In this episode of Library Talks, Ray D. Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School, talks about her new book The Second Estate which lifts the veil on the 7,000-page tax code that has created two Americas. In one America, "millions of working Americans pay substantial portions of their resources to support the expenses of the country." In another, the wealthiest one percent have been "given the tools to abdicate their responsibilities and, in a sense, to relocate to a tax-free version of American life."

Madoff talks to stand-up comedian Gary Gulman about how these mechanisms were enshrined in law and created a sovereign state of wealth and who bears the costs of a tax system that consolidates wealth at the top.