protections.
Though
the focus is on large companies-which drive the legislative agenda-the same
games are being played at smaller companies, non-profits, public pensions plans
and retirement systems overseas. Nor is this a partisan issue: employees of all
political persuasions and income levels-from managers to miners, pro- football
players to pilots-have been slammed.
It's the Middle Class, Stupid! [Hardcover] James Carville (Author), Stan Greenberg (Author) $17.43
Publication Date: July 10, 2012
It’s the Middle Class, Stupid! confirms what we have all
suspected: Washington and Wall Street have really screwed things up for the
average American. Work has been devalued. Education costs are out of sight.
Effort and ambition have never been so scantily rewarded. Political guru James
Carville and pollster extraordinaire Stan Greenberg argue that our political
parties must admit their failures and the electorate must reclaim its voice,
because taking on the wealthy and the privileged is not class warfare—it is a
matter of survival. Told in the alternating voices of these two top political
strategists, It’s the Middle Class, Stupid! provides eye-opening and
provocative arguments on where our government—including the White House—has
gone wrong, and what voters can do about it.
That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back [Paperback] Thomas L. Friedman (Author), Michael Mandelbaum (Author) $10.88 Released Sept 5 2012
CBS pre-release interview with Friedman at http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7418820n&tag=showDoorFlexGridRight;flexGridModule
30 years ago global completion i.e. Japan, threatened two
industries: auto and electronics, and one city (Detroit). Today every industry
and every town is threatened by global competition. When Friedman wrote the
“World is Flat” in which he discusses how the world has become connected.
Today, the world is hyper connected meaning that it has greater access to
cheaper software, automation, and labor, plus cheap robotics, and cheap
“genius” than ever before. “Average is over” we have to find our “extra”. He discusses several issues related to the
success of US economy: lack of infrastructure, no coherent immigration policy,
burdensome rules that prevent risk taking (but at the same time lack of
appropriate financial regulations) and the decline of government funded
research. But the fact that the US has
not gotten it right on in education is the biggest concern.
America is in trouble. We face four major challenges on which our
future depends, and we are failing to meet them—and if we delay any longer,
soon it will be too late for us to pass along the American dream to future
generations.
In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most
influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign
policy thinkers, offer both a wake-up call and a call to collective action.
They analyze the four challenges we face—globalization, the revolution in
information technology, the nation’s chronic deficits, and our pattern of
excessive energy consumption—and spell out what we need to do now to
sustain the American dream and preserve American power in the world. They
explain how the end of the Cold War blinded the nation to the need to address
these issues seriously, and how China’s educational successes, industrial
might, and technological prowess remind us of the ways in which “that used to
be us.” They explain how the paralysis of our political system and the erosion
of key American values have made it impossible for us to carry out the policies
the country urgently needs.
And yet Friedman and Mandelbaum believe that the recovery of
American greatness is within reach. They show how America’s history, when
properly understood, offers a five-part formula for prosperity that will enable
us to cope successfully with the challenges we face. They offer vivid profiles
of individuals who have not lost sight of the American habits of bold thought
and dramatic action. They propose a clear way out of the trap into which the
country has fallen, a way that includes the rediscovery of some of our most
vital traditions and the creation of a new third party movement to galvanize
the country.
With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful [Paperback] Glenn Greenwald
(Author) Publication
Date: July 3, 2012 First Edition $10.11
From "the most important voice to have entered the political discourse
in years" (Bill Moyers), a scathing critique of the two-tiered system of
justice that has emerged in America
From the nation's beginnings, the law was to be the great
equalizer in American life, the guarantor of a common set of rules for all. But
over the past four decades, the principle of equality before the law has been
effectively abolished. Instead, a two-tiered system of justice ensures that the
country's political and financial class is virtually immune from prosecution,
licensed to act without restraint, while the politically powerless are
imprisoned with greater ease and in greater numbers than in any other country
in the world.
Starting with Watergate, continuing on through the Iran-Contra
scandal, and culminating with Obama's shielding of Bush-era officials from
prosecution, Glenn Greenwald lays bare the mechanisms that have come to shield
the elite from accountability. He shows how the media, both political parties,
and the courts have abetted a process that has produced torture, war crimes,
domestic spying, and financial fraud.
Cogent, sharp, and urgent, this is a no-holds-barred indictment of
a profoundly un-American system that sanctions immunity at the top and
mercilessness for everyone else.
Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else [Hardcover]
Chrystia Freeland
(Author) Release Date: October 11,
2012 $15.98
A
groundbreaking examination of wealth disparity, income inequality, and the new
global elite
There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Alarmingly, the greatest income gap is not between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, but within the wealthiest 1 percent of our nation--as the merely wealthy are left behind by the rapidly expanding fortunes of the new global super-rich. Forget the 1 percent; Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at break-neck speed.
What’s changed is more than numbers. Today, most colossal fortunes are new, not inherited--amassed by perceptive businessmen who see themselves as deserving victors in a cut-throat international competition. As a transglobal class of successful professionals, today’s self-made oligarchs often feel they have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Bringing together the economics and psychology of these new super-rich, Plutocrats puts us inside a league very much of its own, with its own rules.
Plutocrats demonstrates how social upheavals generated by the first Gilded Age may pale in comparison to what is in store for us, as the wealth of the entire globalized world is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
Cracking open the tight-knit world of the new global super-rich is Chrystia Freeland, an acclaimed business journalist who has spent nearly two decades reporting on the new transglobal elite. She parses an internal Citigroup memo that urges clients to design portfolios around the international “Plutonomy” and not the national “rest”; follows Russian, Mexican, and Indian oligarchs during the privatization boom as they manipulate the levers of power to commandeer their local economies; breaks down the gender divide between the vast female-managed ‘middle class’ and the world’s one thousand billionaires; shows how, by controlling both the economic and political institutions of their nation, the richest members of China’s National People’s Congress have amassed more wealth than every branch of American government combined--the president, his cabinet, the justices of the Supreme Court, and both houses of Congress.
Though the results can be shocking, Freeland dissects the lives of the world’s wealthiest individuals with empathy, intelligence, and deep insight. Brightly written, powerfully researched, and propelled by fascinating original interviews with the plutocrats themselves, Plutocrats is a tour-de-force of social and economic history, and the definitive examination of inequality in our time.
There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Alarmingly, the greatest income gap is not between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, but within the wealthiest 1 percent of our nation--as the merely wealthy are left behind by the rapidly expanding fortunes of the new global super-rich. Forget the 1 percent; Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at break-neck speed.
What’s changed is more than numbers. Today, most colossal fortunes are new, not inherited--amassed by perceptive businessmen who see themselves as deserving victors in a cut-throat international competition. As a transglobal class of successful professionals, today’s self-made oligarchs often feel they have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Bringing together the economics and psychology of these new super-rich, Plutocrats puts us inside a league very much of its own, with its own rules.
Plutocrats demonstrates how social upheavals generated by the first Gilded Age may pale in comparison to what is in store for us, as the wealth of the entire globalized world is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
Cracking open the tight-knit world of the new global super-rich is Chrystia Freeland, an acclaimed business journalist who has spent nearly two decades reporting on the new transglobal elite. She parses an internal Citigroup memo that urges clients to design portfolios around the international “Plutonomy” and not the national “rest”; follows Russian, Mexican, and Indian oligarchs during the privatization boom as they manipulate the levers of power to commandeer their local economies; breaks down the gender divide between the vast female-managed ‘middle class’ and the world’s one thousand billionaires; shows how, by controlling both the economic and political institutions of their nation, the richest members of China’s National People’s Congress have amassed more wealth than every branch of American government combined--the president, his cabinet, the justices of the Supreme Court, and both houses of Congress.
Though the results can be shocking, Freeland dissects the lives of the world’s wealthiest individuals with empathy, intelligence, and deep insight. Brightly written, powerfully researched, and propelled by fascinating original interviews with the plutocrats themselves, Plutocrats is a tour-de-force of social and economic history, and the definitive examination of inequality in our time.
Magazine Articles and Other Sources
The Economist, October 12, 2012 edition Special Report World Economy “For Richer, for poorer”
Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends
Urban Institute Low-Income Working Families Project
Economic Policy Institute - State of Working Families Project
Center for American Progress – Middle Class Series
Boston College - Sloan Center on Aging and Work
The State of
Poverty The National Association for State Community Services
Programs' (NASCSP) Blog
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