The top 1 percent of Americans control some 40 percent of the nation's wealth. But as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains in this best-selling critique of the economic status quo, this level of inequality is not inevitable. Rather, in recent years well-heeled interests have compounded their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism and making America no longer the land of opportunity that it once was. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, distorting key policy debates, and fomenting a divided society. Stiglitz not only shows how and why America's inequality is bad for our economy but also exposes the effects of inequality on our democracy and on our system of justice while examining how monetary policy, budgetary policy, and globalization have contributed to its growth. With characteristic insight, he diagnoses our weakened state while offering a vision for a more just and prosperous future.
This book breaks ones myth about the US economy and also about the uncontrolled (free) market economy. Stiglitz is as blunt as ever. he emphasizes the fact that the "rich" (which Stiglitz calls top 1%) are getting rich at the expense of poor (and not by their own honest efforts). The 1% are using many tachinques (explained in detail in the book) to make the government work in their favour. This results is increase in poverty. Stiglitz uses his own experience to describe how market economy is ...
A very Interesting book which highlights the present economic turmoils based on american economy. the book as a whole argues the free market system and its consequences while supporting Keynesian economics at the backdrop.