The Great Deformation

The Corruption of Capitalism in America

By: David Stockman

Narrated by: William Hughes

Length: 36 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

A coruscating, brilliantly insightful exegesis of where capitalism went wrong, how it was corrupted, and how it might be restored, by outspoken former Reagan budget director and best-selling author David Stockman.

David Stockman was the architect of the Reagan Revolution that was meant to restore sound money principles to the United States government. It failed, derailed by politics, special interests, welfare, and warfare. In The Great Deformation, Stockman describes how the working of free markets and democracy has long been under threat in America and provides a surprising, nonpartisan catalog of the corrupters and defenders. His analysis overturns the assumptions of Keynesians and monetarists alike, showing how both liberal and neoconservative interference in markets has proved damaging and often dangerous. Over time, crony capitalism has made fools of us all, transforming Republican treasury secretaries into big-government interventionists and populist Democrat presidents into industry-wrecking internationalists. Today’s national debt stands at nearly $16 trillion. Divided equally among taxpayers, each of us is $52,000 in debt. This book explains how we got here—and why this warped crony capitalism has betrayed so many of our hopes and dreams.

©2013 David A. Stockman (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc

Critic reviews

"Stockman performs a real service when he debunks the myths that have been associated with Reagan’s conservatism and promotes Eisenhower’s fiscal and military conservatism…Stockman forcefully conveys enormous amounts of knowledge." ( Kirkus Reviews)

Essential truths revealed

This book is right up there with "Human Action," "Where the Right Went Wrong" and "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" in terms of taking complex subjects and explaining them in ways that reveal their essential truths.

I majored in economics but the macro side was never explained or taught to me in a way that made as much sense as does this book. Mr. Stockman has rendered a great service to both the contemporary audience and future generations in producing this singular work.

amazing summary of how the US went wrong.

This book is a must read for anyone concerned about the national debt, and the 1%.

Important but flawed

This is a difficult book to read for 2 reasons.
First, Stockman builds a solid narrative of successive short-sighted political decisions that led to terrible repercussions for democracy and the US economy. Starting with Roosevelt on through Obama, each president made choices that deformed normal economic mechanisms. His criticisms are not really partisan, as he bashes Nixon and Bush as much as Democrats. The examples he uses are numerous, devastating, and often mind-numbing in detail. The conclusions and predictions are very pessimistic.
The second reason the book is difficult is because Stockman is a really bad writer. Seemingly everything "grows like Topsy." Thousands of things are said that are "needless to say." Things "literally explode" that are not pyrotechnic. The countless cliches and a rather tedious sentence structure make the reading unpleasant. That a businessman like Stockman is not a prose stylist is not much of a fault, but why didn't the publisher have the book edited by someone fluent in English?

Great book - difficult listen

What did you like best about this story?

The book really opens your eyes to how corrupt Wall Street is and how the government supports crony capitalism. I have listened to David Stockman on the internet and he doesn't speak the way this book was written. It is almost like an editor or someone took David Stockman's real words and "spruced up" the language to make it seem more important. The problem is they went crazy with it. The editor should be ashamed to put such a good book into print like that.

Sobering and informative.

A non-partisan look at the state of the US and world economy. I highly recommend it.

Detailed and informative

Detailed description of our crony capitalism system. The book can be summarized to be more easily readable.

Why Isn't the American Economy Working?

What made the experience of listening to The Great Deformation the most enjoyable?

If you have any interest in what is going on in the United States economically, and why things are not working out as the "talking heads" from the Obama Administration to CNBC keep promising us they are, then you need to listen to this book.

We know something is wrong. And it is not as simple as Democrats versus Republicans.

Which scene was your favorite?

Chapters 32 and beyond tie up all the loose strings and takes a look at where we are today, why things are worse than we believe, and what, if anything can be done to change our direction.

Not to be pessimistic, but it will take a seismic shift to change things for the United States, and that shift will not be painless.

But it will be less painful that what we have coming if we just do nothing.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I have been a student of the economy for many decades. But I was never able to tie the role of government malfeasance together with what was happening beyond the last one or two administrations.

Stockman makes it perfectly clear. This is not and has not been a Democratic or a Republican created crisis. Instead, it is a crisis of meddlers in an economic system called Capitalism, and they have meddled with it without grasping what they were doing.

We have sacrificed long term gain for short-term jumps in consumption over and over again, with no regard for how we are going to replace that consumption that we pulled from the future into today's market.

And we have sacrificed a solid money supply for one of fiat money, where budgets do not matter(Thank you Richard Nixon).

Meanwhile we approach $20 trillion in deficits with artificially low interest rates, which have encouraged even more borrowing. Thank you Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.

Any additional comments?

If you think the rules of the the United States economy have changed and you think the rules of investing have changed, you are right.

Stockman goes back to the roots of this rotten tree and explains in very good detail how we got here, and why we are dying economically, even though we are told over and over and over again that the economy is turning the corner. It isn't.

This book is long, but well worth the listening time to complete. Our future economic success has been placed into the hands of just a few single points of failure.

It's important you know why it's failing, so that you can prepare for what is certainly coming in the not too distant future for the United States.

An important message, a bit weak in the telling

Mr. Stockman certainly has the credentials to back up his thesis, and the message is an important one for our times. Not only was he a member of President Reagan's Office of Management and Budget, he spent many years working in the world of banking and finance, and actually ran a real, decently sized business for several years.

However his writing style leaves something to be desired. He tends to overuse superlative and hyperbole, and some of his images and analogies are obscure. There are far too many adjectives -- the book could probably have been reduced by 25% without affecting the message, just by getting rid of the extra words.

Another difficulty that the listener may experience is that the timelines tend to be convoluted. A recent train of events is related and then the story jumps back to the early 20th century to fill in historical background and identify the causes which let to the recent events. I am not sure that the story could have been told better in a different way, however: it is a very complex subject and he covers it in detail.

This book is definitely important if one wishes to understand how the US economy got into its current situation.

Finally a book by someone who ACTUALLY understands how the economy works

A great no nonsense book, and very easy to listen too for those interested in economics. Obviously it’s pretty long, but the Narrator does a great job. Highly recommend!

Valuable information, but a lot of repeating

Hard to get through. Phased out multiple times, even though the information seems spot on and very valuable. Information seems to repeat excessively.