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The Super-Rich Shall Inherit the Earth
Recent years have seen the rise of a new and insidious club of global billionaires who are buying up once unfashionable industries from distressed third-world nations and former communist powers. This book explains the implications of this worrying trend and what it means for the worldwide economy.
254 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 18, 2015
It was OK. I read it because I find the topic ( described in the title and subtitles of the cover of the book )very interesting.
It was an easy read, full of stories about how some individuals around the world became to be oligarchs; the book exposes some of the nasty practices employed by those oligarchs to reach to the top.
In the second part of the book, the author turns his attention to the UK and aims to draw a parallel between the rise of very powerful people here and the oligarchs in the BRICs. At this point, the author's tone starts to get quite political, and tries to explain the rise of so powerful people as direct cause of free-market ideology.
The book ends up on an apocalyptic tone, warning of the dangers for the wider society of such free-market practices and the power of the financial elites.
Overall, I found the book entertaining, though a bit anecdotal sometimes, and lacking depth of analysis. I think the author does a decent job in terms of compiling relevant information/existing research and presenting it in simple terms to the reader. However, I think where the author fails is in the process of connecting causes and consequences, and in using a rigorous methodology to reach those conclusions that he gets to. This is particularly visible at the end of the book, where rushes through very superficial explanations of interventionist vs free market economic theories just so he can make his final point, a very gloomy one of the current prospects of our society.
So, this is what I call a "commuting book", but intellectually weak.
It was an easy read, full of stories about how some individuals around the world became to be oligarchs; the book exposes some of the nasty practices employed by those oligarchs to reach to the top.
In the second part of the book, the author turns his attention to the UK and aims to draw a parallel between the rise of very powerful people here and the oligarchs in the BRICs. At this point, the author's tone starts to get quite political, and tries to explain the rise of so powerful people as direct cause of free-market ideology.
The book ends up on an apocalyptic tone, warning of the dangers for the wider society of such free-market practices and the power of the financial elites.
Overall, I found the book entertaining, though a bit anecdotal sometimes, and lacking depth of analysis. I think the author does a decent job in terms of compiling relevant information/existing research and presenting it in simple terms to the reader. However, I think where the author fails is in the process of connecting causes and consequences, and in using a rigorous methodology to reach those conclusions that he gets to. This is particularly visible at the end of the book, where rushes through very superficial explanations of interventionist vs free market economic theories just so he can make his final point, a very gloomy one of the current prospects of our society.
So, this is what I call a "commuting book", but intellectually weak.
April 27, 2010
Read a culled out passage from this book and think it will make a good read especial after reading the Super Class last year. And after reading the book, you wonder how the world has shrinked into such a small economy that only few people are governing so many.
July 8, 2011
An uncompromising study of how a small group of global industrial billionaires is pushing us toward a new era of feudalism. Not for ostriches.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews