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Runaway Inequality: An Activist’s Guide to Economic Justice
Revised, Updated Edition
Runaway inequality is now America's most critical economic fact of life. In 1970, the ratio of pay between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker was 45 to 1. Today it is a shocking 829 to one! During that time a new economic philosophy set in that cut taxes, deregulated finance, and trimmed social spending. Those policies set in motion a process that greatly expanded the power of financial interests to accelerate inequality. But how exactly does that happen?
Using easy-to-understand charts and graphs, Runaway Inequality explains the process by which corporation after corporation falls victim to systematic wealth extraction by banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds. It reveals how financial strip-mining puts enormous downward pressure on jobs, wages, benefits, and working conditions, while boosting the incomes of financial elites.
But Runaway Inequality does more than make sense of our economic plight. It also shows why virtually all the key issues that we face--from climate change to the exploding prison population--are intimately connected to rising economic inequality.
Most importantly, Runaway Inequality calls upon us to build a common movement to tackle the sources of increasing income and wealth inequality. As the author makes clear, the problem will not cure itself. It will take enormous energy and dedication to bring economic justice and fairness back to American society.
The book is divided into four parts:
Part I: What is the fundamental cause of runaway economic inequality? What has made our economy less fair and left most of us less secure?
Part II: How does the United States really compare with other major developed countries? How do we stack up on quality of life, health, and well-being?
Part III: What does economic inequality have to do with so many of the critical issues we face, including taxes, debt, education, criminal justice, racism, climate change, foreign trade, and war?
Part IV: What concrete steps can we take to begin building a fair and just society?
From the book: "There is nothing in the economic universe that will automatically rescue us from runaway inequality. There is no pendulum, no invisible political force that 'naturally' will swing back towards economic fairness. Either we wage a large-scale battle for economic, social, and environmental justice, or we will witness the continued deterioration of the world we inhabit. The arc of capitalism does not bend towards justice. We must bend it."
Runaway inequality is now America's most critical economic fact of life. In 1970, the ratio of pay between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker was 45 to 1. Today it is a shocking 829 to one! During that time a new economic philosophy set in that cut taxes, deregulated finance, and trimmed social spending. Those policies set in motion a process that greatly expanded the power of financial interests to accelerate inequality. But how exactly does that happen?
Using easy-to-understand charts and graphs, Runaway Inequality explains the process by which corporation after corporation falls victim to systematic wealth extraction by banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds. It reveals how financial strip-mining puts enormous downward pressure on jobs, wages, benefits, and working conditions, while boosting the incomes of financial elites.
But Runaway Inequality does more than make sense of our economic plight. It also shows why virtually all the key issues that we face--from climate change to the exploding prison population--are intimately connected to rising economic inequality.
Most importantly, Runaway Inequality calls upon us to build a common movement to tackle the sources of increasing income and wealth inequality. As the author makes clear, the problem will not cure itself. It will take enormous energy and dedication to bring economic justice and fairness back to American society.
The book is divided into four parts:
Part I: What is the fundamental cause of runaway economic inequality? What has made our economy less fair and left most of us less secure?
Part II: How does the United States really compare with other major developed countries? How do we stack up on quality of life, health, and well-being?
Part III: What does economic inequality have to do with so many of the critical issues we face, including taxes, debt, education, criminal justice, racism, climate change, foreign trade, and war?
Part IV: What concrete steps can we take to begin building a fair and just society?
From the book: "There is nothing in the economic universe that will automatically rescue us from runaway inequality. There is no pendulum, no invisible political force that 'naturally' will swing back towards economic fairness. Either we wage a large-scale battle for economic, social, and environmental justice, or we will witness the continued deterioration of the world we inhabit. The arc of capitalism does not bend towards justice. We must bend it."
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
May 22, 2017
Extremely accessible and informative book, but sometimes to its detriment. Leopold cherry-picks his statistics to maximize impact, sometimes using the top 400 wealthiest individuals, sometimes the top 100, and sometimes using only the top Wall Street moguls, and so on. Maybe it was harder to get data on a consistent demographic, but more than likely, Leopold chose the data that most sold the argument. Further, almost all line graphs have their y-axis truncated, making small changes look much more dramatic.
All that said, I think everything in this book is important and true (though perhaps exaggerated), and I highly recommend it to activists who want accessible charts and graphs and don't care to pore over detailed statistical analyses.
All that said, I think everything in this book is important and true (though perhaps exaggerated), and I highly recommend it to activists who want accessible charts and graphs and don't care to pore over detailed statistical analyses.
February 8, 2016
Runaway Inequality: An Activist’s Guide to Economic Justice by Les Leopold
“Runaway Inequality” is a fantastic plea for a common movement against increasing income and wealth inequality. Co-founder of the Labor Institute and author of multiple books on the economy, Les Leopold takes the reader on an enlightening journey on how banks, equity firms, and hedge funds extract wealth from society. This stimulating 320-page book includes a total of twenty-three chapters broken out by the following four parts: 1. Causes of Runaway Inequality, 2. The Decline of American Exceptionalism, 3. Separate Issues, Common Cause, and 4. Solutions.
Positives:
1. A well-written and well-researched book.
2. A very important topic, the causes of income inequality and its impact.
3. Les Leopold is a gifted author. His writing style is straightforward and professorial. He has a great grasp on the topic.
4. The book is well organized. Intended to be educational and it shows. Leopold does a wonderful job of preparing the reader for things to come and ends each chapter with a series of chapter-specific questions. It’s a great format for book clubs!
5. Great use of charts to complement the narrative. Leopold makes extensive use of charts and it is very effective.
6. Clearly lays out the four main aims of the book in the introduction. “We will show that runaway inequality is at the root of many of the problems we face, including the meteoric and disastrous rise of the financial sector, defunding of the public sector, environmental destruction, increased racial discrimination, the gender gap in wages and the rise of our mammoth prison population.”
7. Clearly shows the worsening inequality between workers and CEOs. “In 1970, for every dollar earned by the average worker, the top 100 CEOs earned on average $45. By 2013, the ratio had jumped to $829 to $1.”
8. Provides great examples that clearly illustrate how economic rules in America compare to other developed countries. “In Denmark, companies like McDonald’s and Burger King pay workers $20 an hour plus benefits with no complaint. These same companies, which are actually based in the U.S., pay American workers less than $9 with no benefits.”
9. One of the most important topics discussed in the book, the Better Business Climate which has the following three major economic prescriptions: “1. Cut taxes, especially on the wealthy and large corporations, 2. Cut government regulations, especially on high finance, and 3. Reduce government social spending.” Which leads to, “The Better Business Climate model has clearly led to runaway inequality.”
10. The important concept of Financial Strip-mining of America. “They transformed the corporate ethos of ‘retain and reinvest’ into ‘downsize and distribute.’” “Corporate managers became obsessed with cashing in on those stock options. Growing profits through slow and steady corporate growth – the old capitalist way of doing business – was too slow and unpredictable. Instead, managers could spike stock prices by cutting wages, slashing the workforce, raiding pensions, starving R&D, outsourcing jobs, reducing capital expenditures, and using borrowed money and retained earnings to buy back existing shares to drive up their short-term price. And then collect on their hefty stock options.”
11. Explains how runaway inequality impacts: longevity and happiness, health care, upward mobility, paid leaves, education expenditures, child poverty, worker rights and the environment. “We have among the fewest regulations to protect employees – union, non-union, management, full-time and temporary workers alike.”
12. The issue of taxes. “A significant fraction of global private financial wealth – by our estimates, at least $21 trillion to $32 trillion as of 2010 – has been invested virtually tax free through the world’s still expanding black hole of more than 80 “off shore” secrecy jurisdictions.”
13. Makes the persuasive case that there is a strong correlation between rising debt and runaway inequality. “To pay back their mounting loans, corporations squeezed their own workers. They downsized, moved abroad, cut wages and benefits and replaced full-time workers with temps. CEOs became financial engineers looking to make money through debt, leaving their companies and workers to foot the bill. And so, corporate capitalism morphed into financial strip-mining.”
14. A fascinating look at the state bank of North Dakota. “If we had 50 state banks, instead of just one, we could limit the income-distorting power of rising debt.”
15. A troubling look at incarceration business in America. The four key factors behind the rise of incarcerations starting in 1980. “1) overt racism; 2) Nixon’s ill-fated War on Drugs; 3) punitive laws like New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s “three strikes” legislation; and 4) the 1984 Sentencing Reform Act, which forced judges to issue harsh minimum sentences.”
16. The impact of trade agreements. “So neo-liberalism, plus NAFTA, caused economic hardship for the poor in Mexico, and this accounts for the dramatic rise in immigration into the U.S.”
17. The issue of gender inequality. “One proven way to equalize pay for women is to adopt family-friendly work policies (like flexible hours) that make it easier for both men and women to raise children and take care of other family members.” “Among all the developed economies, only the United States does not pay maternity benefits.”
18. Explains how everything is connected. “Climate change only compounds the inequality created by the Better Business Climate model.”
19. The impact of lobbying and revolving door policies. “If you help out a particular industry when you’re in Congress or a regulatory body, that industry will be eager to pay you richly for your services and inside information later on.”
20. A look at solutions. And so much more…
Negatives:
1. No formal bibliography.
2. My progressive views line up quite well with Mr. Leopold’s, the only thing I would like to see a bit more of is how to break the gridlock in Congress.
3. The icing on the cake would have been two charts showing the views of Senators and Representatives with respect to the key issues discussed in this book.
In summary, this is an excellent book the clearly shows the driving forces behind income inequality. Leopold does an outstanding job of clearly and methodically explaining the key issues regarding inequality and closes out the book with well-reasoned solutions. Kudos! I highly recommend it!
Further recommendations: “Looting America” by Les Leopold, “Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality“, “Perfectly Legal”, “The Fine Print” and “Free Lunch” by David Cay Johnston, “Divide” by Matt Taibbi, “Saving Capitalism” and “Beyond Outrage” by Robert B. Reich, “Protecting Capitalism Case by Case” by Eliot Spitzer, “The Great Divide” and “The Price of Inequality” by Joseph E. Stiglitz, “Winner-Take-All Politics” by Jacob S. Hacker “Republic, Lost” by Lawrence Lessig, “The New Elite” by Dr. Jim Taylor, “ECONned” by Yves Smith, “The Great Divergence” by Timothy Noah, and “Bailout” by Neil Barofsky.
“Runaway Inequality” is a fantastic plea for a common movement against increasing income and wealth inequality. Co-founder of the Labor Institute and author of multiple books on the economy, Les Leopold takes the reader on an enlightening journey on how banks, equity firms, and hedge funds extract wealth from society. This stimulating 320-page book includes a total of twenty-three chapters broken out by the following four parts: 1. Causes of Runaway Inequality, 2. The Decline of American Exceptionalism, 3. Separate Issues, Common Cause, and 4. Solutions.
Positives:
1. A well-written and well-researched book.
2. A very important topic, the causes of income inequality and its impact.
3. Les Leopold is a gifted author. His writing style is straightforward and professorial. He has a great grasp on the topic.
4. The book is well organized. Intended to be educational and it shows. Leopold does a wonderful job of preparing the reader for things to come and ends each chapter with a series of chapter-specific questions. It’s a great format for book clubs!
5. Great use of charts to complement the narrative. Leopold makes extensive use of charts and it is very effective.
6. Clearly lays out the four main aims of the book in the introduction. “We will show that runaway inequality is at the root of many of the problems we face, including the meteoric and disastrous rise of the financial sector, defunding of the public sector, environmental destruction, increased racial discrimination, the gender gap in wages and the rise of our mammoth prison population.”
7. Clearly shows the worsening inequality between workers and CEOs. “In 1970, for every dollar earned by the average worker, the top 100 CEOs earned on average $45. By 2013, the ratio had jumped to $829 to $1.”
8. Provides great examples that clearly illustrate how economic rules in America compare to other developed countries. “In Denmark, companies like McDonald’s and Burger King pay workers $20 an hour plus benefits with no complaint. These same companies, which are actually based in the U.S., pay American workers less than $9 with no benefits.”
9. One of the most important topics discussed in the book, the Better Business Climate which has the following three major economic prescriptions: “1. Cut taxes, especially on the wealthy and large corporations, 2. Cut government regulations, especially on high finance, and 3. Reduce government social spending.” Which leads to, “The Better Business Climate model has clearly led to runaway inequality.”
10. The important concept of Financial Strip-mining of America. “They transformed the corporate ethos of ‘retain and reinvest’ into ‘downsize and distribute.’” “Corporate managers became obsessed with cashing in on those stock options. Growing profits through slow and steady corporate growth – the old capitalist way of doing business – was too slow and unpredictable. Instead, managers could spike stock prices by cutting wages, slashing the workforce, raiding pensions, starving R&D, outsourcing jobs, reducing capital expenditures, and using borrowed money and retained earnings to buy back existing shares to drive up their short-term price. And then collect on their hefty stock options.”
11. Explains how runaway inequality impacts: longevity and happiness, health care, upward mobility, paid leaves, education expenditures, child poverty, worker rights and the environment. “We have among the fewest regulations to protect employees – union, non-union, management, full-time and temporary workers alike.”
12. The issue of taxes. “A significant fraction of global private financial wealth – by our estimates, at least $21 trillion to $32 trillion as of 2010 – has been invested virtually tax free through the world’s still expanding black hole of more than 80 “off shore” secrecy jurisdictions.”
13. Makes the persuasive case that there is a strong correlation between rising debt and runaway inequality. “To pay back their mounting loans, corporations squeezed their own workers. They downsized, moved abroad, cut wages and benefits and replaced full-time workers with temps. CEOs became financial engineers looking to make money through debt, leaving their companies and workers to foot the bill. And so, corporate capitalism morphed into financial strip-mining.”
14. A fascinating look at the state bank of North Dakota. “If we had 50 state banks, instead of just one, we could limit the income-distorting power of rising debt.”
15. A troubling look at incarceration business in America. The four key factors behind the rise of incarcerations starting in 1980. “1) overt racism; 2) Nixon’s ill-fated War on Drugs; 3) punitive laws like New York State Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s “three strikes” legislation; and 4) the 1984 Sentencing Reform Act, which forced judges to issue harsh minimum sentences.”
16. The impact of trade agreements. “So neo-liberalism, plus NAFTA, caused economic hardship for the poor in Mexico, and this accounts for the dramatic rise in immigration into the U.S.”
17. The issue of gender inequality. “One proven way to equalize pay for women is to adopt family-friendly work policies (like flexible hours) that make it easier for both men and women to raise children and take care of other family members.” “Among all the developed economies, only the United States does not pay maternity benefits.”
18. Explains how everything is connected. “Climate change only compounds the inequality created by the Better Business Climate model.”
19. The impact of lobbying and revolving door policies. “If you help out a particular industry when you’re in Congress or a regulatory body, that industry will be eager to pay you richly for your services and inside information later on.”
20. A look at solutions. And so much more…
Negatives:
1. No formal bibliography.
2. My progressive views line up quite well with Mr. Leopold’s, the only thing I would like to see a bit more of is how to break the gridlock in Congress.
3. The icing on the cake would have been two charts showing the views of Senators and Representatives with respect to the key issues discussed in this book.
In summary, this is an excellent book the clearly shows the driving forces behind income inequality. Leopold does an outstanding job of clearly and methodically explaining the key issues regarding inequality and closes out the book with well-reasoned solutions. Kudos! I highly recommend it!
Further recommendations: “Looting America” by Les Leopold, “Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality“, “Perfectly Legal”, “The Fine Print” and “Free Lunch” by David Cay Johnston, “Divide” by Matt Taibbi, “Saving Capitalism” and “Beyond Outrage” by Robert B. Reich, “Protecting Capitalism Case by Case” by Eliot Spitzer, “The Great Divide” and “The Price of Inequality” by Joseph E. Stiglitz, “Winner-Take-All Politics” by Jacob S. Hacker “Republic, Lost” by Lawrence Lessig, “The New Elite” by Dr. Jim Taylor, “ECONned” by Yves Smith, “The Great Divergence” by Timothy Noah, and “Bailout” by Neil Barofsky.
November 19, 2015
Bernie Sanders should endorse this book! Runaway Inequality explains and provides evidence for the huge economic divide in the US. Leopold explains how Wall Street, out of control banks and debt, ever increasing privatization of the public property, goods, and services we depend, the rampant destruction of the environment, low wages, police brutality, and much more, are making it very difficult for many people in the US to reach our fullest potential and live productive, happy lives.
This book is indeed an activist guide. It's easy to read, and it has lots of useful data for activists and ordinary citizens to use to argue why we need political, economic, and social revolution in this country. You may be very surprised in reading this book by the true average wage gap between workers and CEOs in this country. You should already know how less than 1% of the population has amassed enough personal wealth to support themselves for ten to fifteen lifetimes.
This guide would make a useful read for group discussions. Students could use it as the basis for research papers on related topics, and unions could use it as a guide to educate workers about why and how changes are needed.
Runaway Inequality connects the dots and shows how trickle down economics has not and does not work for the vast majority of works of workers and citizens. It explains in clear language the role and dangers of finance capital and how it contributes to the economic divide, and ultimately how it contributes to the economic crisis of 2008.
If you have never read a book like this, I strongly encourage you to do so.
This book is indeed an activist guide. It's easy to read, and it has lots of useful data for activists and ordinary citizens to use to argue why we need political, economic, and social revolution in this country. You may be very surprised in reading this book by the true average wage gap between workers and CEOs in this country. You should already know how less than 1% of the population has amassed enough personal wealth to support themselves for ten to fifteen lifetimes.
This guide would make a useful read for group discussions. Students could use it as the basis for research papers on related topics, and unions could use it as a guide to educate workers about why and how changes are needed.
Runaway Inequality connects the dots and shows how trickle down economics has not and does not work for the vast majority of works of workers and citizens. It explains in clear language the role and dangers of finance capital and how it contributes to the economic divide, and ultimately how it contributes to the economic crisis of 2008.
If you have never read a book like this, I strongly encourage you to do so.
September 3, 2017
This book is at least half charts and graphs, and it is actively designed as a teaching tool (I'm taking an all-day seminar from the author next week, hoping to learn a tmore about teaching the model). He can be a tiny bit fast-and-loose with his numbers, and he can certainly get heavy-handed, but at the same time he has really gathered and condensed the numbers we all need to understand exactly how bad things are in the U.S., how they got that way, and who did it. I especially like his replacement of the bogus phrase "neo-liberalism" with "Better Business Climate," and the way he lays so many sins clearly at the Better Business Climate promoters' door.
Don't read it for the writing, but do read it (it's a very quick read) if you don't feel like you have enough facts to support your understanding of how this all works.
Don't read it for the writing, but do read it (it's a very quick read) if you don't feel like you have enough facts to support your understanding of how this all works.
June 29, 2017
An excellent overview of how neoliberalism has allowed the financial sector to devour the public good over the past 40 years. Some good suggestions in the last section, though it's hard to see how those in power would ever let some of them come to pass.
September 2, 2016
Well written and very informative. I highly recommend this book, though I wish the author would remember that not everyone with wealth is the enemy. Also for an activists guide there is very little by why of proactive step by step solutions. Still, a good read and one I hope will change the way we see things.
November 21, 2017
A decent overview about the contributing factors to our historic economic inequality today. Also serves as a workbook for the modern organizer to more fully question those forces and start to analyze solutions. The target audience for this book is only obvious on the final page: anyone interested enough to read a book about this topic is likely already fairly well educated about these issues. Les wants the reader to fully entrench themselves in the facts and to build a national, broad-reaching coalition to organize on this "silo-breaking" issue.
My only real problem with the book is that often times statistics are presented without an appropriate sense of scale. Worse still is that the majority of bar graphs in the book appear with no y-axis, allowing the author to present statistics as distortedly as he sees fit. On a similar bend, the book started out with a much more objective and unbiased tone of voice, and slowly relaxes into a less apologetically progressive leftist tone. It's obvious that having moral feelings about these very human and sensitive issues such as wealth disparity, access to healthcare, racial divides in community policing and more would naturally align one with a more democratic political identity, at least in today's arena. However, the arguments made in the beginning of the book then seem incompatible with the author's presumption that working to amend these modern maladies is a moral imperative.
I'd guess the average bear would learn a little bit more from this book than I did. Decent read, but not highly recommended.
My only real problem with the book is that often times statistics are presented without an appropriate sense of scale. Worse still is that the majority of bar graphs in the book appear with no y-axis, allowing the author to present statistics as distortedly as he sees fit. On a similar bend, the book started out with a much more objective and unbiased tone of voice, and slowly relaxes into a less apologetically progressive leftist tone. It's obvious that having moral feelings about these very human and sensitive issues such as wealth disparity, access to healthcare, racial divides in community policing and more would naturally align one with a more democratic political identity, at least in today's arena. However, the arguments made in the beginning of the book then seem incompatible with the author's presumption that working to amend these modern maladies is a moral imperative.
I'd guess the average bear would learn a little bit more from this book than I did. Decent read, but not highly recommended.
January 22, 2020
Les Leopold was at Oberlin at the same time that I was. He was an activist even then and so he has been involved in issues related to unions and workers rights for many years. That said, his assessment of how things have gone downhill for most of the American population while a very small percentage has done phenomenally well is intriguing and probably right on target. We used to build things and take pride in it. Now American productivity is at an all time high, but those who are producing goods (and services) are not seeing the benefits of their labor. Instead, most of the profits, instead of being plowed back into the infrastructure and research, go to pay the interest on the highly leveraged loans which were used by the corporate purchasers. Then ridiculous salaries are paid to the upper level management teams whose main goals are to maximize payments to stockholders. Then there is not enough left or the political will to pass the benefits on to those who produce the goods and services. Very enlightening reading.
June 24, 2017
I should let you know that I seldom or never give 5's so 4 stars mean I like this book a great deal. It is an excellent sector-by-sector rundown on how we, the 99%, are being screwed by our government in favor of the 1% who have succeeded in establishing the Better Business Paradigm of corporate control, strip-mining of our economy, evasion of taxes, & destruction of the natural resources of the planet we depend upon for life. While Leopold covers all bases, this is still a concise, easy to understand work augmented by numerous charts & tables. I am especially impressed with the call to action in the final chapter which the author has made available to anyone & everyone for free at
http://runawayinequality.org/10965-2/ so I hope everyone will read it.
http://runawayinequality.org/10965-2/ so I hope everyone will read it.
May 31, 2017
Starting around 1980, a tremendous wealth gap started forming between average Americans and the few who were ultra-wealthy, and it still exists today. Why? This powerfully argued book explains, and crams what seems like a college course worth of recent American economic history between its covers. It's simply worded and backed up with a multitude of studies. Published in 2016, before the presidential election, most of the tome is even more relevant in light of today's political and economic climate.
December 1, 2019
Very informative and accessible. Does not attack/promote democrats or republicans specifically, although there's no real question as to where the author stands. I was given several copies for free by the author; once I finished reading it I have been giving them away to the people whom I think would most benefit from reading them.
November 19, 2020
Even though the author picks and chooses his statistics, no one can deny the rich get riches while the poor get poorer. This book not only gives the reality but also explains why it happened. I good book to read if you want to learn about what needs to happened to have the US be closer to the life we knew in the 60s and 70s.
October 7, 2017
Inlighting book
Opened my eyes to the terrible effects of runaway inequality. Hope that Bernie Sanders can organize progressive democratic groups around the country to fight inequality, corruption ,pollution and find and fund candidates that will support that fight.
Opened my eyes to the terrible effects of runaway inequality. Hope that Bernie Sanders can organize progressive democratic groups around the country to fight inequality, corruption ,pollution and find and fund candidates that will support that fight.
May 15, 2018
Important material. Unfortunately, it is so packed full of data and information that it doesn't make for a good read. It's better to come back to for a chapter here and there after a while - especially when you need to renew your aggravation at the state of American economic injustice.
February 18, 2024
This book should be required reading for all workers in the US.
While some arguments could gain some deeper historical perspective, the book is supposed to be an accessible manual for action, and thus my objections have to be understood in that context.
While some arguments could gain some deeper historical perspective, the book is supposed to be an accessible manual for action, and thus my objections have to be understood in that context.
October 23, 2017
This book is great. It appeals to all political bents equally (Bernie, Hillary, Trump, or none of the above), and readers come out of it hoppin' mad and ready to kick some 1% butt.
March 20, 2019
Worth everyone’s time to help understand the immense inequalities between the richest rich and the rest of us in every facet of our nation.
March 21, 2017
Extremely eye-opening book revealing the link between inequality in the financial and corporate sector with such injustices in America as racism, criminal justice, militarism, etc. I especially liked the author's many charts comparing America to other first world countries, exposing the lie to American exceptionalism. My one complaint is the author's failure to present a clear way ahead.
September 3, 2024
A really important and quick read about the challenge facing working people. Leopold argues that "runaway inequality" is a common enemy that social movements could unite around. The broad educational program he calls for (and is working to build) wisely borrows from the life's work of his friend/co-worker the late Tony Mazzocchi — and The Labor Party, which Mazzocchi led.
May 7, 2016
This was good. It is very scary to think about how corporations own so much of the power in our nation, rather than the people.
April 1, 2017
A book that everybody needs to read. Eye-opening!
5 Stars! I read this book straight through, thinking, "Finally! Someone is able to make sense of this mess we're in." Now, how to go on from here!
5 Stars! I read this book straight through, thinking, "Finally! Someone is able to make sense of this mess we're in." Now, how to go on from here!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews