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Democracy and Political Ignorance
- Why Smaller Government Is Smarter, Second Edition
- Narrated by: Peter Lerman
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
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Democracy and Political Ignorance
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Publisher's summary
One of the biggest problems with modern democracy is that most of the public is usually ignorant of politics and government. Many people understand that their votes are unlikely to change the outcome of an election and don't see the point in learning much about politics. This creates a nation of people with little political knowledge and little ability to objectively evaluate what they do know.
Ilya Somin mines the depths of public ignorance in America and reveals it as a major challenge for democracy. He weighs various potential solutions, provocatively arguing that political ignorance is best mitigated and its effects lessened by decentralizing and limiting government.
This second edition of fully updates its analysis and its implications for "voting with your feet", the connection between political ignorance and the disproportionate political influence of the wealthy, new proposals for increasing political knowledge, and up-to-date survey data on political ignorance from recent elections.
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5 out of 5 stars
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All Americans should read/listen to this.
- By Christopher W Catron on 03-22-20
By: Lawrence Lessig
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The People vs. Democracy
- Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It
- By: Yascha Mounk
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 205
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 172
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 171
The world is in turmoil. From India to Turkey and from Poland to the United States, authoritarian populists have seized power. As a result democracy itself may now be at risk. Two core components of liberal democracy - individual rights and the popular will - are at war with each other. As the role of money in politics soared and important issues were taken out of public contestation, a system of "rights without democracy" took hold. Populists who rail against this say they want to return power to the people. But in practice they create a system of "democracy without rights."
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not worth it
- By DailyShopper on 06-07-18
By: Yascha Mounk
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Right Here, Right Now
- Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption
- By: Stephen J. Harper
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Harper
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 134
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story5 out of 5 stars 122
The world is in flux. Disruptive technologies, ideas, and politicians are challenging business models, norms, and political conventions everywhere. How we, as leaders in business and politics, choose to respond matters greatly. Right Here, Right Now sets out a pragmatic, forward-looking vision for leaders in business and politics by analyzing how economic, social, and public policy trends - including globalized movements of capital, goods, and services, and labor - have affected our economies, communities, and governments.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book on Politics for Canadians AND Americans
- By John Fernandes on 10-19-18
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The Centrist Manifesto
- By: Charles Wheelan
- Narrated by: Charles Wheelan
- Length: 3 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
From debt ceiling standoffs to single-digit Congress approval ratings, America’s political system has never been more polarized - or paralyzed - than it is today. As best-selling author and public policy expert Charles Wheelan writes, now is the time for a pragmatic Centrist party that will identify and embrace the best Democratic and Republican ideals, moving us forward on the most urgent issues for our nation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Must read for all rational americans
- By CM on 09-15-15
By: Charles Wheelan
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The Precipice
- Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change
- By: Noam Chomsky, C.J. Polychroniou
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
In The Precipice, Noam Chomsky sheds light into the phenomenon of Trumpism, exposes the catastrophic nature and impact of Trump's policies on people, the environment, and the planet as a whole, and captures the dynamics of the brutal class warfare launched by the masters of capital to maintain and even enhance the features of a dog-eat-dog society to the unprecedented mobilization of millions of people against neoliberal capitalism, racism, and police violence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Of Incalculable Importance
- By Anonymous User on 12-15-21
By: Noam Chomsky, and others
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The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution
- Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic
- By: Ganesh Sitaraman
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable - and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America's republic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very well done
- By JLyman on 08-27-17
By: Ganesh Sitaraman
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Working Class Republican
- Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism
- By: Henry Olsen
- Narrated by: Derek Shetterly
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Conventional political wisdom views the two most consequential presidents of the 20th century - FDR and Ronald Reagan - as ideological opposites. FDR is hailed as the champion of big-government progressivism manifested in the New Deal. Reagan is seen as the crusader for conservatism dedicated to small government and free markets. But Henry Olsen argues that this assumption is wrong.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Refreshing and insightful
- By Thomas Marks on 12-16-19
By: Henry Olsen
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Blind Spots
- Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It
- By: Max H. Bazerman, Ann E. Tenbrunsel
- Narrated by: Kate McQueen
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4 out of 5 stars 80
When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great book
- By Ryan in SF on 11-15-18
By: Max H. Bazerman, and others
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Why We're Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,481
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,092
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,069
In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good as an intro, skip if you’re a wonk
- By Tony on 01-29-20
By: Ezra Klein
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The Socialist Temptation
- By: Iain Murray
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 22
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story5 out of 5 stars 20
Just 30 years ago, socialism seemed utterly discredited. An economic, moral, and political failure, socialism had rightly been thrown on the ash heap of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, bad ideas never truly go away — and socialism has come back with a vengeance. A generation of young people who don’t remember the misery that socialism inflicted on Russia and Eastern Europe is embracing it all over again.
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2 out of 5 stars
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This was a tough listen
- By bksander01 on 03-20-23
By: Iain Murray
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A Generation of Sociopaths
- How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
- By: Bruce Cannon Gibney
- Narrated by: Wayne Pyle
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 739
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 641
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Story4 out of 5 stars 640
What happens when a society is run by people who are antisocial? Welcome to baby boomer America. In A Generation of Sociopaths, Bruce Cannon Gibney shows how America was hijacked by the boomers, a generation whose reckless self-indulgence degraded the foundations of American prosperity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Honest introspection required
- By Niki on 03-31-17
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When Affirmative Action Was White
- An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
- By: Ira Katznelson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 254
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 222
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Story5 out of 5 stars 219
In this "penetrating new analysis" ( New York Times Book Review), Ira Katznelson fundamentally recasts our understanding of 20th century American history and demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. Through mechanisms designed by southern democrats that specifically excluded maids and farm workers, the gap between blacks and whites actually widened despite postwar prosperity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Absolute Must Read
- By Andrew on 01-02-18
By: Ira Katznelson
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Locked In
- The True Causes of Mass Incarceration - and How to Achieve Real Reform
- By: John F. Pfaff
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
Locked In is a revelatory investigation into the root causes of mass incarceration by one of the most exciting scholars in the country. Having spent 15 years studying the data on imprisonment, John Pfaff takes apart the reigning consensus created by Michelle Alexander and other reformers, revealing that the most widely accepted explanations - the failed War on Drugs, draconian sentencing laws, an increasing reliance on private prisons - tell us much less than we think.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The true causes of Mass Incarceration
- By Ekaterinya Vladinakova on 04-17-20
By: John F. Pfaff
What listeners say about Democracy and Political Ignorance
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Gilberto A. Pringle
- 04-21-17
in depth discussion about our voting process.
love the examples and the insight into our voting and political process. must read for everyone.
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