Wealth, Poverty, and Politics
An International Perspective
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Wealth, Poverty, and Politics
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Narrated by:
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David Cochran Heath
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By:
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Thomas Sowell
About this listen
In Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, Thomas Sowell, one of the foremost conservative public intellectuals in the country, argues that political and ideological struggles have led to dangerous confusion about income inequality in America. Pundits and politically motivated economists trumpet ambiguous statistics and sensational theories while ignoring the true determinant of income inequality: the production of wealth. We cannot properly understand inequality if we focus exclusively on the distribution of wealth and ignore wealth-production factors such as geography, demography, and culture. Sowell contends that liberals have a particular interest in misreading the data and chastises them for using income inequality as an argument for the welfare state.
Refuting Thomas Piketty, Paul Krugman, and others, Sowell draws on empirical data to show that the inequality is not nearly as extreme or sensational as we have been led to believe. Transcending partisanship through a careful examination of data, Wealth, Poverty, and Politics reveals the truth about the most explosive political issue of our time.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Why are humans the only species to have escaped—only very recently—the subsistence trap, allowing us to enjoy a standard of living that vastly exceeds all others? And why have we progressed so unequally around the world, resulting in the great disparities between nations that exist today? Galor’s gripping narrative explains how technology, population size, and adaptation led to a stunning “phase change” in the human story a mere two hundred years ago.
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4 out of 5 stars
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promoting innovation and industrial disease
- By Anonymous User on 01-18-24
By: Oded Galor
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The Sovereign Individual
- Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
- By: James Dale Davidson, Peter Thiel - preface, William Rees-Mogg
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,408
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,134
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,129
Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the best seller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Unfortunately distopian for mosty of humanity
- By Phil on 09-29-20
By: James Dale Davidson, and others
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A Troublesome Inheritance
- Genes, Race, and Human History
- By: Nicholas Wade
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 415
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 364
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 366
Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory. Inconveniently, as Nicholas Wade argues in A Troublesome Inheritance, the consensus view cannot be right. And in fact, we know that populations have changed in the past few thousand years - to be lactose tolerant, for example, and to survive at high altitudes.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This is NOT Racism!...
- By Douglas on 06-01-14
By: Nicholas Wade
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The Great Escape
- Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality
- By: Angus Deaton
- Narrated by: Matthew Brenher
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 252
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 206
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 206
The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations. In The Great Escape, Angus Deaton - one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty - tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today's disproportionately unequal world.
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1 out of 5 stars
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not worth listening
- By Kyung on 04-26-20
By: Angus Deaton
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Progress
- Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future
- By: Johan Norberg
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 253
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 211
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 211
It's on the television, in the papers, and in our minds. Every day we're bludgeoned by news of how bad everything is - financial collapse, unemployment, growing poverty, environmental disasters, disease, hunger, war. But the rarely acknowledged reality is that our progress over the past few decades has been unprecedented. By almost any index you care to identify, things are markedly better now than they have ever been for almost everyone alive.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Global Uptrends That May Surprise You
- By Alexandra Hopkins on 09-22-17
By: Johan Norberg
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Creating Freedom
- The Lottery of Birth, the Illusion of Consent, and the Fight for Our Future
- By: Raoul Martinez
- Narrated by: Steve West
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story5 out of 5 stars 35
A manifesto for deep and radical change, Creating Freedom explores the limits placed on freedom by human nature and society. It explodes myths, calling for a profound transformation in the way we think about democracy, equality, and our own identities.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The BEST book, I've listened to in a long time
- By G. Newton on 04-16-17
By: Raoul Martinez
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The Technology Trap
- Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation
- By: Carl Benedikt Frey
- Narrated by: Richard Lyddon
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 124
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
From the Industrial Revolution to the age of artificial intelligence, The Technology Trap takes a sweeping look at the history of technological progress and how it has radically shifted the distribution of economic and political power among society’s members.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very good
- By Brad on 07-04-19
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Losing Ground
- American Social Policy, 1950 - 1980
- By: Charles Murray
- Narrated by: Robert Morris
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 316
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 280
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 277
Beginning in the 1950s, America entered a period of unprecedented social reform. This remarkable book demonstrates how the social programs of the 1960s and ’70s had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even reversing earlier progress in reducing poverty, crime, ignorance, and discrimination. Using widely understood and accepted data, it conclusively demonstrates that the amalgam of reforms from 1965 to 1970 actually made matters worse.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A great book ruined by a terrible recording
- By Michael on 04-05-13
By: Charles Murray
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Why Geography Matters
- More Than Ever
- By: Harm de Blij
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 101
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Story4 out of 5 stars 99
In recent years our world has seen transformations of all kinds: intense climate change accompanied by significant weather extremes; deadly tsunamis caused by submarine earthquakes; unprecedented terrorist attacks; costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; a terrible and overlooked conflict in Equatorial Africa costing millions of lives; an economic crisis threatening the stability of the international system.
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1 out of 5 stars
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A book that needs more than just narration
- By Organic Design on 06-10-15
By: Harm de Blij
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The Challenge for Africa
- By: Wangari Maathai
- Narrated by: Chinasa Ogbuagu
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Nobel Laureate and founder of the Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai has campaigned for environmental activism and democracy in Africa for more thanthree decades. In The Challenge for Africa, she delivers an insightful call to action, presenting a realistic look at the diverse problems facing Africans today.
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5 out of 5 stars
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10 years later, this is still powerful.
- By Presence on 04-21-18
By: Wangari Maathai
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When China Rules the World
- The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order
- By: Martin Jacques
- Narrated by: Scott Peterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 226
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 151
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Story4 out of 5 stars 151
According to even the most conservative estimates, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027 and will ascend to the position of world economic leader by 2050. But the full repercussions of China's ascendancy-for itself and the rest of the globe-have been surprisingly little explained or understood.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Lucid explanation of global economic trends
- By David Blake on 01-04-10
By: Martin Jacques
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Ghetto
- The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea
- By: Mitchell Duneier
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 126
On March 29, 1516, the city council of Venice issued a decree forcing Jews to live in il geto - a closed quarter named for the copper foundry that once occupied the area. The term stuck. In this sweeping and original interpretation, Mitchell Duneier traces the idea of the ghetto from its beginnings in the 16th century and its revival by the Nazis to the present. As Duneier shows, we cannot understand the entanglements of race, poverty, and place in America today without recalling the history of the ghetto in Europe, as well as later efforts to understand the problems of the American city.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Impressive
- By Jean on 12-10-16
By: Mitchell Duneier
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The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,915
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,490
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,467
Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Few forests, but lots of trees
- By Steve Pagano on 10-05-15
By: Francis Fukuyama
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