Social Wealth

What is the proper mode of administering great wealth? It is to address this question that steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie's famous essay "Wealth", or more commonly known as "The Gospel of Wealth" was written (in 1889). His answer – Philanthropy. Not just any philanthropy, but specifically, projects funded and overseen during the life of the magnate, for things that benefit the community and engage the public in maintaining long after the magnate is gone -- libraries, parks, universities, hospitals, medical labs, observatories, entertainment halls, swimming pools, etc.

In this Very Short Introduction, Philip N. Jefferson explores how the answers to these questions lie in the social, political, economic, educational, and technological processes that impact all of us throughout our lives. The degree of vulnerability is all that differentiates us. He shows how a person's level of vulnerability to adverse changes in their life is very much dependent on the circumstances of their birth, including where their family lived, whether it was peacetime or wartime, whether they had access to clean water, and whether they are male or female.

In straightforward language, A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues encourages every White person to share his/her wealth with the Black community - plain and simple. Those who listen to the book will: understand the root causes of racial disparities in America; discover how you can personally contribute to reducing the inequality between Black and White people in the United States today; and get concrete recommendations on how to redirect your spending to Black-owned institutions to help decrease the racial wealth gap.

Join me on this journey as we challenge ourselves to create the new you and come out of the other side better and stronger than ever. We will learn techniques that have been used by millionaires and billionaires, and by understanding how you can adopt their traits to use in your life, it may not make you a millionaire, but it will improve you, make you a better person, and have fun on the journey. Isn’t fun the best way to learn and know that you are succeeding in life?

Historian Calvin Schermerhorn traces four hundred years of Black dispossession and decapitalization—what Frederick Douglass called plunder—through the stories of families who have strived to earn and keep the fruits of their toils. Their struggles reveal that the ever-evolving strategies to strip Black income and wealth have been critical to sustaining a structure of racialized disadvantage. These accounts also tell of the quiet heroism of those who worked to overcome obstacles and defy the plunder.

A book about money unlike anything else your child will ever listen to. Katie Bell and the Wishing Well will teach your kids (and you) the right way to think about, pursue, and use wealth. The author has crammed tons of wealth and money principles into an engaging story that will appeal to all ages from 9 to 99. This is not a book about savings accounts and checkbooks. Instead, it teaches core principles of wealth that all kids need to be learning, but are not being taught anywhere else.

The consequences of adopting the cynical but popular worldview are many, including needless pessimism, missed investment opportunities, and - surprisingly - even poorer health. Yet An Embarrassment of Riches provides a powerful antidote. Green begins with a robust survey of the many ways our lives are becoming longer, easier, safer, healthier and more prosperous. He then embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of the ideas and the many men and women - both living and dead - who are still enriching our lives today.

In this sweeping study, from the founding of the country through the acquisition of Alaska to the present, Kathryn C. Lavelle considers American relations across the circumpolar North, incorporating discussions of economics, national security, and science that are conventionally separated.

Since the Great Recession, most Americans' standard of living has stagnated or declined. Economic inequality is at historic highs. But inequality's impact differs by race; African Americans' net wealth is just a 10th that of White Americans, and over recent decades, White families have accumulated wealth at three times the rate of Black families. In our increasingly diverse nation, sociologist Thomas M. Shapiro argues, wealth disparities must be understood in tandem with racial inequities - a dangerous combination he terms "toxic inequality".

What every human wants is fairness, a chance to belong that offers everyone opportunities to get ahead by our own merit and a say when decisions are made. Even before the global upheavals, our system was failing - it wasn’t fair at all. Now that it’s unraveling, it’s time for a new arrangement that’s actually sustainable on our resource-depleted planet that doesn’t favor wealthy insiders. Those gorging on inequality will never accept reforms that strip away their unearned privileges, and so the only practical way forward is a Hacker’s Teleology.

In a bold challenge to the conventional wisdom of both liberals and conservatives, Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, looks at the reasons for poverty in America and offers a detailed agenda for increasing wealth, incomes, and opportunity. The author argues that conservative critiques of a “culture of poverty” fail to account for the structural circumstances in which the poor live, especially racism, gender discrimination, and economic dislocation. However, he also criticizes liberal calls for fighting poverty through redistribution or new government programs.

Andrew Carnegie wrote the "Gospel of Wealth" in 1889, during the height of the Gilded Age, when 4,000 American families controlled almost as much wealth as the rest of the country combined. His essay laid the foundation for modern philanthropy. Today, we find ourselves in a new Gilded Age—defined by levels of inequality that surpass those of Carnegie's time. The widening chasm between the advantaged and the disadvantaged demands our immediate attention. Now is the time for a new "Gospel of Wealth."

It doesn’t matter how many children you have or how often you get angry. Controlling your anger can be managed. We only want the best for our children, so lead with that example. Take control of your anger and put it where it belongs. Raise your children to be the self-confident adults we show them how to be.

We live under a credit system that demands perpetual inflation to service ever-growing debt — yet free markets naturally reward deflation, savings, and falling prices through competition and productivity. This book exposes that fatal contradiction and shows how Bitcoin’s fixed 21-million supply, proof-of-work security, and peer-to-peer design resolve it — creating genuine, sustainable wealth for the first time in history.

What do people in the United States and Europe think about the rich? There are several thousand books and articles on stereotypes and prejudices directed at women, people of various races or nationalities, and even the poor. In contrast, there has only been sporadic research into stereotypes about the rich, and no published comprehensive, scientific study on the topic—until now.

Private foundations have been the dynamo of social change since their invention at the beginning of the last century. Yet just over 10 percent of the public knows they even exist; and for those who are aware of them, as well as even those who seek grants from them, their internal workings remain a complete mystery

Transformations in Portugal and Brazil followed the discovery of gold in Brazil's hinterland and the hinterland's subsequent settlement. Although earlier conquests and evangelizations had incorporated new lands and peoples into the monarchy, royal officials now argued that the extraction of gold and the imperatives of rivalry and commerce demanded new approaches to governance. Using archival records of royal and local administrations, Kirsten Schultz shows how the eighteenth-century Portuguese crown came to define and defend Brazil as a "colony" that would reinvigorate Portuguese power.

Ryan D'Agostino wanted to know how the extremely wealthy in America got that way. So he asked. Knocking on 500 doors in 20 neighborhoods in the most affluent ZIP codes in America, D'Agostino met with 50 regular (but very rich) men and women who welcomed him in and shared some of their most difficult financial decisions, toughest setbacks, greatest strategies, most triumphant moments, and deepest insights into what it means to have money.

In The Opportunity Index, BlackRock managing director and cofounder of the #Talkaboutblack movement Gavin Lewis skillfully plots the origins of the racial wealth gap and its impact on the inequalities faced by the Black community today. Weaving a personal and at times moving narrative through some of the most disruptive events of our time, he offers a blueprint for businesses and individuals to understand the risks and opportunities presented by inequality and issues an urgent call to action.

With the global economy recovering from a steep recession, and with that recovery challenging our long-held ideas about what careers and the market can be, learning the basics of economics has never been more essential. Principles such as gains from trade, the role of profit and loss, and the secondary effects of government spending, taxes, and borrowing risk continue to be critically important to the way America's economy functions, and critically important to understand for those hoping to further their professional lives - even their personal lives.