Plutocrats
The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
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Narrated by:
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Allyson Ryan
About this listen
There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Alarmingly, the greatest income gap is not between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, but within the wealthiest 1 percent of our nation - as the merely wealthy are left behind by the rapidly expanding fortunes of the new global super-rich. Forget the 1 percent; Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at break-neck speed.
What's changed is more than numbers. Today, most colossal fortunes are new, not inherited - amassed by perceptive businessmen who see themselves as deserving victors in a cut-throat international competition. As a transglobal class of successful professionals, today's self-made oligarchs often feel they have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Bringing together the economics and psychology of these new super-rich, Plutocrats puts us inside a league very much of its own, with its own rules.
The closest mirror to our own time is the late 19th century Gilded Age - the era of powerful "robber barons" like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Then as now, emerging markets and innovative technologies collided to produce unprecedented wealth for more people than ever in human history. Yet those at the very top benefited far more than others - and from this pinnacle they exercised immense and unchecked power in their countries. Today's closest analogue to these robber barons can be found in the turbulent economies of India, Brazil, and China, all home to ferocious market competition and political turmoil. But wealth, corruption, and populism are no longer constrained by national borders, so this new Gilded Age is already transforming the economics of the West as well. Plutocrats demonstrates how social upheavals generated by the first Gilded Age may pale in comparison to what is in store for us, as the wealth of the entire globalized world is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
Cracking open the tight-knit world of the new global super-rich is Chrystia Freeland, an acclaimed business journalist who has spent nearly two decades reporting on the new transglobal elite. She parses an internal Citigroup memo that urges clients to design portfolios around the international "Plutonomy" and not the national “rest”; follows Russian, Mexican, and Indian oligarchs during the privatization boom as they manipulate the levers of power to commandeer their local economies; breaks down the gender divide between the vast female-managed "middle class" and the world's one thousand billionaires; shows how, by controlling both the economic and political institutions of their nation, the richest members of China's National People's Congress have amassed more wealth than every branch of American government combined - the president, his cabinet, the justices of the Supreme Court, and both houses of Congress.
Though the results can be shocking, Freeland dissects the lives of the world's wealthiest individuals with empathy, intelligence, and deep insight. Intelligently written, powerfully researched, and propelled by fascinating original interviews with the plutocrats themselves, Plutocrats is a tour-de-force of social and economic history, and the definitive examination of inequality in our time.
©2012 Chrystia Freeland (P)2012 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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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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The Firm
- The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business
- By: Duff McDonald
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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A behind-the-scenes, revelatory history of McKinsey & Company, America's most influential and controversial business consulting firm, told by one of the nation's leading financial journalists. In The Firm, Duff McDonald uncovers how these high-powered, high-priced business savants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological shifts. With unrivaled access to company documents and current and former employees, McDonald reveals the inner workings of what just might be the most influential private organization in America.
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Warning: Non consultants should avoid
- By R. Jaeger on 11-04-13
By: Duff McDonald
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Capitalism in America
- A History
- By: Alan Greenspan, Adrian Wooldridge
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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From the legendary former Fed Chairman and the acclaimed Economist writer and historian, the full, epic story of America's evolution from a small patchwork of threadbare colonies to the most powerful engine of wealth and innovation the world has ever seen.
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Explains a lot
- By Scott on 02-18-19
By: Alan Greenspan, and others
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Third World America
- How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream
- By: Arianna Huffington
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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America's middle class, the driver of so much of our economic success and political stability, is rapidly disappearing, forcing us to confront the fear that we are slipping as a nation - that our children and grandchildren will enjoy fewer opportunities and face a lower standard of living than we did. It's the dark flipside of the American Dream - an American Nightmare of our own making.
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Sad... but with a ray of hope
- By Maciej on 10-20-10
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Supercapitalism
- The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the 1970s, and notwithstanding three recessions, the U.S. economy has soared. American capitalism has been a triumph, and it has spread throughout the world. At the same time, argues the former U.S. secretary of labor, Robert B. Reich, the effectiveness of democracy in America has declined. It has grown less responsive to the citizenry, and people are feeling more and more helpless as a result.
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Robert Reich for V.P. (of the U.S.)
- By Horace on 11-07-07
By: Robert B. Reich
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The World Is Flat
- Further Updated and Expanded
- By: Thomas L. Friedman
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development in the first few years of the twenty-first century? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations?
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If you like cliches...
- By Jonathan Shultz on 09-08-07
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Dealing with China
- An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower
- By: Henry M. Paulson
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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When Hu Jintao, China's then vice president, came to visit the New York Stock Exchange and Ground Zero in 2002, he asked Hank Paulson to be his guide. It was a testament to the pivotal role that Goldman Sachs played in helping China experiment with private enterprise. In Dealing with China, the best-selling author of On the Brink draws on his unprecedented access to both the political and business leaders of modern China to answer several key questions.
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A Valuable Book on China
- By Michael Moore on 09-04-15
By: Henry M. Paulson
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The Billionaire Raj
- A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age
- By: James Crabtree
- Narrated by: Shridhar Solanki
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In megacities like Mumbai, where half the population live in slums, the extraordinary riches of India’s new dynasties echo the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers of yesterday. James Crabtree’s The Billionaire Raj takes listeners on a personal journey to meet these reclusive billionaires, fugitive tycoons, and shadowy political power brokers. Crabtree dramatizes the battle between crony capitalists and economic reformers, revealing a tense struggle between equality and privilege playing out against a combustible backdrop of aspiration, class, and caste.
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Engaging, authors politics could be reduced
- By Chris on 06-17-23
By: James Crabtree
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The Fourth Revolution
- The Global Race to Reinvent the State
- By: John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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From the best-selling authors of The Right Nation, a visionary argument that our current crisis in government is nothing less than the fourth radical transition in the history of the nation-state. Dysfunctional government: It' s become a cliché, and most of us are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge show us, that is a seriously limited view of things. In fact, there have been three great revolutions in government in the history of the modern world.
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A must read for everyone wondering whats going?
- By Truth-be-told on 03-30-15
By: John Micklethwait, and others
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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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The Great Reset
- How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity
- By: Richard Florida
- Narrated by: Eric Conger
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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We tend to view prolonged economic downturns, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Long Depression of the late 19th century, in terms of the crisis and pain they cause. But history teaches us that these great crises also represent opportunities to remake our economy and society and to generate whole new eras of economic growth and prosperity.
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glorification of City Life
- By Ryan Riggs on 11-25-20
By: Richard Florida
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The Post-American World 2.0
- By: Fareed Zakaria
- Narrated by: Fareed Zakaria
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is the New York Times and international best seller, revised and expanded with a new afterword. This is the essential update of Fareed Zakaria's analysis about America and its shifting position in world affairs. In this new edition, Zakaria makes sense of the rapidly changing global landscape. With his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination, he draws on lessons from the two great power shifts of the past 500 years - the rise of the Western world and the rise of the United States - to tell us what we can expect from the third shift, the rise of the rest.
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S/B req reading for every man, woman and child...
- By Kopernicus on 10-20-11
By: Fareed Zakaria
What listeners say about Plutocrats
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- Leo D.
- 11-22-17
Brilliant read/listen...
If you are at the bottom with hopes of one day making it this is what you need.
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- Joshua Talley
- 12-19-12
A glimpse into the lives of the .1%
What made the experience of listening to Plutocrats the most enjoyable?
Freeland offers an interesting opportunity to see and to experience the worldview of the super rich and the ultra influential both past and present. As the influence of the uber wealthy increases and the world's plutocrats increasingly answer to nobody beyond their inner circle, this book proves particularly timely.
How did the narrator detract from the book?
Ryan has a nice voice, but her frequent mispronunciations detracted from her narration and made me question whether or not she understood what she was reading. I would imagine that the job of a narrator would include learning the meanings and correct pronunciations of any unfamiliar words.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Pink Sparkle
- 01-21-13
Apolotegic: Overglamourises Plutocrats
I purchased this book because I saw Chrystia doing an interview about the topic. Starts with a survey of plutocrats in the past to establish a basis for comparison but quickly devolves into an apologist's vantage of plutocrats and oligarchs, a trend that continues past half the book. I was a bit discouraged with the tone, but I decided to finish it. She finally returned to the tone I expected, albeit more politically correct and nuanced treatment than I would have liked.
As I listened to the audiobook version, I'll mention that the narrator did a good job reading the material, notwithstanding the mispronunciation of several words, most notably "specious" and employing the rendering of "conservatorship" with a long A vowel sound; this, whilst technically correct is awkward and uncommon, so perhaps an overly pedantic choice over the more typical pronunciation with a short A or schwa sound."
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3 people found this helpful
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- KHimself
- 12-09-12
Money sure Contributes To Happiness
“Plutocrats” is one of the most appropriate books of the 2012 area. It deeply reveals the inequalities in our society. Far from been a critic of plutocracy, I find the book to be more of a window into the world of plutocrats. I couldn’t say that I’ve learned how to become wealthy in this book but, I can definitely say that it increased my understanding of their bubble. I would have loved Chrystia to talk a little bit about her and how she got access to all the plutocrats she interviewed.
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- Anonymous User
- 10-28-20
Beautifully Insightful
An even balance between an unbiased generalization of knowledge on the subject and detailed facts; one could walk away much more informed than before just having heard the very first chapter, however, it is the entirety of this read that is, by far, of the most value.
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- Susan
- 11-04-12
Good Storytelling but ... analysis is "eh'
You may note a three-star rating for "overall' and four-star rating for "story' -- which may seem a bit backward. Well ...
the stories of the world's plutocrats are interesting ...
but ...
the analysis is ...
well, maybe it is me. Maybe I just do not understand the terminology being used. I am not a Harvard educated entitled elite -- I attended Rutgers University and the University of Minnesota. And maybe that is why I have a "normal" person's understanding of certain words -- like "liberalization."
To me, "liberal" refers to left leaning policies that lean toward socialism and away from free-market and business-positive policies. However, that is not how "liberalization" is used in this book.
Also, the author has spent decades reporting on the plutocrats, even attending some of the same meetings and conferences they attend. I think she identifies herself as one of them, to some degree, because she enjoys some of the same perks they do.
So, I find her analysis of the situation a bit "off" -- or so it seems to me.
Thankfully I had already listened to other books that touch on subjects mentioned here, so I wasn't lost when they were brought up and also could wonder at her analysis that seemed unaware of these other aspects of the events she refers to. One such book I would recommend is How I Caused the Credit Crunch -- An Insider's Story of the Financial Meltdown by Tetsuya Ishikawa (who worked for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and ABN AMRO); it describes quite well the truly weird financial instruments and the huge bonuses financiers were making on their sale that led to the financial melt-down -- an understanding one probably needs to understand the basis for the wealth of the lower portion of the 1% ... the so-called "working rich" Freeland refers to in PLUTOCRATS.
And a second negative -- not just of the book but of how many people (economists, at least, talk this way) think -- is the idea that making people "richer" or that increasing their income is actually a measure of progress. Well, I did not state that properly. I mean, to compare the daily wage of someone in China in dollars with an American factory worker's daily wage -- is stupid. Yes, I agree that a daily income of about $2 versus whatever an American makes a day is hugely disparate. But a more honest indicator would be an indication of the daily wage set against a cost-of-living index. Give me those kinds of stats to make your point. Don't just tell me you are making people richer. Though it is a novel, the second or third of Tarquin Hall's "Vish Puri" novels will tell you about the disparity the new wealth is causing -- and imply that this new wealth is causing inflation of prices and introduction of products most Indians cannot afford, and statistics comparing the median income against cost of living just might show that the "making people richer" line is perhaps not true ... ?
Now, having given you my "negative" views -- I do recommend the book, but only if set among other books on similar topics and subjects for a broader view of the analysis. I did learn a lot, though, about how Plutocrats think, where they've come from and some of their influence. Therefore, I do recommend this book with slight reservation. :-)
The narrator is very good except for a few words that were mispronounced. Overall, the narrator does an excellent job.
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21 people found this helpful
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- Cleve
- 07-06-19
Good explanation of what is really going on
Is this book is not as one-sided as one might think from the title. I consider that to be a good thing. By contrast, the propaganda we get most other places is pretty one-sided in favor of the plutocracy.
It’s not a page turner but the content is well worth the read. The problem, of course, is that once you understand, you can’t really do much about it.
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- Kendra
- 12-31-16
How The 0.1% Lives
A must read for anyone interested in the world view global super-elite that's changing our world to suit their needs with no awareness of how it affects the rest of us.
Well written and wonderfully read.
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- Lance
- 03-04-13
Interesting read
Is there anything you would change about this book?
If you are drawn to the topic, it is an interesting read
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
Just how "rich" rich people are
Would you listen to another book narrated by Allyson Ryan?
Yes
Could you see Plutocrats being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
Not really
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- Alsherif
- 01-14-13
For me, good for reading not listening
Any additional comments?
I think it's a good book to be read not listened to because of the volume of information and details.
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3 people found this helpful