Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last seventy years saw a massive expansion of the middle class, not only in Ameri
"Kotkin has written an essential and critical study of emerging class structures at the intersection
of technological determinism and post-industrial capitalism. He suggests that technological oligarchs are already controlling our economic future while creating a high-tech neo-feudal society that undermines democracy and economic mobility for the middle and working classes."
--John Russo, Visiting Scholar, Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and Working Poor at Georgetown University, Co-editor, Working-Class Perspectives
"Our society and economy is no longer progressing but regressing into a kind of "neo-feudalism." As Joel Kotkin describes it, our once-great middle class is being eviscerated and America is dividing into a small group of uber-wealthy oligarchs who have colonized luxury cities like San Francisco and New York. A gripping cautionary tale by one of the most provocative and original thinkers of our time, this book is a must read for all those concerned about the future of our cities and our society."
--Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis.