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Rich Dad, Poor Dad is Robert Kiyosaki's first best-selling book. It advocates financial independence through investing, real estate, owning businesses, and the use of finance protection tactics.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad is written in an entertaining anecdotal manner to make finances interesting. [citation needed] The most central element stressed by Kiyosaki is the advocacy of owning the system or means of production, rather than being an employee of someone else.

Summary

The book takes the form of a story. It is largely based on Kiyosaki's own upbringing and education in Hawaii, although the degree of fictionalization is disputed. Because of the heavy use of allegory, some readers believe that Kiyosaki created Rich Dad as an author surrogate (a literary device), discussed further in the criticism section below. Many readers believe that the "Rich Dad" in the book is actually the founder of Hawaii's widespread ABC Stores.
The Poor Dad in the story is based on Kiyosaki's real father, a PhD holder and graduate of Stanford, Chicago, and Northwestern University, all on full scholarship, who was the head of the Education department of the state of Hawaii. In the book, he is greatly respected until he decides, late in his career, to take a stand on principle against the governor of Hawaii. This leads directly to Poor Dad losing his job, and his inability to find comparable work ever again. Because he has never learned to handle money, instead depending on the government (his employer) for support, he dies in severe debt.
In contrast to this character is Rich Dad, his best friend Michael's father. Rich Dad dropped out in 8th grade, but became a self-made multi-millionaire regardless. He teaches Kiyosaki and Michael a variety of financial lessons, and insists that the boys learn to make money work for them to avoid spending their whole lives working for money, like Rich Dad's employees, as well as Poor Dad, and indeed most of the people in the world.

Topics

Among some of the book's topics are:
the value of financial intelligence
that corporations spend first, then pay taxes, while individuals must pay taxes first
that corporations are artificial entities that anyone can use, but the poor usually don't know how
Kiyosaki says the rich think differently in how they define simple words like assets and wealth, and how they fund their luxuries. He explains that he defines an asset as any item which produces income (such as rental property,stocks or bonds), and a liability as anything which produces expense (such as one's own home, new widescreen TV, exercise machine, new garden tractor, motorcycle, computers, processed foods, swing sets, barbecue grill, tools, letting your property rundown and a new car every two years).
No one disputes that the rich buy "income-producing assets". Kiyosaki argues that the poor buy worthless items that they think are assets, which clearly do not earn anything, and may have no market value.
According to Kiyosaki, wealth is measured as the number of days the income from your assets will sustain you, and financial independence is achieved when your monthly income from assets exceeds your monthly expenses. Each dad had a different way of teaching their sons.