Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich (edition 2002)

In 2002, Kevin Phillips documented the vector of economic disparities, the increasing abuses of corrupt white collar criminals with extreme wealth concentrations, and predicted they would take center stage and threaten the national interests as well as the strength of the middle class and the health of the poor. Reading this in 2011, it is clear that his predictions, based on objective economic projections, were prescient. In the summer of 2008, our country was effectively destroyed. The causes of the collapse were exactly as predicted by Mr. Phillips -- the combination of oil wealth corruptibility, fundamentalist extremism, and unprecedented public and consumer debt.

Phillips was educated in the Bronx, Colgate University, Edinburgh, and Harvard Law School. He practiced law as an Assistant to the US AG, and then became a Republican Party strategist. He served as President of the American Political Research Corp, and Editor of the American Political Reporter. He is respected by academics--historians and economists-- and this work reflects documentation, with an Appendix of Price Indices, 1790-1991, charts of US Income distribution, and detailed "Notes" on sources, as well as an Index.

The volume charts the efforts of the super-rich to use political power to perpetuate their usurpations at the expense of the middle class, the poor, and our national interest. Rich in historical underpinnings, the analysis is a bold description of the present ongoing rush to impoverish what was at one time the largest source of wealth on the planet--the American Middle Class.

The money-culture corrupts not only politics, but the free market as well. Tax policies, national security, and competition, are all threatened by the power of the monopolists.

The author turns to the history of England and other world powers, to examine their declines. With the Reagan-Bush-Cheney-Rove era, we recognize the parallels in America -- unregulated speculations, mounting public and consumer debt, income polarization, and stolen elections. ( )

I can't tell whether his main point is that wealth is increasingly concentrated at the top and that this is bad, or that the concentration of wealth at the top is a sign of ecomic decline -- and that this is bad. He does make a convincing case that the boom times where anythimg but laissez faire and he does show the extent to which the rich control democracy. But his work is also loaded with subjective opinions. He clearly has an agenda that wouldn't be possible in a free democracy. I wonder if he has considered whether "Wealth and Totalitarianism" or "Wealth and Socialism" would be much worse. ( )

This is a pretty dense book about American democracy and politics, but specifically with the rich. It's an interesting topic but the book itself took awhile for me to get through. It is dense and therefore can get tedious from time to time. However, there is a great deal of information in there and the author makes some interesting conclusions so if you are interested in the topic, you should read it. ( )