A thrilling, eye-opening investigation into private equity, a secretive wing of the finance industry that is so relentlessly destructive, it could have been created to undermine our way of life. You don't know their names, but they own the house you rent. They own your hospitals, nurseries and care homes, the media you consume and the companies you work for. They even own the tools your union uses to fight back. Business is a contest--and they say their people are built to win. But when does competition become a struggle to the death? For decades, private equity firms have infiltrated every corner of modern life. Wielding debt as a weapon, they push vital services into crisis. Their cover story: that this is merely the 'creative destruction' essential to growth. Old-school capitalists say they're dismantling everything that made our economies work. The name itself, 'private equity, ' is its own kind of camouflage, giving no suggestion of the debt involved in its deals, nor of the controversial techniques it uses to generate profits. The new owners think they can hide in the shadows. But the owned are fighting back. In The Asset Class, Hettie O'Brien penetrates a hidden empire of billion-dollar deals and covert financial warfare. From Copenhagen to San Francisco, Barcelona to the Yorkshire Dales, she follow the money, the trail of destruction, and the industry's murky ideological roots from 1970s trips to Moscow to the present day. What she find is chilling: private equity isn't just reshaping the economy--it's selling out the foundations of Western society.