Trade Wars Are Class Wars cover art

Trade Wars Are Class Wars

How Rising Inequality Distorts the Global Economy and Threatens International Peace

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Trade Wars Are Class Wars

By: Matthew C. Klein, Michael Pettis
Narrated by: Bob Souer
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About this listen

A provocative look at how today's trade conflicts are caused by governments promoting the interests of elites at the expense of workers.

Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show in this book, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees.

Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today's trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past 30 years. Across the world, the rich have prospered while workers can no longer afford to buy what they produce, have lost their jobs, or have been forced into higher levels of debt.

In this thought-provoking challenge to mainstream views, the authors provide a cohesive narrative that shows how the class wars of rising inequality are a threat to the global economy and international peace-and what we can do about it.

©2020 Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis (P)2020 Tantor Economic History Economics Politics & Government Social Classes & Economic Disparity Sociology War United States Economic disparity Economic inequality US Economy International Trade

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All stars
Most relevant  
worth a read. very interesting and informative. Exposes some realities in life. Very good. throughly enjoyed it.

very Good

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Breaks down how massive trade surpluses distort how value is distributed within an economy.

Not that I had a problem with the reader (gave it 5 stars) but I can see how someone who is sensitive to a prolonged monotone reading style would find this irritating. That being said the writing style means that every sentence feels like the last so I don't know how much of it is the narrator's fault.

Screw the rich

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Just like the classes in surplus economies, not all sentences are equal; although in this audiobook the narrator reads them as if they were, without pausing between paragraphs or providing any vocal emphasis to guide the listener through complex arguments. The key sentences which set out the book’s thesis are read with the same intonation and at the same pace as all the others.

This makes for an extremely tedious listen. For all I could tell, however, the book is an excellent and refreshing polemic on international trade, which has been highly praised by Martin Wolf and others. That said, there is a great deal of exposition which is merely asserted, and the book rambles through rather familiar history which did not seem particularly germane.

Buy the book instead.

Robotic narrator never pauses

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The topic is quite useful and interesting, but this lifeless narration... like a machine gun throwing words no stop. Could not hear to end.
Update: listening at 0.85x helped significantly

Impossible to hear this boring robotic narration

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