Ben G. Price - How wealth rules the world saving our communities and freedoms from the dictatorship of property

Praise for How Wealth Rules the World

How Wealth Rules the World should be prerequisite reading for all serious social science academicians and especially social change activists. It convincingly exposes how property became and remains the single most sacred and legally protected right in our culture and increasingly globally, which has routinely blocked peoples right to protect the health, safety, and environment of their communities. Price challenges people of conscience dedicated to human rights and protecting the planet in our life-threatening times to rethink their goals and reassess their strategies directed toward authentic life-affirming systemic change.

Greg Coleridge, Outreach Director, Move to Amend

Powerfully and unflinchingly, Ben Price is telling the truth: the truth about the founding of our nation, our legal system, the mess were inand what we can do to change it. Well said, every word, and all true. It is staggering to realize that the architecture of this country was (and still is) designed to deliver injustice and inequality in perpetuity unless we work for real change. I appreciated the in-depth historical and contemporary look at this issue. Its a bit overwhelming to realize the depth of revolution required if we are ever to see real democracy here in the United States, but Price guides us through the challenges to the opportunities with depth, intensity, and dedication to getting to the vision that so many of us hold for people-powered democracy. An important read.

Rivera Sun, author of The Dandelion Insurrection

Ben Prices important new book, How Wealth Rules the World, is a revelatory page-turner, an urgent and timely guide to both explain the subversion of democracy by the rich and to provide a way out of the meat grinder that is shredding and destroying families, communities, countries, and our planets very biosphere, its ability to sustain nature and civilizations.

The counterrevolution of business and property over we the people, our rights and communities, has grown ever stronger for hundreds of years as American courts and politicians serving the elite have subverted our branches of government. Read How Wealth Rules the World, share it, discuss it, and organize around it as if your familys and friends lives depended on itbecause they do.

John Stauber, author of bestsellers including Toxic Sludge Is Good for You; Trust Us, Were Experts; and Weapons of Mass Deception

Unlike good ice cream, the truth can be hard to swallow. But you wont get a brain-freeze from reading this book. Dig into Ben Prices How Wealth Rules the World. I promise; itll be good for you. Hes scooped the political historians by serving up unexpected revelations chock-full of common sense.

Jerry Greenfield, cofounder of Ben & Jerrys

How Wealth Rules the World is an immensely important revelatory work that lifts the blanket off this still insufficiently discussed but absolutely most important issue. Ben Price offers a step-by-step explanation of the extent to which the wealthiest 1 percent of the population have managed to usurp control and undermine the once democratic processes in the United States, distorting them to serve only the goals of the richest people on the planet. This information is mandatory for anyone interested in pursuing positive change, and Ben Price has done a magnificent, step-by-step presentation of the roots and details of the problem. Right now, this is probably the most important subject we all need to address. Thank you to Ben Price for moving the details forward.

Jerry Mander, author of Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television and The Capitalism Papers

How Wealth Rules the World

Copyright 2019 by Ben G. Price

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First Edition

Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-5230-9763-0

PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9764-7

IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9765-4

Digital audio ISBN 978-1-5230-9762-3

2019-1

Production manager: Susan Geraghty. Cover design: Wes Youssi, M.80 Design. Interior design and composition: Westchester Publishing Services. Copyeditor: Michele D. Jones. Proofreader: Sophia Ho. Indexer: Sylvia Coates. Author photo: Kara Scott.

I dedicate this book to the people of every community
struggling for control of their own destinies, and to my
colleagues at the Community Environmental Legal Defense
Fund, for their selfless commitment to making the future
better and their devotion to correcting the errors of the past.

David C. Korten

We the people of the United States are not the middle-class democracy of, by, and for the people many of us grew up believing our nation to be. Our current awakening to this truth is a first step toward achieving our aspiration of real democracy and a society that truly works for all.

To take the next step, we must understand why achieving the aspiration has so long eluded us. This makes Ben Prices book, How Wealth Rules the World, a distinctive and essential read for our time.

I was among those who grew up believing that the United States modeled the middle-class democracy to which most of the worlds people aspire. With that belief as my guide, I devoted some thirty years of my early professional life to sharing the supposed lessons of US success with the worlds less fortunate. This included twenty-one years living and working as a development professional in Ethiopia, Central America, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

Over these years, I began to see results very different from what I had gone abroad to serve. I observed development forcing people off the lands and waters from which they met their daily needs. A tiny number of people were lifted to new levels of opulence and a few to new levels of material comfort. Most, however, were reduced to a daily struggle to survive even more brutal than the hardships they might previously have endured.