Showing results for "Wealth" in Social Classes & Economic Disparity

Noam Chomsky is widely regarded as the most influential thinker of our time, but never before has he devoted a major book to one topic: income inequality. Requiem for the American Dream is not an essay collection but an entire work of some 70,000 words, based on four years of interviews with Chomsky by the editors. It is a book that makes Chomsky's breadth and depth accessible and at the same time gives us his most powerful political ideas with unprecedented, breathtaking directness.

Capital is the defining feature of modern economies, yet most people have no idea where it actually comes from. What is it, exactly, that transforms mere wealth into an asset that automatically creates more wealth? The Code of Capital explains how capital is created behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, and why this little-known fact is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else.

For decades, a secret army of tax attorneys, accountants, and wealth managers has been developing into the shadowy Wealth Defense Industry. These "agents of inequality" are paid millions to hide trillions for the richest 0.01 percent.

Recently, it has become increasingly evident that extreme concentrations of wealth and power have profound impacts on our politics, but extreme inequality's influence on our daily lives—and our futures—has been vastly overlooked. In Burned by Billionaires, Chuck Collins, an author and a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, chronicles how the actions of the top .01% have severe consequences for the rest of us.

How do the rich keep getting richer, while dodging the long arm of the law? The ultra-rich seem to live in a different world from the rest of us. That world is called offshore. Hidden from view, the world's ultra-rich can use offshore finance to escape tax obligations, labor and environmental safety regulations, campaign finance rules, and other laws that get in their way.

A sweeping, narrative history of Black wealth and the economic discrimination embedded in America’s financial system. The early 2020s will long be known as a period of racial reflection. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Americans of all backgrounds joined together in historic...

The US racial wealth gap is large, and it's compounding. It's time to close it. Minding the Wealth Gap shines a light on people doing this important work and explores how you can get involved too. Generations of public and private practices have left Black households $15 trillion and 400 years behind white households. Minding the Wealth Gap is both a powerful catalyst and a call to arms, urging America's entrepreneurs, executives, government officials, and other leaders to join these efforts and take meaningful steps toward a more equitable future for all.

“Ford’s overlap of past and present, narrative and commentary is masterful, and makes this volume all the more valuable to those readers wise enough to allow the past to inform the future. Of Blood and Sweat is a myth-busting work of genius that will stand as the last word on this vital...

The leading lights of the tech revolution – Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk – have been hailed as savants and saviours of the modern age. And yet they are at the forefront of wealth inequality not seen since the heyday of the robber barons in the late 19th century, part of the slide to the First World War. Today, rampant inequality is inciting social unrest and undermining faith in the institutions of the democratic state. Citizens have been left at the mercy of unfettered capitalism – mere data subjects, endlessly surveilled, marshalled and increasingly angry and polarised.

This urgent exploration of why American society is in trouble—and how to fix it, starting with the places we call home—is an “essential and engaging read for everyone who wants to better understand the challenges facing our cities, towns and our nation.” (Richard Florida, author of The...

Understanding wealth in the United States - who has it, how they acquired it, and how they preserve it - is crucial to addressing the economic and political challenges facing the nation. But until now we have had little reliable information. Edward Wolff, one of the world's great experts on the economics of wealth, offers an authoritative account of patterns in the accumulation and distribution of wealth since 1900. A Century of Wealth in America demonstrates that the most remarkable change has been the growth of per capita household wealth.

This groundbreaking book tracks the massive wealth amassed from slavery from pre-Civil War to today, showing how our modern economy was built on the backs of enslaved Black people—and lays out a clear argument for reparations that shows exactly what was stolen, who stole it, and to whom it is...

Historian Calvin Schermerhorn traces four hundred years of Black dispossession and decapitalization—what Frederick Douglass called plunder—through the stories of families who have strived to earn and keep the fruits of their toils. Their struggles reveal that the ever-evolving strategies to strip Black income and wealth have been critical to sustaining a structure of racialized disadvantage. These accounts also tell of the quiet heroism of those who worked to overcome obstacles and defy the plunder.

Since the Great Recession, most Americans' standard of living has stagnated or declined. Economic inequality is at historic highs. But inequality's impact differs by race; African Americans' net wealth is just a 10th that of White Americans, and over recent decades, White families have accumulated wealth at three times the rate of Black families. In our increasingly diverse nation, sociologist Thomas M. Shapiro argues, wealth disparities must be understood in tandem with racial inequities - a dangerous combination he terms "toxic inequality".