Rating: 
Summary: Classic case of biased writing
Review: This book is full of bias, jealousy and opinion. Little or nor facts and no respect for those responsible for creating opportunities in this great country and keeping communism away from our front door.
Rating: 
Summary: Wealth and Democracy:
Review: Well done. His words thread together the US
financial history more accurately then any
history book I have ever read.
Makes you think!
Rating:
Summary: AND HE'S A REPUBLICAN
Review: This book shows how the Republicans have been stealing from the poor to give to the rich -- bribing the poor with teeny tax cuts and using that as a pretext to give the country away to their corporate masters. Phillips is a Republican, but one of the old school, and with a conscience. His book is mandatory reading for people who need to have their liberal instincts backed up by hard facts, for that next holiday dinner table argument with Uncle Mussolini.
Rating:
Summary: Wealth and Democracy in America
Review: Though it is not an easy read, Wealth and Democracy in American is a thoroughly researched book which paints a compelling picture of two tendancies in American history: one democratic embodied by both Roosevelts, Jackson Wilson et al. and the Free Marketeers (market worshippers) whose focus seems to lead to the financialization of the real economy. This financialization was rampant during periods wild speculation followed by economic collapse typified by the robber barrons and the 1870s collapse and the era of Coolidge, Harding and Hoover during the 1920s and the collapse of the 1930s. For anyone intersted in the financial mess we are in today and the emergance of plutacracy, a government in and for the rich, this is a must reading.
It clearly places the deregulation mania which intensified under the Reagan Revolution and the worship of free markets as aparty to the disturbing distortion of income distribution. He shows that today the rich are about as rich as they have ever been here (perhaps with the exception of the 1890s) and the poor and middle class are stagnant or slipping in their standard of living.
For any American concerned about where this country is going under the ideology of all out free market theory, this book will be both informative and downright frightening. It is also worth noting that the author was a key strategist under Richard Nixon who predicted the takeover of the Replublican party by the neo-conserviative idelogists in the 1970s.
Finally, the author domonstrates that the U.S. is going the way of three other large empires who succombed to greed and financialization, Britain, Netherlands and Hapsburg Spain.
I would strongly recommend it to any reader with a determination to learn the historical basis of the hideous economic demise this country has seen since the 1990s speculative bubble burst (a symptom of this gross financialization of the U.S. economy). This has been coupled with the outflow of real productive capacity ironically to a Communist country or the selling of U.S. manufacturing and other enterprises to foreign interests in the name of multinationalism. The greed ridden disease permeating U.S. business and politics is very well diagnosed by Mr. Phillips.
He writes with depth and style. Read it. It will make anyone who loves this country very angry.
Rating: 
Summary: Mistitled book - nothing about wealth in here
Review: If you are looking for a book about building or maintaining wealth, keep looking. This book should have been called "My View on Politics" or "Fear and Ignorance". Only those who are really afraid and totally ignorant will buy or read this worthless tome.
Rating:
Summary: Wealth Against Democracy
Review: America is "the most polarized and inequality-ridden of the major Western nations" (p.xx). The effects of concentrated wealth are: high levels of political corruption, arrogant global economic power, a twisted tax code, and the capture of government by private interests. The wealthy have been supported by religious voters because of the preachings of church leaders; the reason for the rich to control the colleges and universities. They have then reduced median family income, stagnated or reduced wages, reduced governmanet services, and attacked the sense of community (p.xiv). Economic inequality leads to political inequality; so noted in Aristotle's 'Politics'.Phillips compares the world power of today's America to yesterday's Britain, Holland, and Habsburg Spain at their zenith. He says the 'war against terrorism' will attack our democratic principles, and blame terrorism rather than economic policy for hard times! The increase in wealth among the top 5% followed the impoverization of the rest of America. The Federal Reserve Board and the US Treasury act to benefit the wealthy few. Technology works to favor the capitalist owners at the expense of the working masses. Phillips then projects current trends. The six major waves of inflation that hit America resulted from wars, and the increased supply of money. But huge fortunes were made in early America from government contracts. Corruption in Civil War supplies doubled the national debt (this meands every one is taxed to pay the wealthy few). Great wealth flowed from closeness to Government. Or why millions are spent in campaign contributions to win a seat in Congress? Since FDR, unionization and employee prosperity rose together; since Reagan it has fallen. The portion of the nation's wealth held by the top 1% nearly doubled (p.92), the lower quintiles lost out. Page 104 compares the mercantilism of old to US policies of the 1980s and 1990s; they produced bonds and stocks rather than goods and services. Wage earners have the least: vacation time, maternity leaves, notice of termination; they have the highest death rates from hypertension (p.113). While the EIC and minimum wage increase helped, the jump in FICA lowered after-tax income for the lower brackets (p.132), as did dwindling employee benefits and health coverage (p.133). Federal taxes were reduced for corporations and raised for employees (p.149). Page 162 notes that after 1945 unionized production line workers lived better than European bank managers. After 1990 Americans worked the longest hours in the industrialized world, elsewhere wages rose while working hours shortened. Page 164 explains why the US unemployment rate is higher than reported. Chapter 4 tells how in Habspurg Spain, the Netherlands, and Great Britain general decline was matched by increased wealth for the few. The reliance on global finance and services rather than commerce and production was the twililght stage of a great economic power (p.172). Those who warned against this development were both correct and spurned by their Ruling Class; Kevin Phillips will be no different. Pages 221-2 explains the scam of the 1986 "Tax Reform Act". It now taxed Social Security Benefits, raised the lowest rates, and lowered the highest rates. FICA rates were raised higher tha income taxes for two-earner families. 19th century Presidents rejected central banks tied to special interests; the best economic growth in America occurred with independent subtreasury units. The private banking cartel "Federal Reserve Bank" helped to bring about the Great Depression.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing like the other side
Review: I think this book is a must read for anyone who wants to learn about American History. An extremely well written and researched account of the working class version of America. Two flaws with the book is at time it glorifies socialism and doesn't go too indepth as to why the rich were bad at times.
Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: All you need do is talk to anyone from a low payed janitor or factory worker toa corporate executive trying to keep up with the Joneses (but failing).Listen everytime somebody complains about being passed over for a promotion or pay raise. Check out their jealousy and envy at anyone who is successful and ask them what is the difference between them and the successful and you will have the content of this book. Best of all, it will be, unlike this book--FREE!Don't waste your money on this. Just talk to anybody who is not doing that well and is making we cracks about those who are. You'll get the same information.
Rating:
Summary: An Important Read
Review: I am currently about 300 pages into this book, and I must say I pick it back up whenever I get a chance. This is an incredibly educational read, and of course I take everything with a grain of salt. I am conservative politically, so I find the evidence of business demands for laissez-faire combined with enormous government influence troubling and irrefutable. I myself have no doubt that business interests pretty much control the government's actions, for better of worse. I don't think this needs to be confused with a conservative agenda - it is the agenda of whatever entity is doing the influencing. I find many of the other reviews of this book laughable. Read other books instead - what books? Disapproval of a work like this is obviously dismissing it outright because of personal political beliefs. Fine, but what are the counter arguments? Does self rightous indignation not need an explanation anymore? While I can't claim to have enough of a point of reference to judge Mr. Phillips opinion one way or the other, I am greatly appreciative to be able to read such an erudite and well researched work.
Rating:
Summary: A public intellectual
Review: Reviews for this book are remarkably polarized, reminiscent of the red/blue division of the 2000 election. Rather than re-fight that contest, it seems more reasonable to criticize Phillips' book based on its own goals and achievements. Phillips argues that wealth disparities between rich and poor are large and growing. He cites numerous examples of legislation and executive policy that appear to have been crafted with a priority to concentrating wealth, often for a narrow constituency. Some of his examples may contain factual flaws. Collectively, though, these arguments belie the image of a predominantly laissez-faire, meritocratic economy. He doesn't adequately address the special American tradition of public philanthropy, or its current exemplars,such as the Gates Foundation. Reconciliation of social tensions stemming from wealth disparity is a tremendous challenge for the US. Phillips is not in denial mode here; he wants to meet this challenge head-on. Phillips' best moments are in his less politically-charged chapters, when he draws comparisons between speculative fever of the recent internet bubble and a string of boom/bust cycles in American, British, and Dutch history. Writing "history" of events less than two years old is a measure of audacity. Though not a particularly gifted prose writer, Phillips is an industrious historian, a traditional public intellectual, with many creative ideas. I certainly look forward to his next foray.
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