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The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us
vBulletin Book Store > vBulletin books beginning with W
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The Winner-Take-All Society: Why the Few at the Top Get So Much More Than the Rest of Us |
Author: Robert H. Frank
Published: 1996-09-01 |
List price: $16.00
Our price: $10.88
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As of: December 02nd, 2008 09:40:49 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Winning isn't everything...
Although this book is a little outdated, the authors make a convincing case as to the spiraling salaries of Fortune 500 CEO's, sought-after-free-agent-superstar-athletes, box-office movie stars and the like. Winning begets winning, that's the gold standard of life. "In order for top CEO's to capture their full economic value, a second factor must also be present-namely, there must be open competition for their services." For what high level profession doesn't this rule apply? Pursuit of success is intrinsically woven into the tapestry of this nations fabric and history has always been faithful to the winner; thus, the past is a recording of HIS STORY! It's unfortunate that vanity prevents so many people from accurately assessing their talents, but I don't thinks it calls for the reshaping of national policy as the authors suggest.
 Brilliant book
Brilliant book, though the practical outlines of reversing the trends that drive our society towards a winner-takes-all-society may not be easy, or simply feasible. The argumentation is very solid and based on different literature, which makes the bibliography equally interesting. Though the numbers are outdated, one can only see that in current society the numbers for the winners have only - and extremely - augmented. Which proves the book was right but the ideas haven't made the political agenda.
 A thought-provoking book that goes steadily downhill
The first half to 2/3 of this book makes some very good points that have escaped most of the popular discussions of economic issues. The authors point out, persuasively in my opinion, that certain industries and professions have "winner-take-all" characteristics that pervert the usual reward/punishment consequences of free-market economic policies.
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br /The markets for which the authors have the strongest evidence of "winner take all" characteristics are presented earliest. As the book goes on, however, it falls into the same pattern of thousands of books before it: the authors have made one important and interesting observation, and they proceed to claim that virtually everything in the world that they disapprove of can be accounted for by this one observation. They assume, without plausible evidence, that the declines in education and popular culture are the direct consequence of winner-take-all markets. In a couple of cases they even admit that the evidence for winner-take-all characteristics in a particular industry or occupation is scanty or even nonexistent. But that doesn't prevent them from offering further arguments and policy recommendations based on the assumption that every one of these markets is dominated by winner-take-all distortions.
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br /By the end of this book, where the authors make policy recommendations, they come close to leaving reality behind. They make these recommendations based on the assumptions that the **entire economy** is dominated by winner-take-all characteristics - a proposition for which they offer no evidence whatever. It is hard to escape the impression that their goal in writing this book was to justify a more socialistic economic policy on the part of the government, rather than to evenhandedly examine and explain an important issue.
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br /In short: read the first of half of this book, because it makes a lot of worthwhile points and observations. Read most of the rest if you're retired or have a lot of free time. Skip the last chapter, with their policy recommendations.
Interesting Book by 2 Top Notch Economists
This book basically says that the rat race is harmful and we should constrain spending, because happiness isn't really what we have, but what our neighbor has; therefore, by creating incentives to spend less, we can create a trickle-down effect of less consumption and have more time and less coarseness in culture. The only problem is that the authors--as bright as they are--do not spend much time explaining exactly how a consumption tax would work. One gets the feeling that they felt going into specific details was inappropriate for a mass-market book. Along the way, we also learn about fun variations on game theory, the predecessor to Paris Hilton, and some prescient warnings on steroids. Despite the negative comments about lawyers in the book, I enjoyed it very much. The author reminds his readers, through facts and research, to be more humble and to remember that because the number of top positions is few in the U.S., it cannot be the case that all our dreams will be realized. While depressing on the surface, one may wish the participants on American Idol had read this book before appearing on national television.
An Explanation for the Growing Economic Inequality
The basic premise of this book is that the U.S. has too many markets where the "star" or top performer gets a large percentage of the proceeds. Examples are the sports market, the movie star market and the publishing market; The reasons given are;p-Technology. National distribution channels such as network television make it easier for an individual to penetrate the market. For example, at one time villages and towns had their own musicians. Now a singer can make a CD and sell it nationally.p-Falling transportation and tariff costs. Goods have gotten lighter. It is easier to send computer discs all over the world than books. CD's are lighter than phonograph recordsp-- Mental shelf space constraints. We have a limit to the number of items we can keep in our head..."the amount of information we can actually use is thus a declining fraction of the total information available."p-Weakening of regulations and civil society. At one time, informal and formal rules limited the winner take all markets. Now, like free agents in baseball, the top performers have the leverage to demand high prices. p-Self-reinforcing processes. This is another way of saying "success begets success." For example, a sales person does well and gets bigger customers. A person does well and the word of mouth referral causes them to saturate the market. This virtuous cycle increases the income and power of top performers.pThe author argues that winner take all markets are not good for society. People are unrealistically optimistic about their own chances of winning "a prize." Thus they are siphoned off from other productive endeavors. pThis book was helpful to me in understanding today's economy and job market. If anything, the winners are doing better than ever today, long after the book was published. Just take a look at the latest article on CEO salaries.
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