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American oligarchy : the permanent political class / Ron Formisano.

By: Material type: TextTextLanguage: English Series: Publisher: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2017Description: xi, 270 pages ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780252082825 (paperback)
  • 0252082826 (paperback)
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 320.473
LOC classification:
  • JK 275 F725a 2017
Contents:
""Title Page""; ""Copyright Page""; ""Contents""; ""Preface""; ""Introduction Beyond Plutocracy: Becoming an Aristocracy""; ""Chapter 1 Meet the Political Class""; ""Chapter 2 Our One Percent Government, Congress, and Its Adjuncts: The Way to Wealth""; ""Chapter 3 Is the Political Class Corrupt?""; ""Chapter 4 The Permanent Campaign and the Permanent Political Class""; ""Chapter 5 Political Class Adaptation and Expansion""; ""Chapter 6 The Political Class in a Poor State""; ""Chapter 7 The Profitable World of Nonprofits""; ""Conclusion""; ""Afterword""; ""Notes""; ""Index""
Summary: "A permanent political class has emerged on a scale unprecedented in our nation 's history. Its self-dealing, nepotism, and corruption contribute to rising inequality. Its reach extends from the governing elite throughout nongovernmental institutions. Aside from constituting an oligarchy of prestige and power, it enables the creation of an aristocracy of massive inherited wealth that is accumulating immense political power. In a muckraking tour de force reminiscent of Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair, and C. Wright Mills, [this book] demonstrates the way the corrupt culture of the permanent political class extends down to the state and local level. [The author] breaks down the ways this class creates economic inequality and how its own endemic corruption infects our entire society. [The author] delves into the work of not just politicians but lobbyists, consultants, appointed bureaucrats, pollsters, celebrity journalists, behind-the-scenes billionaires, and others. Their shameless pursuit of wealth and self-aggrandizement, often at taxpayer expense, rewards channeling the flow of income and wealth to elites. That inequality in turn has choked off social mobility and made a joke of meritocracy. As [the author] shows, these forces respond to the oligarchy 's power and compete to bask in the presence of the .01 percent. They also exacerbate the dangerous instability of an American democracy divided between extreme wealth and extreme poverty."-
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Holdings
Item type Current library Home library Collection Shelving location Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Libro Libro Biblioteca Juan Bosch Biblioteca Juan Bosch Ciencias Sociales Ciencias Sociales (3er. Piso) JK 275 F725a 2017 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 00000190422

Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-264) and index.

""Title Page""; ""Copyright Page""; ""Contents""; ""Preface""; ""Introduction
Beyond Plutocracy: Becoming an Aristocracy""; ""Chapter 1
Meet the Political Class""; ""Chapter 2
Our One Percent Government, Congress, and Its Adjuncts: The Way to Wealth""; ""Chapter 3
Is the Political Class Corrupt?""; ""Chapter 4
The Permanent Campaign and the Permanent Political Class""; ""Chapter 5
Political Class Adaptation and Expansion""; ""Chapter 6
The Political Class in a Poor State""; ""Chapter 7
The Profitable World of Nonprofits""; ""Conclusion""; ""Afterword""; ""Notes""; ""Index""

"A permanent political class has emerged on a scale unprecedented in our nation 's history. Its self-dealing, nepotism, and corruption contribute to rising inequality. Its reach extends from the governing elite throughout nongovernmental institutions. Aside from constituting an oligarchy of prestige and power, it enables the creation of an aristocracy of massive inherited wealth that is accumulating immense political power. In a muckraking tour de force reminiscent of Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair, and C. Wright Mills, [this book] demonstrates the way the corrupt culture of the permanent political class extends down to the state and local level. [The author] breaks down the ways this class creates economic inequality and how its own endemic corruption infects our entire society. [The author] delves into the work of not just politicians but lobbyists, consultants, appointed bureaucrats, pollsters, celebrity journalists, behind-the-scenes billionaires, and others. Their shameless pursuit of wealth and self-aggrandizement, often at taxpayer expense, rewards channeling the flow of income and wealth to elites. That inequality in turn has choked off social mobility and made a joke of meritocracy. As [the author] shows, these forces respond to the oligarchy 's power and compete to bask in the presence of the .01 percent. They also exacerbate the dangerous instability of an American democracy divided between extreme wealth and extreme poverty."-

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