How do the one percent hold on to their wealth? And how do they keep getting richer, despite financial crises and the myriad of taxes on income, capital gains, and inheritance? Capital without Borders takes a novel approach to these questions by looking at professionals who specialize in protecting the fortunes of the world’s richest people: wealth managers. Brooke Harrington spent nearly eight years studying this little-known group―including two years training to become a wealth manager herself. She then “followed the money” to the eighteen most popular tax havens in the world, interviewing practitioners to understand how they helped their high-net-worth clients avoid taxes, creditors, and disgruntled heirs―all while staying just within the letter of the law. Capital without Borders reveals how wealth managers use offshore banks, shell corporations, and trusts to shield billions in private wealth not only from taxation but from all manner of legal obligations. And it shows how practitioners justify their work, despite evidence that it erodes government authority and contributes to global inequality. Harrington’s research offers the first glimpse into the tactics and mentality of a secretive profession that controls astonishingly large flows of capital around the world. Based on sixty-five practitioner interviews―conducted in the traditional financial centers of Europe and the Americas as well as the up-and-coming tax havens of Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific― Capital without Borders gives voice for the first time to an elite that has worked quietly and unobtrusively to enrich the one percent. “Offers a timely account of how the 1% holds on to their wealth…[It] ought to keep wealth managers awake at night…Harrington’s book ought to make professionals involved in wealth management aware that they are operating in an ‘ethical gray area’ and engage in the national discourse on inequality that has been gathering momentum since Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century .” ― Aifric Campbell , Wall Street Journal “Harrington advises governments seeking to address inequality to focus not only on the rich but also on the professionals who help them game the system.” ― Richard Cooper , Foreign Affairs “[A] valuable new book… What makes Harrington’s book unusual is that she chose instead to investigate the wealth management industry itself. There were no short cuts to doing so. Harrington went undercover as a trainee wealth manager for two years, living and breathing the profession. The result is an insight unlike any other into how wealth management works… One of the many merits of Brooke Harrington’s study, therefore, is how it shows that the wealth management industry is a far larger and more integral component of the modern financial system than a focus on the celebrity-saturated case of the Panama Papers might suggest.” ― Felix Martin , New Statesman “[Harrington’s] account of the social, cultural, and financial intricacies of this profession―about two-thirds of the book―is no small feat…Harrington helps dispel two of the most pernicious myths underlying America’s overly tolerant attitude toward the extremely rich: first, that they deserve to be so, and second, that the rest of us might one day be extremely rich too.” ― Sam Adler-Bell , Commonweal “ Capital without Borders offers an in-depth look into the wealth management profession… This is an important work for our increasingly unequal world. Instead of uncritically blaming the wealthy and the super-rich or national and state governments, it is high time to focus our attention on the brokers, intermediaries and agents who constitute the ‘middleman economy’ of global inequality.” ― Sin Yee Koh , LSE Review of Books “Brooke Harrington’s overhaul of the One Percent, Capital without Borders , couldn’t arrive at a better time… Capital without Borders is an unparalleled exploration of an especially darkened corner of world finance… Harrington’s commentary is a magnifying glass held towards those who are gaining opportunities at the expense of those losing them… Capital without Borders gives a clear picture as to how the world’s wealthiest people live in a parallel reality to the rest of the world: one out of reach of laws and regulation on a global scale… Capital without Borders is a vital text for the modern age and a must-read for anyone looking towards a more egalitarian economic future.” ― Matthew Fay , PopMatters “Brooke Harrington’s study of wealth management is one of those rare books where you just have to stand back in awe and wonder at the author’s achievement. In this intensely readable study, she offers a first-ever scholarly insight into a profession that was almost unknown a little over two decades ago… Harrington offers profound insights into the world of the professional people who dedicate their lives to meeting the perceived needs of the world’s ultra-wealthy. And, as she makes clear, the most appare