In the land of opportunity, everyone can get rich - and there are plenty of bestsellers telling you how

One of the ways to make money in the US book trade is to publish books about ways to make money. The bestseller lists invariably feature a crop of this season's get-rich-quick titles - or "money books", as booksellers call them.

The current brand leader is Robert T Kiyosaki, whose Rich Dad, Poor Dad has been five years in the number-one money book slot, selling some 20 million copies worldwide - stats that knock The Da Vinci Code into a cardinal's hat. In 2005, Robert was inducted into the Amazon.com hall of fame as one of the top webseller's "Top 25 Authors". (You didn't know that, did you?)

The "Rich Dad" trademark clings, limpet-like, to the book's own webstore (www.richdad.com), nationwide seminar series, a popular board game (Cashflow 101) and outreach "educational" programmes. While the Rich Dad "mission statement" is "To elevate the financial well-being of humanity", its unstated mission is to elevate the financial well-being of Kiyosaki by promising big bucks, easily acquired, to the unmoneyed classes. One of the secrets RDPD confides is that "the rich teach their kids things about money that the poor and middle class do not". "You don't need to earn a high income to be rich," promises Kiyosaki.

Above all, you don't need education: If You Want To Be Rich and Happy Don't Go To School, urges one of Kiyosaki's titles. What you get taught in the classroom, from kindergarten to a Harvard MBA, gets in the way of self-empowerment and self-enrichment. "You cannot learn to ride a bicycle by reading a book," he points out. So it is odd, perhaps, that he so wants us to buy his twenty-dollar book(s).

Kiyosaki's gimmick (every huckster needs one) has been to blend hard-nosed entrepreneurship with homely family values. In the Rich Dad stable are a book by his wife, Kim (Rich Woman), Rich Dad, Poor Dad for Teens, and a comic book with a cute rodent hero for preliterate juniors - Rich Dad's Escape From the Rat Race. ("Are you learning about money in school? Probably not! With this graphic novel you can learn the basics of making money and creating assets. You're never too young to start!")

Kiyosaki himself started young. He went into business aged nine, went bust, started up again, and was rich by ten. Among the subsequent "million-dollar products" with which he made his pile are the Velcro surfer pocket and the runner's shoe pocket. His own suit pockets now bulge with well-gotten cash.

Kiyosaki clinches his GRQ lessons with his rags-to-riches life story (every huckster needs one). Born in Hawaii, he had "two dads". His "poor dad" - his biological father - had a PhD and stayed poor all his life. Kiyosaki's "rich dad" - his best friend's father - left school at 13 and made himself the richest man on the islands through entrepreneurship. "One died leaving tens of millions of dollars to his family, charities and his church. The other left a legacy of unpaid bills." Robert loved both dads, but followed the millions. He is now a rich dad himself.

Kiyosaki has his critics. (What liberator of the poor doesn't?) Some carp that his books are merely "motivational" - they lack practical advice on such matters, for example, as repairing bad credit. He relies instead on homilies: "Poor Dad says: 'I work for my money.' Rich Dad says: 'My money works for me.'" Which sounds fine, until you try to use it.

Kiyosaki has also been associated, via his franchise activities, with "multilevel marketing" - dubiously legal pyramid schemes. Sceptical residents of Hawaii have denied that "Rich Dad" existed. "Does Harry Potter exist?" retorts Kiyosaki. Like J K Rowling, he has a bank balance that enforces his point.

On Kiyosaki's website, some 40 countries - from far-flung Australia to Vietnam - are listed as members of the "Rich Dad International Community". One country is signally absent. Wake up, Britain!

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