The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class

(Paperback)

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The Occupy Wall Street protests have captured America's political imagination. Polls show that two-thirds of the US now believe that America's enormous wealth ought to be distributed more evenly.' However, almost as many Americans feel the protests will ultimately have little impact on inequality in America.The Rich Don't Always Win speaks directly to the political hopelessness so many Americans feel. By tracing how average Americans took down plutocracy, this will outfit the public with a deeper understanding of what is needed to help the middle class rise again.'

Reviews

"Labor journalist Pizzigati makes the case that graduated tax rates and strong unions once led to an economic golden age for average Americansand could do so again. A flawed but ambitious, readable look at economic reformism over the last century."
Kirkus Reviews

"Make room forThe Rich Don't Always Winon your book shelf right next to Howard Zinn'sThe People's History of America.In his lively, engrossing new book, Sam Pizzigati tells the story of class inequality in America, from therobber barons to today's "1 %." The title alone is a refreshing reminder that there have been times when the middle class pushed back against the growth of plutocracy -- and won. We can do that again and, as Pizzigati makes clear, wehaveto."
Barbara Ehrenreich, author ofNickel and Dimed

"Only 50 years ago, America 'soaked' the rich with a 91 percent income tax. And guess what America prospered! Not just the rich, but ordinary families. With colorful detail, Sam Pizzigati tells us why we should revisit that policy of prosperity for ALL, rather that for the plutocratic few."
Jim Hightower, national radio commentator and New York Times best-selling author

"Bold, thorough, and above all inspiringan energizing and spirited reminder of what it took, and what it will take, to once again make ours a nation of equals."
Gar Alperovitz, author of America Beyond Capitalism, and Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland

"This inspiring history offers a bold blueprint for todays equality movements. We beat back the powerful rule of the wealthy to end the first Gilded Age. We can beat back our current Gilded Age, too, and reverse the extreme inequalities of wealth and power that undermine all that we care about."
Chuck Collins, Institute for Policy Studies, author of99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It

"Overlooking the current political-economic landscape of the United States, one might perhaps be forgiven for thinking that the country's wealthiest have gamed the system such that they will always come out on top, to the detriment of the rest of us. Labor journalist Pizzigati reviews the history of the 20th century in order to remind us that such sentiments might have seemed equally valid at the start of the that century, but that a broad group of activists, union organizers, political coalitions, and others fought a long-running battle to curtail the privileges of the plutocrats and to create the conditions for an unprecedented expansion of the middle class."
BOOK NEWS, Inc.

Sam Pizzigati's new book, The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class 1900-1970, could therefore not come at a better time to rejuvenate the issue of income disparity and what to do about it. Employing a staggering compilation of primary sources, this exceptionally well-researched book reveals the previously unknown story of Americans who fought to overthrow plutocracy in the early 20th century.
Foreign Policy in Focus

Author Bio

A veteran labor journalist, SAM PIZZIGATI has written widely on economic inequality for both popular and scholarly readers. His op-eds and articles on income and wealth have appeared in a host of major American dailies, from the New York Times to the Miami Herald, and a broad variety of magazines and journals. His last book, Greed and Good- Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives, won a coveted "outstanding title" rating of the year Choice rating from the American Library Association. Pizzigati ran the publishing operations of America's largest union, the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, for twenty years and now serves as an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. His online weekly on excess and inequality, Too Much, goes to a national audience of journalists, researchers, and economic justice activists. Pizzigati has appeared as an expert commentator on inequality on 150+ radio and TV talk and news programs, from Pacifica to Fox Business News.