John R. Talbott's "Obamanomics"

This is a book written in 2008 before Obama won the presidency. But it isn't about running for the presidency or about the details of the financial crisis. It is a book that tries to explain the thinking behind Obama's positions on economic issues (and necessarily deals with the vision of civil society). You get an idea of this from the subtitle: How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics.

Here is a key bit from early in the book:

He [Obama] explained that a healthy economy is a bottom-up economy, not a top-down economy dependent on trickle-down economics. In a bottom-up economy, the rules of business and government are fair and apply to all. There is a level playing field. In such an environment, people's enthusiasm and motivations are maximized. They feel that their personal success will be determined by their hard work and effort, not by who they know or who they are related to. Obama believes that the key to a growing and prosperous economy is a motivated workforce that is engaged and constantly thinking about how it can improve itself, its company's products and services, and its country. In a rigged system in which big business controls our government, such motivation is impossible. Obama believes that all will benefit from the system he envisions, that Wall Streeet and Main Street are intertwined, that you can't have successful securities investing without companies to invest in, and you can't have successful companies without motivated engaged workers.

The idea that enriching our wealthiest citizens and corporations will cause the money to eventually trickle-down to the workers is wrongheaded. Give a rich person a tax break and he will just put the money in the bank. In a world of global capital flows, such a miniscule increase in global savings will have little to no impact on the general American economy.

But give the average American the opportunity to work for a fair wage, with the chance for personal growth and advancement and the ability to give his children a superior education, and the effects on economic grfowth will be tremendous. Getting the underemployed working again and removing artificial ceilings to advancement will have an immediate impact on the economy, but the biggest long-term economic benefit will be the ability of the sons and daughters of janitors and carpenters to grow up to be scientists, doctors, and successful business executives. (pages 18-19)

Talbott was a Goldman Sachs investment banker, but he has broken ranks with the rich:

We are a nation of laws that are being written by corporate special interests. And we are a country, founded on equality, liberty, justice and opportunity for alol, that is slowly devolving into an unjust class society where life success is based more on inherited position and connections than individual effort and merit. (page 9)