Synopses & Reviews
The focus of the worldwide Occupy protests is creating a world that works for 99% of people and businesses, not just the richest and most powerful 1%. But who are the 99%? Who are the 1%? How extensive and systemic is inequality in different areas of society? What are its causes and consequence? How is inequality changing in our world? And what can be done about it?
For many years Chuck Collins has been a top leader in studying, speaking about, and writing about these questions. In this book he brings together in one place, for the first time, information that has been widely scattered in many different articles, reports, and websites. He provides revealing and powerful information about inequality in all realms of today’s world, including individual wealth and power, corporate wealth and power, media control, political influence, and other areas. He then describes the functioning of the Wall Street Inequality Machine and describes how inequality wrecks everything we care about. And he tells how people and groups are pushing back against inequality and taking action to reduce inequality and create a world that works for the many and not just the few.
Synopsis
For over thirty years, we've lived through a radical redistribution of wealth--upward, to a tiny fraction of the population. It's as though we're undertaking a bizarre social experiment to see how much inequality a democratic society can tolerate.
As a result "We are the 99%," the rallying cry of the Occupy movement, has spread far beyond its ranks. But who are the 99 percent? Who are the 1 percent? How extensive and systematic is inequality throughout society? What are its true causes and consequences? How is inequality changing in our world? And what can be done about it?
For many years Chuck Collins has been a leading voice and activist on these questions. In this book he marshals wide-ranging data from a variety of sources to paint a graphic picture of how disparities in wealth and power play out in America and the world. For the first time, this book reveals the concrete meaning of "the 99% and the 1%," looking not just at individual households but at the business world, the media, and the earth as a whole.
Collins identifies the shifts in social values, political power, and economic policy that have led to our current era of extreme inequality--particularly the way Wall Street has managed to rig the rules of the game in favor of the 1perecent--and surveys the havoc inequality has wreaked on virtually every aspect of society. But there is hope. Not only does he offer common-sense proposals for closing the inequality gap, but Collins provides a guide to many of the groups--including some made up of millionaires--that are working to bring about a society that works for everybody: for the 100 percent. This is a struggle that can be won. After all, the odds are 99 to 1 in our favor.
About the Author
Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and directs IPS's Program on Inequality and the Common Good. He is an expert on U.S. inequality and author of several books, including Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity, co-authored with Felice Yeskel and Wealth and Our Commonwealth, a case for taxing inherited fortunes, which he co-authored with Bill Gates, Sr. He is co-founder of Wealth for the Common Good, a network of business leaders, high-income households and other partners working together to promote shared prosperity and fair taxation, as well as co-founder of United for a Fair Economy (UFE), which works to raise the profile of wealth inequality.