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Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else Kindle Edition

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A Financial Times Best Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize


There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but recently what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Forget the 1 percent—
Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at breakneck speed. Most of these new fortunes are not inherited, amassed instead by perceptive businesspeople who see themselves as deserving victors in a cutthroat international competition. With empathy and intelligence, Plutocrats reveals the consequences of concentrating the world’s wealth into fewer and fewer hands. Propelled by fascinating original interviews with the plutocrats themselves, Plutocrats is a tour de force of social and economic history, the definitive examination of inequality in our time.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Even Alan Greenspan is worried about the troubling trend of income inequality. International financial reporter Freeland looks beyond worries about the 1 percent to the even more troubling trend of the 0.1 percent of the world’s most wealthy having more in common with each other than their countrymen and acting on those interests, guaranteeing even more inequality. Is the gap between the superrich and everybody else the product of impersonal market forces or political machinations? Freeland offers an engaging and deeply analytical look at the history, politics, and economics behind the rise of the plutocrats. She draws parallels between current inequality and the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, when the top 1 percent of the U.S. population held one-third of the national income. Globalization and the technology revolution are the major factors behind what she sees as new and overlapping gilded ages: the second for the U.S., the first for developing nations. Drawing on interviews with economists and the elite themselves, Freeland chronicles lavish parties, hubris, and hand-wringing over the direction of the global economy. As she laments, The feedback loop between money, politics, and ideas is both cause and consequence of the rise of the super-elite. Readers will appreciate the broader political and economic implications of Freeland’s penetrating examination of growing global income inequality. --Vanessa Bush

Review

"Mix crisp economics, ripe history, and two pinches of salty gossip, and you have the flavor of Chrystia Freeland's entertaining book. From the opulent Bradley Martin ball of 1897 to its modern echoes in Sun Valley and Davos, Plutocratschronicles the habits of the workaholic overclass--its taste for British public schools, its immodest philanthropy, its fundamental rootlessness. Even as she describes this gilded tribe, Freeland advances a paradoxical warning. Open societies may allow super-achievers to pile up extraordinary riches--and to feel that they have more or less deserved them. But the more these meritocrats succeed, the more likely they are to entrench their own offspring at the top of the heap, negating the very meritocracy that afforded them their chances. Already in the United States, graduating from college is more closely linked to having wealthy parents than to grades in high school. When class matters more than going to class, Freeland's message must be treated with the utmost seriousness."

-- "Sebastian Mallaby, author of More Money than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite"

"Our world increasingly revolves around global elites who not only have an oversized effect on our politics but also set the trends and furnish us with the dominant discourse. In this delightful book, Chrystia Freeland tells the story of how we got here and what distinguishes our elites from those of previous epochs. Most importantly, she explains why the elites' dominance, even when it appears benign, is a challenge to our institutions and gives us clues about how we can overcome it."

-- "Daron Acemoglu, coauthor of Why Nations Fail"

"Rising inequality is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Chrystia Freeland's Plutocrats provides us with a glimpse of the lives of America's elites and a disquieting look at the society that produces them. This well-written and lively account is a good primer for anyone who wants to understand one extreme of America today."

-- "Joseph Stiglitz, author of The Price of Inequality"

"The world's wealthy elite are more wealthy, more knit together, more separate from their fellow citizens and probably more powerful than ever before. This very important book describes their lives and more important how their lives affect all of ours. It should be read by anyone concerned with how their world is being shaped and how it will evolve."

-- "Lawrence Summers, former US Treasury Secretary"

Sobering, if we can grasp the implications.-- "Library Journal"

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B007V65OQG
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; 1st edition (October 11, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 11, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1334 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 325 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 713

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4.3 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2012
This is must-read book for anyone wishing to understand more deeply the current debates on the ills of capitalism as seen in the global financial crisis, the increased gap between the richest and the rest, the dissatisfaction with the capitalist system expressed in Occupy movements around the globe. Freeland does not deny these facts, indeed documents them very thoroughly and is strongly critical of the politics that has allowed theses ills; yet unlike old and new leftist critics who again urge a return to communist -socialist ideas( Zizek and Badiou stand at one extreme), she remains a strong supporter of the market-economy and private capital system. On this middle-ground she is already being attacked from both left and right .
This very readable book marshals a huge amount of information and background academic studies , and not only throws light on how factual are the relevant facts, but also on the pros and cons of various arguments about why things have gone bad, what needs to be done. She does not claim to present any new facts or ideas, but thanks to the high-quality writing of a good journalist, innovative ideas about shortcomings of capitalism of academics like Rajan, Zingales, of Booth Business School in Chicago ( YES! Chicago!) and others, are made more approachable for a very wide audience. SHe thus pulls together two central ideas.

First, "capitalism " and "markets " are not as most think necessarily the same thing. If there is private ownership but competitive open markets do not exist , or are limited in some way to the "few"--think of Russian oligarchs who have captured the state's politics and economic rules making new entrepreneurial entry into the market extremely difficult - this is NOT what market economies are about. The factual evidence of the book shows that in a much lesser degree, but still very problematic, the plutocracy-- especially the 1/10th of one percent multi-millionaires , have over time developed enough clout to influence tax-rules and business regulations to favor them more than small business or taxpayers. Not though a conspiracy or cabal as a couple of hundred oligarchs in Russia might be able to do, but simply because it is natural to use available power to "bend " the rules a little bit in your favor.
The second idea which then follows - and the one that causes her to be attacked from both sides- is that critiquing this lobbying and regulatory capture is NOT to argue for socialism and communism.. Citing Zingales "Capitalism for the People", Freeland pronounces a modern clarion call for properly done capitalism : it is not enough to be "pro-business"--you also must be pro-market." One could go back to the roots of pro-market philosophy and with minor modification recall that the greatest good for the greatest number of people, requires that two invisible hands of Adam Smith must work together: private capital ownership , and open competitive markets.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2014
Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland

"Plutocrats" is an insightful look at both the economics and politics of the super-elite class. Canadian writer, journalist and politician Chrystia Freeland provides the readers with an inside look at plutocrats. It's an interesting look at how plutocrats live their lives and how they earn their fortunes, and the impact it has on the rest of us. This interesting 335-page book includes the following six chapters: 1. History and Why It Matters, 2. Culture of the Plutocrats, 3. Superstars, 4. Responding to Revolution, 5. Rent-Seeking, and 6. Plutocrats and the Rest of Us.

Positives:
1. A well-written, accessible and even-handed book.
2. A fascinating topic. Freeland should be commended for her ability to gain access to people from a very exclusive club.
3. Does a good job of explaining the rise of the plutocrats. "These three transformations--the technology revolution, globalization, and the rise of the Washington Consensus--have coincided with an age of strong global economic growth, and also with the reemergence of the plutocrats, this time on a global scale."
4. An interesting look at the rise of the Alpha Geeks. "The rise of the alpha geeks is most obvious in Silicon Valley, a culture and an economic engine they created. But you can find them everywhere you find the plutocracy."
5. Interesting perspectives on today's global economy. "Speaking at the same conference, Thomas Wilson, CEO of Allstate, told a similar story: "I can get [workers] anywhere in the world. It is a problem for America, but it is not necessarily a problem for American business. . . . American businesses will adapt."
6. The impact of women. "The year 2009 was a watershed for the American workplace--it was the first time since data was collected that women outnumbered men on the country's payrolls."
7. The power of intellectuals. "In the knowledge economy, more and more professions use a laptop rather than a steam engine, and that means that the superstars in these fields are earning ever greater rewards. The intellectuals are on the road to class power."
8. The three superstars of finance: Alfred Winslow Jones, Georges Doriot, and Victor Posner. "Hedge funds, venture capital, and private equity transformed finance--previously the dependable plumbing of the capitalist economy--into an innovative frontier where smart and lucky individuals could earn nearly instant fortunes."
9. When CEO salaries began to skyrocket. "The real takeoff was during the 1990s: by the end of that decade they were growing by 10 percent a year. As Roger Martin has calculated, for CEOs of S&P firms, the median level of pay soared from $2.3 million in 1992 to $7.2 million in 2001."
10. Good conclusions. "Pay for performance actually works, but only in companies where the board is strong enough to truly oversee the chief executive."
11. How to become a plutocrat. "Responding to revolution is how you become a plutocrat."
12. The changing economic landscape. ""It used to be that the big ate the small; now the fast eat the slow."
13. Great example of active inertia, Firestone.
14. The highest billionaire-to-GDP ratio. "Russia, with eighty-seven billionaires and a national GDP of $1.3 trillion, had the highest billionaire-to-GDP ratio. India, Rajan said, was number two, with fifty-five billionaires and $1.1 trillion of GDP."
15. Find out what was the largest transfer of assets in human history.
16. The richest person ever. "But all three are trumped by the man at the head of the 2012 Forbes global rich list, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim. Forbes put Slim's fortune that year at $69 billion, enough to earn an income equivalent to the average annual salary of more than 400,000 Mexicans."
17. The impact of deregulation. "One reason the preeminence of the financiers within the global super-elite matters is that it highlights how crucial financial deregulation has been to the emergence of the plutocracy."
18. Important research. "In Western countries with significant legal corruption, that financial gulf creates a revolving door between the regulators and the regulated. One study of the SEC found that, between 2006 and 2010, 219 former SEC employees had filed almost eight hundred disclosure statements for representing their new clients' dealings with the agency, their former employer. Nearly half of these disclosures were filed by people who had worked at the sharp end of the SEC's relationship with business, in its enforcement division."
19. The facts. "Most lobbying seeks to tilt the playing field in one direction or another, not to level it. Most lobbying is pro-business, in the sense that it promotes the interests of existing businesses, not pro-market in the sense of fostering truly free and open competition."
20. A bleak future? Find out. "Low taxes, light-touch regulation, weak unions, and unlimited campaign donations are certainly in the best interests of the plutocrats, but that doesn't mean they are the right way to maintain the economic system that created today's super-elite."
21. Formal bibliography included.

Negatives:
1. It's very hard to be too critical of the very people who were generous with their time. Overall, Freeland deserves credit and she did her best to be even handed but it's human nature to hold back after such exclusive access.
2. The eBook did not link the notes.
3. Tables, comparative charts, diagrams would have added value.
4. The impact of the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act was only mentioned once in passing.
5. Not as analytical as I would have liked.
6. Not convinced of the following argument, "The two gilded ages can also get in each other's way. As good an explanation as any for the 2008 financial crisis is that it is the result of the collision between China's gilded age and the West's--the financial imbalances that are an essential part of China's export-driven growth model also played a crucial role in inflating the credit bubble that burst with such devastating consequences in 2008."

In summary, this was an interesting look at the world of plutocrats. Freeland's contention is that to understand the changing shape of the global economy one must look at the very top. She does a wonderful job of providing insights into this exclusive club and discusses the ramifications it may have on the rest of us. Perhaps this book was not as analytical as I would have liked but nonetheless insightful and fun to read. I recommend it!

Further recommendations: "
Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class " by Jacob S. Hacker, " The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future " and " Globalization and Its Discontents (Norton Paperback) " by Joseph E. Stiglitz, " The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America--and What We Can Do to Stop It " by Thom Hartmann, " The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality " by Branko Milanovic, " Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America " by Martin Gilens, " Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It " by Lawrence Lessig, " The New Elite: Inside the Minds of the Truly Wealthy " by Stephen Kraus, " Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty " by Daron Acemoglu, "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, "ECONned" by Yves Smith, " The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It " by Timothy Noah, and "Bailout" by Neil Barofsky.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2013
I enjoyed this sagacious romp through the manners and mores of America's and world's new global plutocracy. Freeland is sort of a modern day Thorstein Veblen. That our era has provided an increasingly entitled class to reach ascendency in the last 20 years, is clearly documented here. The author's mix of anecdotal information and theoretical framework, with historic perspective, is an effective way of reporting the world as it is. And this author is a reporter, a particularly clear minded, and supple reporter.

I found that the origin of the story, in the reaction to the restraint of the liberal FDR years, to be to the point. That this sense of restraint, constructed as not only a legal reality, but also a quasi ethical one, was broken somewhere in the 1990s, also hits the mark. Today's tilted "playing field" was the creation of the new American plutocracy, seeking only its own interests, apart from everyone else's. And she's quite good in this wide ranging discussion and weighing, of the balances between freedom of action, just compensation, meritocracy...vs. privilege, based upon money and power.

Freeland's conclusion, in comparing the temptations towards more greed and accumulation of the top 1%, to the Venetian nobility's closing of entry to new seekers into their ranks, in the Venetian Book of Gold, is I think, a master stroke of historic comparison. Somewhere along the line, the 1% is tempted to destroy the meritritious system which allowed their rise in the first place, which sets the condition for their own demise, as posited by Marx. Freeland, not particularly ideological in her reporting, notes all of this, and reports it as a warning of what could happen.

I found the book informative, thought provoking, and often entertaining.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Neil A. Abramson
5.0 out of 5 stars the book is not pro globalization but sees that as well as technology as key drivers of greater income and wealth inequality between rich (the 1% plutocrats) and poor (the 99% rest of us)
Reviewed in Canada on October 17, 2017
As a Canadian, it's interesting to read a book by the Foreign Affairs minister currently responsible for renegotiating the NAFTA trade agreement. Oddly, the book is not pro globalization but sees that as well as technology as key drivers of greater income and wealth inequality between rich (the 1% plutocrats) and poor (the 99% rest of us). Globalization leads to the hollowing out of the middle class because using technology the well paying jobs that have supported the middle class can easily be offshored to low wage countries. So when The airline loses your bag and you call the helpline, your call is taken by someone in India or Macedonia who may be quite helpful but is doing the job because a Canadian or American worker would have to be paid a higher wage. Freeland really makes a convincing case against globalization. It's ironic that she and Mr Trump, another anti-globalist, are responsible for revisiting NAFTA. But, following her arguments, maybe that's a good thing after all and despite knee-jerk assumptions that globalization brings prosperity. It does, but mostly to the super-wealthy and the middle classes in less developed countries, and at the expense of the existing middle classes in the West and Japan.

I certainly would recommend the book, and I've been a globalization supporter these last twenty-five years as a professor of international strategy. There are always at least two sides to every argument and it's best to participate more as problem-solver and less as a cheerleader. Good book.
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Susmita Dasgupta
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in India on August 5, 2016
excellent work
s cannizzaro
4.0 out of 5 stars good book
Reviewed in Spain on June 23, 2015
bueno, inteligente, me ha gustao bastante, y habla de todo un poco.
Para quien esta interesado en geopolitica y globalizazion.
Elessar
5.0 out of 5 stars Interessantes Buch
Reviewed in Germany on February 24, 2014
Ein sehr interessantes Buch, dass angesichts der immer noch (oder gerade heute) aktuellen Debatte zum Konflikt von Arm und Reich, einen Insight zu geben versucht. Das Buch versucht sich an einem nichtideologischen objektiv beschreibenden Ansatz, um das Auseinanderdriften vor allem der Supperreichen und Reichen aus deren Welt zu beschreiben.

Es ist auf jeden Fall ein interessanter Lesestoff, den man wie generell jedes Buch, stets mit kritischem Blick betrachten sollte.

Empfehlenswert.
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Serghiou Const
5.0 out of 5 stars The super-rich and the dramatic and increasing wealth inequality
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 28, 2012
In order for the reader to gain an appreciation of what exactly means 'dramatic wealth inequality', I present results of research both in terms of absolute numbers and as income multiples. I also draw the attention of the reader that the super-rich occupy the very apex of the wealth pyramid that is the 0.01 percent rather than the 0.1 percent much less the top 1 percent of the population.

Respected Berkeley professor of Economics Emmanuel Saez presents the following research findings on income inequality for the U.S. in 2010: Families at the top 0.01 percent made $23,846,950; that dropped sharply to $2,802,020 for those in the top 0.1 to 0.01 percent. Those at the top 1 percent made $1,014,089; those in the top 10 percent made $246,934. While the bottom 90 percent made an average of $29,840.

Meanwhile Winters, a U.S. political scientist, has created a 'material power index' (MPI), which measures the income of the 10 percent of Americans as a multiple of the average income of the bottom 90 percent. His material power index shows that income polarization in America gets sharper the richer you are: the top 10 percent have an MPI of 4 - meaning their average income is four times that of the bottom 90 percent - while the top 1 percent have an MPI of 15. But when you get to the top 0.1 percent, the MPI jumps to 124.

But who are the individuals that comprise this class of super-rich? what are their characteristics? and what catapulted them to fabulous riches?

The author dubs this class the second 'gilded age' as a parallel to the first 'gilded age' which related to the 'robber barons' of the industrial revolution. They are the multibillionaires of the present era corresponding to the multimillionaires of the industrial era.

I shall briefly and parenthetically discuss the industrial revolution and the multimillionaires it created in the process. The beginning of the industrial revolution concerned the mechanization that put the hand-loom weavers out of work and was a tragedy for these individuals, but it was part of a broader economic transformation that greatly enriched the country as a whole. The industrial revolution eventually lifted all boats, but it also widened the social divide.

The fundamental drivers of the rise of the present super-rich and the second 'gilded age' are the technology revolution and globalization - and the worldwide economic growth they are creating.

The present super-elite are overwhelmingly not individuals of inherited wealth but self-made men who had the right education - Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or say a Harvard MBA - and happened to be at the right place, at the right time and had the risk taking personality to take advantage of the technological revolution.

To-day's era can be more correctly defined as the one of the twin 'gilded ages' because the triumph of the intellectuals is not confined to the West but comprises a truly global phenomenon. It is true that in the U.S. we have such iconic super-elite like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sergei Bryn, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberk but the highly educated are also in the vanguard of India's outsourcing miracle; the intellectuals, essentially their 'technical' branch, are very much in command in Communist China; and even the Russian oligarchs overwhelmingly have advanced degrees in maths and physics.

But the above, their 'embarrassment of riches' notwithstanding add value and wealth to the economy. By contrast there are elites who use their political muscle to increase their share of the preexisting pie, rather than adding value to the economy and thus increasing the pie overall. If the mind of the reader goes to the usual suspects that is the bankers and financiers, then he is absolutely right. As a prime example the author cites the Wall Street bankers who in 2008 and 2009 pushed for and got a massive bailout to save their companies - the biggest intervention in a national economy, as a percentage of GDP, since Lenin's nationalization!

So far we have spoken about the dramatic wealth inequality. I shall conclude the review by considering the 'increasing' part of the subject title:

The Great Depression inflamed the American masses, who imposed further constraints on their plutocrats: the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial and investment banking, FDR's New Deal social welfare program, and ever higher taxes at the very top - by 1949 top tax rate was 94 percent.

Between the 1940s and the 1970s, in the United States the gap between the top 1 percent and everyone else shrank: the income share of the top 1 percent fell from nearly 16 percent in 1940 to under 7 percent in 1970. In 1980, the average U.S. CEO made forty-two times as much as the average worker. By 2012, that ratio had skyrocketed to 380.

I enjoyed reading the book by the brilliant journalist author, her sparkling prose, impeccable statistics and her insight into the nature of the super-rich.
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