[2][3][4][5] The book is critical of cutting taxes and diminishing the size of government.

The book is also critical of support for deregulation that the author argues culminated in the Meltdown of 2008.

[4][6][7] The text asserts that the modern global economy is a collection of oligopolies more than a competitive market framework.

[6][7][8][9] The book draws on prominent economic thinkers such as Kahneman on behavioral economics, Galbraith on the need for countervailing power, Case & Deaton on deaths of despair, Minsky on financial instability, Krugman on new trade theory, Rawls on justice, Stiglitz on the hollowing out of the middle class, Simon on bounded rationality, and Veblen on conspicuous consumption.

[10] The book has been translated into several languages, including: Russian, German, Hungarian, Romanian, and Chinese.