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    Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
    Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
    Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
    Audiobook11 hours

    Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class

    Written by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson

    Narrated by John Allen Nelson

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    About this audiobook

    We all know that the very rich have gotten a lot richer these past few decades while most Americans haven't. In fact, the exorbitantly paid have continued to thrive during the current economic crisis, even as the rest of Americans have fallen behind. Why do the "have-it-alls" have so much more? Lots of so-called experts claim to have solved this great mystery, but no one has really gotten to the bottom of it-until now.

    In their lively and provocative Winner-Take-All Politics, renowned political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson demonstrate that the usual suspects-foreign trade and financial globalization, technological changes in the workplace, increased education at the top-are largely innocent of the charges against them. Instead, they indict an unlikely suspect and take us on an entertaining tour of the mountain of evidence against the culprit. The guilty party is American politics. Runaway inequality and the present economic crisis reflect what government has done to aid the rich and what it has not done to safeguard the interests of the middle class. The winner-take-all economy is primarily a result of winner-take-all politics.

    Part revelatory history, part political analysis, part intellectual journey, Winner-Take-All Politics shows how a political system that traditionally has been responsive to the interests of the middle class has been hijacked by the super-rich. In doing so, it not only changes how we think about American politics, but also points the way to rebuilding a democracy that serves the interests of the many rather than just those of the wealthy few.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 26, 2011
    ISBN9781452671789
    Author

    Jacob S. Hacker

    Jacob S. Hacker is the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University. A Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, he is the author of The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream, The Divided Welfare State, and, with Paul Pierson, of American Amnesia: The Forgotten Roots of Our Prosperity; Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class; Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy. He has appeared recently on The NewsHour, MSNBC, All Things Considered, and Marketplace. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

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    Reviews for Winner-Take-All Politics

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    65 ratings8 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Here we go again another redundant book about the 1%. Yet the book totally disregard the upper class that is making 130000 to 400000 a year. The 1% is not the only class that gets tax breaks and better schools for their children. Have we forgotten about the woman who was arrested for lying about where she live so her child can go to a better school? Who do you think enforce those rules the 1%? This book presents an abstract enemy that is easy to blame but when you look around they cannot be found. It only takes a reasonable person to see who is the real problem. That problem is why houses are so expensive today you know who is making the prices go up and it's not some billionaire. Look around in your community it's the upper middle class moving in and the poor is moving out. Is a billionaire causing gentrification in your neighborhood get real!
    • 4/5
      I read this book in May, before the Occupy Wall Street Movement got started. For all I know this book influenced the movement. Hacker and Pierson carefully track how the 1% became the powerful mega-rich they are today. You should read this book and get angry.
    • 3/5
      This really should have been better. The content of the book is excellent however as is often the case with books written by academics, it was a dreary, repetitious read. It is part of the "beat the horse until it's dead" school of writing. Redundancy and self reference ("as we read in chapter three" blah blah). Too bad they didn't hire a good journalist/editor to hone their research into a more compelling narrative. Still the book's insights are useful, so it's worth a quick browse.
    • 4/5
      If you're American, this book will make you angry, although the reasons may differ between individual readers. For me, it's because it puts facts and figures to suspicions I've long held. You can't just blame Reagan (which I often tended to do) for our wonky tax laws, the Federal debt, the budget deficit, our crumbling infrastructure, ridiculously expensive health care system, poor schools, income disparity, the decline of the middle class, lack of social mobility, or a host of other economic ills that were brought about by Reagan-omics (aka supply side economics, aka trickle-down economics, aka voodoo economics). It's much more complex than that. Sadly, there seems to be no easy remedy.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books I have read in a long time. This is a very well-written, well-researched account explaining how our economic system has become so tilted toward the rich and big business. Hacker lays out how our political system (both Democrats and Republicans) have been corrupted by big business, special interests while ignoring the middle-class voter. He traces the problem back to the 1970s when Jimmy Carter was president. The book moves forward by decade, explaining how changes in politics, government and election politics - all influenced by special interests - also led to the most recent economic collapse in 2008.
    • 4/5
      the subtitle says it all - How Washington Made the Rich Richer and the Poor Poorer; not good for blood pressure! need a way to take this from the book discussion/read phase to political action.
    • 5/5
      Gives understanding as to why and how the income and wealth disparity in the US came about. Explains how large corporations organized in the 70's under the Business Roundtable umbrella and turned their massive financial resources into leverage to push, prod and influence Congress via lobbyists to do their bidding. They care but a little as to WHO is elected as their main strength is influence peddling post election. It isn't a matter that people should be restricted in making millions but they shouldn't be allowed to make the rules which protect and increase their wealth.Can't come away from this without thinking that coporatism has infested all of government and all of government has it's hand out.Not a very optimistic outlook.
    • 5/5
      This is a great book, relating in a well-researched manner, how the Republican Party has becomse the servant of the very rich--as it proved in the time after this book was published when it insisted that unless the richest Americans got a tax cut nobody would get a tax cut. They whine about the deficit but voted that the top 1% of income earners must have lower taxes, thus insuring that the deficit will be high.!