Chrystia Freeland is the managing editor and director of consumer news at Thomson Reuters and the author of Sale of the Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution. She lives in New York City.
A Financial Times Best Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize
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“Just in time – if not too late – comes this definitive examination
of inequality in our time. I think it’s the bookend to the
Hacker-Pierson book, Winner-Take-All Politics. These two are
essential reading for anybody who wants to understand where we
are.”
—Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company
“Freeland is an insightful and indefatigable reporter…
Freeland concludes by reminding us of Venice, which 700 years ago
made itself a wealthy imperial power through commerce. The city
fell into decline when its own plutocrats tried to cement their
advantages, thereby stifling the openness that accounted for the
society’s dynamism. Today, of course, Venice is sinking. Freeland’s
book will make people wonder if we are, too.” --Bloomberg
Businessweek
“Timely and absorbing... this is no voyeuristic glimpse into the
fabulous lifestyles of the rich and famous. Freeland charts the
rise of this class by examining global trends and exploring the
consequences of the creation of such a money-laden elite, shifting
smoothly from dense academic studies and interviews with George
Soros to grappling with the success of Lady Gaga… Her findings are
fleshed out with fine research, strong statistics and neat nuggets
of information.” --The Guardian (UK)
“Plutocrats isn’t a book about the lifestyles of the fabulously
wealthy, but rather the global trends the book’s titular class
surfed to success… it’s rife with impressive analysis. In a chapter
on the so-called superstar effect—“the tendency of both
technological change and globalization to create winner-take-all
economic tournaments”—Ms. Freeland glides from the writings of
Soviet intellectuals, MIT and Princeton economists and the apostle
Matthew to the careers of 18th century diva Elizabeth Billington,
Lady Gaga, white-shoe lawyer David Boies, Yves St. Laurent,
DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and Albert Einstein… the
thoroughness with which Ms. Freeland surrounds the ideas is
satisfying.” --The New York Observer
“A portrait of the ultra-rich that few other journalists have had
the access to capture… Unlike some critics on the left, Freeland
does not vilify her super-rich protagonists – a nonpartisan
approach that helps make Plutocrats harder to ignore.” --USA
Today
“Rising inequality is one of the most pressing issues of our time.
Chrystia Freeland's Plutocrats provides us with a glimpse of the
lives of America's elites and a disquieting look at the society
that produces them. This well-written and lively account is a good
primer for anyone who wants to understand one extreme of America
today."
--Joseph Stiglitz, author of The Price of
Inequality; University Professor, Columbia University
"Mix crisp economics, ripe history, and two pinches of salty
gossip, and you have the flavor of Chrystia Freeland’s entertaining
book. From the opulent Bradley Martin ball of 1897 to its modern
echoes in Sun Valley and Davos, Plutocrats chronicles the habits of
the workaholic overclass—its taste for British public schools, its
immodest philanthropy, its fundamental rootlessness. Even as she
describes this gilded tribe, Freeland advances a paradoxical
warning. Open societies may allow super-achievers to pile up
extraordinary riches—and to feel that they have more or less
deserved them. But the more these meritocrats succeed, the more
likely they are to entrench their own offspring at the top of the
heap, negating the very meritocracy that afforded them their
chances. Already in the United States, graduating from college is
more closely linked to having wealthy parents than to grades in
high school. When class matters more than going to class,
Freeland’s message must be treated with the utmost
seriousness."
--Sebastian Mallaby, author of More Money than
God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite
"Our world increasingly revolves around global elites who not only
have an oversized effect on our politics but also set the trends
and furnish us with the dominant discourse. In this delightful
book, Chrystia Freeland tells the story of how we got here and what
distinguishes our elites from those of previous epochs. Most
importantly, she explains why the elites' dominance, even when it
appears benign, is a challenge to our institutions and gives us
clues about how we can overcome it."
--Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations Fail;
economics professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“The world’s wealthy elite, is more wealthy, more knit together,
more separate from their fellow citizens and probably more powerful
than ever before. This very important book describes their
lives and more important how their lives affect all of ours. It
should be read by anyone concerned with how their world is being
shaped and how it will evolve.”
--Lawrence Summers, Former U.S. Treasury
Secretary; Charles W. Eliot University Professor, Harvard
University
"Chrystia Freeland has written a fascinating account of perhaps the
most important economic and political development of our era: the
rise of a new plutocracy. She explains that today’s wealthy are
different from their predecessors: more skilled and more global;
and more often employees than owners, notably so in finance and
high technology. By putting together stories of individuals with
reading of the scholarly evidence, she gives us a clear view of
what many will view as a not so brave new world."
--Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator for
the Financial Times
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