Screwed The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class -- And What We Can Do About It

by Hartmann, Thom

• ISBN13: 9781576754146
• ISBN10: 1576754146
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-09-01
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Summary

The American middle class is on its deathbed. Ordinary folks who put in a solid day's work can no longer afford to buy a house, send their kids to college, or even get sick. According to Thom Hartmann, the death of the middle class is no accident. America's middle class is not the "natural" consequence of a free market based economy. The middle class was created when the rules of the market were set to maximise the public good. Nationally syndicated radio host and bestselling author Thom Hartmann exposes the covert war conservatives, and corporations that are waging against America's middle class - a war that's reducing the rest of its people to a politically impotent working poor. This book asks: How did it happen? Who's benefiting? And how can it be stopped?

Author Biography

Thom Hartmann is the host of a nationally syndicated Air America Radio program and is the author of eighteen books, including The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It’s Too Late; We the People: A Call to Take Back America; What Would Jefferson Do?, and Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Mark Crispin Miller	ix
Introduction: Profits before People	1	(26)
Part I: A Middle Class Requires Democracy	27	(44)
Chapter 1 There Is No "Free" Market	29	(12)
Chapter 2 How We the People Create the Middle Class	41	(18)
Chapter 3 The Rise of the Corporatocracy	59	(12)
Part II: Democracy Requires a Middle Class	71	(58)
Chapter 4 The Myth of the Greedy Founders	73	(8)
Chapter 5 Thomas Paine against the Freeloaders	81	(14)
Chapter 6 Taxation without Representation	95	(12)
Chapter 7 James Madison versus the Business of War	107	(8)
Chapter 8 FDR and the Economic Royalists	115	(14)
Part III: Governing for We the People	129	(70)
Chapter 9 Too Important for the Private Sector	137	(10)
Chapter 10 Knowledge Is Power	147	(6)
Chapter 11 Medicine for Health, Not for Profit	153	(10)
Chapter 12 The Truth about the Trust Fund	163	(10)
Chapter 13 Setting the Rules of the Game	173	(10)
Chapter 14 Leveling the Playing Field	183	(16)
Conclusion: The Road to Victory	199	(18)
Notes	217	(8)
Index	225	(12)
Acknowledgments	237	(2)
About the Author	239