Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland

Nov 19, 2012 Vince rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: economics

I feel a little guilty about rating this even though I didn't finish it but it just didn't work for me, and that is why I stopped. I read the first two and a half chapters, about half of chapter 4 and then skimmed chapter 5 and read probably a third or more of chapter 6.

The author definitely knows her subjects well, including knowing many of the plutocrats by name. This is a positive because she doesn't have to speak in the abstract but, it also has its down sides. Many of the chapters just rea...more I feel a little guilty about rating this even though I didn't finish it but it just didn't work for me, and that is why I stopped. I read the first two and a half chapters, about half of chapter 4 and then skimmed chapter 5 and read probably a third or more of chapter 6.

The author definitely knows her subjects well, including knowing many of the plutocrats by name. This is a positive because she doesn't have to speak in the abstract but, it also has its down sides. Many of the chapters just read as a series of very short anecdotes, often no more than a few paragraphs in length.

She introduces a theme and then uses the anecdotes as examples. Each new person introduced gets a mini-bio including anything unique about them before proceeding to give the theme supporting details. This goes on in series, making for long, much too long, chapters. We really don't need that many examples of how plutocrats hire top lawyers, or consultants, or whatever thus skewing income in support industries too. A couple would have sufficed, but then the chapters would have been much shorter I suppose.

It might have been forgivable if there had been some deep insight on offer but there wasn't much of that; just endless examples.

The final chapter, titled to echo the subtitle of the book, was probably the best. Here we get our most extensive critique of how the plutocrats view the rest of us, their inflated self-worth and fragile egos. I'll probably finish that one at some point. Still, it is a bit much to wade through to get to the good part.

Overall there is much touring the world of the plutocrats but not much about the fall of everyone else part. Her main perspective on that seems to be that just comes with the territory of progress.

In the end I think the author may be a bit too much of a true believer in globalization, and the plutocrats themselves, to offer much of a critique. Yes, the new plutocrats are often smart math and engineering whizzes and are self-made (with the help of elite educations), but is what they do to make their money really always good for society in the first place? You'll get no analysis of that question here.(less)

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Jan 11, 2013 Amanda Rose rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

The bits where the super rich look like creepy nuts in their own words were my favourite bits and why it gets a 4 despite one could always quibble about the political economy of some other bits.

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May 05, 2013 David Wilusz rated it 3 of 5 stars

Is global capitalism working the way it should, for the betterment of all? While there is no question that global capitalism has raised living standards for millions worldwide, some have benefited disproportionately, while others have been left behind. This book looks at the top 0.01% who populate a "cozy global village" of plutocrats - how they got there, and what their attitudes are towards wealth and everyone else.

1947-1977 is called the "golden age of the middle class", where strong unions...more Is global capitalism working the way it should, for the betterment of all? While there is no question that global capitalism has raised living standards for millions worldwide, some have benefited disproportionately, while others have been left behind. This book looks at the top 0.01% who populate a "cozy global village" of plutocrats - how they got there, and what their attitudes are towards wealth and everyone else.

1947-1977 is called the "golden age of the middle class", where strong unions emerged (partially as a concession against the communist threat), and taxes and minimum wages were both high. After that, forces such as globalization, technology, and perhaps policies put in place by the global plutocracy, conspired to hollow out the middle class and propel a relative minority into being super wealthy.

Eras of rapid change will always produce winners and losers, as people have varying degrees of ability to respond and adapt. The concern raised in this book is that the global 0.01% have begun to tilt the system in their favor (through lobbying and other "legal corruption" - as opposed to naked corruption, which remains rampant in emerging markets), thereby reducing anyone else's chances of replicating their success. The example of Venice is given, which was once Europe's wealthiest city, until protectionist policies were put into place to keep the wealthy merchants at the top and keep competition out. There are also some interesting insights into Russia's 1195 loans-for-shares program, which launched the current class of Russian oligarchs (who differ in style from Chinese billionaires, who are urged to fly under the radar, lest they attract the scrutiny of the state).

Overall an interesting look at how the macro economy got to where it is today, complete with the usual demonization of the people at the top, who are painted with a broad brush. The author fails to take the next step - to propose changes that would reduce growing inequality (something that Robert Shiller does in his book, Finance and the Good Society). (less)

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Apr 17, 2013 Nadine Dajani rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was not as readable as I had hoped - there is quite a but of historical background and unnecessary detail - but it's chock full of interesting tidbits nonetheless. I read this book while on a week-long beach resort vacation so it might not have been the best setting to be reading about economic history, but the fact that I managed to finish it speaks to its merit.
The author provides an interesting theory as to who the Plutocrats really are and why we the masses are less likely nowadays to d...more This was not as readable as I had hoped - there is quite a but of historical background and unnecessary detail - but it's chock full of interesting tidbits nonetheless. I read this book while on a week-long beach resort vacation so it might not have been the best setting to be reading about economic history, but the fact that I managed to finish it speaks to its merit.
The author provides an interesting theory as to who the Plutocrats really are and why we the masses are less likely nowadays to do away with their heads, French Revolution style, like the masses of yesteryear: today's wealthy have managed to convince us that you get ahead in life based on talent (or merit) as opposed to being born into the right family or having the right connections. Of course, this isn't how things actually work. And when a very smart person applies her talents in the service of enriching herself only, this usually happens to the detriment of society in general - especially in this economy where creativity and innovation are applied to Finance and not to medicine or engineering or even manufacturing.

Plutocrats is great if you want a side of voyeurism with your social study - we get treated to how the rich and mighty live and how they got to be rich in the first place. But a better book about the real social factors behind this and the detrimental effect of the superrich on our world is 'The Trouble with Billionaires' by Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks. The authors are Canadian professors and not well-connected Atlantic journalists which probably explains the lack of fanfare around this little book, but it's no less readable, and is far more informative.

One thing I really hated about Plutocrats is a short, little sentence in the intro disparaging Communism right off the bat as though only morons or social outcasts could ever see the merit in that economic theory. I'm not a Communist either (I have issues with the lack of checks-and-balances in a purely communist system, and other issues) but after reading Plutocrats I wonder why the author is so disparaging of anything other than Capitalism when the form of Capitalism she describes in her own book looks something like Frankenstein's monster. (less)

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Mar 29, 2013 Ob-jonny rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book describes in fascinating detail the worlds in which the super rich live and the current state of income inequality all over the world. People don't realize how much the super rich consider themselves as being part of a separate class of society from the rest of humanity. They don't have to deal with much accountability from the law as well as criticism from their peers. Their obscenely lavish parties show how little concern they have for the average person. although Bill Gates is quote...more

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Mar 22, 2013 Blaise Lucey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: political-nonfiction

First, readers need to understand one thing: the cover, the name, and the back of the book are a marketing gimmick. For the first hundred pages, at least, there is nothing insightful about plutocrats themselves. Indeed, for many pages, Freeland excitingly glorifies capitalism and its winners. She enjoys referencing herself on many occasions, and just how many people she has talked to who have money, the revelations given to her from people who are celebrities for wealth alone. No crime, of cours...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Uwe Hook rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Plutocrats" is a very interesting and well-written look at soaring income inequality in the U.S. and world wide. The book focuses especially on the people at the extreme top: the .01 (or even .001) percent and delves into the staggering differences between the lives of these people and average members of the population.

The book is full of interesting facts and insights. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet together control as much wealth as the 120 MILLION Americans at the bottom of the distribution. M...more "Plutocrats" is a very interesting and well-written look at soaring income inequality in the U.S. and world wide. The book focuses especially on the people at the extreme top: the .01 (or even .001) percent and delves into the staggering differences between the lives of these people and average members of the population.

The book is full of interesting facts and insights. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet together control as much wealth as the 120 MILLION Americans at the bottom of the distribution. Most people have no idea how unequal our society has become. In one survey, Americans where shown unlabeled graphs of the income distribution in Sweden (the top 20% has 36% of the wealth) and the U.S.(the top 20% has 84%), and nearly everyone (92%) chose Sweden as the place they would prefer to live.

The book takes a balanced, pro-capitalism approach. It does not preach, nor does it conduct class warfare; it simply seeks to analyze the reasons for inequality and also its implications. The book looks at factors including political influence (a feedback loop where wealth begets influence which in turn begets even more wealth), as well as advancing technology and globalization

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is its coverage of the lives, culture and attitudes of the super rich. This is important because it has implications for society. In many cases the plutocrats withdraw into gated communities. They do not need public schools or libraries and do not have to worry about paying for college. In many cases, they rely very little on the public services and infrastructure that are vital to the rest of us, and that may partly explain their reluctance to support higher taxes to pay for these things.

The book also looks at how technology has hollowed out the middle class and polarized the job market by destroying many jobs that used to offer income security to average people. That is a trend that is almost certain to continue and even accelerate. For more on how technology could make the future even more unequal and unstable, I also suggest reading The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future.

"Plutocrats" is an important book that takes on an issue that will be central to the future of American prosperity.(less)

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Jan 07, 2013 Bobbi rated it 4 of 5 stars

A well-researched overview of the steep income disparity that characterizes our current gilded age (the second robber baron era for the West and the first gilding for China, India and others). I enjoyed how Freeland offered both historical context and took repeated stabs at defining the psycho-social fallout of towering wealth built on dwindling resources and the consumerism of the creaking middle classes. The fallout, though, isn't actually the focus of Plutocrats. Rather Freeland simply tries...more A well-researched overview of the steep income disparity that characterizes our current gilded age (the second robber baron era for the West and the first gilding for China, India and others). I enjoyed how Freeland offered both historical context and took repeated stabs at defining the psycho-social fallout of towering wealth built on dwindling resources and the consumerism of the creaking middle classes. The fallout, though, isn't actually the focus of Plutocrats. Rather Freeland simply tries to capture a moment in time; painting a portrait of those who live in "the bubble."

She offers rare inside glimpses of how the 1 percent lives, in Russia, China, India and the US. Universally, the wealthy are lauded, admired, watched and hated. In China, where becoming a billionaire often involves government collusion, getting too rich and boastful about it carries a serious risk of being hauled up on criminal charges and even executed. (I'll let Freeland explain further.) That doesn't happen in the US, where there's also ample collusion or "rent seeking" by moneyed interests needing government access or acquiescence. We already know this is how the world works, still reading the case studies is enlightening.

The details of how the 1 percent or the .1 percent climb the mountain and live atop it helps the rest of us understand why the wealthy come see themselves as especially deserving of their largesse; and the unwashed masses as responsible for their own economic fix. Thus, we have put-upon Wall Street billionaires, who complain about getting an unfair shake in the public eye, and developing world bazillionaires who live in unimaginable luxury in high-rise castles a stone's throw from the lowest of slums.

This book shines when it examines our cultural views and caste systems, taking a closer look at our "hero" entrepreneurs hypocritically dressed down in jeans as they board their private jets (in Silicon Valley) and the hugely compensated and self-righteous Wall Street financiers who're both adored (by a public that wants the same opportunity to strike it rich) and skewered (by the Occupy movement).

Freeland does not vilify the wealthy, but lays out a detailed picture of how they live and think. She even includes a discussion of how the current crop of billionaires may be an inevitable outcome of technological and social upheaval. At the same time, she makes no apologies for their greedy, self-centered, moat-building and resource-hogging behavior.

This journalist's approach may frustrate those who're looking for strong conclusions, and I agree with the reviewer who said not to expect Naomi Klein. But Plutocrats isn't a call-to-action, so much as a portrait of our economic times.(less)

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Jan 01, 2013 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you were expecting Naomi Klein, you will be disappointed. Chrystia Freeland's Plutocrats is more pastiche than polemic. You will find some important information in respect to the growing income and wealth disparity in America and the world. For instance, 20% of Americans own 84% of the nation's wealth (compared to 36% in Sweden); in 1970 the top 1% took 10% of the national income, today they take over 30%; in 1980 the average CEO made 42x the wage of the average worker, today they make 390x t...more If you were expecting Naomi Klein, you will be disappointed. Chrystia Freeland's Plutocrats is more pastiche than polemic. You will find some important information in respect to the growing income and wealth disparity in America and the world. For instance, 20% of Americans own 84% of the nation's wealth (compared to 36% in Sweden); in 1970 the top 1% took 10% of the national income, today they take over 30%; in 1980 the average CEO made 42x the wage of the average worker, today they make 390x the wage of their employees; 93% of the gains from the 2009-2010 "recovery" went to the top 1%; the top 25 hedge fund managers are each paid over a billion dollars a year; the richer you are, the lower your effective tax rate--the top 400 tax payers paid less than 17%; inequality in Russia is higher than it was under the czars. Interesting. Depressing. She also includes a number of anecdotal stories that are more praise than censor of plutocrats from around the world. She does include some analysis in the concluding chapters of the reasons for the growing disparity and what it portends for the future of democracy in the world and our nation. Not promising. The momentum seems as unstoppable and the results as catastrophic as that other obvious threat to global well-being, global warming. She cites the collapse of the economic power and cultural hegemony of 14th century Venice as the exemplar of our own inevitable demise.
It is surprising to discover how recently the course of events have changed to facilitate the rise of a plutorcracy. The revolution, and it was a revolution, began with the development of hedge funds in 1949, venture capital in 1946, and, finally, the origin of private equity in 1990 with its attendant hostile takeover and dismantling of our manufacturing infrastructure. Thus, the financial sector went from the conservative stewardship of other people's money to specializing in risk, leverage, and outsized returns (120). The revolution is not confined to the financial sector. Irving Kristol created right-wing institutions to reshape our culture and values by establishing think tanks, foundations, schools, media, and other culture-forming apparatus. A process he calls, apparently unaware of its Orwellian connotations, "thought leadership". Its particular target is the humanities--the state of humanities is evidence of the success of Kristol's "thought leadership" in shaping public attitudes and political policies that defund and devalue (remember Obama praising the humanities anyone?) the humanities in education. Chrystia did not raise the point, but the recent backlash against teachers is simply another feature of the right's "thought leadership". Chrystia does note that the success of the right's "thought leadership" is evidenced by the fact that the pro-business interests do not need to rely on bribery or lobbying their interests because they have coopted the regulators and legislators into adopting a paradigm where they fail to see differences between themselves and the businesses they are supposed to regulate. Chrystia portrays America as becoming (isn't it already?) an "extractive" state--one controlled by a ruling elite whose objective is to extract as much wealth as possible from the rest as opposed to America being historically an "inclusive" state--where everyone is given a say in how their society is ruled and equal access to economic opportunity. I think many would disagree with her characterization of America as ever being an inclusive state, but few would disagree that it is becoming more and more extractive. Finally, almost as an afterthought, she notes the parallel between Venice's Book of Gold to reify the elite and the role of elite universities in "perpetuating privilege" rather than recognizing merit. Conspicuously missing from Freeland's book are any suggestions, or even hope, for addressing this crisis of democracy. But it is a good place to begin the discussion. (less)

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Dec 24, 2012 David Stephens rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: economics

In Plutocrats, Chrystia Freeland examines "those at the very top: who they are, how they made their money, how they think, and how they relate to the rest of us." She makes a distinction between the richest 1% and the richest 0.1% because there is a large discrepancy between these two groups that is less frequently noticed than the one between the top 1% and bottom 99%. In fact, she suggests there are two separate economies: one for the rich—a "plutonomy"—and one for the rest of the country. And...more In Plutocrats, Chrystia Freeland examines "those at the very top: who they are, how they made their money, how they think, and how they relate to the rest of us." She makes a distinction between the richest 1% and the richest 0.1% because there is a large discrepancy between these two groups that is less frequently noticed than the one between the top 1% and bottom 99%. In fact, she suggests there are two separate economies: one for the rich—a "plutonomy"—and one for the rest of the country. And, it is the economic gains made by the plutocracy that have masked weak economic growth for everyone else.

The economy flourishes best for everyone when there is less income inequality and more social mobility. The balance struck between the government and the business world in response to the era of robber barons led to a period of outstanding economic growth (roughly, the 1940s through the 1970s). This balance included banking reform like Glass-Steagall, the New Deal's social welfare programs, and higher taxes on the richest Americans. Unfortunately, these reforms have slowly eroded—though, not on their own—and returned the country to extreme levels of inequality. These deregulations haven't been the only source of trouble, though; globalization and quick advancements in technology have substantially aided this inequality as well.

Freeland takes a level-headed approach to her topic (she is Canadian after all) and doesn't mischaracterize rich financial types as evil schemers who laugh at the plight of the poor. To do this would be to grossly oversimplify an incredibly complex situation, something Freeland does an outstanding job avoiding. Instead, she reasonably dispels some of the unfair myths about plutocrats. She notes how many of the current richest Americans have earned their wealth as opposed to inheriting it as many robber barons did in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She also defends—to an extent—financial elites who precipitated the crisis of 2008, as they were unable to respond adequately to the changing world economy. The crisis did also involve corruption, but there was more to it than just that.

Even though Freeland uses a pleasant tone, that doesn't mean she lets problematic thinking and situations slide. All too often, plutocrats' views illuminate their separation from the less affluent and point to problems in their thinking. Perhaps, most pernicious is the idea that business interests always coincide with those of the state. However, since financial elites are more a part of isolated international communities than of their country of origin, this is becoming less and less so. On top of that, it is easy for people in general to believe what suits them even when others are clearly suffering as a result. As Duke professor Dan Ariely puts it, "When you have a financial incentive to see reality in a certain way, you will see it that way, not because you're bad, but because you are human."

Overall, this is a balanced look at the world of plutocrats.(less)

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Nov 19, 2012 Dave rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: very-good-non-fiction

Today's world is going through two Gilded Ages simultaneously, the 2nd for the U.S. and the 1st for the BRICs. The income inequality in these nations has created a situation in which the top 1% have more in common with each other than with their own countrymen. Charles Murray did an incredible job of covering this and analyzing from the perspectives of American culture splitting along class and education lines to the point that we're a pair of de facto separate societies. Herein Freeland analyze...more Today's world is going through two Gilded Ages simultaneously, the 2nd for the U.S. and the 1st for the BRICs. The income inequality in these nations has created a situation in which the top 1% have more in common with each other than with their own countrymen. Charles Murray did an incredible job of covering this and analyzing from the perspectives of American culture splitting along class and education lines to the point that we're a pair of de facto separate societies. Herein Freeland analyzes and interviews the upper echelons of the top 1% and, though it's never really clear if she views this group as bad, good, a mixture, or what, it is a very important book for understanding today's society.

In many ways there are two kinds of plutocrats,rent seekers - those who obtained their wealth through government connections and services that do not create value for society, like trading mortgage-backed securities - and innovators - Jobs, Gates, etc. The former is generally reviled by society because their wealth accumulation did not better society, while the latter is largely (and I believe deservedly) applauded for their contributions and seen as more "deserving" of their gains. Unfortunately Freeland largely only has access to the bankers and their quips about "eating what they kill" fall on deaf ears when $750 billion in taxpayer money was needed to prop them up when their zero sum trading scheme's bills came due. They think they're John Galt's when in reality society is in no way dependent upon them, which is of course not the case for tech innovators who created a need - PCs, smart phones, etc. - and then made a profit off delivering these life-bettering products to society en masse.

Freeland seems to find it difficult to balance between the idea that the top of the pyramid create jobs and industry for everyone else and the opposite side of the coin that states societies tend to unravel, often violently, when power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few. She uses the words "Harvard" and "Goldman Sachs" more than the word "the" and her writing does suffer from this homogenous cast. Wharton and Columbia have produced as many billionaires as Harvard, and if Stanford's class were the same size it would have as well.

The author is correct in that capitalism has won, with nearly every nation on earth embracing it in some form, and with nearly every society better off for it. The problem is that the U.S. now has 84% of the wealth concentrated in the top 20%, incomes have flatlined if not slightly fallen for the middle class over the past 39 years, and our legal corruption ranking places us in the same neighborhood as Russia and China. Left unchecked those at the top can change the laws and use legacy admissions at top schools to create a hereditary oligarchy that chokes off class mobility and decreases economic competitiveness. She effectively uses the example of Venice rising to the world's richest city, creating an aristocracy based on family lineage, and then falling behind more innovative European cities as their meritocracies created more wealth. A similar fate looks to be in its initial stages in the U.S., Russia, and China, amongst others, and it may be that the country best able to resist this urge to consolidate wealth and position and then denying others access to it will be the one best able to take advantage of the next century.

Parts of the book are out of place - performers make more now because the audience is now the globe rather than a concert hall - and much of the last third of the book (excluding the strong conclusion) was repetitive. However, this was a 4-star book overall and the content within is extremely useful knowledge as we navigate a Gilded Age from one corner of the earth to the other.(less)

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Oct 31, 2012 Caren rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-nonfiction

I wanted to read this book after seeing the author on "Moyers & Company:
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-sh...

(If you go to the website, notice the "Dig Deeper" link on the left. Mr. Moyers is starting a book club, with this book as his first selection. There is a discussion and will be a chat with the author coming up soon.)

This is a topic which seems to be gathering interest. Charles Murray's book, "Coming Apart", Geoffrey Faux's "The Servant Economy", and other recent books have address...more I wanted to read this book after seeing the author on "Moyers & Company:
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-sh...

(If you go to the website, notice the "Dig Deeper" link on the left. Mr. Moyers is starting a book club, with this book as his first selection. There is a discussion and will be a chat with the author coming up soon.)

This is a topic which seems to be gathering interest. Charles Murray's book, "Coming Apart", Geoffrey Faux's "The Servant Economy", and other recent books have addressed the issue of the rising super-rich.
The author is a Canadian journalist who was able to study the rise of an oligarchy at close range while covering Russia after the break-up of the Soviet Union. She seems to have had extraordinary access to plutocrats worldwide and gives a measured account of the inner workings of the very rich. She says our new Gilded Age came about as a result of three factors. First was what she terms the "Washington Consensus" which replaced the Treaty of Detroit (a sort of pact that labor would be granted generous benefits in exchange for fewer work disruptions through strikes). The Washington Consensus (when President Reagan in the USA and Margaret Thatcher in Britain "reined in trade unions, cut social welfare spending, and deregulated the economy", pg 17) was made possible by the fall of communism, which had previously acted as a sort of ideological foil to capitalism. This consensus combined with the technology revolution and globalization to make possible the unfettered rise of the ultra rich. The interesting thing about Ms. Freeland's book is that she is not just looking at the rise of a plutocracy in western industrialized countries, but has included the rising BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and emerging economies to make this a global phenomenon. Globalized industry, she shows, does not feel itself a part of any individual nation. She quotes GE's Jeff Immelt as saying that the U.S. consumer "is not going to be the engine of global growth. It is going to be the billion people joining the middle class in Asia...". Further, she quotes the CEO of Allstate, Thomas Wilson's, remarks, "I can get [workers] anywhere in the world. It is a problem for America, but it is not necessarily a problem for American business..." (p. 64)
The author included a very provocative quote from that classic economic text, "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith: "The proprietor of land is necessarily a citizen of the particular country in which his estate lies. The proprietor of stock is properly a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country." (p.67)
Ms. Freeland goes on to say, "But while capital--and capitalists--have gone global, governments and most of their middle-class citizens operate within national boundaries. Figuring out how the plutocrats are connected to the rest of us is one of the challenges of the rise of the global super-elite." (p. 67)
What sort of people rise to the status of the super rich? According to the author, they are pragmatic technocrats.She says the very brainy are rising to the top of both the left and the right. Just as Charles Murray pointed out in his recent book, "Coming Apart", these people move in circles that are insulated from the rest of us. It used to be that an industry captain may have married his secretary; now, he probably met his wife in an Ivy League grad school and, even if only one of them is working, they are both from the very tip-top intellectual class.
In a very telling paragraph Ms. Freeland says: "Indeed, at a time of fierce partisan conflict, one of the striking paradoxes is how much the champions of liberals and conservatives have in common: Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are both disciplined , dogged millionaires who describe their more popular wives as their better halves, hold degrees from Harvard Law School, and have a preference for data-driven arguments rather than emotional ones. Both men struggle to connect with the grassroots of their parties, coming across as cold and robotic. You might call it the cognitive divide--the split between an evidence-based worldview and one rooted in faith or ideology--and it is one of the most important fault lines in America today. To his critics on the right, Obama is a socialist with dangerous foreign antecedents. To his critics on the left, he is a waffler with no real point of view and a craven desire to be liked. But the best explanation is that, like the rest of the rising intellectual class to which he belongs, the president is an empiricist. He wants to do what works, not what conforms to any particular ideology or what pleases any particular constituency. His core belief is a belief in facts." (p.93)
From where are these new intellectual elites pulled? Here are some of Ms. Freeland's comments about that: "Revolution is the new status quo, but not everyone is good at responding to it. My shorthand for the archetype best equipped to deal with it is 'Harvard kids who went to provincial public schools'. They got into Harvard, or, increasingly, its West Coast rival, Stanford, so they are smart, focused, and reasonably privileged. But they went to public schools, often in the hinterlands, so they have an outsider's ability to spot the weaknesses of the ruling paradigm and don't have so much vested in the current system that they are afraid of stepping outside it." (p.146-7)
She relates that some analysts say "that responding to revolution is a biological trait, genetically inherited, and that one way to be sure your society is good at it is to open your borders to immigrants, on the theory that moving to a new country is an example of responding to revolution." (p.147)
I have just scratched the surface of all of the interesting topics explored in this book. My copy is well-marked with lots of underlined passages. I think this well-written book is fascinating and worth the time you'll invest in reading it. I liked one of Ms. Freeland's closing remarks: "...Low taxes, light-touch regulation, weak unions, and unlimited campaign donations are certainly in the best interests of the plutocrats, but that doesn't mean they are the right way to maintain the economic system that created today's super-elite. Elites don't sabotage the system that created them on purpose. But even smart, farsighted plutocrats can be betrayed by their own short-term self-interest into undermining the foundations of their own society's prosperity." (p. 286) (less)

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Oct 28, 2012 Al rated it 4 of 5 stars

Henry Ford said that mass production required mass consumers. This was his way of saying that his success was dependent on the existence of a successful society. I think he also understood that gains made by adding value to society will lift the boats of everyone for the most part.

The problem comes in when those at the top "arrive." They almost certainly try to set up barriers for others in order to maintain their privileged positions (think Citizens United). This is when the whole system becom...more

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Oct 21, 2012 David Mayes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Very telling and very timely.

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Apr 07, 2013 Conner Bennett rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Chrystia Freeland novel, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, was about the making of the new class of rich people. She went through the different people who have either started or managed a big company. Many of these people have become part of the upper class, including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Both of these men attended Harvard, but chose not to continue through graduation. They both went on to start major companies, Facebook and Microsoft...more

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May 01, 2013 Herb rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is pretty well written. I have a severe problem with Freeland's inclusion of Ken Griffin's remarks on how the 99.9% owe the 0.01% for their charitable givings (on specific causes which they so freely chose themselves). Don't get me wrong, it's good to be philanthropic but with the externalizing cost incurred to operate their businesses, that perpetuates the divide between all classes of people, I think the author inadvertently left out the real price for their profits, or the victims w...more

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Nov 21, 2012 Jim rated it 3 of 5 stars

Entertaining reporting by a former Financial Times reporter on the rise of the 1% and what it all means. A lot of reporting and some very interesting anecdotes, although an even deeper analysis at times on why/how it all happened would've been helpful (she gets into that too, and I generally agree with the analysis, I just wanted even more details). Also, she seems to have a shallow understanding of so-called free-trade: apparently it's a fact of life for manufacturing workers, but highly skille...more

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Dec 26, 2012 Mlg rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction-book-club

I thought this would be a book on income inequality. It was and it wasn't. It dealt more with the Plutocrats and how they got their money and power. The middle of the book was a bit weak, I don't think most Americans care much about rich Russians, even though the author knew what she was talking about.
The quotes from the super rich "winners" seemed arrogant and condescending to those "beneath" them. They seem to believe that only they work hard and therefore they are the only ones deserving o...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Garrett rated it 4 of 5 stars

A very well researched, well written book about the global community of the super wealthy business leaders, largely self-made men and women (but mostly men). The author clearly had access to a wide range of super-rich in her interviews, and hearing their different viewpoints about their wealth is informing. The author, Chrystia Freeland, notes over and again how global the phenomenon is, rather than something attributed just to the United States. The massive concentration of wealth in the hands...more

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Jan 16, 2013 John Huffman rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Review:
This book was generally well written and the author is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject of the super rich. I found it eye-opening the amount of wealth and life-style of the super wealthy and made me much more open to increasing the societal burdens on them.

The book has a large number of facts scattered throughout the book such as average family income (0.01% - $23,846,950) that were interesting. It would have been nice if there was an appendix or a set of figures throughout t...more

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Mar 10, 2013 Nils rated it 3 of 5 stars

A decent tour-de-horizon of the mental and social world of the very very rich, written essentially from the point of view of the merely affluent. Attributes way too much of the radical shift in wealth toward the super-duper wealthy to Baumol's cost disease, as opposed to specific and intentional changes to tax and regulatory arbitrage. Freeland has gotten a lot of access to a lot of very high-end plutocrats, many of whom have spoken to her in quite unguarded ways. She reports on them with empath...more A decent tour-de-horizon of the mental and social world of the very very rich, written essentially from the point of view of the merely affluent. Attributes way too much of the radical shift in wealth toward the super-duper wealthy to Baumol's cost disease, as opposed to specific and intentional changes to tax and regulatory arbitrage. Freeland has gotten a lot of access to a lot of very high-end plutocrats, many of whom have spoken to her in quite unguarded ways. She reports on them with empathy but without sympathy — precisely the necessary approach.

Freeland notes that the distinguishing features of the new current plutocratic class are
(1) rather than being heritors of great wealth, as much of the super wealthy in the past were, many more of today's plutocrats are self-made; typically they are poster children of the new meritocracy: very driven kids from the upper middle class
(2) they are disproportionately players in the financial services industry (at least in Europe and North America (it's a different deal in "emerging" economies, where mineral extraction and sweet-heart monopolies are the primary vehicles to plutocratic wealth).

She also does a nice job of showing how the plutocrats (again, at least in the North Atlantic) see themselves less as national citizens, and more as de-national "citizens of the world" (again, this assertion seems to me less valid for emerging markets businessmen whose money is made from exploiting national markets — they may be buying London real estate to serve as an insurance plan in case they need a political bolthole, but they know their fortunes are tied to their countries of origin.)

As a tour de horizon the book is great, but analytically it remains somewhat underdeveloped. Notably, Freeland emphasizes globalization and technology as the key drivers of the new inequality, but underplays the role of (de)regulation of the financial services industry and the de-progressivization of the tax code as drivers of the new inequality.

More seriously, the analysis of the malign impact of the new inequality is also quite thin. Her main fear – which is right enough – is that the new plutocrats are putting into place measures that are reducing economic mobility in order to protect their children; in other words, that they seek to destroy the system of social mobility that they rode to the top.

Alas, Freeland more or less ignores the even greater issue associated with plutonomy, which is separate from the issue of the closing window of social mobility, which has to do with the reigning ideology of the plutocracy. She does a nice job of explaining that ideology, noting that the plutocrats tend to explain their wealth as being entirely due to their own cleverness rather than because they were lucky enough to be members of a society in which the government that offers a whole range of social services absent which society comes to look like Somalia or any feudal system. Indeed, such is their absolutely belief in themselves that they often reject the very idea of the public as such — as Maggie Thatcher said, "There's no such thing as society; only individuals and families."

What Freeland doesn't do is assess what an ideology like that, taken to its logical political conclusion, will do to a society. The simple truth is that the ideology isn't simply about lower taxes, it is about aggressively defunding and discrediting the very idea of public goods that serve society as a whole. The plutocrats don't really mind if their societies goes to hell, because they don't see themselves part of those societies — which indeed, from a practical perspective, they in many ways are not, as they live in gated communities, travel by private conveyances (ranging from private jets to the "Googlebus"), rely on private security, go to private schools, visit private game reserves, retain private doctors, and so on.

The central problem with plutocracy, in other words, is that when there is a class of people so wealthy that they are insulated from the risks that the rest of the society faces, they not only have no incentive to try to address those risks in any collective way, but indeed in many cases begin to work actively to undermine collective solutions to risk sharing, which they (rightly, one must concede) sense will cost them more than they personally benefit. (The Koch Brothers, Adelman, etc.)

Freeland touches on this "opting out of society" point only briefly, and with the wrong emphasis, noting that the many financial services plutocrats like threaten to decamp to another financial services hub if the regulations at home get to onerous. But that sort of personalized regulatory arbitrage is really only a small part of the story: Even for plutocrats who squarely see their wealth as tied to a specific country are doing everything they can to create conditions that will insulate themselves personally from the problems facing their country, while trying to avoid having to pay for (necessarily governmental) solutions to those problems. If the plutocrats just left the US, it would be less bad than what they're actually doing, which is making an effort to undermine the collective provisioning of social investments and public goods.

Dissenters from this pernicious reigning plutocratic ideology do appear in the book, ranging from Mohammed EL-Erian to Bill Gates to Warren Buffett to even Larry Summers, who appears to have had a realization a bit like the one that Alec Guinness has at the end of the "Bridge over the River Kwai," when he suddenly understands to his horror that the structure he has lovingly built up is actually radically at odds with the values he purports to believe in. If you want to understand who the new class is and how they think, this is a great book. But if you want a deep assessment of the political-economic impact of plutonomy, you will need to look elsewhere.(less)

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Mar 26, 2013 Abhijit Selukar rated it 1 of 5 stars

Not sure if I should rate the bool.
The book is so mediocre that I had to stop half way into reading it. The book is nothing but verbalization of data gathered from sources all around the world.
The book does not provide any solution. Just plain Data.
The author has again taken advantage of the current turmoil for her benefit and released the book.If the book was released in 2006-07, no one would have cared.

Read this book if you are a socialist.
NOT recommended if you believe in capitalist ideolog...more

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May 01, 2013 Grouchy Editor rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Plutocrats" is the type of book you suspect will make you angry before you turn a single page. The subtitle alone is hackle-raising: "The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else." The fall of “everyone else”? This book probably will piss you off –- but don’t blame the messenger.

Freeland, a financial journalist, makes the case that there is alarming income inequality in most countries –- but you probably already knew that. She interviews a laundry list of the ultra-rich,...more

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Mar 11, 2013 Mickey Hoffman rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book almost raises more questions than it answers, but on the whole I learned a lot. It's not a rant against the super rich. On the contrary, it explains who they are on a global scale and how varied they are as a group and how many of them achieved their current wealthy status. We're all familiar with the excesses and the third world has generated some of these people by use of bribes and crime. Chrystia interviews and details many of the plutocrats from Europe as well and from this countr...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Joshua S. added it

Shelves: done-with-it

Reading this book made me anxious as a high-middle class, mid-level management wage slave and a father of two. You can find descriptions of what's in the book and analyses of contents elsewhere- I realize she's a journalist and, I suppose, is following her instincts and her training to be 'fair and balanced' in her approach but:

1) I would have liked to have been presented with some concrete actions I can take to slow down or reverse the seeming inexorable ascendance of the %.1 or at least ensure...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Lisa rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I quit after 55 pages of unorganized drivel about how wonderful it is to be a plutocrat. The author has clearly been rubbing elbows with her subjects too long. There are frequent allusions to winner and losers, and the poor and middle class must simply suck it up and deal, because having the ultra-wealthy around is somehow good for the rest of us. I had my suspicions about the book early on when Freeland unironically quoted the F. Scott Fitzgerald saw "the rich are different" without Hemingway's...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Sean rated it 2 of 5 stars

I found this book on plutocrats interesting but mostly composed of loosely related vignettes rather than an all-encompassing thesis rigorously defended by its author and what that I had hoped to find. Yes, the growth in technology and globalization have increased inequality. Yes, you point to the rise of the intellectual class and the importance of human capital. And yes, you describe the plutocrats and how they ascended. But I wanted the author to tie it all together in a coherent thesis that o...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Paul rated it 1 of 5 stars

If you truly, really genuinely believe that there's nothing wrong with our economy that can't be fixed by rich folks being a little bit less greedy, then you'll want to read this book. Unfortunately, like a certain presidential candidate, the author is not competent to present her own case. When a capitalist quotes Marx, as Freeland does, it's a bad sign. When she misreads him, along with much else, it's a sign of desperation. Used to be that Harvard graduates and Rhodes scholars were well equip...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Anne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: completed-nonfiction

A journalist and industry specialist for Reuters examines the growing disparity between the rich and the poor, taking a non-partisan look into the businesspeople who are amassing colossal fortunes and preferring the company of similar people around the world.

Freeland is an extremely skilled writer. Her depth of knowledge combined with fluidity of narrative and turn of phrase is impressive. And, like most readers of this title, I picked up Plutocrats because the subject intrigued me. I think she...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Chet rated it 3 of 5 stars

In a general way the book lays-out the data that the Plutocratic Class has an overriding influence over those conventional players and groups that here-to-fore were considered to be the main movers and shakers.
Institutions are being blurred by and then restructure to support their plutocratic self interests.
The Politic institution motives are clearly being changed by the coalescence of this class.

The self interests that motivate behavior is not strictly channel through party lines but blurred a...more

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