The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future

Joseph E. Stiglitz

Jun 2012 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Paul Boehmer

About this audiobook

The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation's wealth. And, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that "their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live."Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable: moneyed interests compound their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, trampling on the rule of law, and undermining democracy. The result: a divided society that cannot tackle its most pressing problems. With characteristic insight, Stiglitz examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.

Ratings and reviews

This book is heavy on opinion looking through a very narrow viewpoint. Basically everyone and every company that make money and don't give it back for general societal use are evil. Stiglitz definitely channels Karl Marx in this book. He argues with himself in that he says our society is worse off because poor people don't get a good education but that banks are evil for loaning them the money to do so. If you are already in the camp of believing that the rich should be stripped of what they have then this will affirm your feelings. If you have common sense you'll see this book as the bias opinion piece that it is.

Reading (well, listening to) this in 2020 it is remarkable how prescient this book is. Every sentence is gold. Listen to this man!

excellent

About the author

Joseph E. Stiglitz is a professor of economics at Columbia University and the recipient of a John Bates Clark Medal and a Nobel Prize. His books include Globalization and Its Discontents, The Three Trillion Dollar War, and Making Globalization Work. He lives in New York City.

Paul Boehmer is a seasoned actor who has appeared on Broadway, film, and television, including The Thomas Crown Affair and All My Children. Coinciding with another of his passions, sci-fi, Paul has been cast in various roles in many episodes of Star Trek.