America, Compromised, Lawrence Lessig
America, Compromised, Lawrence Lessig
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

America, Compromised

Author: Lawrence Lessig

Narrator: Stephen R. Thorne

Unabridged: 6 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/14/2019


Synopsis

"There is not a single American awake to the world who is comfortable with the way things are." So begins Lawrence Lessig's sweeping indictment of contemporary American institutions and the corruption that besets them. We can all see it—from the selling of Congress to special interests to the corporate capture of the academy. Something is wrong. It's getting worse.

What Lessig shows, brilliantly and persuasively, is that we can't blame the problems of contemporary American life on bad people, as our discourse all too often tends to do. Rather, he explains, "We have allowed core institutions of America's economic, social, and political life to become corrupted. Not by evil souls, but by good souls. Not through crime, but through compromise." Through case studies of Congress, finance, the academy, the media, and the law, Lessig shows how institutions are drawn away from higher purposes and toward money, power, quick rewards—the first steps to corruption.

America is on the wrong path. If we don't acknowledge our own part in that, and act now to change it, we will hand our children a less perfect union than we were given. It will be a long struggle. This book represents the first steps.

About Lawrence Lessig

Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, an attorney, and an activist. He cofounded Creative Commons in 2001 and is the author of numerous books, including Republic, Lost: Version 2.0.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Andy

Lessig gives example after example of how self-regulation of the powerful does not work, but somehow doesn't want to connect the dots for what that implies. I do not get what the point of this book is. It's not out-and-out BS; it contains lots of facts, but then it's just a big mess. The culture of......more

I wanted to like this book, having followed Lessig's work from the early copyright/Creative Commons days, admiring his sharp insight and eloquence, and daring to switch gears as an academic mid-career from intellectual property to the subject matter of this book: institutional corruption. When that p......more

Goodreads review by Matt

What do Congress, the financial industry, the media, the field of psychiatric medicine, and the law all have in common? They are all corrupt. That is, according to Lawrence Lessig. Lessig, a Harvard Law School professor and the founder of Creative Commons, lays out his case for corruption in "America......more

Goodreads review by Carl

Corruption is Larry Lessig's field of study & he knows what he is talking about. In this volume, he's talking about corruption in Congress & regulatory agencies, in drugs & medicine, & in academic research all of it precipitated by growing & unacceptable levels of economic inequality. In other words......more