From from welfare to wealth care, from pedophiles to popes, from plutocrats to environmental plunderers—these are just some of the indecencies of contemporary socio-economic life that Profit Pathology takes on. Here, Michael Parenti investigates how class power is a central force in our political life yet subject to little critical discernment. He notes how big-moneyed interests shift the rules of the game in their favor while undoing the gains of social democracy, from the New Deal to the present. Parenti also traces the ruthless economic forces that have operated through much of American history, including the mass displacement and extermination of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans. Parenti is a master at demonstrating the impact of monomaniacal profit accumulation on social services, including health care and utilities. In this book he shows how unrestrained capitalism becomes a "self-devouring beast" that endangers itself and all of us. Finally, Parenti calls for a solution based on democratic diversity and not-for-profit public ownership—"because it works."