Plutocrats

September 1, 2012
Exploration of the increase in global economic inequality. You don't need a CPA to know which way the wind blows. Unless you're one of the rich or superrich, the 1 percent or the 1 percent of the 1 percent, then you won't be comforted to know that it blows against you: The rich are getting richer, and the rest of us...well, not so much. Thus the overarching theme of Thomson Reuters digital editor Freeland's (Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution, 2000) latest book, much of which, at least superficially, isn't really news. Dig deeper, though, and the author offers fresh takes on many key points. Are the rich happy? You'd think that all that money would take some of the burden off, but income inequality is an uncomfortable subject even for them. "That's because even--or perhaps particularly--in the view of its most ardent supporters," she writes, "global capitalism wasn't supposed to work quite this way." Level playing field? No way: The playing field is landscaped so that money rolls toward those who already have it. Equal opportunity? See the preceding point. Yet, Freeland continues, the switcheroo that robbed the middle class of its gains in the transition to "the America of the 1 Percent" is so new that our ways of talking and thinking about capitalism haven't caught up to reality, so that "when it comes to income inequality, Americans think they live in Sweden--or in the late 1950s." Smart, talking-point-friendly and full of magazine-style human-interest anecdotes, Freeland's account serves up other news, including the grim thought that recovery may never come for those outside the favored zone, as well as some provocative insights on how the superaffluent (don't say rich, say affluent--it avoids making the rich feel uncomfortable) view the rest of us. Not exactly the Communist Manifesto, but Freeland's book ought to make news of its own as she makes the rounds--well worth reading.

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May 1, 2012

Formerly with the Financial Times and now global editor at large at Reuters, Freeland here leaps past the one percent to the stratospheric wealth that lies beyond, amassed by a tiny minority of aggressively successful businesspeople on the international scene. Mostly self-made, these folks identify more with one another than with the folks back home. Sobering, if we can grasp the implications.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2012
Even Alan Greenspan is worried about the troubling trend of income inequality. International financial reporter Freeland looks beyond worries about the 1 percent to the even more troubling trend of the 0.1 percent of the world's most wealthy having more in common with each other than their countrymen and acting on those interests, guaranteeing even more inequality. Is the gap between the superrich and everybody else the product of impersonal market forces or political machinations? Freeland offers an engaging and deeply analytical look at the history, politics, and economics behind the rise of the plutocrats. She draws parallels between current inequality and the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, when the top 1 percent of the U.S. population held one-third of the national income. Globalization and the technology revolution are the major factors behind what she sees as new and overlapping gilded ages: the second for the U.S., the first for developing nations. Drawing on interviews with economists and the elite themselves, Freeland chronicles lavish parties, hubris, and hand-wringing over the direction of the global economy. As she laments, The feedback loop between money, politics, and ideas is both cause and consequence of the rise of the super-elite. Readers will appreciate the broader political and economic implications of Freeland's penetrating examination of growing global income inequality.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)