Pity The Billionaire

By: Thomas Frank

In Pity the Billionaire, Frank examines the peculiar mechanism by which dire economic circumstances delivered unexpected political results. Using firsthand reporting, he gives us the first full diagnosis of the cultural malady that has transformed collapse into profit, reconceived the Founding Fathers as heroes from an Ayn Rand novel, and enlisted the powerless in a fan club for the prosperous.

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Book Description

From the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?, this is an updated and expanded edition of “a brilliant expose of the most breathtaking ruse in American political history: how the Right turned the biggest capitalist breakdown since 1929 into an opportunity for themselves” (Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed).

Economic catastrophe usually brings social protest and demands for change—or at least it’s supposed to. But when Thomas Frank set out in 2009 to look for expressions of American discontent, all he could find were loud demands that the economic system be made even harsher on the recession’s victims and that society’s traditional winners receive even grander prizes.

The American Right, which had seemed moribund after the 2008 election, was strangely reinvigorated by the arrival of hard times. The Tea Party movement insisted not that we question the failed system but that we reaffirm our commitment to it. Republicans in Congress embarked on a bold strategy of total opposition to the liberal state. And TV phenom Glenn Beck demonstrated the commercial potential of heroic paranoia and the purest libertarian economics.

In Pity the Billionaire, Frank examines the peculiar mechanism by which dire economic circumstances delivered unexpected political results. Using firsthand reporting, he gives us the first full diagnosis of the cultural malady that has transformed collapse into profit, reconceived the Founding Fathers as heroes from an Ayn Rand novel, and enlisted the powerless in a fan club for the prosperous.

Buy This Book