Try free for 30 days
-
The Hidden History of Monopolies
- How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 16 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $17.00
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
The Hidden History of American Oligarchy
- Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they’re nearly there, thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny.
-
The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America
- The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann asks: What if the Supreme Court didn't have the power to strike down laws? According to the Constitution, it doesn't. From the founding of the republic until 1803, the Supreme Court was the final court of appeals, as it was always meant to be. So where did the concept of judicial review start? As so much of modern American history, it began with the battle between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and with Marbury v. Madison.
-
The Hidden History of Neoliberalism
- How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While America is at a crossroads regarding its economic future, many of us don’t fully understand how we got here. In this powerful and accessible book, Thom Hartmann demystifies neoliberalism and outlines the impact that it has had on America, looking at different sectors, including healthcare, unemployment, and education. Hartmann highlights how America can go one of two ways: continue going down the road to neoliberal oligarchy, as supported by the GOP, or return to FDR’s Keynesian economics, raise taxes on the rich, reverse free trade, and create a more pluralistic society.
-
The Big Myth
- How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
- By: Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
- Narrated by: Liza Seneca
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with 'big government' and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor.
-
Davos Man
- How the Billionaires Devoured the World
- By: Peter S. Goodman
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative “Davos Men”—members of the billionaire class—chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a fifty-year trend of wealth centralization.
-
-
Do not bother.
- By Kindle Kat on 27-05-2023
-
White Rural Rage
- The Threat to American Democracy
- By: Tom Schaller, Paul Waldman
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
White rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they’re right. In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions.
-
-
Had to stop listening at Covid. This book is a left wing bible.
- By Anonymous User on 15-03-2024
-
The Hidden History of American Oligarchy
- Reclaiming Our Democracy from the Ruling Class
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they’re nearly there, thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny.
-
The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America
- The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann asks: What if the Supreme Court didn't have the power to strike down laws? According to the Constitution, it doesn't. From the founding of the republic until 1803, the Supreme Court was the final court of appeals, as it was always meant to be. So where did the concept of judicial review start? As so much of modern American history, it began with the battle between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and with Marbury v. Madison.
-
The Hidden History of Neoliberalism
- How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While America is at a crossroads regarding its economic future, many of us don’t fully understand how we got here. In this powerful and accessible book, Thom Hartmann demystifies neoliberalism and outlines the impact that it has had on America, looking at different sectors, including healthcare, unemployment, and education. Hartmann highlights how America can go one of two ways: continue going down the road to neoliberal oligarchy, as supported by the GOP, or return to FDR’s Keynesian economics, raise taxes on the rich, reverse free trade, and create a more pluralistic society.
-
The Big Myth
- How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
- By: Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway
- Narrated by: Liza Seneca
- Length: 21 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with 'big government' and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor.
-
Davos Man
- How the Billionaires Devoured the World
- By: Peter S. Goodman
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative “Davos Men”—members of the billionaire class—chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a fifty-year trend of wealth centralization.
-
-
Do not bother.
- By Kindle Kat on 27-05-2023
-
White Rural Rage
- The Threat to American Democracy
- By: Tom Schaller, Paul Waldman
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
White rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they’re right. In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions.
-
-
Had to stop listening at Covid. This book is a left wing bible.
- By Anonymous User on 15-03-2024
-
Captured
- The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy
- By: Sheldon Whitehouse, Melanie Wachtell Stinnett
- Narrated by: Michael Bybee, Sheldon Whitehouse
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans know something is wrong in their government. Senator Whitehouse combines history, legal scholarship, and personal experiences to provide the first hands-on, comprehensive explanation of what's gone wrong, exposing multiple avenues through which our government has been infiltrated and disabled by corporate powers. Captured reveals an original oversight by the founders and shows how and why corporate power has exploited that vulnerability.
-
Attack from Within
- How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America
- By: Barbara McQuade
- Narrated by: Barbara McQuade
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response to push us toward more extreme views, unable to find common ground with others. The false claims that led to the breathtaking attack on our Capitol in 2020 may have been only a dress rehearsal. Attack from Within shows us how to prevent it from happening again, thus preserving our country's hard-won democracy.
-
Friendly Fascism
- The New Face of Power in America
- By: Bertram Gross, Mark Crispin Miller - editor, Chris Hedges - introduction
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 21 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1980, US capitalist politics wore a "nice-guy mask", a troubling disguise to cover up a creeping despotism in which the ultra-rich and corporate overseers were merging with a centralized state power in order to manage the populace. This immanent corporate authoritarianism threatened to subvert constitutional democracy.
-
-
Exceptional
- By Tenma13 on 22-10-2019
-
The Common Good
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Robert B. Reich
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert B. Reich makes a powerful case for the expansion of America’s moral imagination. Rooting his argument in common sense and everyday reality, he demonstrates that a common good constitutes the very essence of any society or nation. Societies, he says, undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine it, one of which America has been experiencing for the past five decades. This process can and must be reversed.
-
Creating a Learning Society
- A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress
- By: Joseph E. Stiglitz
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It has long been recognized that most standard of living increases are associated with advances in technology, not the accumulation of capital. Yet it has also become clear that what truly separates developed from less developed countries is not just a gap in resources or output but a gap in knowledge. In fact the pace at which developing countries grow is largely determined by the pace at which they close that gap. Therefore, how countries learn and become more productive is key to understanding how they grow and develop, especially over the long term.
-
A Real Right to Vote
- How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy
- By: Richard L. Hasen
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Too many Americans have been disenfranchised or faced needless barriers to vote. Part of the blame falls on the Constitution, which does not contain an affirmative right to vote. The Supreme Court has made matters worse by failing to protect voting rights and limiting Congress's ability to do so. The time has come for voters to take action and push for an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee this right for all. Richard Hasen argues that American democracy can and should do better in assuring that all eligible voters can cast a meaningful vote that will be fairly counted.
-
The Scheme
- How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court
- By: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Jennifer Mueller
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following his book Captured on corporate capture of regulatory and government agencies, and his years of experience as a prosecutor, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse here turns his attention to the right-wing scheme to capture the courts, and how it influenced the Trump administration's appointment of over 230 "business-friendly" judges, including the last three justices of the United States Supreme Court.
-
Founding Partisans
- Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the framers of the Constitution, political parties were a fatal threat to republican virtues. They had suffered the consequences of partisan politics in Britain before the American Revolution, and they wanted nothing similar for America. Yet parties emerged even before the Constitution was ratified, and they took firmer root in the following decade. In Founding Partisans, master historian H. W. Brands has crafted a fresh and lively narrative of the early years of the republic as the Founding Fathers fought one another with competing visions of what our nation would be.
-
Crystallizing Public Opinion
- Complete and Original Edition
- By: Edward Bernays, Mitch Horowitz - introduction
- Narrated by: Mitch Horowitz
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You may not know Edward Bernays, but Edward Bernays knows you. His 1923 classic Crystallizing Public Opinion set down the principles that corporations and government have used to influence and manipulate public attitudes over the past century, and the mass media continues that practice today. This seminal work on how public opinion is created and shaped, offers a glimpse into the world of propaganda and advertising.
-
The Counter-Revolution of 1776
- Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America
- By: Gerald Horne
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then living in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with the British. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne shows that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt.
-
How Fascism Works
- The Politics of Us and Them
- By: Jason Stanley
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century.
-
-
A good, basic introduction to fascist politics
- By Anonymous User on 04-04-2019
-
The Poverty Industry
- The Exploitation of America's Most Vulnerable Citizens
- By: Daniel L. Hatcher
- Narrated by: Colleen Patrick
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Government aid doesn't always go where it's supposed to. Foster care agencies team up with companies to take disability and survivor benefits from abused and neglected children. States and their revenue consultants use illusory schemes to siphon Medicaid funds intended for children and the poor into general state coffers. Child support payments for foster children and families on public assistance are converted into government revenue. And the poverty industry keeps expanding.
Publisher's Summary
“This is the most important, dynamic book on the cancers of monopoly by giant corporations written in our generation.” (from the foreword by Ralph Nader, American political activist)
American monopolies dominate, control, and consume most of the energy of our entire economic system; they function the same way as cancer does in a body, and like cancer, they weaken our systems while threatening to crash the entire body economics. American monopolies have also seized massive political power and use it to maintain their obscene profits and CEO salaries while crushing small competitors.
But Thom Hartmann, America’s number one progressive radio host, shows we’ve broken the control of behemoths like these before, and we can do it again.
Hartmann takes us from the birth of America as a revolt against monopoly (remember the Boston Tea Party?), to the largely successful efforts of both Presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and other like-minded leaders to restrain corporations’ monopolistic urges, to the massive changes in the rules of business starting during the “Reagan Revolution” that have brought us to the cancer stage of capitalism.
He shows the damage monopolies have done to so many industries: agriculture, healthcare, the media, and more. Individuals have taken a hit as well. The average American family pays a $5,000 a year “monopoly tax” in the form of higher prices for everything, from pharmaceuticals to airfare to household goods and food. But Hartmann also describes commonsense, historically rooted measures we can take - such as revitalizing antitrust regulation, taxing great wealth, and getting money out of politics - to pry control of our country from the tentacles of the monopolists.