A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class

Now with a new introduction describing the fallout of America’s consumer credit boom, 1994’s wildly acclaimed bestseller A Piece of the Action tells the story of how millions of middle class Americans went from being savers to borrowers and investors through the invention of credit cards, mutual funds, and IRAs—resulting in profound societal change.

Tracing the invention of products like credit cards, mutual funds, and individual retirement accounts, A Piece of the Action tells the stories of a handful of men who transformed the way Americans think about and deal with their money: men like Charles Merrill, the flamboyant founder of Merrill Lynch; Peter Lynch, the investing guru who managed the Fidelity Magellan Fund; and Charles Schwab, who transformed his eponymous company into the nation’s biggest discount broker. These innovations produced a genuine revolution—the democratization of money—in which the middle class became financial players.

Author Joe Nocera’s 2013 introduction describes where this revolution took those who embraced it, that is, practically all of us. We have gone into debt, made dicey investments, and lived through many bursting bubbles. We used the financial tools we now had at our disposal to act on bets and dares we didn’t yet understand. We bet on the Internet, borrowed on our homes, and compromised our retirements in pursuit of the American dream.

A Piece of the Action is an important piece of financial and social history, and Nocera’s 2013 critique of the uses of the revolution is a powerful warning and admonition to understand what is at stake before we act.

Joe Nocera is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. He was previously a business columnist for the Times and a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. He spent ten years at Fortune, where he rose to editorial director, and has written for numerous publications, including GQ, Esquire, and Newsweek. He has won three Gerald Loeb awards and three John Hancock awards for excellence in business journalism. His most recent book is the New York Times bestseller All the Devils Are Here, which he coauthored with Bethany McClean. He lives in New York.