Author | Noam Chomsky |
---|---|
Publisher | Seven Stories Press |
Publication date | April 2017 |
Media type | paperback |
Pages | 172 |
ISBN | 978-1-60980-736-8 |
Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power is a book by political activist and linguist Noam Chomsky. It was created and edited by Peter Hutchinson, Kelly Nyks, and Jared P. Scott. It lays out Chomsky's analysis of neoliberalism. It focuses on the concentration of wealth and power in United States over the past forty years, analyzing the income inequality.[1] The book was published by Seven Stories Press in 2017.
The book charts Chomsky's analysis of the concentration of wealth from the 1970s to now. Chomsky analyzes the way in which power relations shifted from the late 1940s to today, in the name of "plutocratic interests".[2] This shift in power relations ends up being an assault "on lower- and middle-class people, which has escalated in recent decades during the ascendancy of what is known as 'neoliberalism' – with fiscal austerity for the poor and tax cuts and other subsidies for the wealthy minority."[3] Chomsky is most interested in how the rise of financialization, which "is a process whereby financial markets, financial institutions, and financial elites gain greater influence over economic policy and economic outcomes,"[4] and how it affects and shapes public life in America, leading to a concentration of wealth and power to elite persons and institutions. This has been shown to lead to phenomena like the richest people in the world having as much wealth as the bottom half of the world.[5]
Chomsky starts by observing that concentration of wealth yields concentration of power, particularly so as the cost of elections skyrockets, which forces the political parties into the pockets of major corporations. This political power then quickly translates into legislation that increases the concentration of wealth. Hence, fiscal policy like tax policy, deregulation, rules of corporate governance and a whole variety of political measures increase the concentration of wealth and power which, in turn, yields more political power to the rich. The book is organized around what Chomsky argues are the 10 principles which lead to this concentration of wealth and power.
Reception to the book has been generally positive, with Publishers Weekly saying "Chomsky and his collaborators have created a perceptive and revelatory examination of the forces driving America inequality."[6]
A documentary film of the same name, Requiem for the American Dream (film) featuring Noam Chomsky and directed by Peter D. Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, and Jared P. Scott, was released in 2015.[7]