A fascinating examination of the rapid concentration of global
capital, with chapters that focus on China and Russia. Explores how
fewer and larger investment companies now manage the excess financial
wealth of the world’s 40 million richest people, to the detriment of
everyone else and the global environment. In Titans of Capital, Peter
Phillips, a political sociologist, poses three key research questions:
To what extent do the wealthy influence—or even dominate—decision
making that affects all of us in society? Who are the most powerful
people? And how does the accumulation of capital work? Networks of
wealthy individuals have evolved since the COVID-19 pandemic, and
Titans of Capital shows how the financial investments of
transnational elites threaten human rights and the future of the
planet. Private capital investments serve as the primary operating
funds for international arms sales, private prisons, and other
socially negative activities. These investments fuel the continued use
of carbon-based energy leading to amplified global warming and climate
change. Military spending is a critical component of continued wealth
concentration and political power in the world. Spending on arms and
intelligence is a required aspect of maintaining global power and
control. Dealing with Russia, China, Iran and other “rogue”
states is a continuing agenda for agents of the world power elites.
Propaganda machines in Western capitalist governments serve to protect
elite wealth by promoting military conflicts to open new regions for
economic investment. Phillips warns that while continued concentration
of global capital increases the profits enjoyed by the global
economy’s “Titans,”, it also increases global inequality,
starvation, and civil unrest, threatening the lives of the hundreds of
millions of people living in extreme poverty. It is imperative to ask
how we can reverse the concentration of Titan wealth and revitalize
grassroots democracy unbridled by extreme wealth. Identifying 117
global Titans by name and exposing the networks and interests that
unite them provides readers opposed to militarism and committed to
economic equality with crucial tools to directly engage the power
elite who endanger life on earth.
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How Concentrated Wealth Threatens Humanity
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781644214343
Publisert
2024
Utgiver
Random House Publishing Services
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter