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The 9.9 Percent
The New Aristocracy That Is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture
Table of Contents
About The Book
A “brilliant” (The Washington Post), “clear-eyed and incisive” (The New Republic) analysis of how the wealthiest group in American society is making life miserable for everyone—including themselves.
In 21st-century America, the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90% have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9% that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country—and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system.
They log insane hours at the office and then turn their leisure time into an excuse for more career-building, even as they rely on an underpaid servant class to power their economic success and satisfy their personal needs. They have segregated themselves into zip codes designed to exclude as many people as possible. They have made fitness a national obsession even as swaths of the population lose healthcare and grow sicker. They have created an unprecedented demand for admission to elite schools and helped to fuel the dramatic cost of higher education. They channel their political energy into symbolic conflicts over identity in order to avoid acknowledging the economic roots of their privilege. And they have created an ethos of “merit” to justify their advantages. They are all around us. In fact, they are us—or what we are supposed to want to be.
In this “captivating account” (Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone), Matthew Stewart argues that a new aristocracy is emerging in American society and it is repeating the mistakes of history. It is entrenching inequality, warping our culture, eroding democracy, and transforming an abundant economy into a source of misery. He calls for a regrounding of American culture and politics on a foundation closer to the original promise of America.
In 21st-century America, the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90% have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9% that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country—and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system.
They log insane hours at the office and then turn their leisure time into an excuse for more career-building, even as they rely on an underpaid servant class to power their economic success and satisfy their personal needs. They have segregated themselves into zip codes designed to exclude as many people as possible. They have made fitness a national obsession even as swaths of the population lose healthcare and grow sicker. They have created an unprecedented demand for admission to elite schools and helped to fuel the dramatic cost of higher education. They channel their political energy into symbolic conflicts over identity in order to avoid acknowledging the economic roots of their privilege. And they have created an ethos of “merit” to justify their advantages. They are all around us. In fact, they are us—or what we are supposed to want to be.
In this “captivating account” (Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone), Matthew Stewart argues that a new aristocracy is emerging in American society and it is repeating the mistakes of history. It is entrenching inequality, warping our culture, eroding democracy, and transforming an abundant economy into a source of misery. He calls for a regrounding of American culture and politics on a foundation closer to the original promise of America.
About The Author
Photograph by Jessica Kirschner
Matthew Stewart is an independent philosopher and historian who has written extensively about the philosophical origins of the American republic and the history of management. With degrees from Princeton University and Oxford University and a stint as a management consultant, he was once a respectable member of the 9.9%. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review, among other publications. He lives near Boston, Massachusetts, and you can visit him at MWStewart.com.
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 12, 2021)
- Length: 352 pages
- ISBN13: 9781982114206
Raves and Reviews
“Brilliant. . . . Stewart is both cartographer and critic, serving as a kind of appalled anthropologist. . . . What gives the book its relentlessly sharp edge is his exposure of so much conventional wisdom as ultimately self-serving and deluded.”
– Nick Romeo, Washington Post
"Matthew Stewart’s new book is a captivating account of how America got into our current plight of extreme inequality and why that should concern all of us—especially those of us in the top 9.9 percent. It closes with some suggestions about what we might do about it, which alone should make the book must reading in the Biden White House."
– Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone and Our Kids
"In contemporary America, the lives of the wealthy bear increasingly little resemblance to those of working-class people, much less to those who are poor. Stewart is surely right to view this as a problem and to question why it has generated so much less outrage and concern than the obscene fortunes of the superrich."
– Eyal Press, The New York Times
"A charged study of the second-tier wealthy in America, the principal engine of inequality. . . . A sharp-tongued, altogether readable, and welcome assault on unrestrained wealth."
– Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The 9.9 Percent is a bracing and necessary read. Matthew Stewart does not pull his punches, making clear that the inequality and social stagnation plaguing the United States cannot be blamed on the billionaires. The ideology of meritocracy has been perverted to support a growing aristocracy, even as many of us passionately profess our commitment to universal equal opportunity. Highly recommended."
– Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America
"[A] withering assessment of the overweighted, nearly intractable socioeconomic power of [the] 9.9 percent—all conveyed with an acid humor that recalls the late social critics Henry Fairlie and Paul Fussell."
– Booklist (starred review)
"In The 9.9 Percent, Matthew Stewart studies . . . the social class just below the new millennial robber barons—the overcompensated, self-regarding, yet terminally anxious cohort of the merely extravagantly privileged. . . . [a] clear-eyed and incisive study."
– Chris Lehmann, The New Republic
Resources and Downloads
High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): The 9.9 Percent eBook 9781982114206
- Author Photo (jpg): Matthew Stewart Photograph by Jessica Kirschner(0.1 MB)
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