How Wealth Rules the World: Saving Our Communities and Freedoms from the Dictatorship of Property

By: Ben G. Price

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's Summary

Ben Price reveals that our constitution and legal system were intentionally designed to give more rights to the wealthy propertied class than the rest of us, and exposes how this hamstrings our ability to effectively address a host of pressing social and environmental problems - and what we can do about it. Many of today’s most serious issues - homelessness, gun violence, fracking, prison privatization, predatory lending, and many more - resist resolution because the “rights of property” undermine the rights of people. Issues that undeniably affect whole communities are determined by the courts to relate primarily to property, contracts, and corporations, and are removed from the public sphere and immunized from public governance.

There’s a reason for this. Ben Price tells the story of how the federalists - the more conservative faction of the founding fathers - secretly drafted the constitution as a counterrevolutionary document. It restored to the colonial one percent privileges overturned by the revolution, avoiding a popular backlash by bestowing rights on wealth itself, rather than creating a British-style personal aristocracy. These rights of property deprive the majority of their ability to self-govern and weaponize government in ways that let the “minority of the opulent” (in James Madison’s phrase) use the constitution to block local policies that compete with their interests. 

Price details often shocking examples of how the supposedly unalienable rights of individuals and communities are blithely disregarded. But he also describes how over 200 communities have drafted their own bills of rights that push back against the primacy of property, and how we all can join this struggle to return America to what the revolutionary generation intended.

©2019 Ben G. Price (P)2019 Ben G. Price

Mind Blowing Must-Read!

Compelling explanation of the founding of America and how we've become focused on wealth and the entrapment of property at the expense of the middle and lower class and our environment.

Read this book!

A potent discussion about how we arrived at the massive inequality and feeling of impact facing our nation and much of the world. it also offers a plan to address the fundamental changes we need to restore the Constitution and our inalienable rights that our ancestors fought and died for.

changes your views on the constitution, but short

great history explanation that provides fundamental reasons for the state of rights today in our nation. really changed my understanding of the constitution and the betrayal at hand. eloquently written and at times even dense due to the nature of precise language. which brings me to my only complaint : I desired more. I felt like it could have easily been 50% longer, going into history of banks globally, or even early human civilization rules on usury and property etc.

A must read for all US residents!

A book with a message whose time has come and then some! Read and be inspired to be involved and make a difference in your community and world.

America, not really the world

this is interesting and worth listening to. It should be titled How Wealth Rules America. It is mainly about community organising to counter the corporate injustices being inflicted on local communities in the US.
My main problem with it is the authors obsession with the American Revolution. As a UK citizen it makes me feel a bit like the enemy although his main focus is on the usurpation of the American Constitution to protect propertied elites so I suppose there is reason.
Overall I felt it was worth listening to as the US does control a significant part of world wealth and power.