United States of Oligarchy - by Casey Michel (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

An staggering examination of how America's wealthiest infiltrated the government and allied with dictators, transforming the U.S. from democracy to oligarchy.

From the Rockefellers to the Vanderbilts, the world's richest families have for many years found in the United States an ideal home to grow their fortunes. For centuries, they have served as capitalistic success stories who owed their wealth to democratic protections and free markets. Now, though, that balance has shifted. Rather than the moguls and magnates of previous generations, the wealthiest individuals of the 21st century are oligarchs unto themselves-and owe much of their wealth, and much of their fealty, to the most anti-democratic forces around the world.

Many of the names of these new oligarchs are familiar. There is Elon Musk, who has flung the doors of financing and influence open to dictators from Saudi Arabia to Russia to China; Jared Kushner, who has inked deals from Serbia to Qatar to the United Arab Emirates and opened up unprecedented leverage for dictatorships on the highest rungs of American politics; and even more who have shunned the public spotlight, transforming entire industries into play-things for dictatorships in secret. And underneath all of them is a latticework of enablers and advisors who help them destabilize democratic countries, selling American policy and American assets to the highest bidders.

In United States of Oligarchy, Casey Michel illuminates a story decades in the making, from the first efforts to target corrupt corporate links with dictatorships, to the ascent of oligarchic experiments in places like Russia, to the frontlines of the fight for democracy in places like Ukraine, all of this now playing out in the U.S. itself.

The oligarchs have risen and are attempting to reign. The only question remaining is whether or not it's too late to stop them.

Review Quotes

Praise for Casey Michel:

"For years, foreign lobbyists have acted as key henchmen for dictators around the world, enriching and entrenching those regimes that much further. Now, Casey Michel shines much-needed light on these foreign lobbyists--and these enablers who are making it easier for despots around the world to expand their reach. Full of sordid tales and striking details, Foreign Agents shows how these foreign lobbyists are, in many ways, just as reprehensible as the dictators they represent--and maybe even more so." --Sir Bill Browder, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Red Notice and Freezing Order

"An eye-opening depiction of an industry that has largely defied efforts to keep it in check." --The Economist on Foreign Agents

"[A] masterful exposé.... Michel's portrait of endemic corruption is disturbing; lobbying firms, he finds, do little more than serve as conduits for channeling foreign bribes to American officials. The result is a hard-hitting takedown of a cynical industry." --Publishers Weekly (starred) on Foreign Agents

"A timely exposé of American lobbyists who degrade democracy and weaken human rights. In the spirit of Progressive Era muckrakers, Michel reveals the shamelessness, venality, and moral turpitude of those who work to influence federal legislators and the public in order to advance antidemocratic foreign interests... A provocative and alarming account of the political cesspool known as foreign lobbying." --Kirkus Reviews (starred) on Foreign Agents

"Important and well-documented." --Booklist on Foreign Agents

"An eye-popping deep dive into a particularly slimy corner of the D.C. swamp that often escapes scrutiny... Foreign Agents is an investigative accomplishment and a cri de coeur." --Democracy Magazine

Praise for American Kleptocracy:

"An indefatigable young American journalist who has virtually cornered the international kleptocracy beat on the US end of the black aquifer." --The Los Angeles Review of Books on American Kleptocracy

"Brilliantly clear." --Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, on American Kleptocracy

"Fluid, coherent and entertaining." --The Economist on American Kleptocracy

"[Michel] deserves praise for going beyond moralising and pointing out how an industry geared to enabling the corrupt is not just unsavoury but can hurt a country's real economic prospects." --Financial Times on American Kleptocracy

"Michel's diligent dissection is...a capable, eye-opening account of laissez faire financial laws and practices that serve the interest of criminals alone." --Kirkus Reviews on American Kleptocracy

About the Author

CASEY MICHEL is an author, journalist, and director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program with the Human Rights Foundation. He is the author of American Kleptocracy, named by The Economist as one of the "best books to read to understand financial crime." His writing on offshoring, foreign lobbying, authoritarianism, and illicit wealth has appeared in Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Post, among other outlets, and he has appeared on NPR, BBC, CNN, and MSNBC, among other stations. He has also testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the links between illicit financial networks and national security. He received his Master's degree in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies from Columbia University's Harriman Institute, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in northern Kazakhstan. Foreign Agents is his second book.