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The Velvet Rope Economy
- How Inequality Became Big Business
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
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Publisher's summary
From New York Times business reporter Nelson D. Schwartz comes a gripping investigation of how a virtual velvet rope divides Americans in every arena of life, creating a friction-free existence for those with money on one side and a Darwinian struggle for the middle class on the other side.
In nearly every realm of daily life - from health care to education, highways to home security - there is an invisible velvet rope that divides how Americans live. On one side of the rope, for a price, red tape is cut, lines are jumped, appointments are secured, and doors are opened. On the other side, middle- and working-class Americans fight to find an empty seat on the plane, a place in line with their kids at the amusement park, a college acceptance, or a hospital bed.
We are all aware of the gap between the rich and everyone else, but when we weren't looking, business innovators stepped in to exploit it, shifting services away from the masses and finding new ways to profit by serving the privileged. And as decision-makers and corporate leaders increasingly live on the friction-free side of the velvet rope, they are less inclined to change - or even notice - the obstacles everyone else must contend with. Schwartz's must-listen audiobook takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of this new reality and shows the toll the velvet rope divide takes on society.
Critic reviews
"If you’ve wondered how today’s rich live - why they speed past us at ball games and amusement parks, how a select few never have to wait to see top doctors - you need to read The Velvet Rope Economy. You’ll never look at boarding a plane - or privilege and polarization - the same way." (Charles Duhigg, best-selling author of The Power of Habit)
"A masterpiece of beautifully written, carefully reported social commentary. Schwartz is able to take everyday things we already know - like the fact that the rich get to live a life entirely distinct from the rest of us - and shows, through colorful tales and great storytelling, that this is no curiosity. It is an indictment, a warning, a prediction, and a nuanced vision of our society. This book will become essential reading to understand this moment. But don’t let the grandness of his work scare you: it’s a fun, surprising read filled with unexpected peeks into the perquisites of superwealth." (Adam Davidson, co-founder of Planet Money and author of The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century)
"Sometimes it takes real insight to understand what is staring you in the face. How often have you gritted your teeth as someone strolled past you to the front of the line? Or watched the curtain close to block your view of the passengers in first class? Schwartz decided not just to document all the ways our business culture has learned to cater to the rich at the expense of the rest of us, but to explain why it matters. It's an eye-opening exploration of a trend with many consequences, none of them good." (Joe Nocera, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion, and author of A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class)
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Story
In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.
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A Story I thought I Knew
- By Meek84 on 07-08-18
By: Chad Broughton
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Red Roulette
- An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
- By: Desmond Shum
- Narrated by: Tim Chiou
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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As Desmond Shum was growing up impoverished in China, he vowed his life would be different. Through hard work and sheer tenacity he earned an American college degree and returned to his native country to establish himself in business. There, he met his future wife, the highly intelligent and equally ambitious Whitney Duan who was determined to make her mark within China’s male-dominated society. Whitney and Desmond formed an effective team and, aided by relationships they formed with top members of China’s Communist Party, the so-called red aristocracy.
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Desmond Shum is not a rube! He knows about wine, ok?
- By Peter L Hansen on 10-06-21
By: Desmond Shum
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The End of Work
- Why Your Passion Can Become Your Job
- By: John Tamny
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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From the author of Popular Economics comes a surprisingly sunny projection of America's future job market. Forget the doomsday predictions of sour-faced nostalgists who say automation and globalization will take away your dream job. The job market is only going to get better and better, according to economist John Tamny, who argues in The End of Work that the greatest gift of prosperity, beyond freedom from painful want, is the existence of work that is interesting.
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Positive... fun all the way... no boring parts
- By Robert J. Marks on 02-20-19
By: John Tamny
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How Chuck Feeney Made and Gave Away a Fortune
- The Billionaire Who Wasn't
- By: Conor O'Clery
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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In 1988 Forbes magazine hailed Chuck Feeney as the 23rd richest American alive. No one knew until then that he was extremely wealthy. Or was he? Born during the Depression in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Feeney had made a fortune as co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers, the world's largest duty-free retail chain. How he did it is one of the great untold retail stories of modern times. The greater untold story is that Feeney had in fact given away his fortune, in its totality, to endow Atlantic Philanthropies - one of the most generous and secretive philanthropic funds in the world.
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Horizons I never knew were there!
- By DTU_Garza on 08-13-17
By: Conor O'Clery
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How to Kill a City
- Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood
- By: Peter Moskowitz
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The term gentrification has become a buzzword to describe the changes in urban neighborhoods across the country, but we don't realize just how threatening it is. It means more than the arrival of trendy shops, much-maligned hipsters, and expensive lattes. The very future of American cities as vibrant, equitable spaces hangs in the balance. How to Kill a City takes listeners from the kitchen tables of hurting families who can no longer afford their homes to the corporate boardrooms and political backrooms where destructive housing policies are devised.
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Unproductive criticism.
- By Aaron Rogers on 06-01-18
By: Peter Moskowitz
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The Why Axis
- Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life
- By: Uri Gneezy, John A. List
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Uri Gneezy and John List are like the anthropologists who spend months in the field studying the people in their native habitats. But in their case they embed themselves in our messy world to try and solve big, difficult problems, such as the gap between rich and poor students and the violence plaguing inner city schools; the real reasons people discriminate; whether women are really less competitive than men; and how to correctly price products and services. Their field experiments show how economic incentives can change outcomes.
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Some Interesting Insights But Poor Science
- By Harold Toomey on 06-09-23
By: Uri Gneezy, and others
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Where You Are Is Not Who You Are
- A Memoir
- By: Ursula Burns
- Narrated by: Ursula Burns
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The first Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company looks back at her life and her career at Xerox, sharing unique insights on American business and corporate life, the workers she has always valued, racial and economic justice, how greed is threatening democracy, and the obstacles she’s conquered being Black and a woman.
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Relatable story, flaws and all
- By Anonymous User on 01-06-22
By: Ursula Burns
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The Price We Pay
- What Broke American Health Care - and How to Fix It
- By: Marty Makary MD
- Narrated by: Marty Makary MD
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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One in five Americans now has medical debt in collections and rising health care costs today threaten every small business in America. Dr Makary, one of the nation's leading health care experts, travels across America and details why health care has become a bubble. Drawing from on-the-ground stories, his research and his own experience, The Price We Pay paints a vivid picture of price-gouging, middlemen and a series of elusive money games in need of a serious shake-up.
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Very important book!
- By Wayne on 05-17-21
By: Marty Makary MD
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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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Smart People Should Build Things
- How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America
- By: Andrew Yang
- Narrated by: Tim Paige
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In Smart People Should Build Things, this self-described "recovering lawyer" and entrepreneur weaves together a compelling narrative of success stories (including his own), offering observations about the flow of talent in the United States and explanations of why current trends are leading to economic distress and cultural decline. He also presents recommendations for both policy makers and job seekers to make entrepreneurship more realistic and achievable.
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Smart doesn’t mean smart.
- By Will on 03-21-20
By: Andrew Yang
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The End of the Suburbs
- Where the American Dream is Moving
- By: Leigh Gallagher
- Narrated by: Jessica Geffen
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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For nearly 70 years, the suburbs were as American as apple pie. But in recent years things have started to change. An epic housing crisis revealed existing problems with this unique pattern of development, while the steady pull of long-simmering economic, societal and demographic forces has culminated in a Perfect Storm that has led to a profound shift in the way we desire to live. In The End of the Suburbs journalist Leigh Gallagher traces the rise and fall of American suburbia from the stately railroad suburbs that sprung up outside American cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries to current-day sprawling exurbs.
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Informative, but the title is a lie
- By Marie on 08-27-13
By: Leigh Gallagher
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The Up Side of Down
- Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success
- By: Megan McArdle
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Most new products fail. So do most small businesses. And most of us, if we are honest, have experienced a major setback in our personal or professional lives. So what determines who will bounce back and follow up with a home run? If you want to succeed in business and in life, Megan McArdle argues in this hugely thought-provoking book, you have to learn how to harness the power of failure. McArdle has been one of our most popular business bloggers for more than a decade, covering the rise and fall of some the world' s top companies and challenging us to think differently about how we live, learn, and work.
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Good Book
- By Ray on 05-21-14
By: Megan McArdle
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Vanishing Frontiers
- The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together
- By: Andrew Selee
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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There may be no story today with a wider gap between fact and fiction than the relationship between the United States and Mexico. Through portraits of business leaders, migrants, chefs, movie directors, police officers, and media and sports executives, Andrew Selee looks at this emerging Mexico, showing how it increasingly influences our daily lives in the United States in surprising ways - the jobs we do, the goods we consume, and even the new technology and entertainment we enjoy.
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A mandatory read, now more than ever
- By Haydon Hill on 08-04-19
By: Andrew Selee
What listeners say about The Velvet Rope Economy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Julie Newkirk
- 05-05-20
Great book!
This is a wonderful reminded of the U.S. Society and Globalization classes I took so many years ago. Lots of facts, but not overwhelming. Everyone should read/listen to this book!
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- Phyllis
- 05-13-20
Two Weak Examples
Closed Shopping Malls and Ruby Tuesday Restaurants were weak examples. Other than those two problems, the book was insightful and important. Better to learn now what economic choices we have made rather than risk a Lenin-like revolution in the United States. Excellent read.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ningu
- 04-22-20
Revealing
For about half of Americans the information in this book will seem welcome. The other half might start considering revolution. Let's hope they get out and vote instead.
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- Tammie Donelson
- 01-01-23
Eye-Opening
The narrator is engaging and able to bring quoted characters to life. The book content is eye-opening. Once you hear about the pernicious applications hidden in plain sight, you see the velvet rope everywhere. It’s a great read that shows how the country was and the small, but impactful, players across industries that influenced the classist divides today.
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- K. Grayson
- 04-02-21
Flabbergasted
As I listened to the book, I went through many emotions. This is a must read if you are looking to grow your business, or if you want to understand the disparity between groups of people.
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- Josh
- 07-30-24
Eye-opening book
Money talks this book opens up your eyes to how having a little bit of money i.e. a lot of money makes life easier. One of the reasons I stack bitcoin every day.
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- Josh Goldfine
- 12-05-21
Great read!
This book does an outstanding job showing how far-reaching the effects of inequality really are. Highly recommend this book!
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- Darcy
- 05-14-20
eye opening
I expected to hear about first class on airplanes, but I kept realizing how experiences I've had fit into this pattern of inequality.
I'm very grateful for the last chapter and I hope that more companies follow the examples set by the likes of Southwest and the GB Packers.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-16-22
Truth be told
awesome awakening. The author is highly commended for writing this book. it is eye opening.
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- mch
- 05-07-20
Wow, this book was good.
I was watching a news program and saw the author of this book being interviewed about the early disparities in testing for covid-19. I am a family physician and wondered why entire asymptomatic NBA teams could get tests for the virus and I couldn’t get any tests for sick patients. This book explains why. It explains a lot about how businesses and schools have changed over the years to benefit the wealthiest amongst us. The book also does a good job of explaining how these changes erode at the middle class and make it harder for the poor to better their lot in life. It was fascinating! There apparently are many aspects of life that are better for the top 1% that the rest of us know nothing about. I HIGHLY recommend this book!
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1 person found this helpful