The Vanishing Middle Class
Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy
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Narrated by:
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Stephen R. Thorne
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By:
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Peter Temin
About this listen
The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America and outlines ways to work toward greater equality so that America will no longer have one economy for the rich and one for the poor.
Many poorer Americans live in conditions resembling those of a developing country - substandard education, dilapidated housing, and few stable employment opportunities. And although almost half of black Americans are poor, most poor people are not black. Conservative white politicians still appeal to the racism of poor white voters to get support for policies that harm low-income people as a whole, casting recipients of social programs as the other - black, Latino, not like "us". Moreover, politicians use mass incarceration as a tool to keep black and Latino Americans from participating fully in society. Money goes to a vast entrenched prison system rather than to education. In the dual justice system, the rich pay fines and the poor go to jail.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2017 Peter Temin (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Countless studies have proven that over 90 percent of Trump-related news coverage is negative, and the percentage of journalists that identify as Republicans are in the single digits. When liberals are running the show, you can bet that their narrative has gone unchallenged. If you tell a lie long enough, people will begin to believe it, and that’s certainly the case with so many liberal myths that have become accepted as conventional wisdom.
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you still need to read it
- By David Markland on 10-16-19
By: Matt Palumbo
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Fantasy Island
- Colonialism, Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico
- By: Ed Morales
- Narrated by: Sean Duffy
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In Fantasy Island, Ed Morales traces how, over the years, Puerto Rico has served as a colonial satellite, a Cold War Caribbean showcase, a dumping ground for US manufactured goods, and a corporate tax shelter. He also shows how it has become a blank canvas for mercenary experiments in disaster capitalism on the frontlines of climate change, hamstrung by internal political corruption and the US federal government's prioritization of outside financial interests.
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Gringo Narrattion
- By shakira julia on 02-08-21
By: Ed Morales
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Arguing with Socialists
- By: Glenn Beck
- Narrated by: Glenn Beck, Jeremy Lowell
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In Arguing with Socialists, New York Times best-selling author Glenn Beck arms listeners to the teeth with information necessary to debunk the socialist arguments that have once again become popular, and proves that the free market is the only way to go. With his trademark humor, Beck lampoons the resurgence of this bankrupt leftist philosophy with thousands of stories, facts, and arguments for anyone who is willing to ask the hard questions.
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Its great...whatever
- By Jon on 04-08-20
By: Glenn Beck
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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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The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution
- Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic
- By: Ganesh Sitaraman
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable - and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America's republic.
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Very well done
- By JLyman on 08-27-17
By: Ganesh Sitaraman
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The Battle
- How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America's Future
- By: Arthur C. Brooks
- Narrated by: Arthur C. Brooks
- Length: 3 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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America faces a new culture war. It is not a war about guns, abortions, or gays; rather it is a war against the creeping changes to our entrepreneurial culture, the true bedrock of who we are as a people. The new culture war is a battle between free enterprise and social democracy. Many Americans have forgotten the evils of socialism and the predations of the American Great Society's welfare-state programs.
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Right wing
- By John on 12-22-10
By: Arthur C. Brooks
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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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The Liberal Invasion of Red State America
- By: Kristin B. Tate
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Progressive upper-middle-class urbanites are deserting expensive liberal meccas like New York and San Francisco and flocking to traditionally red states like Colorado, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Texas. The result is a sudden, confusing purpling of small-town America. School boards and local governments are being reorganized around the progressive agendas of pushy transplants. Neighborhoods are becoming unrecognizable. And the implications for future Congressional and presidential elections are staggering.
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Interesting and back up with facts
- By Jason on 01-23-20
By: Kristin B. Tate
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The White Man's Burden
- Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
- By: William Easterly
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In his previous book, The Elusive Quest for Growth, William Easterly criticized the utter ineffectiveness of Western organizations to mitigate global poverty, and he was promptly fired by his then-employer, the World Bank. The White Man's Burden is his widely anticipated counterpunch - a brilliant and blistering indictment of the West's economic policies for the world's poor.
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A Bit Repetitive
- By Amazon Customer on 04-27-19
By: William Easterly
What listeners say about The Vanishing Middle Class
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- J. Pulton
- 03-28-21
Modern American Liberalism, well-argued
This well written book covers a gamut of issues, each in a concise manner. The author is an MIT economist, and I was surprised that it didn't contain more unique takes on the issues. The book articulates a pretty standard liberal narrative; there won't be much new here for liberal policy wonks. Nevertheless, the author's arguments were rigorous, and I found my ideas challenged on those issues on which I disagreed with the author.
I highly recommend it to two audiences. 1. Casual Democrats who want a basic understanding of policies they probably already support. 2. Republicans who want to confront the best (concise) versions of their opponents' arguments.
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- Daniel H. McKinley
- 11-13-17
Insight into the Liberal Mindset with a Real Warni
Insight into the Liberal Mindset with a Real Warning of Right Wing Manipulation of a political dichotomy.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Harvey
- 07-20-17
Informative history of poverty and race in America
It is a good book and very eye opening. It does take a Liberal view point and can be preachy about certain ideas and solutions. Even so, the author gives great and sobering sources and solutions to poverty that has played America for some time.
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3 people found this helpful
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- KOANSMinds
- 05-16-21
A crisp, clear relevant analysis for our times..
The sociopolitical economy unmasked in clear, simple language, this analysis outlines several recommendations for making America truly great.
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- Jonathan Puigvert
- 06-12-19
The book is amazing, the narration not so much.
There is many flagrant gaps in the narration, which makes it very annoying at times
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- Kindle Customer
- 03-16-22
Insightful with excellent voice-work...
Really enjoyable to listen to...the narrator is compelling without condescension. No clumsy voice characterizations or goofy-attempts trying to mimic regional dialects...just straightforward facts and statistics that serve to highlight why many on the right perceive the gains of "others" as a personal loss and a reduction in societal status. Solid, well-researched book.
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- Sherryl S
- 07-28-24
Informative
Very good book for people that like an introduction to the way the economy functions and works and what can lead to its demise. I liked when he said we need to work with a diverse mentality vs minority vs majority.
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- Anonymous User
- 06-19-22
Surprisingly good for a freebie
This is the king of stuff I usually only hear the radical left talk about and have for years. A little elementary at times but otherwise some good info. I didn't care for the narration, sounded pretty pablum to me. I have usually heard this kind of thing expressed with more emotion ; this guy sounds like he's reading a high school term paper. Anyway this is the kind of book everyone should hear. I recommend.
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- Run for Pancakes
- 03-12-21
Disappointing
I don't know why I continue going into literature hoping for straightforward writing with just facts. Everyone implements their social and political views into their work and it is off-putting. Temin in a longtime MIT economics professor which is what drew me to purchase this book, but instead of hard facts, his work is littered with slanted opinions.
It would be nice to just have facts for once.
The narrator was enjoyable though.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 10-02-17
Informative but rambling
The information and insight is good, but could focus on or present solutions more frequently. Got depressing after a while as it went from one problem to another.
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