Book Description
Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. (Proverbs 30:8)One of the most difficult questions facing Christians today is that of the proper attitude toward possessions. In wealthy nations such as Britain and the USA, individuals accumulate much and yet are daily exposed to the plight of the poor, whether the homeless on their own city streets or starving children on their TV screens. What action should we take on behalf of the poor? What should we do with our own possessions?In Neither Poverty nor Riches Craig Blomberg asks what the Bible has to say about these issues. Avoiding easy answers, he instead seeks a comprehensive biblical theology of possessions. And so he begins with the groundwork laid by the Old Testament and the ideas developed in the intertestamental period, then draws out what the whole New Testament has to say on the subject, and finally offers conclusions and applications relevant to our contemporary world.Neither Poverty Nor Riches is one book that all should read who are concerned with issues of poverty and wealth.
Customer Reviews:
Not what it purports to be.......2007-06-20
This author takes up an offense for the poor against the wealthy categorizing those with wealth - all western cizilization - as the reason many/most poor cannot escape structural poverty despite their efforts. The perspective is not completely unfair looking at the history of fallen man and his abuse of his brother, but this bias limits the credibility of the premise of the book as a Biblical Theology of possessions. Unfortunately this bias causes the author to ignore important Biblical principles in order to make his point. I was very disappointed. I did, however, find his chapter summaries to be helpful.
Great Biblical academic study.......2007-01-10
As a Christian financial advisor, this is a great book to help me understand the Bible's view of money. I wish to help my clients see money not as an end goal but as a tool to use to spread God's kingdom. This book is a great tool to help me understand those Biblical principles. The writing is very thorough and academic and may be dry to the common layman, and not every chapter is very applicable on a daily basis, but that really isn't the point of the book. For someone who wants to understand the overall view of money in the Bible, this would be a valuable reference.
A Solid Survey of God's Perspective on Possessions.......2006-06-30
God's been really dealing with me lately about my money spending habits and my whole philosophy of material possessions in general. I read about how Bill Bright gave all of his money to start Campus Crusade for Christ, and refused to take a salary, or own a house or own a car. I read about how Dr. Tony Evans and Dr. Rick Warren are reverse tithers, giving 90% of what they take in. And I was starting to wonder what God's will was in this whole matter of possessions. So I ordered Craig Blomberg's book, having read his awesome work "Jesus and the Gospels," and finding him to be a trustworthy and reliable exegete.
I was very impressed with this book. I like how he started with the Old Testament, and how he pointed out the generosity of the patriarchs (Abraham in particular), and how even Joseph used the possessions he had access to to provide grain for the world and for his starving brothers and family.
He then talks about wealth as God's covenant blessing to the Israelites if they obeyed Him (and how that this principle is not transferable to the New Testament era, as we have our own covenant with God that is NOT tied to the land).
There is also a discussion of wealth and possessions in Proverbs and in the other salient Old Testament books, Blomberg concludes that wealth is a blessing from God and that we should use what we have to be a blessing to others and especially to the poor around us (Proverbs 3:27-28; Deuteronomy 15:11). He notes the texts that promise judgment to those who neglect the poor (Proverbs 11:24-26; 21:13). He concludes that the overall OT understanding of personal possessions is summed up in Proverbs 30:8-9 (Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me my daily bread). As he says later on page 131, "Ask God to meet your needs, not your greeds." Right on!
There is a brief chapter summarizing the widely different views of possessions in Jewish intertestamental literature, as well as the literature of the Stoics and of Aristotle, and of other Greco-Roman writers.
Then Blomberg discusses the New Testament data. He notes that the overall message of the parables is that we need to be ready to part with material possessions to serve God wholeheartedly, to put kingdom concerns over material concerns. He interprets the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46) as Jesus' call to minister to the physical and emotional needs of his workers in particular. He is aware that this text has been co-opted by many as a directive toward all people, and while he acknowledges this as an admirable venture, he feels that this is a misinterpretation of the text.
I couldn't wait for Blomberg to get to the story of the rich young ruler, and I liked what he had to say. He notes that the young man's wealth stood in the way of him becoming a disciple of Jesus, and Jesus called him on it.
Yet Blomberg stops short of giving a clear application for believers today based on this text. I found myself wishing he had said more. He did say later that we cannot be legalistic and demand that everyone give 100% of what they have to the poor, as apparent from the fact that not everyone in scripture does this.
Blomberg also notes that the New Testament is consistent with the Old Testament in its admonitions to give generously to the poor (Mark 10:21, Luke 11:41). He goes on to say that Mary's anointing Jesus with the expensive perfume (John 12) was an extravagant act of giving in advance of a one time, never to be repeated event (the death and burial of Jesus).
Blomberg also surveys the material found in James, noting that true salvation will result in doing good in the lives of those are less fortunate.
He also discusses the material in Acts, observing that the early church tried to take the words of Deuteronomy 15:4 seriously (there shall be no poor among you). People regularly sold their possessions and laid the money at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need (Acts 4:32-36; Acts 2:43). Blomberg also recognizes that these were not one time acts, but as needs were made known.
He notes that Dorcas (Acts 9:36, Cornelius (Acts 10:2-4), and the Antioch church (Acts 11:27-30) are all commended for their giving.
He also points out that there are a number of wealthy people in Acts who use their possessions to be a blessing, yet they still held on to some of their wealth as well (Lydia in Acts 16, Aquila and Priscilla, who apparently had enough money to travel (Acts 18:2-3), and others.)
In surveying Paul's letters, he notes Galatians 2:10, which mentions the desire of the Jerusalem leadership and of Paul to remember the poor.
He observes that Paul is consistent with James in that genuine Christianity should lead to obedience, including the whole area of financial stewardship.
He notes from 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus that families should take care of their own before they burden the church with requests for support.
Blomberg also recognizes the possibility that Christians may be rich, as he instructs the wealthier members not to put their hope in their wealth, but to put their hope in God and to be generous (1 Timothy 6:17-18).
In surveying the Johannine literature, Blomberg states that Jesus is no ascetic, as demonstrated by his generously turning the water into wine, and his feeding of the 5000, and cooking breakfast for the disciples (John 21), after he allows them to catch 153 fish!
Blomberg concludes that there is danger in oversimplifying what the Bible says about material possessions. Yet he gives these observations: 1. Material possessions are a gift from God meant for His people to enjoy. 2. Material possessions can be used by Satan to turn people's hearts from God (Gen 3, 1 Tim 6:10). 3. A sign of spiritual life is that we become better stewards of what God has blessed us with (Jas 2:14-17; 1 John 3:17-18). 4. Certain extremes of wealth and poverty are intolerable. 5. The Bible's teaching about material possessions are intertwined with its teaching about spiritual matters.
Blomberg also gives a personal testimony of how he was challenged to give 25% ofhis money for ministries around the world, and now he and his wife give over 30% of their income, even though his family's income is $4000 less than the average suburbanite family in his neighborhood, and he gives all the glory to God.
This was a great book, and it makes me want to experience more of God's blessings by being a generous giver.
A book worth working through.......2005-11-07
I read Dr. Blomberg's book several years ago and I consider it one of those "life-altering" books that come along every once in a while that actually causes a change in behavior. The book is scholarly (as Dr. Blomberg stated that he read very widely on the subject of wealth), but can be read by the average layperson who is used to reading the opinion section of the daily newspaper. The book's title comes from Proverbs 30:7-9, a beautiful "life verse" if you're into that sort of thing.
The Biblical Theology aspect of the book examines the positives and negatives of wealth in the Scriptures: how it has been used for good by those whom God has blessed with abundance and how it has been a source of contention, covetousness, and even idolatry. Even a casual reading of the historical books and the Prophets will reveal that when the kings (and in turn the people) turned away from the LORD, it led to worshiping false gods, which resulted in great injustices done to the poor, the widows, and the fatherless. A contrast is shown in those who barely had enough to survive, but were called upon to feed the LORD's prophets and thus were blessed as a result (1 Kings 17:7-16; 2 Kings 4:1-7). The Torah called upon the covenant community to provide food for the poor in practical ways such as leaving gleanings in the field (Leviticus 23:22; Ruth 2:8-9).
Among the Christian community there were those who used their resources to house missionaries (Acts 9:43; 17:7; 3 John 5-8) and host "house" churches (Philemon 1:2). Jesus' ministry was also supported by those with means (Luke 8:3; see also Luke 10:38). Conversely, the love of money is listed among the godlessness to characterize the last days (2 Timothy 3:2 - not limited to the present time), can prevent one from entering the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:23; Luke 18:24), divides loyalties (Matthew 6:24), and may even determine the fate of one's eternal destiny (Luke 16:19-25; cf. Matthew 25:14-46).
The sources cited by Blomberg are not limited to evangelical authors (the same is true with his other books) and some of his conclusions may be a bit upsetting to those who are conservative in their politics and their theology. Of course, these same conclusions may be upsetting to those who are liberal in their politics and their theology as well! The balance, then, is Blomberg's belief in the God of the Hebrew and Greek Testaments (seeing the documents as historically reliable), but not linking Christianity to a certain political or economic system as is the tendency in the West (and the East as well).
Wealth in and of itself is not evil. The ability to produce wealth comes from God (Deuteronomy 8:18) and this gift is to be used to bless others, with the ultimate goal of bringing glory to God. While Bruce Wilkinson's book The Prayer of Jabez also has a (supposed) theme of "bless me so I can bless others," it unfortunately takes the prayer found in 1 Chronicles 4:9 out of its historical context (who reads 1 Chronicles anyway?) and does not take into account any suffering that may effect from living the Christian life.
Neither Poverty nor Riches changed my view of money and has caused me to pause and consider how I use it. Dr. Blomberg's own application in the last few pages of the book is a fabulous testimonial to how we can be faithful stewards of what God has given us, giving a witness to the world as servants of Christ.
Challenging, comprehensive overview.......2003-01-07
I read this book as background for preaching on Christian giving and its relationship to tithing in the Old Testament. Blomberg provides a detailed look at the Bible's teaching on money and possessions, by examining the various biblical corpora.
He also gives sobering, up-to-date information on how Americans spend their money and the proportion of it which they give to Christian missions. His account of his own journey on this issue is one of the many helpful features of the book.
I also appreciated his discussion of capitalism versus socialism. This is done with grace, and should be helpful to you, whatever point of view you have.
As a result of reading this book, I have been challenged to develop a plan for my own giving. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for sensible guidance on Christian stewardship.
Customer Reviews:
Is it economics and morals? (Pat Padley's review).......2004-05-02
Even though I have had to read this book for an Economic class, I actually got something out of it. From what I understand this has become an aditional way of learning about supply side economics, which is still very confusing. I have also read many of the other reviews and I agree that this could very well become a bible for Reaganomics. I guess the one question I would ask is if George Gilder also took an Adam Smith view to some things. It seemed like he kept focusing on the individual view point of things. The way he proposed ideas is that it sounded like he wanted us to look over not just the mathematics, but the whole human spectrum. This includes faith, history, technology, etc.
This book actually suprised me. I really didn't think I would enjoy it at all. Even though I was forced to read it for Econ, I'm glad I got to read this book. Gilder's as if moral views kept me interested.
To one-sided ...........2004-03-25
whose review is below. I cant believe that this reviewer believes that corporate "welfare" disproves the thesis of this book. How moronic can one be? The difference dear child is that corporations still are in business and trying to produce a profit. An individual on welfare does nothing to earn an income, or very little at most. Thus the incintive not to work. Corporate welfare is just as incidious in my book, but at least the corporation is trying to profit from as many revenue centers as it can.
I was so much older then I'm younger than that now.......2001-08-10
This book which most of us, who read books like this, read 20 years ago should be reread again today. The prescience and accuracy of its viewpoints are worth prolonged cogitation for members on either side of the aisle. Perhaps it could be recommended reading along with the cliff notes of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations"? Okay, at least for Graduate students in the social sciences?
Gilder points out that we have been misled by popular economics as it relates to how we increase wealth and curtail poverty. He then introduces the concept of Supply-Side Economics to the general reader. He fulminates about how misguided policy has undermined the true source of wealth that is to be found in such nonmaterial forces as creativity, technological adventure, and the motivation to strike out for new territory in economic enterprise. He talks about how the blunting of incentives and the efforts to redistribute the wealth, in a just fashion, only serve to keep the poor in poverty. He contrasts this with his description of the true capitalist as one who invests energy and money today for a return he may or may not receive in the future. Is this not the model for describing the difference between children and adults? Is it not a model for delayed gratification one which most of the world eschews? They instead opt for a metaphorical traffic jam at the waterhole of natural resources with the alpha chimp and his cohorts ripping off the biggest piece.
When Gilder talks about the LEFT getting it exactly backwards it reminds me of what Balint Vazsonyi writes about in his book "America's 30 Years War: Who's winning?" He says, "contrary to the prevailing (classic Marxist-Leninist) thinking that economic conditions provide the foundations and everything else is "superstructure", the truth is the other way around. Our spectacular economic success is the result of a unique legal-moral foundation upon which a successful political system has been built".
To show how deep the roots of misguided economic thinking go consider that even Christianity is built on a communistic notion of sharing, and an abhorrence for profit that is seemingly earned on the backs of the laborers. This results in men of the cloth, all to often economically illiterate ones, preaching the wrong formulae to the poor. Basically, "you're poor because they're rich". This Liberation theology is echoed in Marx's backward reading of human nature and the economic consequences of risk and reward. Gilder sets us straight.
Amazing isn't it? We still have academics teaching this LEFT-wing nonsense in respected universities across America while their acolytes storm the barriers in Seattle, Washington, Genoa, etc; all in an attempt to wipe out a system that has brought greater wealth to more people than any other in human history, something even Marx himself acknowledged.
Too me, it's about a pursuit of power and money at the top that is coupled with a reliance that those further down the pyramid of man will continue to engage in blocking and denial. Thus the proles can act as enablers of the "Priests" of the LEFT, those who commit the worst sorts of human crimes (see "the Black Book of Communism"), their zeal inversely proportionate to the laws of unintended consequence which they continue to violate with reckless abandon.
Perhaps a futuristic pill will be uncovered that will allay the LEFT's fevered assessment of mankind's ills and grant them the ability to reason while providing them with much needed relief from their pervasive envy. Read this book along with Myron Magnet's "the Dream and the Nightmare" to get a feel for the intellectual firmament of the Bush II administration, and pray for another cable network.
Excellent in all ways but ..........2001-02-11
When I was a young woman, just starting out, I read this book. I learned much about the nature of wealth and the role that government policy has in creating and diminishing wealth for all ("Tax something, you get less of it, subsidize something, you get more of it"). Time and opportunity costs are also considered in this first-rate, eminently readable primer on macroeconomics. Finally, his message to minorities who have been injured by past discrimination -- which is basically, "Get over it!" -- is probably the most useful, however unsympathetic (who needs sympathy -- we want wealth, right?) However, I was and am disappointed in Gilder's treatment of women. He should read Ayn Rand. As a woman and a technician, I don't see possessing the same no-excuses, ability-driven love of achievement as unfeminine. Nor is my schoolteacher-husband's gentleness and quiet intuition unmasculine. We are FREE to do and be what we want! What I see in Gilder is a whining demand that women stop putting so much competitive pressure on men so that they can feed their egos at our expense. What would he say to a (male) CEO who demanded his corporate competition give him a "break?" Doesn't he get the basic fact that a free market must be free for all, or it is not really free? Stick to free-market economics, George!
One of the most influencial books of the Reagan era........2000-11-12
At some point in the last 15 years, the meaning of three key terms changed: "need" now means wanting someone else's money; "greed" means wanting to keep your own; and "compassion" is when a politician wants to arrange the transfer. You're actually accused of "lacking compassion" if you object to this kind of redistribution. According to George Gilder's marvelous "Wealth and Poverty," this so-called "compassion" is nothing but a very misleading, pious moral high ground.
One of the chief critiques of capitalism over the years by socialists, liberals, clergymen, and--most notably--the poor has not been of its practical achievements, but rather the perception of its moral character. Most of them have got the idea that the source of wealth comes from sinful, anti-Judeo-Christian avarice. Wealth, they often assert, comes from "taking," and therefore the way to combat poverty is to "take" it back and redistribute it. But as Gilder explains, the essence of capitalism is "giving."
Capitalists "give" of themselves without a predetermined return. That is to say, they make investments without a predetermined return; and a gift is not something given necessarily without any return. It's perfectly consistent with the Bible, in which you often gave alms in the hope of some form of return; perhaps a blessing. It's risking your life to create comething without any assurance of return. (Liberals confuse this with gambling, which is a zero-sum game. That's why it's not "risking." Capitalists are giving of "themselves" without a predetermined return. Not just putting down some money and making no effort and having no moral engagement in the activities they're pursuing. That's the difference between gambling and capitalism.)
Also, the mechanism of the market neutralizes greed because selfish individuals are forced to find ways of servicing the needs of those with whom they wish to exchange. It's true that various people often approach economic exchanges with motives that fall short of the Biblical ideal Gilder discusses here. But no matter how selfish a person's motives may be, as long as the rights of the other parties are protected, the greed of the first individual cannot harm them. As long as greedy individuals are prohibited from introducing force, fraud, and theft into the exchange process, their greed must be channeled into the discovery of products or services for which people are willing to exchange their holdings. Every person in a market economy has to be other-directed.
Unlike socialism, capitalism recognizes several necessary conditions for the kinds of voluntary relationships it recommends. One of these conditions is the existence of inherent human rights, such as the right to make decisions, the right to be free, the right to hold property, and the right to exchange what one owns for something else. And, believe it or not, capitalism also presupposes a system of morality. Capitalism should be thought of as a system of voluntary relationships within a framework of laws which protect people's rights against force, fraud, theft, and violations of contracts. "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not lie" are part of the underlying moral constraints of the system. Economic exchanges can hardly be voluntary if one participant is coerced, deceived, defrauded, or robbed. This should be obvious to most people living in America today.
Gilder also explains how capitalism is consistent with the Biblical view of human nature in another way: it recognizes the weaknesses of human nature and the limitations of human knowledge. No one can possibly know enough to manage a complex economy. No one should ever be trusted with this power. However, in order for socialism to work, socialism requires a class of omniscient planners to forecast the future, to set prices and control production. This is what stagnates enterprise in socialist economies. And it's also a good way for an individual to lose their political freedom as well. For what is to be produced does not depend on the demands of consumers, but on the independent decisions of government planners; production, therefore, is more likely to serve the purposes of planners, of the state, than those of a consumer. That's a freedom you sacrifice under socialism. And as the sole producer and employer, the socialist state finds it easy to restrict political freedom that could be used to replace centralized powers. Eventually, you have Noam Chomsky popping up on the Killing Fields trying to tell you that "it's not that bad."
Gilder's frank assessment of how the welfare state has driven husbands from the home--especially black homes--by aiding single mothers is disturbing. The average total relief package for a single mother with three children is more than $19,000 a year--tax free. By comparison, a traditional two-parent family of four with a higher income of say, $22,500, has only about $18,000 left after taxes. Poor women might be poor, but they're not stupid. Niether are poor young men, many of whom quickly realize that by their own efforts and means they are unable to provide as well for their families as Uncle Sam. Too many mothers decide not to marry the fathers of their children; they marry welfare instead. As we enter the 21st century, 70% of black children are born into fatherless homes.
So, in effect, the modern state continually releases us from our duties to our next of kin--our familial duties--at the same time it increases our duties to total strangers, whose lives we wreck when we provide for them (with a little coercion from Uncle Sam, of course) government assistance. Even now as we approach the year 2001, we keep hearing collectivists saying "we have more to do" and "there remains much to be done." It's kind of analogous to Mao's Long March--a Long March to the moon without a bridge, and we just keep walking in circles and we're told both that we're making progress and that we're not making enough progress. This is certified insanity, yet most people fail to see it.
George Gilder's "Wealth and Poverty" is one of the most important books on capitalism and the effects of welfare on its recipients you'll ever buy.
Average customer rating:
- is there any democracy left for the rest of us?
- Intriguing in Places, Sermonizing in Others
- The Game!
- a modern day truth teller
- Informative, Thought Provoking
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Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich
Kevin Phillips
Manufacturer: Broadway
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ASIN: 0767905334
Release Date: 2002-05-14 |
Amazon.com
Most American conservatives take it as an article of faith that the less governmental involvement in affairs of the market and pocketbook the better. The rich do not, whatever they might say--for much of their wealth comes from the "power and preferment of government." So writes Kevin Phillips, the accomplished historian and one-time Washington insider, in this extraordinary survey of plutocracy, excess, and reform. "Laissez-faire is a pretense," he argues; as the wealth of the rich has grown, so has its control over government, making politics a hostage of money. Examining cycles of economic growth and decline from the founding days of the republic to the recent collapse of technology stocks, Phillips dispels notions of trickle-down wealth creation, pricks holes in speculative bubbles, and decries the ever-increasing "financialization" of the economy--all of which, he argues, have served to reduce the well-being of ordinary Americans and government alike. Highly readable for all its charts and graphs, Phillips's book offers a refreshing--and, of course, controversial--blend of economic history and social criticism. His conclusions won't please all readers, but just about everyone who comes to his pages will feel hackles rising. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
For more than thirty years, Kevin Phillips' insight into American politics and economics has helped to make history as well as record it. His bestselling books, including The Emerging Republican Majority (1969) and The Politics of Rich and Poor (1990), have influenced presidential campaigns and changed the way America sees itself. Widely acknowledging Phillips as one of the nation's most perceptive thinkers, reviewers have called him a latter-day Nostradamus and our "modern Thomas Paine." Now, in the first major book of its kind since the 1930s, he turns his attention to the United States' history of great wealth and power, a sweeping cavalcade from the American Revolution to what he calls "the Second Gilded Age" at the turn of the twenty-first century.
The Second Gilded Age has been staggering enough in its concentration of wealth to dwarf the original Gilded Age a hundred years earlier. However, the tech crash and then the horrible events of September 11, 2001, pointed out that great riches are as vulnerable as they have ever been. In Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips charts the ongoing American saga of great wealth–how it has been accumulated, its shifting sources, and its ups and downs over more than two centuries. He explores how the rich and politically powerful have frequently worked together to create or perpetuate privilege, often at the expense of the national interest and usually at the expense of the middle and lower classes.
With intriguing chapters on history and bold analysis of present-day America, Phillips illuminates the dangerous politics that go with excessive concentration of wealth. Profiling wealthy Americans–from Astor to Carnegie and Rockefeller to contemporary wealth holders–Phillips provides fascinating details about the peculiarly American ways of becoming and staying a multimillionaire. He exposes the subtle corruption spawned by a money culture and financial power, evident in economic philosophy, tax favoritism, and selective bailouts in the name of free enterprise, economic stimulus, and national security.
Finally, Wealth and Democracy turns to the history of Britain and other leading world economic powers to examine the symptoms that signaled their declines–speculative finance, mounting international debt, record wealth, income polarization, and disgruntled politics–signs that we recognize in America at the start of the twenty-first century. In a time of national crisis, Phillips worries that the growing parallels suggest the tide may already be turning for us all.
Customer Reviews:
is there any democracy left for the rest of us?.......2007-08-20
The American experiment in democracy has degenerated into a plutocracy, in which wealth and power preempt democracy's ideals of equality and freedom [cf Kevin Phillips' Wealth & Democracy]. While Phillips gives a depressing history of the decline, and its corruption thru the centuries, Cadillac Desert focuses on perhaps the biggest corrupter of all - the sprawling water projects of the American West, in which water is diverted at huge cost to grow crops no one needs, all to support giant corporations that threaten to wipe out the family farms that were the rationale for the projects in the first place. Taken together, these books demonstrate that ideology or the party in power matters little - elections become a charade, masking the control of government by capital and its corporate controllers.
Intriguing in Places, Sermonizing in Others.......2006-06-20
Kevin Phillips is not a bad man. He genuinely has an interest in the admittedly complex topic of economics, wealth consolidation and its effects on democratic institutions. The problem with Phillips' book is not that he has shed his Republican affiliation to take up the cause of progressive crusading, but that it often shifts from the gripping to the mind-numbingly technical without warning.
There are valid points in Phillips' book that are deserving of deeper thought and consideration; resorting to charts and trend diagrams, however, is not always the best way to illuminate the ideas Phillips wants to express in his work. At times Phillips seems more content to showcase just how much he knows rather than relating that information to the reader in a way that can then be turned into a point of discussion that does not border on a PowerPoint presentation.
At times Phillips spends more time placing blame for certain economic problems than he does discussing causes and possible solutions, though this can be forgiven if the reader follows Phillips' apocalyptic view of what is to come if the increased consolidation of wealth among the very few continues. In highly-charged political times, readers are apt to either give this work five stars or one, in line with their prevailing political ideology. The truth is, Wealth and Democracy is not a brilliant work, nor is it a worthless waste of time. Nearly every reader can find something interesting to grab hold of in Phillips' work. That is worth something.
The Game!.......2006-05-14
The middle class is not democratizing economically or politically. The middle class is not taking control of its money and instead the middle is rapidly transferring money from its savings into the massive market profits for the super rich. The middle class should immediately abandon any transfers from savings into the stock market and preserve their wealth, but instead they will be lured into hedge funds and mutual markets speculating that someday they will be super rich.
Richard Goodwin says, "money establishes priorities, holds down federal revenues, revises federal legislation, shifts income from the middle class to the super rich." "Money restrains the enforcement of laws written to protect the country from abuse of wealth-laws that mandate environmental protection, anti-trust, laws to protect the consumer against fraud, laws that safeguard the securities market...and more." Money in Babylon has become all powerful, while reform has dawdled. Politics has capitulated to the Market barons. For example, lobby investment dollars can turn a 100,000% return. Manufacturers craft industry-specific subsidies, insert tax breaks into code, extend patients or give away public property for free. The Timber industry spent $8 million in campaign contribution to preserve the logged road subsidy worth $458 million. Glaxo Wellcome spent $1.2 million to get a 19th month extension on Zantec worth $1 billions. The tobacco industry spent $30 million in tax contribution for tax breaks totaling $50 billion.
Historically, conspicuous consumption became a pillar of statecraft in Venice. Licentiousness stimulated art demand increasing competition for nude paintings. The market attacked and destroying all moral codes inhibiting content in the market and lead to opulence, extravagance, and vice. "The world we inhabit today, with its ruthless competitiveness, fierce consumerism, restless desire for ever wider horizons, discovery, and innovation...is a world which was made in the Renaissance." Renaissance emerged as Materialism philosophy reigned supreme; objective argument provided the ideology within the corrupting gatherings of individuals. American Renaissance and industrialism embraced Darwinism. Darwinism represented the longest-lasting philosophic shield held up by the American Wealth Accumulators: Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockerfeller, Chauncey Depew, and James J. Hill. The trinity materialistic God equaled Darwinism, conspicuous consumption, and self interest. The Renaissance lionized the idols of consumption, the top artist and purveyors of luxury goods: Bottielli, Titan, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci. Monetarist, Milton Friedman said, "Greed was the basis to society" and wanted a system "setup an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm. Capitalism is that kind of system."
Chicago University indoctrinated students with doctrines of big business. Public choice argued American law was a system of commands, prohibitions, and rules often contradicting and countermanding, the "natural logic" of the markets. The cleansing of the law of interferences like government regulation worked to facilitate the freedom of the markets. Disillusionment strengthened and market utopia was a idealism not a reality. Consumption drove debt burdens. Debt burdens peaked in the 1920s, 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s. Debt is the double edged sword that threatens the wealth accumulation of the super rich. The super rich flee markets heavy in debt at a certain point of no return. "Speculative excesses supported by the tendencies of elites spin illusions for themselves and the less-sophisticated public about the new capacities of government and private sector management. Manias require convincing siren songs: insisting that things really are different this time, financially as well as technologically." Debt has transformed the two headed eagle into on head. The fed and the treasury, in a sense have become joint, proactive managers of the multi-trillion dollar "USA fund". Markets economies might be claim, but globalizing U.S government economic management has become the game.
The speculative bubble of 2000-2001 experienced real damage in early 2000s as the recession hit manufacturing and deepened the damage with a crisis in several technology industries, and spread widely into the service industry. The share of U.S manufacturing assets in foreign hands jumped 3% in 1970, 8% in 1980, 19% in 1990 and foreign ownership surged from $270 billion in 1997 to $497 billion in 2000. US companies traded hands with foreign owners: Dresdner Bank purchased Wasserstein Peralla; Sumitomo owned 15% of Goldman Sachs; ING owned Actna Financial Services; Zurich Financial took S Investments, Credit Suisse bought First Boston; and UBS Warburg purchased Paine Webber.
a modern day truth teller.......2006-03-23
I've always been impressed with the honesty and integrity of Kevin Phillips. Coming out of the conservative movement, Phillips nevertheless places truth, and a deep concern for the well being of American democracy, well over and above mere partisanship. The current corrupt leadership in Washington DC could learn a thing or two here, where Phillips turns a critical eye to the age old tension between democracy and the tendency toward an oligarchy. Lately, it seems that democracy has been the loser in this struggle.
For example, as Molly Ivins pointed out in a somewhat recent column in The American Prospect magazine, when Republicans talk about "flexibility," it means letting business do whatever it wants without standards, mandates or worker and consumer rights. Ever since FDR's New Deal, working overtime gets you time-and-a-half in money, which has the happy effect of holding the work week down to 40 hours -- or at least preventing it from ballooning grossly.
Some recently proposed Bush rules, which the congressional Republican leadership then codified and expanded, would:
-- Exclude previously protected workers who were entitled to overtime by reclassifying them as managers. Companies are already using this ploy where they can get away with it. Say you're frying burgers on the night shift at McDonald's, making overtime, and suddenly -- congratulations -- you're the assistant night manager, with no raise and no overtime.
-- Eliminate certain middle-income workers from overtime protections by adding an income limit, above which workers no longer qualify for overtime. You like that? You make too much to earn overtime.
-- Remove overtime protection from large numbers of workers in aerospace, defense, health care, high tech and other industries
This is one of many examples which can be explained by an underlying dynamic which Kevin Phillips addresses in this very important book. As Phillips points out, the wealth class increasingly controls social and political institutions, either outright, or through a more subtle influence, and this allows them to retain their class privileges. This may be good for them, but it's not so good for democracy.
Informative, Thought Provoking.......2006-01-31
Wealth and Democracy is a well-written, cogent account of the historical intersection of income distribution and politics. i would recommend it to economics students as it explains some fairly arcane issues in a very non-technical style. It also has some great anecdotes. I hope potential readers won't be put off by the many negative reviews here on Amazon (many of which appear to have been written by the same person judging by the recurring phrases (Nixon-ite!) and spelling mistakes). As someone who works for a leading U.S. company in the finance sector in Asia, I would say Phillips' analysis should be taken seriously, especially given the current account and fiscal deficits that are gradually draining the U.S. of its economic lifeblood.
Amazon.com
Professor David S. Landes takes a historic approach to the analysis of the distribution of wealth in this landmark study of world economics. Landes argues that the key to today's disparity between the rich and poor nations of the world stems directly from the industrial revolution, in which some countries made the leap to industrialization and became fabulously rich, while other countries failed to adapt and remained poor. Why some countries were able to industrialize and others weren't has been the subject of much heated debate over the decades; climate, natural resources, and geography have all been put forward as explanations--and are all brushed aside by Landes in favor of his own controversial theory: that the ability to effect an industrial revolution is dependent on certain cultural traits, without which industrialization is impossible to sustain. Landes contrasts the characteristics of successfully industrialized nations--work, thrift, honesty, patience, and tenacity--with those of nonindustrial countries, arguing that until these values are internalized by all nations, the gulf between the rich and poor will continue to grow.
Book Description
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is David S. Landes's acclaimed, best-selling exploration of one of the most contentious and hotly debated questions of our time: Why do some nations achieve economic success while others remain mired in poverty? The answer, as Landes definitively illustrates, is a complex interplay of cultural mores and historical circumstance. Rich with anecdotal evidence, piercing analysis, and a truly astonishing range of erudition, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is a "picture of enormous sweep and brilliant insight" (Kenneth Arrow) as well as one of the most audaciously ambitious works of history in decades.
Customer Reviews:
Everyone should read this book.......2007-08-08
Landes is the man, and this book pretty much sums it up. His primary thesis, that when humans are given the freedom to be innovative and pursue their own interest, is familiar from Adam Smith, but Landes does it better, it's a convincing argument. Culture is the determining factor in the success and failure of nations, not chance, not geography, not even resources, and Landes makes it obvious, it seems.
Take this book if you are willing to question.......2007-06-30
I had already read Guns, Germs and Steel so was braced for a lot of redundant concepts in "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" by Professor Landes. 500+ pages later though, this is the clear winner on the subject. More reasonable and deeper in the theories, backed by many examples, interspersed with an easy reading of summarized histories that allow the reader to put it all together.
My recommendation to anyone out to read this book would be to take a "beginners' mindset," understand the hypotheses, and feel free to subsequently cross-reference on the historical data points if left unconvinced by some. All the nonsense propaganda that we are fed with in the early years of our lives makes this task that much more challenging, but that much more important as well.
A good antidote to PC view popular now.......2007-04-02
I found this book very interesting but a little directionless. His basic premise that culture not geography (or evil Europeans) is a large factor in where a country stands today. Notice I said large factor not the only factor which his detractors claim he says. As to my complaint on the writing, I enjoyed all the information but I feel it could have been funnelled toward his basic point better it was a little scattershot. Most of the 10 or so detractors I read either used falsehoods or distortions for their complaints. The point about the chopsticks was a tiny point but true! Why do parents teach babies dexterity exercises with those toys. And to the guy who claimed that Landes said all Asians are frugal you must have read a different. He did say that throughout Asia Chinese are the middle class managers. Anyone who goes to that part of the world knows this to be true. One final point He did show the flaws in European (especially the Iberean Peninsula) thinking but horror of horrors when you are evaluating numerous cultures for 1 issue- economic- 1 is going to come out on top and say it loud and say it proud WESTERN CIV. provides the best overall life for human beings
Trampled to Death with Footnotes!.......2007-02-12
I found Landes' opinion to be just that--his opinion. An interesting opinion, although it seemed to be backed up more by anecdotal evidence than hard data. But then there's not a lot of hard data on the subject he's dealing with: namely, why did Western European nations (and their progeny, the USA and Canada) come to rule the world while other cultures that began with great promise ended up backwaters?
Landes' answer is a comforting one to lots of First World people: our culture has just always been geared more toward success, we have the traits of successful people, so we succeeded. Is it true? Well, I'm not real big on eugenics, but if you take a dispassionate look around the globe (perhaps with Jared Diamond as your tour guide), it does seem to look that way. That's Landes' view and he's pretty persuasive about it; and even if you disagree, the examples he cites are interesting in themselves.
But what is with the avalanche of footnotes? Every few sentences, just as you get in sync with the argument Landes is putting forth...there's another asterisk or dagger jolting your eye down the page to some digression that makes you forget what you were reading in the first place. It's sort of manic and disorienting, to the point where I just finally stopped even looking at the footnotes. It would have been much better to have made them endnotes; then they wouldn't be so distracting, and could be read all at once by those so inclined. Publisher, for the love of God move the notes when you put out the next edition!
Interesting economic history.......2006-12-14
This is a great look at world economic history and thinking about why the world developed the way it did. It focuses on two distinct ideas
1. Why did the west (Europe and the United States develop before the east)
2. Why did the north develop before the south
The first question is answered very well and many factors including free trade, cultural decisions, and superior technology. The north and south question is much harder to answer and needs more economic analysis which is lakcing here.
It took time for this book to grow on me but once it did I was very excited to read it and loved it by the end. I highly recommend it for those who want to get a sense of world history.
Book Description
An eye-opening field guide to the wealth gap.
For every dollar owned by the average white family in the United States, the average family of color has less than a dime. Why do people of color have so little wealth? The Color of Wealth lays bare a dirty secret: for centuries, people of color have been barred by laws and by discrimination from participating in government wealth-building programs that benefit white Americans.
This accessible book—published in conjunction with one of the country's leading economics education organizations—makes the case that until government policy tackles disparities in wealth, not just income, the United States will never have racial or economic justice.
Written by five leading experts on the racial wealth divide who recount the asset-building histories of Native Americans, Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and European Americans, this book is a uniquely comprehensive multicultural history of American wealth. With its focus on public policies—how, for example, many post-World War II GI Bill programs helped whites only—The Color of Wealth is the first book to demonstrate the decisive influence of government on Americans' net worth.
Customer Reviews:
3/4 of the way it's really good and then..........2006-10-28
This book is a solid piece of scholarship for the most part. The last quarter, however, dissipates into more reformism. It is interesting to see statistics on the wealth differential between Whites and other Ethnic Groups and the causal factors concomitantly, e.g. racism, Ethnocentricism, greed etc. The historical analysis as to what created the divide is thorough. That said, the prescription in the end makes one wonder if the scholars' really grasped the Historical antecedents that they presented to begin with. What occured in the past to create the disparity was not accidental. On the contrary. Whites today have the same mindset as their ancestors did in regards to wealth and securing it. How can they not? It's the same continuum. The society reinforces it. Just ask Tim Wise. Whites need only be on auto pilot to maintain this unjust system. The only solution is a complete social revolution, this - in the long run - will move people of color into equality while simultaneously changing the psyches' of Whites. Anything short of that can be consigned to phantasmic thinking.
Accessible, clear, enlightening.......2006-07-24
Heavily researched, but written in a very accessible way. You will learn volumes about wealth disparities and how they got that way, and you will learn something about yourself too. Highly recommended for anyone with interests in social and economic justice, racism, and just getting ahead in America.
Breaking the Seemingly Impenetrable Racial Barriers of Wealth Accumulation.......2006-06-24
Eye-opening doesn't even begin to describe this enlightening volume about the socioeconomic divide among whites and non-whites in this country and the role the government plays in reinforcing the separation. Organized by five key members of the nonpartisan United for a Fair Economy organization based in Atlanta, the book handily dismantles the Horatio Alger myth, especially for minority members, by detailing how economic predation has persisted even as significant strides have been made in the far more discernible civil rights arena. The co-authors - Executive Director Meizhu Lui, Communications Director Betsy Leondar-Wright, current board member Bárbara Robles, past board member (until 2005) Rose Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson of the First Peoples Worldwide - have assembled not only a comprehensive history but also a fulsome, current picture of the economic discrimination that has festered pointedly against four different groups - African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and Native Americans.
Not coincidentally, the five women come from five different ethnic groups (including white), which allow them to compare their individual experiences and provide personal validation (and sometimes challenges) of their findings. Perhaps the most compelling fact unearthed is the substantial divide in net worth between blacks and whites. Previously, focus has been mostly on income disparity, which while significant, has been almost passively accepted. Specifically, median household income for whites in 2003 was about $48K, while for black households it was about $30K. However, looking on the balance sheet, the co-authors uncovered the revelatory fact that whites had a median net worth of $121K in 2001 versus just $19K for blacks.
This and the book's other equally invaluable findings clearly illustrate how public policy has hindered asset accumulation among non-whites, and there is also an itemized list of special advantages afforded exclusively to whites. On a more personal level, the co-authors show how such exclusionary tactics have affected the self-esteem of their families, especially among their fathers who feel they have failed them somehow. In a hopeful effort to clarify the decisive influence of government on Americans' net worth, the book is not a socialist tract but rather a realistic how-to guide on how to affect policy changes that will help future generations in their wealth-building strategies. I think this is must-read information well worth studying by those looking for a constructive means of addressing the economic inequity in wealth, not just income. This is essential reading.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Insight and Ideas.......2003-04-18
This is about how American lives could, and ought, to be better than they are - how we can more wisely use our affluence to be happier and at the same time cut back on materialism. Also discusses the decline of sense of community and our tendency as a culture to try and fill that need for connection with material items, to our spiritual and environmental loss. A fascinating book with some good theories about why we are where we are, and what we can do to fix it.
Still topical and on target.......2000-07-26
All in all, Wachtel's work remains an excellent profile of middle-class psychology in America, its habits, expectations and frustrations. The book was quite popular when first published, and though many changes have since occurred, the central theme remains as relevant now as then. Much of the book's inspiration comes from counter-cultural themes of the sixties, and thus represents not only a critique of corporate America but of the materialist ethic as well. One key theme predominates: bigger isn't necessarily better. On the contrary, our national obsession with growth has, despite the sloganeering, produced a deeply unhappy society of atomized individuals. Most of the points here are fairly familiar ones concentrating on the spiritual limitations of material accumulation made more severe by the use of competition as the driving force behind obsessive growth and accumulation. The author, a psychologist, has experienced a number of dysfunctional patients whose difficulties, as he shows, are traceable to these societal phenomena.
In the context of professional psychology, Wachtel presents a number of critical assessments of other schools of psychology, including a number of insights into modern social behavior. A significant element of his own orientation lies in connecting the psychological with the social, and the health of the individual with that of the group, a move which rejects a key assumption of the modern age, viz. methodological individualism. Accordingly, an important part of the book lies in a citique of individualism in its many guises and philosophical forms. Behind this critique appears to lie a deep regard for the humanistic impulse which he views as inherently social in nature. To the detriment of that impulse, however, a society of unhappy, alienated people is being produced by a national ethos of mindless self-absorbtion, obsessive growth, and an ethic of competition. Hence remedies for personal ills must tackle the societal thereby taking on a scope far exceeding that of the single individual. Accordingly, Wachtel mounts a non-technical critique of capitalism as an ordering process and its need to reproduce these alienating forms of social behavior. In the process, he seeks to shatter myths surrounding the marketplace as producing the best of all possible worlds. What he appears to be plumping for--implicitly at least--is a genuinely socialist society without the explicit use of that vexed term.
He writes fair-mindedly and effectively in assessing soviet socialism, democratic socialism, and capitalism, while his chief economic inspiration appears to derive from liberals like J. K. Galbreath and Lester Thurow. Though the book is currently out of print, I think it remains a classic statement of what American consumerism has actually wrought.
Book Description
Never has the World Bank's relief work been more important than in the last nine years, when crises as huge as AIDS and the emergence of terrorist sanctuaries have threatened the prosperity of billions. This journalistic masterpiece by Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby charts those controversial years at the Bank under the leadership of James Wolfensohn—the unstoppable power broker whose daring efforts to enlarge the planet's wealth in an age of globalization and terror were matched only by the force of his polarizing personality. Based on unprecedented access to its subject, this captivating tour through the messy reality of global development is that rare triumph—an emblematic story through which a gifted author has channeled the spirit of the age.
Customer Reviews:
A story of burning ambition.......2007-09-10
A story of burning ambition. Make no mistake about it, James Wolfensohn wanted to be head of the World Bank. He desired it from the late 1970s until 1995 when he finally achieved his ambition, becoming an American citizen in a rushed ceremony to make himself more presentable to the political circles in Washington that always select the Bank's chief.
Biographer Sebastian Mallaby, a British-born columnist for the Washington Post and previously the Economist magazine, describes Wolfensohn as "the most ambitious man I know". He reports this son of a Jewish migrant to Australia was "beside himself with excitement" on hearing President Jimmy Carter was considering him for the World Bank's presidency in 1980.
Another 15 years would pass before Wolfensohn, who in a packed life had found time to be an Olympic fencer, Wall Street high flyer and accomplished musician, would get the job of his dreams. What followed was the most turbulent and controversial decade in the bank's history.
Mallaby asserts the upheavals were not all of Wolfensohn's making. He took over from a series of grey, uninspiring functionaries at a time when the anti-globalisation movement was beginning to get up steam. The Bank's 50th anniversary meeting in Madrid in 1994 was disrupted by demonstrators chanting "50 years is enough", denouncing its failure to address world poverty and demanding it be closed for good.
For the one-time Aussie, this was a challenge to be relished and Wolfensohn must have thought that at 60, he had accumulated all the worldly wisdom and experience needed to meet it. That he was to be proved wrong is not a total indictment of the man. There is nothing on Earth quite like the World Bank, a vast, rambling bureaucracy full of brilliant, often contending individuals, at the mercy of an overbearing board, each member with a special agenda, and besieged by non-government organisations full of passionate anger, demanding the impossible and denouncing every minor misstep.
The new man believed he could counter this with his chief assets, sincerity and charm. He could be everyone's friend, uniting donor countries, Third World governments and the plethora of non-government organisations who were his sternest critics, in one noble crusade to ban poverty from the planet. They were glorious, yet doomed ideals well suited to the man described by a colleague as "full of grandiose ideas but not much of a manager".
But was this such a bad thing? Mallaby believes that after a succession of uninspiring technocrats at its head, the Bank needed Wolfensohn's flamboyance and spontaneity, recapturing some of the pioneering spirit of one of its great presidents, Robert McNamara.
McNamara had wanted the bank to have a human face, Wolfensohn wanted it to go over the heads of grasping and often corrupt Third World governments and deal directly with those who would benefit from its loans. In the world of realpolitik neither was wholly achievable, and for Wolfensohn it was a tough lesson to learn.
He did not cope well with failure, and when a coalition of Tibetan activists, the environmental lobby and professional China haters in the US Congress scuppered the Qinghai irrigation scheme, he lashed out at his own staff. "Didn't they ever read the newspapers? Didn't they know that Tibet was supersensitive? - and he would summon people to his office and demand whose arse he should kick first. It was not an edifying spectacle..."
The US presidential transition, at the beginning of his second term, did not help matters. The new Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, was openly contemptuous of the Bank and indeed the entire international aid structure, declaring the world had spent "trillions of dollars on development and there's damn little to show for it". O'Neill offered the startling argument that if South Korea had lifted itself from poverty to middle-class comfort in four decades, every Third World country should be able to do the same.
And yet the Wolfensohn-led bank somehow weathered these storms. After a late start it showed leadership in facing the AIDS threat; the more hysterical NGOs were eventually cut loose and their criticisms ignored, while some of the "Volvo-style" loan conditions, so irritating to many recipient countries, were eased.
Despite 10 years of obstructionism, bitter infighting and over-the-top criticism, the president never lost his enthusiasm for the job. At the end he was even testing the water for a third term - the Bush White House would have none of it - and he could count among his diverse friends and supporters United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.
Mallaby does not come to any hard and fast conclusions about his client. He sees Wolfensohn as an indifferent manager, while giving him credit for broadening the Bank's agenda beyond macroeconomic policy to meet head on the problems of corruption and debt relief. He was able to bring the larger and more responsible NGOs on board but took a long time to realise that others "had no off switch".
The book finishes on an inconclusive note. Was Wolfensohn's presidency valuable? Did he do more harm than good? Perhaps in an increasingly complex world, with so many voices clamouring to be heard, there can no longer be clear-cut answers to questions like these. Suffice to say the World Bank survives and there are no mass demonstrations demanding that "60 years is enough".
Another reason to abolish the World Bank.......2007-05-04
The World Bank has done nothing more than enslave the people of lesser-developed countries in sweatshop labor camps to help their countries claw their way out of debt traps, while the leaders of these countries steal the funds and export it to Swiss bank accounts. This account of failed World Bank president Paul Wolfenson's term demonstrates again how big money doesn't help LDCs to improve the livelihoods of their people. I really recommend this book, especially following the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize to someone who understands the principles of microlending. Microlending will help many more people get on their feet than these huge disbursements of World Bank cash that prop up corrupt governments that oppress the poor.
very readable and well researched.......2006-12-29
it's strange that sby would think fit to write a review without reading the book, particularly when the rating is so extreme, though credit should be given for honesty (in admitting not having read the book)
this book is indeed very readable and well researched, it's a rare book that provide insights into the world's most important institution that fights proverty, and correct many biased views that are fostered by the media and the ngos
WARNING.......2006-11-27
WARNING: apparently this book will cause you to adopt mallaby's incredibly condescending vocabulary, and cause you to refer to millions of people as being "adolescent" because of their country's economic difficulties.
I haven't actually read this book, just judging from the above review.
A very fine book.......2006-07-12
Mallaby has written a fine biography of James Wolfensohn. But perhaps more interestingly the narrative paints a vivid description of international development over the last 30-40 years. The ever changing World Bank is detailed with all qualities laid bare; what I most enjoyed about this book was the balanced analysis it recieved.
It's oh-so-easy to get caught up in the anti-globalisation rhetoric that you come of the opinion that the World Bank is really a force for evil in the World - it's clear that this is not the case. Its failures are reasonably frequent and quite high profile, but that, one might conclude, has more to do with the type of work it does and the quantity of work it does. What I also enjoyed was the look he took at the NGOs role in international development; their vocal, yet not often rational (or informed) views hold much weight and can't be ignored.
Mallaby has collected stories from figures all over the world to paint a vivid and exposing picture that any student of international development would be a fool to ignore.
Book Description
Revised following the 2004 presidential election, a graphic portrait of the growing gap between the rich and everyone else in America.
• In 1968, African Americans earned 55 cents for every dollar of white income. At the current pace, it would take 581 years for African Americans to achieve income parity.
• States including Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia tax food and basic needs at a higher rate than income from investments.
• Welfare for very low income people totaled $193 billion in 2004. Aid to "dependent corporations" exceeded $800 billion.
This updated edition of the widely touted Economic Apartheid in America looks at the causes and manifestations of wealth disparities in the United States, including tax policy in light of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and recent corporate scandals.
Published with two leading organizations dedicated to addressing economic inequality, the book looks at recent changes in income and wealth distribution and examines the economic policies and shifts in power that have fueled the growing divide.
Praised by Sojurners as "a clear blueprint on how to combat growing inequality," Economic Apartheid in America provides "much-needed groundwork for more democratic discussion and participation in economic life" (Tikkun). With "a wealth of eye-opening data" (The Beacon) focusing on the decline of organized labor and civic institutions, the battle over global trade, and the growing inequality of income and wages, it argues that most Americans are shut out of the discussion of the rules governing their economic lives.
Accessible and engaging and illustrated throughout with charts, graphs, and political cartoons, the book lays out a comprehensive plan for action. Charts, graphs, and black-and-white illustrations throughout.
Customer Reviews:
More of a primer.......2007-07-11
This book isn't bad. But the content makes it difficult to be entertaining. I would compare it to a college freshmen economic textbook. But it's not just boring text. There are interesting graphs and charts. And even some lame cartoons. But it's done very well and has some excellent commentary. It's almost entertaining. But again, it's tough to sit down and actually read content about labor unions and minimum wage and stay excited. But as far as the books that I've seen or read that paint a big picture of our economy and it's current state . . . this is the best.
Informative, important, and easy to read.......2007-04-17
Co-authors Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel discuss the widening gap between America's rich and poor, and why it's in our interest to pay attention.
With clarity and conviction, Economic Apartheid In America details the reasons for this country's increasing disparity between the wealthiest and everyone else. It begins with a discussion of the societal risks economic inequality poses, including a decrease in family security, threats to our democratic institutions, and the decay of social cohesion. The book indicates that families in all but the highest earning brackets face declining real incomes, increasing personal debt, a virtual disappearance in both retirement and personal savings, and unavailable or unaffordable health care coverage. In addition, education and child care costs are on the rise and the federal minimum wage is so outdated it can no longer realistically keep a family of four above the poverty line.
The authors explain how high concentrations of wealth place excessive power in the hands of too few, primarily through political influence and corporate disenfranchisement of workers. This has resulted in an uneven playing field on which the wealthiest individuals and corporations enjoy higher income, numerous tax breaks, and greater returns on investment, while the poorest are expected to bear higher living costs, declining income, and an ever-increasing tax burden. The book also discusses the persistent disparities in earning power for minorities and women.
Collins and Yeskel point out that it wasn't always this way. In the post World War II era families in every income bracket enjoyed comparably sized increases in earnings, allowing a more even distribution of wealth and, with the notable exceptions of women and minorities, a greater level of overall prosperity. Now, in the post-Reagan era of globalization and the proliferation of "free-market capitalism," corporations have compromised wage-earner security through downsizing, outsourcing, and excessive executive compensation.
The book admonishes readers to effect change through the use of grassroots organizing efforts, the support of political leaders who favor limits on corporate welfare and an increase in the minimum wage, the reinvigoration of unionized labor, and the creation/adaptation of government social services that support working families. In addition, several strategies, from socially responsible investing to publicly funded elections, are offered as methods to close the economic divide.
Other notable topics discussed in the book include the Federal Reserve's over-aversion to inflation, the abuse of commonwealth resources, a cultural shift towards greed and consumerism, and the perpetuation of class divide via intergenerational retention of wealth. While at times the book suffers from a tone of activist desperation, overall it offers an informed summation and practical solutions for a critical issue facing society.
Book Description
The disparity between rich and poor countries is the most serious, intractable problem facing the world today. Chronic poverty affects more than the citizens and economies of these nations; it threatens global stability as the pressures of immigration become unsustainable and rogue nations seek power and influence through extreme political and terrorist acts.
For decades, a vast array of international institutions has pumped billions of dollars into these nations in an attempt to remedy their ills through the development of technological infrastructures, educational systems, and health care programs. Yet despite this infusion of capital and attention, roughly five billion of the world's six billion people continue to live in poverty. What isn't working? And how can we fix it?
The Power of Productivity provides powerful and controversial answers to these questions. William Lewis, director emeritus of the McKinsey Global Institute, draws on extensive microeconomic studies of thirteen nations—conducted over twelve years by the Institute itself—to counter virtually all prevailing wisdom about how best to ameliorate economic disparity. The key to reducing economic inequalities between rich and poor countries, argues Lewis, is productivity and its links to competition and consumption. Diagnosing problems and offering solutions, The Power of Productivity will inform political and economic debate throughout the world for years to come.
"Lewis . . . offers a detailed look at the local economies in several parts of the world including the U.S., Japan, India and Brazil. . . . This is an insightful treatment of a complex issue that deserves a wide readership."—Publishers Weekly
Customer Reviews:
Interesting economic perspective on various countries. .......2006-10-26
This book is an interesting economic perspective on why some countries prosper and others don't. Overall, the book is heavily pro-American and the fact that the author uses the U.S. as the benchmark for his comparisons with other countries is a testament to that. The rosy explanations on the U.S. chapter reinforces the belief that it is a pro-US book.
However, it beautifully covers some of the flaws found in third world economies, especially interesting on its analysis in Brazil and India. The answer is simple, government chokes and distorts market and is much to blame for poverty and low productivity in third world countries.
All in all its a good book, but its focus is too U.S. based. Not that there is nothing wrong with that, but books that show U.S. as a near utopia and the rest of the world as problem plague are not to my liking in general, simply because no country on earth is perfect, thus whatever defects exist in the U.S. economy should had been mentioned. As an economist, I was dissapointed with the way the author avoided discussing potential problems in U.S. economy, but was more than pleased with its assessment as to why third world economies don't function as smooth and first world economies.
Limitations of economies world wide.......2006-03-30
This is an outstanding book if you want to gain some understanding of the strengths and weakensses of economies world wide. This book is essentially a group of chapters describung the differences of various other world economies compared against the US economy. The revelations of the problems in some of those economies is very revealing. For example, if you worry at night about the Indian economy, you will sleep much better after reading his chapter of the many ways the Indian government distorts their markets and guarantees bad results. You will also be amazed that only 10% of the land has clear ownership, meaning one must be extordinarily careful or one can end up in a long legal entanglement. The description of the laws forbidding large players to participate in certain sectors of their economy also is revealing.
Similarly, the descriptions of the problems of the Brazilian economy with its underground economy and formal economy is also very illuminating. Large rconomy of scale businesses competing with informal off the books busninesses. Since the off the books businesses pay lousy wages and pay no taxes they can compete with the larger businesses which have economies of scale. Mr Lewis also points out how the sector which does compete within the legal rules have a very heavy tax burden which retards growth. The legacy of hyperinflation, a well known
phenomenon in South America also means that obtaining a mortgage is impossible, houses must be paid for cash on the barrelhead, as nobody will take a 30 year risk on inflation there.
Mr Lewis's book has chapters on representative economies from all over the world. Japan, Russia, Korea, India, Western Europe,
Brazil are included. The only place of high interest which is not included is China. Regardless, the information contained is fascinating.
I also gained some new insights from this book and perhaps a bit of new respect for certain sectors. I must say Mr Lewis makes some very interesting points which have certainly increased my regard for the retailing and service sectors of an economy by pointing out some of the low tech manners in which they have innovated to increase productivity. He also shows how inefficient certain other economies are because they dont allow foreign competitiors to operate in retailing in their economies and the dramatic inefficiencies created as a result.
Overall I rate this as one of the best books I have read in a long time.
A great book.......2006-02-25
I was happy to see many of the questions I've had for years, answered. The book is very well written for the non-economist who wants to be informed about the major economic problems of the world.
I also purchased 'DOING BUSINESS IN 2006' published by the World Bank. It corroborates the general ideas presented in "The Power of Productivity" to a great extent. A great book.
Productivity rules in one particular economic doctrine.......2005-11-16
Marx once said that he was not a Marxist [Attributed by Engels, letter to C. Schmidt, 1890]. It looks like William Lewis is not allowed that luxury, for in a sense the claim that it is productivity that matters most is a pure Marxists claim.
So there is a contradiction. The book that promotes "free market" extremism like "free market no matter what" in its major thesis looks suspiciously close to Marxist philosophy.
Actually extremes meet and the author's idea "If poor countries improved productivity and balanced their budgets, they would have plenty of capital for growth from domestic savers and foreign investors" is a clear sign that he is living in some Utopia and does not undestand the role of third world debt as a major instrument for controlling the governments of those countries. This process is designed to perpetuate itself whereby debt replicates itself on an ever greater scale.
For example odious debt of former communist countries was never cancelled and people of xUSSR paid and will pay huge prices for this. Legally, odious debt is debt that resulted from loans to an illegitimate or dictatorial government that used the money to oppress the people or for personal purposes.
Rich nations also ncur debts, but often the wealthier and more powerful ones are able to use various means to avoid getting into the dilemmas and problems the poor nations get into. It's easier to have debt if your own currency is the world reserve currency.
That means that globalization like medicine should not be applied uncritically. The real question is about the right doze of everything. Here is a couple of nice quotes for Asia Times Review of the same book, the review that debunks the myths propagated by the book:
"Of the world's 6 billion people, 5 billion live in countries with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) 25% or less of the US figure; in fact, a majority of the poor live where GDP is less than 10% of Uncle Sam's. Particularly troubling, author William W Lewis says, Japan was the only country to go from poor to rich during the past century, though he adds that Japanese government development strategies credited with the advance were a hindrance, not a help. "
"The failure of free-market radicalism to solve crises and deliver real, sustainable economic growth has prompted a reassessment. Perhaps wrenching open developing markets to global competition without reference to local conditions and politics is not the best prescription in every case. They also note that the fastest-growing economy over the past two decades features 'socialism with Chinese characteristics'. "
Excellent book despite flaws.......2005-02-11
There is an excellent book about productivity. Bill Lewis was head of McKinsey, the international consulting firm, for 12 years. They did a lot of studies of different business sectors around the world under his leadership, and this book pulls all of these together. It is a compelling case for free-market competition, which is what drives higher productivity and creates a larger pie for everyone to share.
I think Lewis is pretty much misguided about macro-economic issues (I think the reason that there were so many international crisis in 1998 was because of the Fed's mistakes in monetary policy causing the dollar to deflate), and he believes Jared Diamond's arguments about why Western culture has been so successful (Diamond is not a master of logic, and ignores or discounts other possible explanations, such as are presented in IQ and the Wealth of Nations), and Lewis makes mistakes in the way he averages productivity across sectors (you really need to look at ab
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