How Wealth Rules the World: Saving Our Communities and Freedoms from the Dictatorship of Property

Ben G. Price examines how corporate and state power structures suppress local democracy and social movements in the United States. Drawing on his experience as a community organizer and historical analysis, Price traces how a legal framework that enabled slavery and the fossil fuel economy has persisted and evolved, continuing to restrict community autonomy and dissent. Price explores counterintuitive aspects of how wealth functions as a source of power itself. He investigates connections between the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Federalist Party, how the Fourteenth Amendment—intended to emancipate enslaved African Americans—was used by the Supreme Court to grant legal personhood to corporations, and how cities are legally classified as public corporations with limited governing authority. The book identifies key counterrevolutions in U.S. history that undermined the transformative potential of the Civil War and American Revolution. Price traces colonial and imperial systems of control through to modern free trade agreements and other structures that override democratic processes. He includes perspectives from communities affected by these legal doctrines, such as residents of Pine Ridge Reservation.