You're standing at an ATM. It can't access account information but allows unlimited withdrawals. Do you take more than your balance? David Callahan thinks most of us would. While there have always been those who cut corners, he shows that cheating on every level—from the highly publicized corporate scandals to Little League fraud—has risen dramatically in the last two decades. Why all the cheating? Why now?

Callahan pins the blame on the dog-eat-dog economic climate of the past two decades. An unfettered market and unprecedented economic inequality have corroded our values, he argues—and ultimately threaten the level playing field so central to American democracy itself. Through revealing interviews and extensive data, he takes us on a gripping tour of cheating in America and offers a powerful argument for why it matters. Lucidly written, scrupulously argued, The Cheating Culture is an important, original examination of the hidden costs of the boom years.