Davos Man How the Billionaires Devoured the World
Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World by Peter S. Goodman, published by Custom House in 2022, offers a detailed examination of the impact of billionaires on global society. This 472-page book delves into how the systematic exploitation by the wealthy, particularly during the pandemic, has reshaped life in the 21st century and posed significant threats to democracy. Goodman, a seasoned journalist and the New York Times’s Global Economics Correspondent, draws on his extensive experience to highlight the historical context of wealth concentration over the past fifty years.
In this edition, readers will find a thorough exploration of the consequences of economic policies and practices that favor the affluent. Goodman profiles five individuals from the billionaire class, illustrating their roles in exacerbating wealth inequality and undermining public resources. The book addresses various subjects, including economic history, political economy, and public policy, while presenting personal stories from diverse individuals affected by these trends. Davos Man serves as a critical analysis of the hidden dynamics that influence modern society, making it relevant for those interested in understanding the complexities of economic justice and democratic integrity.
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A San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller * An NPR Best Book of the Year
The New York Times’s Global Economics Correspondent masterfully reveals how billionaires’ systematic plunder of the world–brazenly accelerated during the pandemic–has transformed 21st-century life and dangerously destabilized democracy.
“Davos Man will be read a hundred years from now as a warning.” –Evan Osnos
“Excellent. A powerful, fiery book, and it could well be an essential one.” –NPR.org
The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. The most affluent people emerged from capitalism’s triumph in the Cold War to loot the peace, depriving governments of the resources needed to serve their people, and leaving them tragically unprepared for the worst pandemic in a century.
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. Alongside this reporting, Goodman delivers textured portraits of those caught in Davos Man’s wake, including a former steelworker in the American Midwest, a Bangladeshi migrant in Qatar, a Seattle doctor on the front lines of the fight against COVID, blue-collar workers in the tenements of Buenos Aires, an African immigrant in Sweden, a textile manufacturer in Italy, an Amazon warehouse employee in New York City, and more.
Goodman’s revelatory exposé of the global billionaire class reveals their hidden impact on nearly every aspect of modern society: widening wealth inequality, the rise of anti-democratic nationalism, the shrinking opportunity to earn a livable wage, the vulnerabilities of our health-care systems, access to affordable housing, unequal taxation, and even the quality of the shirt on your back. Meticulously reported yet compulsively readable, Davos Man is an essential read for anyone concerned about economic justice, the capacity of societies to grapple with their greatest challenges, and the sanctity of representative government.
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