![]() Indeed, for many pages, Freeland excitingly glorifies capitalism and its winners. For the first hundred pages, at least, there is nothing insightful about plutocrats themselves. Yes, the new plutocrats are often smart math and engineering whizzes and are self-made (with the help of elite educations), but is what they do to make their money really always good for society in the first place? You'll get no analysis of that question here.įirst, readers need to understand one thing: the cover, the name, and the back of the book are a marketing gimmick. In the end I think the author may be a bit too much of a true believer in globalization, and the plutocrats themselves, to offer much of a critique. Her main perspective on that seems to be that just comes with the territory of progress. Overall there is much touring the world of the plutocrats but not much about the fall of everyone else part. Still, it is a bit much to wade through to get to the good part. I'll probably finish that one at some point. ![]() Here we get our most extensive critique of how the plutocrats view the rest of us, their inflated self-worth and fragile egos. The final chapter, titled to echo the subtitle of the book, was probably the best. It might have been forgivable if there had been some deep insight on offer but there wasn't much of that just endless examples. A couple would have sufficed, but then the chapters would have been much shorter I suppose. We really don't need that many examples of how plutocrats hire top lawyers, or consultants, or whatever thus skewing income in support industries too. This goes on in series, making for long, much too long, chapters. Each new person introduced gets a mini-bio including anything unique about them before proceeding to give the theme supporting details. She introduces a theme and then uses the anecdotes as examples. Many of the chapters just read as a series of very short anecdotes, often no more than a few paragraphs in length. This is a positive because she doesn't have to speak in the abstract but, it also has its down sides. The author definitely knows her subjects well, including knowing many of the plutocrats by name. I read the first two and a half chapters, about half of chapter 4 and then skimmed chapter 5 and read probably a third or more of chapter 6. I feel a little guilty about rating this even though I didn't finish it but it just didn't work for me, and that is why I stopped. (Huffington recently was named president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, a newly created unit of AOL, and at least for the time being is unable to appear every week.) Currently, she is periodically standing in for Arianna Huffington as a panelist on public radio's political debate program, "Left, Right & Center", produced by KCRW. She has also appeared on The McLaughlin Group and The Dylan Ratigan Show. She has appeared three times as a panelist on Real Time With Bill Maher, on February 26, 2010, January 14, 2011, and again on May 27, 2011. She lives in New York City with her husband and their two daughters. She is the author of Sale of the Century, a 2000 book about Russia's journey from communism to capitalism. ![]() She attended the United World College of the Adriatic, Italy, 1984-86.Ī Ukrainian-Canadian, Freeland has worked in Kiev, Moscow, London, Toronto and currently in New York. Freeland received her undergraduate education from Harvard University, going onto St Antony's at University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She showcases the $3 million birthday party of a New York financier months before the financial meltdown details the closed-door 2005 SEC meeting where the US government allowed investment banks to write their own regulatory laws and tells how the Bank of Canada's Mark Carney became a key figure in the central battle between the plutocracy and the rest of us.īrightly written and powerfully researched, Freeland's Plutocrats will be a lightning rod event in the midst of the US election season.Ĭhrystia Freeland is the Global Editor-at-Large of Reuters news since March 1, 2010, having formerly been the United States managing editor at the Financial Times, based in New York City. Grounding her interviews in the economics and history of modern capitalism, she provides examples of the new wealth and its consequences. At ease in Davos or Dubai, Freeland has reported on the lives and minds of these new super-elites for nearly a decade. ![]() Today's colossal fortunes are amassed by the diligent toiling of smart, perceptive businessmen who see themselves as deserving victors in a cutthroat international competition.Ĭracking open this tight-knit world is Chrystia Freeland, an acclaimed business journalist. 01% who are fast outpacing the rest of us. In the last few decades what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. ![]()
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