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Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
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Publisher's summary
Before and after World War II, a serendipitous confluence of events created a healthy balance between the market and the polity - between the engine of capitalism and the egalitarian ideals of democracy. Under Roosevelt's New Deal, unions and collective bargaining were legalized. Glass-Steagall reined in speculative finance. At Bretton Woods, a global financial system was devised explicitly to allow nations to manage capitalism.
Yet this golden era turned out to be lightning in a bottle. From the 1970s on, a power shift occurred, in which financial regulations were rolled back, taxes were cut, inequality worsened, and disheartened voters turned to far-right faux populism. Robert Kuttner lays out the events that led to the postwar miracle, and charts its dissolution all the way to Trump, Brexit, and the tenuous state of the EU.
Is today's poisonous alliance of reckless finance and ultra-nationalism inevitable? Or can democracy find a way to survive?
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By: Gary Gerstle
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Forgotten Continent
- The Battle for Latin America’s Soul
- By: Michael Reid
- Narrated by: Gary Dikeos
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Latin America has often been condemned to failure. Neither poor enough to evoke Africa’s moral crusade nor as explosively booming as India and China, it has largely been overlooked by the West. Yet this vast continent, home to half a billion people, the world’s largest reserves of arable land, and 8.5 percent of global oil, is busily transforming its political and economic landscape.
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Good Reporting / Disorganized Content
- By Steven Schuster on 02-11-12
By: Michael Reid
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Beyond Outrage
- What Has Gone Wrong with Our Economy and Our Democracy, and How to Fix Them
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Robert B. Reich
- Length: 3 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert B. Reich urges Americans to get beyond mere outrage about the nation’s increasingly concentrated wealth and corrupt politics in order to mobilize and to take back our economy and democracy. Americans can’t rely only on getting good people elected, Reich argues, because nothing positive happens in Washington unless good people outside Washington are organized to help make those things happen after the election. But in order to be effectively mobilized, we need to see the big picture.
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Falls short
- By J. Klinghoffer on 11-04-13
By: Robert B. Reich
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A Capitalism for the People
- Recapturing the Lost Genius of American Prosperity
- By: Luigi Zingales
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in Italy, University of Chicago economist Luigi Zingales witnessed firsthand the consequences of high inflation and unemployment - paired with rampant nepotism and cronyism - on a country’s economy. This experience profoundly shaped his professional interests, and in 1988 he arrived in the United States, armed with a political passion and the belief that economists should not merely interpret the world, but should change it for the better.
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Enjoyable but a tad predictable.
- By Kevin on 12-24-12
By: Luigi Zingales
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A Generation of Sociopaths
- How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
- By: Bruce Cannon Gibney
- Narrated by: Wayne Pyle
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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What happens when a society is run by people who are antisocial? Welcome to baby boomer America. In A Generation of Sociopaths, Bruce Cannon Gibney shows how America was hijacked by the boomers, a generation whose reckless self-indulgence degraded the foundations of American prosperity.
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Honest introspection required
- By Niki on 03-31-17
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How the Other Half Banks
- Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy
- By: Mehrsa Baradaran
- Narrated by: Priya Ayyar
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The United States has two separate banking systems today - one serving the well-to-do and another exploiting everyone else. How the Other Half Banks contributes to the growing conversation on American inequality by highlighting one of its prime causes: unequal credit. Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities - all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s.
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The Borrowers at the Fringe
- By Darwin8u on 09-13-16
By: Mehrsa Baradaran
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Aftershock
- The Next Economy and America’s Future
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Robert Reich
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of 12 acclaimed books, Robert B. Reich is a Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and has served in three national administrations. While many blamed Wall Street for the financial meltdown, Aftershock points a finger at a national economy in which wealth is increasingly concentrated at the top - and where a grasping middle class simply does not have the resources to remain viable.
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Very plausible assessment of our economy
- By CAR TOP CAMPER on 10-06-10
By: Robert B. Reich
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Russia's Crony Capitalism
- The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy
- By: Anders Aslund
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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This insightful study explores how the economic system Vladimir Putin has developed in Russia works to consolidate control over the country. By appointing his close associates as heads of state enterprises and by giving control of the FSB and the judiciary to his friends from the KGB, he has enriched his business friends from Saint Petersburg with preferential government deals. Thus, Putin has created a super wealthy and loyal plutocracy that owes its existence to authoritarianism.
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great book, so so narration
- By Rob on 05-20-19
By: Anders Aslund
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Hostile Takeover
- Resisting Centralized Government's Stranglehold on America
- By: Matt Kibbe
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Hostile Takeover is a rebellious challenge to the "upper management" of government, who are choking American prosperity and liberty. Matt Kibbe exposes the privileged collusion of Washington insiders - and maps out a proven plan for how to return power from the self-appointed "experts" back to the people. Dubbed "one of the Tea Party's masterminds" by Newsweek, Kibbe reveals how grassroots citizens can and will check the federal behemoth and restore the American enterprise.
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An amazing book from an interesting perspective
- By Aaron on 12-28-12
By: Matt Kibbe
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Dead Aid
- Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa
- By: Dambisa Moyo, Niall Ferguson - foreword
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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A national best-seller, Dead Aid unflinchingly confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth. In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined - and millions continue to suffer. Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Dambisa Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing the development of the world's poorest countries.
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Dangerous / Right Wing US view
- By David O'Donovan on 03-05-19
By: Dambisa Moyo, and others
What listeners say about Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- marwalk
- 09-13-19
This book pulls no punches
Robert Kuttner identifies the guilty parties in the ongoing global heist from the non-rich to the rich. Kuttner even criticizes Thomas Piketty on some points—from a progressive perspective! Here you will find comprehensive documented details showing how business as usual continues, but not in the beneficial way the cheerleaders of the current practices of capitalism would have you believe.
Kuttner goes a little further than other writers who've addressed the problem of government capture by the financial oligarchy (frankly fascism), in that he emphatically prescribes remedies that are primarily political (and not just regulatory). Political transformation is the only way to remove the discrepancy between current government trends of tax cuts for the rich (with reductions in social services, environmental protection, and infrastructure) and consistent public opinion polling indicating preference for freedom from debt that involves universal health care, public education, improved transportation systems, sound ecological practices, and mitigation of extreme inequality.
Effecting such political transformation involves reduction in gerrymandering (or better yet, ranked-choice voting), including workers on corporate boards, and increasing voter participation from its current abysmal levels. (The US Senate remains an enduring non-democratic institution, which was a compromise between the original 13 states in 1787—that situation has long since evolved, and we will have to address the difficult question of apportionment in the Senate if the US is to ever have a truly representative government.) Regardless of the structure of the Senate, voter apathy is a major failure in politics as all levels that must be corrected.
Removing undue influence in elections is a different and looming challenge since the Citizens United decision, which opened the floodgates for all persons (or entities) to exercise their 1st Amendment rights of free speech—as long as you have the money to spend on exorbitant advertising and promotion costs (hint: that's not most of us). Kuttner highlights the critical distinction between a one-person-one-vote system and one-dollar-one-vote system—unfortunately, in practical respects we're currently operating under the latter arrangement. This influence-money goes to manipulate people to vote for candidates and initiatives, based on voters' perceived needs as indicated by data analytics. On the surface, persuasion based on public perception is what political campaigns are all about—but when a critical mass of voters is disengaged and only peripherally paying attention, slight of hand logic and visceral manipulation carry outsized influence. With the vast majority of voters in TL;DR mode regarding politics, a communications means short of wonk level is needed to reach most people on critical issues.
Internationally, Kuttner addresses trans-national rules and norms that formalize private equity leeching—these must be thrown into full reverse. Purchased companies should be nurtured and operated productively, not cannibalized for investor profit. One can already hear the protests to this assertion: "But that's how the system operates!"—that's true, and it must stop! We need a system in which investors have no incentive to cannibalize the economy's underpinnings in order to prosper.
Humans are social animals, who thrive only when we cooperate fairly with one another—Kuttner demonstrates why government, finance, industry, and labor must all be socially responsible in everything they do and demand. Enforced rules (legal or societal) are appropriate to ensure that is the case. A socially responsible tax structure (which we currently do not have) also would go a long way toward this end. Recognizing the humanity of those who are not seen as humans (in the eyes of different and often opposing groups) is an essential element to the cure—this is a reciprocal requirement, from which no one is exempt.
After all its proven-false claims of optimal prosperity, it is actually laissez-faire that is the road to serfdom. Socially responsible Keynesianism is a better road—let's make the requisite political transformation in order to take it.
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- Ricardo Ernst
- 06-12-18
Definitely a different perspective!
Overall it is definitely a great book. I found it a little bit biased and one-sided but worthwhile reading it.
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- Justin
- 07-27-18
Progressive Movement
Many activists are left wondering what the progressive movement should do next politically. Kuttner gives essential feedback.
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- Dimitrios
- 10-06-18
very interesting book
It uses evidence to describe the problems of global capitalism and provides solid ideas on mixed economy. the only problem is that the author is constraint in his ideological prison and cannot see that those led are those imposing corporate dark ages and responsible for the extreme right. They are not the solution they are the problem!
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- Daniel Temple
- 07-26-18
Hits the nail on the head about whats wrong today
This book needs to be read by all working class Americans. It lays out our economic woes precisely and exposes the lies of our corporate owned media and corporate owned politicians.
Unlike the book "Why Democracies Fail" it accurately calls out the cause of the USA's ills as runaway power of the Rich. Over time the wealthy have weakened regulations, workers unions, and democracy just as they had done similarly prior New Deal era.
I cannot recommend this book any more strongly!!!
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- Anonymous User
- 02-18-19
Extremely thorough analysis
I would define myself as a free market anti socialist. Which is exactly why this book was valuable for me. It didn't convert me, but it did shift my view significantly, not many books can do that.
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- Jonathan
- 07-05-19
A must read
Does an exceptional job providing context for how the present neoliberal order came to be.
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- Kit. Webster
- 07-17-18
The same old stuff, without nuance
If you are looking for the usual conversation about the state of America from a liberal perspective, this is your book. If you are looking for nuance, balance and creativity, not so much.
A consistently romantic view of workers and the casting of corporations and capitalism, which the author deems as the same thing, as demons, creates a plot that writes itself.
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4 people found this helpful