On Corruption in America

And What Is at Stake

By: Sarah Chayes

Narrated by: Sarah Chayes

From the prizewinning journalist and internationally recognized expert on corruption in government networks throughout the world comes a major work that looks homeward to America, exploring the insidious, dangerous networks of corruption of our past, present, and precarious future.

“If you want to save America, this might just be the most important book to read now." —Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains

Sarah Chayes writes in her new book, that the United States is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption, she argues, is an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private-sector interests, and out-and-out criminals interweave. Their main objective: not to serve the public but to maximize returns for network members.

In this unflinching exploration of corruption in America, Chayes exposes how corruption has thrived within our borders, from the titans of America's Gilded Age (Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, et al.) to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression, and FDR's New Deal; from Joe Kennedy's years of banking, bootlegging, machine politics, and pursuit of infinite wealth to the deregulation of the Reagan Revolution--undermining this nation's proud middle class and union members. She then brings us up to the present as she shines a light on the Clinton policies of political favors and personal enrichment and documents Trump's hydra-headed network of corruption, which aimed to systematically undo the Constitution and our laws.

Ultimately and most importantly, Chayes reveals how corrupt systems are organized, how they enable bad actors to bend the rules so their crimes are covered legally, how they overtly determine the shape of our government, and how they affect all levels of society, especially when the corruption is overlooked and downplayed by the rich and well-educated.

Critic reviews

"Both right and left revile 'the swamp,' but Sarah Chayes is the first to provide a compelling--to say nothing of brave--account of how sophisticated self-dealing networks of every stripe are rigging the rules and poisoning our politics. If you want to save America, this might just be the most important book to read now." —Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains

"I can't imagine a more important book for our time." —Sebastian Junger

"Required reading." —Tom Friedman

"Compelling, fascinating . . . a call to action."—The Huffington Post

Revealing the acceptance of corruption in America

This book should be required reading for every American citizen. It’s incredibly well researched. It’s incredibly well organized. So many things that have bothered me over the years about the way money controls the politics and life in this country— she explains how all these things tie together and how the networks operate. It’s full of those a-ha moments. And the best part is that in the last chapter, she gives hope by offering solutions that we can all participate in. It is so necessary to offer those solutions because the book overall is very intense and at times distressing. It also must be recognized that this woman is a true expert, who has worked all over the world and in multiple administrations. I highly recommend this book.

Excellent Book, Speculative Conclusions

Each chapter was fascinating but required some fact checking and careful review of the path to conclusion. In the interest of “poetic” writing, the author tended to make blanket, unsupported claims. Often, independent checking yielded that she was correct. Occasionally, she stretched the conclusion to a falsehood or at best unsupported conclusion

Despite some problems, I highly recommend this book. Well worth the time both to read and investigate.

Informative

A very interesting book opening up on how sad and sick our government and people in power are.

very well written and well documented.

interestingly written words, weaving of religion, mythology. actual history, current events, and global patterns of corruption.

This is the most thorough description of the real deep state you’ll find.

I’ve read dozens of books on the topic and this is perhaps the best. From offering the big sweeping historical view of the challenges to any people’s government anywhere in the world, through considerations of various cultural differences, to the realities of the modern globalized world economy, Chayes describes how corruption networks so readily emerge. The she talks realistically but passionately about how we might prevent our final descent into corruption driven servitude.