Wealth

5 Pages 1228 Words

WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY:A POLITICAL HISTORY OF RICH AND POOR
Kevin Phillips' insight into American politics and economics has helped to make history as well as record it. The books he has written, including The Emerging Republican Majority (1969) and The Politics of Rich and Poor (1990), have helped to influence presidential campaigns and changed the way America sees itself. Phillips is widely acknowledged as one of the nation's most perceptive thinkers, he turns his attention to the United States' history of great wealth and power, from the American Revolution to what he calls "the Second Gilded Age" at the turn of the twenty-first century.
“The Second Gilded Age” has been staggering enough in its concentration of wealth to dwarf the original Gilded Age a hundred years earlier. However, the tech crash and then the horrible events of September 11, 2001, pointed out that great riches are as vulnerable as they have ever been. In Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips charts the ongoing American history of great wealth–how it has been accumulated, its shifting sources, and its ups and downs over more than a time span of two centuries. He explores how the rich and politically powerful have frequently worked together to create or perpetuate privilege, often at the expense of the national interest and usually at the expense of the middle and lower classes.
The book is filled with intriguing chapters on history and a bold analysis of present-day America. Phillips does well clarifying the dangerous politics that go with the excessive concentration of wealth. Kevin Phillips also profiles wealthy Americans–from Astor to Carnegie and Rockefeller to contemporary wealth holders–he provides details about the peculiarly American ways of becoming and staying a multimillionaire. He exposes the corruption spawned by a money culture and financial power, evident in economic philosophy, tax favoritism, and selective bailouts in the name of fre...