Wealth vs Work How 1% victimize 99% eBook Allan Ornstein
Download As PDF : Wealth vs Work How 1% victimize 99% eBook Allan Ornstein 
Wealth vs. Work How 1 Percent Victimize 99 Percent is about the vanishing American dream, growing inequality in America, shrinking and struggling middle class, plight of labor and unions, economic decline of the nation, and a broken and unstable world surrounding the U.S. Education is no longer the great equalizer. We are heading toward a world where inherited privilege trumps excellence and meritocracy. Carried for enough, it means the end of striving and the American dream. Few Americans realize or want to admit it.
Since recorded history, workers have been victimized by the rich and super rich, treated as fungible and disposable. The early warlords and monarchs have been replaced by the “titans” of industry and “masters of the universe” on Wall Street. The slaves, peasants and serfs have been replaced by miners, factory workers, and service-sector workers. The GM model of the 1950s and 1960s (that permitted labor to become middle class) has been replaced by the Wal-mart model—characterized by low pay and minimal benefits. By 2025, the economic output of China and India may likely each exceed the U.S. Moreover, the U.S. work force is being increasingly displaced by technology and outsourcing.
But we are supposed to be the lucky ones! By historical and geographical accident, the U.S. has been spared most of the world’s poverty and misery. Today, however, the U.S. is heading towards a financial oligarchy—much worse than the aristocratic old world that our Founding Fathers fear and tried to avoid. Yes, the U.S. had a revolution, but in fact it has a new and more powerful elite because the economic pie has expanded several thousand fold since the yeoman farmers’ status was compared to the plantation owner. Right now the top 1 percent in the U.S. own nearly 40 percent of the nation’s wealth; moreover, their investments, capital gains and dividends are taxed at a lower rate than workers’ salaries. Like all great civilizations that have declined before us, we are a nation that needs to re-examine its ideals and institutions.
Wealth vs Work How 1% victimize 99% eBook Allan Ornstein
Although I am in agreement with almost every observation that the author makes, I did not think that Wealth vs. Work was worth the read. My objections to the book are simple and two fold: (1) The author seemed to whine his way through his arguments with a prose style that to me was unprofessional and distracting. As fair disclosure, I have the same reaction to Woody Allen movies - they have content that I relate to but I find his persona so annoying that the message gets lost. And (2) Mr. O repeats endlessly the same points regarding economic, social and educational inequality without having a real philosophical direction or underpinning nor does he suggest or present a real alternative. His obvious conclusion that the sum of these inequalities is leading to "American decline" could have been made by page 10. OK, got it. And you suggest what?Mr. O's analysis is heavily rooted in a nationalistic perspective and I think this misses the point. The problems discussed are a lot deeper and more pervasive than his American glasses allow him to see; they are systemic world problems, not nationalist problems. Taking a distinctly American viewpoint is in fact part of the problem itself. A far more insightful analysis can be found by doing a Google search for the Zeitgeist Trilogy of films by Peter Joseph.
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Wealth vs Work How 1% victimize 99% eBook Allan Ornstein Reviews
Don't let the breezy, casual style of this book fool you - it is packed with information about how the 1% throughout history has always victimized the rest.
Regardless of your politics, there is no mistaking that the information this book provides will give you a better idea of what we all kinda knew about plutocrats, but could never express. Ornstein has written this in a way that is relatable to everyone who wants to start changing things. This book is where you start. In fact, it provides the intellectual foundations that is missing from Occupy Wall Street.
If you are looking for an antidote and response to the right-wing pundits and those who push for as little government regulation or intervention in financial markets as possible, you will find this book interesting and, perhaps, useful, in that it is rich in ideas and references. If you think the rich should pay even less in taxes and the middle class should pay more, you will hate it and should read no further.
In Work vs. Wealth, Allan Ornstein, well known for his mainstream education texts for preparing teachers and school administrators, has returned to his social studies roots. In 2007 he published Class Counts, focusing on how the United States is a two-tier society where it is difficult to move up if we had the wrong parents. Now, he has published Work vs. Wealth How 1% Victimize 99%.
This new book goes well beyond Class Counts by providing a historical overview of how the upper classes have held power, wealth, and authority while the lower, working, class has been held in place. Work vs. Wealth rambles and at times rants to the left almost as much as a conservative pundit does to the right. Despite this, Ornstein makes his points well and consistently. The biggest downside is the consistently bad proofreading that left numerous errors and that I found most distracting.
Ornstein begins early by stating that the masses have long accepted that "...power, authority, and wealth were derived from ancestry, birth, and caste. ... No one seemed to question the social and economic order - the entrenched wealth of the top 1 percent, people of privilege at birth, and the humble background of the bottom 99 percent - the unprivileged by birth."
Wide-ranging, citing everyone from Aristotle to Hobbes to Malthus, to romanticists and poets, to 21st Century pundits, Ornstein takes us on a historical romp, looking at how we view ourselves and how others view us. At every step of the journey we are reminded that wealth, and consequently power, is always flowing toward a select few. Along the way, he touches on Jingoism, terrorism, failed states, justice, famine, kidnapping, piracy, energy consumption, technology, the Internet, pollution, and any number of other recent and ancient social and geo-political problems.
Throughout this sweeping and somewhat dismal view of history, Ornstein focuses on different fates for different classes based on wealth or power. He identifies a recurrent theme the poor fail or even perish while the upper class survives or even thrives. The 2011 version of this trickle-down economics is the claim that reducing the tax burden of the wealthy will produce more jobs for the unemployed, enriching us all. Again, Ornstein asks a poignant question "How much better off today are you relative to the super rich (top 1 percent) (compared to) the 18th or 19th century peasant ... relative to the aristocracy (of the time)? Actually, the spread in net worth, that is total assets minus liabilities, is greater now between the classes than it was 200 or 300 years ago."
Ornstein attributes this disparity to the long, historical trend of an uneven playing field where, as Jim Grant (of the Interest Rate Newsletter) was quoted in the Wall Street Journal, "Taxpayers get the downside. Modern-day Wall Street gets the upside" (July 16, 2011)
Rather pessimistically, Ornstein concludes by saying, "What we have developing is a two-tier economy, one for `haves' and one for `have-nots'-- and the majority trying to stay afloat and avoid the `have-not' sector. Proponents of the system rely on free-market theories to defend this dark side of the American dream. Myself and possibly other critics would interpret it as a rigged system which extends thousands of years back into history--a divide between 1 percent (the money people) and 99 percent (the working people). Bottom Line We have large-scale suffering in the U.S., and it is likely to become part of the new economy and cast a shadow over the American dream for several years to come."
Although I am in agreement with almost every observation that the author makes, I did not think that Wealth vs. Work was worth the read. My objections to the book are simple and two fold (1) The author seemed to whine his way through his arguments with a prose style that to me was unprofessional and distracting. As fair disclosure, I have the same reaction to Woody Allen movies - they have content that I relate to but I find his persona so annoying that the message gets lost. And (2) Mr. O repeats endlessly the same points regarding economic, social and educational inequality without having a real philosophical direction or underpinning nor does he suggest or present a real alternative. His obvious conclusion that the sum of these inequalities is leading to "American decline" could have been made by page 10. OK, got it. And you suggest what?
Mr. O's analysis is heavily rooted in a nationalistic perspective and I think this misses the point. The problems discussed are a lot deeper and more pervasive than his American glasses allow him to see; they are systemic world problems, not nationalist problems. Taking a distinctly American viewpoint is in fact part of the problem itself. A far more insightful analysis can be found by doing a Google search for the Zeitgeist Trilogy of films by Peter Joseph.
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