Book review and recommendation: Income and class inequality in Robert Kiyosaki's, ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’
Written by: Obiora Aneke
Robert Kiyosaki describes his biological father as, “My poor dad, my natural dad, who was highly educated but didn’t know much about money”. In this book, Kiyosaki aims to address the question of ‘Why do the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer?’ By the age of 9, Kiyosaki began learning life lessons on the differences between the rich, poor and the middle class, as he was fortunate enough to have 2 mentors. His middle-class father who was a school teacher and his best friend’s father, whose mentality and understanding of how money works allowed him to become financially free and be considered ‘rich’. Kiyosaki consistently uses his early life lessons to relay the fact that the poor and middle class suffer from a lack of financial education which the school systems leave to parents to teach. The same poor habits from poor parents are passed down through generations and the rich habits of rich parents are also handed down. This allows the rich to create generational wealth and further lengthen the class inequality in society.
To further explore class injustice, rich dad poor dad is a must-read book as it shows the huge advantages in life given to those born of the upper class, and the lack of knowledge fed down the social hierarchy, keeping the poor and middle classes trapped in the rat race of life.