Over recent years, academics and activists the world over have generated a broad body of work that exposes just how concentrated wealth is poisoning everything we hold dear. In Greed and Good, Sam Pizzigati brings this work together, for the first time ever, inside a single book.

Sam Pizzigati, Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives. Rowman & Littlefield/Apex Press, 2004. 684 pp.

In 2006, Choice, a book review journal of the American Library Association, named Greed and Good, by Too Much editor Sam Pizzigati, an “outstanding title” of the year. The full text of Greed and Good now appears online, by chapter, for downloading at no charge.

Below, a sampling of commentary on Greed and Good

William Greider, author, The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy: “Sam Pizzigati takes us on a sweeping tour of life in these United States that is both depressing and angering, even embarrassing to see how gravely our country and democracy have been overwhelmed by the greed and power of concentrated wealth. His story, however, ends in hope and vision — big ideas for rescuing American ideals from plutocracy and for restoring our bedrock values of equity and equality.”

Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.), chair, House Democratic Policy Committee: “The looting of America — from the top — has been rolling along now for nearly a generation. Our nation’s rich have become, far and away, the world’s richest. What price do we pay for this massive inequality? No book exposes the full true cost better than Sam Pizzigati’s Greed and Good. And no book suggests a more thought-provoking strategy for ending the gross inequalities that are rotting the American dream.”

Jeff Faux, distinguished fellow, co-founder, Economic Policy Institute, Washington, D.C.: “Sam Pizzigati has put together the definitive case against the excessive inequality of income, wealth and power in our society. He gives us hard numbers and common sense observations, as well as imaginative proposals for reversing our slide into plutocracy and social decay. If you care about your country, read this book.”

David Moberg, from a review in the December 19, 2005 In These Times:: “In Greed and Good, a highly engaging, encyclopedic survey of arguments for and against equality, Sam Pizzigati, a veteran labor journalist, makes a compelling case that increasing inequality contributes to rising unhappiness, corruption of professions like law and medicine, environmental destruction, less innovative businesses, slower economic growth, a fraying social fabric and much more.”

Michael Perelman, from a review in the March 2005 American Library Association journal, Choice: “This extraordinary book begins with a detailed demolition of the trickle-down case for inequality . . . No brief description can adequately describe the mass of valuable insight and information contained within this volume. . . . This book deserves the highest possible recommendation.”

Alvena Bieri, from a review in the November 15, 2004 Progressive Populist: “We have a minimum wage. The author suggests the radical idea that maybe we should have a maximum wage as well . . . Pizzigati has two chapters on the details, and it all sounds good to me.”