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Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism

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Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism

Written by: Anne Case, Angus Deaton
Narrated by: Kate Harper
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About this listen

New York Times best seller

Wall Street Journal best seller

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year

This audiobook narrated by Kate Harper reveals how the flaws in capitalism are fatal for America's working class and includes an introduction and preface read by the authors themselves - economist Anne Case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton.

Life expectancy in the United States has recently fallen for three years in a row - a reversal not seen since 1918 or in any other wealthy nation in modern times. In the past two decades, deaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism have risen dramatically and now claim hundreds of thousands of American lives each year - and they're still rising. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, known for first sounding the alarm about deaths of despair, explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. They demonstrate why, for those who used to prosper in America, capitalism is no longer delivering.

Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline. For the White working class, today's America has become a land of broken families and few prospects. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a degree are literally dying from pain and despair. In this critically important book, Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and, above all, to a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. Capitalism, which over two centuries lifted countless people out of poverty, is now destroying the lives of blue-collar America.

This book charts a way forward, providing solutions that can rein in capitalism’s excesses and make it work for everyone.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Anne Case and Angus Deaton (P)2020 Princeton University Press
Medicine & Health Care Industry Psychology Public Policy Social Policy Social Sciences Sociology Business Economic disparity Economic Inequality US Economy Capitalism Medicine
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What the critics say

"An excellent book." (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times)

"This book explains so many of today's headlines with clear writing, sharp storytelling, and an almost symphonic use of research in economics, public health, and history. What it summons is a powerful analysis of who we are as Americans and what we have become as a country." (Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic)

"This book will be an instant classic, applying high quality social science to an urgent national matter of life and death. In exploring the recent epidemic of 'deaths of despair', the distinguished authors uncover an absorbing historical story that raises basic questions about the future of capitalism. It is hard to imagine a timelier - or in the end, more hopeful - book in this season of our national despair." (Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids)

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Comprehensive analysis

Heartbreaking, but explains what’s happening in the US today, and offers some hope for the future.

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