Divested

Inequality in the Age of Finance

By: Ken-Hou Lin, Megan Tobias Neely

Narrated by: Chris Sorensen

Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's Summary

Finance is an inescapable part of American life. From how one pursues an education, buys a home, runs a business, or saves for retirement, finance orders the lives of ordinary Americans. And as finance continues to expand, inequality soars.

In Divested, Ken-Hou Lin and Megan Tobias Neely document how the ascendance of finance on Wall Street, Main Street, and among households is a fundamental cause of economic inequality. They argue that finance has reshaped the economy in three important ways. First, the financial sector extracts resources from the economy at large without providing commensurate economic benefits to those outside the financial services industry. Second, firms in other economic sectors have become increasingly involved in lending and speculative investing, which weakens the demand for labor and the bargaining power of workers. And third, the shift of risks and uncertainties once shouldered by unions, corporations, and governments onto families escalates the consumption of financial products, which in turns exacerbates wealth inequality.   

A clear, comprehensive, and convincing account of the forces driving economic inequality in America, Divested warns us that the most damaging consequence of the expanding financial system is not simply recurrent financial crises but a widening social divide between the have and have-nots.

©2020 Oxford University Press (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

An overall excellent treatment of the subject

I have only one complaint about this book, it's that the authors fall into the trap of blaming whitey/systemic racism for racial inequities. Maybe they should break down the white cohort into Jewish and non-Jewish and they'd see the gap between black and white wealth pales in comparison to the gulf between Jews and non-Jews. I always find it particularly galling when Asians use anti-white canards, but I guess they just recognise the shot.