Rating: 
Summary: Premise of author is correct
Review: Not much that I can add that other reviewers haven't already stated.The fact is that most of the wealth in America is controlled by only 2% of the population and the rest of us are dancing to it.It's time for Americans to get mad and do something about it. This book is a real eye opener.
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Summary: Ignore the critics....buy this book
Review: As a professor of management, I found this book insightful, informative and scholarly. Despite what the critics have said on this page, this is a serous book about serious issues. Not simply a self-help/MLM book or more blather about how to think and grow rich. Irregardless (sic) of what the uninformed say about this book, I think it is a valuable look at some crucial issues we are all facing.No, I am not a friend, relative or colleague of the author. Simply someone who seeks to understand our so-called "free market" and the role corporation-sponsored politicians have had in widening the economic gaps between the rich, middle class and the poor in this country. Read the newspapers lately? Many of today's headlines (Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, ad nauseum) have roots in Kevin Phillips book.
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Summary: The minds of the very wealthy
Review: Actually I've read just over half of this text; and so I'll give a 3 rating out of neutrality. I hold no particular brief for or against the book's position. As a Libertarian, MBA Finance, CPA and senior financial manager, I can say it describes very well the attitudes and behavior of people you probably will never meet. I have. You cannot conceive of the ways ego and power are wielded. This book accurately describes the behavior of that group. Don't dismiss it simply because you cannot believe it.
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Summary: A mound of data to dispel the economic myths
Review: Wealth and Democracy has two stories to tell. One is the history of booms and recessions in the US economy since the revolution. The second is the broader outline of a country's rise to global economic prominance and the decline that follows; while the boosters of the US economy would like us all to believe that the US is on top of the global economy to stay, history since the 15th century (as enacted by Spain, the Netherlands, and England) suggests we're over the top and on our way down. Through these two stories, Phillips dispels a number of economic myths that have grown popular in recent decades, particularly during the heyday of the 1990s. Among these is the idea that economic booms benefit everyone in society (the "trickle-down" idea). On the contrary, Phillips shows that the "free market" booms since the founding of the nation have primarily benefited owners of capital, and have generally have come at the expense of the middle and lower classes, particularly during recent decades. In fact, the longest period of economic expansion (after WWII) came during the period of greatest government regulation of the economy. This leads to the second major myth he dispels: that wealth in America is created by a "free" market; in fact, Phillips documents how most booms were fueled by specific government policies and actions, and generally benefited certain segments, companies and , families who had friends in the government. On the global level, Phillips long historical view dispels the notion that the global economy is a "new economy"; in fact the present global economy has only begun to approach the global economy at the end of the 19th century that was guided by the British. Added to all of this, his final major point - that the recent shift of focus in the US economy from manufacturing to finance parallels the English, Dutch, and Spanish shifts to finance as their economies faltered - is chilling. The diversity of these points illustrates the one flaw in the book, which is that it has too many stories to tell. The first few chapters provide a broad overview of his theses and a historical telling of the story. The subsequent chapters tell a similar story from a topical point of view; for example, one chapter documents how government policy has been a prime engine of wealth creation; another focuses on technology. These chapters reiterate the original story from different angles, but by the latter third of the book the points have been understood and the repetition grows tedious. Some may also also object to the extensive presentation of data in charts and tables that fill each chapter. These also can get excessive, but in the end I would argue they are necessary, given the intense emotions surrounding the economic ideologies he is challenging. (The reviews on this site offer a good illustration of just how much people insist on clinging to this ideology in the fact of facts.) These objections aside, this book provides more hard evidence from reliable sources on this important subject than any other book I have seen, and should not be missed by anyone who cares about the future of the American economy and government.
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Summary: Timing of This Book's Pub;ication is Perfect
Review: When the sensational stories of corporate greed began to appear in the popular press in the latter part of 2001, the timing was perfect for the publication of Kevin Phillips' important book about the American rich -- who they are, how much they have and how they use their wealth to manipulate politics. Except for those who are wholly naive about how things actually work in power centers, there is really nothing new in Mr. Phillips' well-researched study, except the figures of staggering wealth. Those who are no stranger to Mr. Phillips' writings will nod, saying mentally, "Ah, yes. I thought so. Certainly, this fits perfectly." And so on. For those who come to this book without that background, Mr. Phillips will blow their minds. That's why it is one of the most important books of the 21st century so far. Here is told where the ultra rich get their money, how they are somehow isolated from the rest of us, how the very, very small number of the super rich own so very, very much of America. In this "greed-is-good" age, Mr. Phillips shows how deeply rooted that philosophy has become and in no uncertain terms, his research shows that, indeed, the rich are becoming richer while the poor are becoming more poor. Mr. Phillips issues no call to arms for a revolution. He merely does a remarkable job of singling out a significant problem which has to be corrected for the health of this nation.
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Summary: Steps on a lot of toes
Review: Kevin Phillips is sure to irk Republicans and even some self-proclaimed Democrats with this book. Conservatives will hate Phillips because he dares to commit the greatest heresy; he questions laissez faire economics. Not only does he question whether it works (he doesn't think it does), but he tries to prove that truly pure laissez faire is a beast as fictional as a unicorn. Phillips contends that Republicans haven't so much gotten the government out of the market as they have favored a certain set of elites, and he documents this in exacting detail. Phillips shows that under the economic policies of the last 20 years the standard of living for the average American family has eroded seriously, and only the rise of two earner households and the ever lengthening work week have prevented a more serious erosion. In other words being an average American in the era of Reagan/Clinton is like running up the down escalator: you've got to work hard to even stay in the same place. This might be easy to dismiss as standard far left ranting except for two things: 1. Phillips is a Republican; in fact he worked for Nixon, a man who is not generally taken to be a socialist. 2. More importantly Phillips covers all his bases. There are graphs for everything, and he anticipates objections like the one that increased benefits have softened the loss of real wages (he agrees they've softened it just a bit but shows that they have not made up for the loss of real wages). Democrats will probably dislike Phillips because he points out that rather than sticking up for the middle class the Democratic Party under the likes of Clinton and Lieberman has simply favored a different set of elites and pandered to their concerns (i.e. silicon valley types rather than Texas oil men). Once again Phillips digs up all sorts of annoying evidence (which make hash of Judis' absurd claim that Clinton and Gore are the real heirs of Theodore Roosevelt, and other such "New Democrat" claptrap). As one might expect from a Nixonite Phillips has a certain level of contempt for the Democratic cultural elite and a good many of the cultural issues that have so obsessed the Democratic Party since McGovern. Unfotunately, this might irk some otherwise sympathetic readers but this is only tangential to the books larger point. He dismisseses the jingoism of Republicans as a cynical way to distract Americans from real problems. The book does have flaws. Phillips' very thoroughness can be one of them; the reader sometimes gets hit over the head with four charts and graphs when one could have proven Phillips' point. Also, his style is at best adequate and he tends to repeat himself. His thesis that history goes in cycles is also a problem. It's a rather grand claim made on not so grand evidence. Still, the paralells between America in the early 21st century and the waning empires of history are interesting, and while it's dumb to assume that history neatly repeats itself (which Phillips doesn't quite do) it's worse to assume that we are so clever and our age so different that we have nothing to learn from the mistakes of history. All in all a solid, well reasoned, measured, and very interesting book. If nothing else Phillips gives us more evidence and less self righteous histrionics than most of the writers who make similar points. I'll take Phillips slightly boring style over a vacuous slogan like "Spank the bank" any day of the week. It's a shame that partisan biases and short attention spans will probably keep his book from getting more of a hearing.
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Summary: How wealth corrupts politics and impoverishes the nonwealthy
Review: Near the front of this book is a wise quote from Aristotle: "It is manifest that the best political community if formed by citizens of the middle class, and that states are likely to be well-administered in which the middle class is larger, and stronger, than both other classes." Phillips points out that throughout much of our history -- admittedly puntuated by periods during which the wealthy got the upper hand -- America has been a country which engendered the development of a growing and vibrant middle class. He also notes that the growth and vitality of its middle class helped America surpass European nations in which most of the wealth was in the hands of a small, very-wealthy elite. Unfortunately, the size and financial well-being of the middle class in America declined in the 1980s and 1990s and is still in decline today. The vast majority of the wealth of Anmerica is now in the hands of the very rich who comprise less than 1% of the population. In fact, the dominance of the rich is now greater in America than in any European country. Abundant evidence emerges almost weekly that this huge imbalance of wealth has corrupted both our politics and our corporations -- and lowered the standard of living of a significant fraction of the non-rich. Phillips believes that if this situation is not reversed and the rich continue to overwhelmingly dominate the middle class, then America will decline in power as surely as the Eupope of the Hapsburgs and the British empire. I fear that he may well be right. Is there still time to reverse this situation and enhance the vitality of the middle class while capping the political power of the rich? I hope so. The recent and ongoing revelations of greed and corruption in many of our largest corporations could serve as a healthy wake-up call. However, if we igore these and other warnings -- and dismiss Phillips simply as a biased liberal -- then the end of American prosperity and world dominance could well come within the lives of the vast majority of those alive today. Please think about the issues which Phillips raises befor it is too late.
Rating: 
Summary: Liberal economic mythology
Review: Phillips presents the liberal viewpoint of American economic history, generally based on errors and misrepresented data. For example, let's take a look at just the pages 245-247. There he tries to justify the "centrality" of government programs in the wealth creation of technology companies in the computer business. 1) ENIAC was not the first digital computer.
2) The underpinning of modern computers is not ENIAC, but the transistor, invented by a private company (admitted by Phillips, but he tries to hand credit to the government anyway). Vacuum tube computers were impractical unless given a blank check drawn against the taxpayers. It was the transistor that made computers practical.
3) Phillips admits again that the integrated circuit was not invented for the government, but he never mentions any private applications for it, just government ones, and hands all credit to the government.
4) Phillips credits all the development of semiconductor electronics on government sales, but his own charts show that was only 1/3 of the sales.
5) Phillips says that the development of the first microprocessor was not government funded, but again tries to hand credit to the government saying that it simply "owes less" to the government than other semiconductors.
6) Phillips ignores entirely the market for software for microprocessors in the 70's, and fails to note that IBM did not provide any software for them. Phillips claims that government pressure on IBM to unbundle software led to the creation of independent software firms? Did Microsoft or Apple software in the 70's come from IBM or the government? Nope. What about the #1 software app from the 70's, Visicalc? Nope again. Phillips completely omits any mention of any privately developed software.
7) Phillips doesn't mention what those "other networks" were that formed the internet. Evidently, he gives all the credit to ARPANET. Phillips neglects to mention the prevalence of many private networks, such as BIX, Fidonet, MCImail, and Compuserve. It was the combination of them all that form the internet, and it is not credible to suppose that absent the ARPANET these networks would have never happened.
8) Phillips falsely credits Andresson for coming up with the www protocol. (All Andresson actually did was add picture support to an existing protocol.) Phillips does not mention a single private contribution to the internet, he tries to give the impression it was all created by the government.
9) Phillips credits the Human Genome Project for mapping the genome, when actually the credit goes to privately funded Celera. Phillips never mentions Celera, a gross omission. Phillips goes on to omit the fact that the work the HGP did do was done using techniques and technology developed by
Celera. We know why Phillips omits these facts - they deconstruct his whole thesis. Phillips paints a consistent picture that if a particular technology consists of ABCDEF, and that the government did C, therefore the government gets 100% of the credit. The failings evident in just these 3 pages shows his data is cherrypicked to support his predetermined conclusion.
Phillips never even mentions the early microprocessor software business, the underpinnings of the modern software giants he complains about, a particularly glaring omission.
Rating:
Summary: Biased and misleading
Review: Phillips is still on his post Reagonomics jibberish. The way Phillips tells it, success in America is rigged and the average (middle class) don't have a chance. Bull! Tell that to the Michael Jordans, and the Ophrah Winfreys who came from poor even suffered abuse during their childhoods. We're all not lucky enought to be born in the Kennedy clan or the descendant of a Rockafellar, but we all can succeed in AAmerica and without political interference,
thank you, If Phillips wants to get on somebodies case, why not go after allof those analysts that gave ridiculous upgrades to stocks like Enron, Worlcom, Lucent and Compaq, knowing full well that these companies were undeserving of such bullishness.
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Summary: Did Phillips fall out of his tree writing this?
Review: There is a saying that goes like this: "When things go well, take the credit
When things go wrong,
Fix the blame quick!" Phillips book is a summary of excuses that may make some people feel better as to why they are not doing better, but will not make any changes or help them to do any better. This book belongs in the fiction department.
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