Description
Book SynopsisChallenges arguments that expanding inequality is the natural, perhaps necessary, accompaniment of economic growth. This book stresses that economic fortune depends more on social circumstances than on IQ, which is itself a product of society.
Trade ReviewNamed an Outstanding Book by the Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America for 1998 "Inequality by Design's most important findings describe an America deeply stratified by class, an America in which equal opportunity remains only and idle dream...[It] may well after the public discussion...with a shot across the bow of the nation's policymakers."--Lingua Franca "... calmly but devastatingly refutes the view that IQ is the inexorable force behind growing inequality in American society. [This] message deserves wide airing, lest voters and policy makers believe the fatalistic--and false--message that our destiny lies in our genes... The fact that IQ isn't destiny means Americans can't wash their hands of poverty and related social problems by imagining them to be timeless and unchangeable."--Jonathan Marshall, San Francisco Chronicle "A clear and persuasive counter argument to the conclusions of Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein in The Bell Curve... The authors urge that Americans not scapegoat race but look critically at policy and at a design for society to narrow the gaps between the least and most encouraged in our country."--Library Journal
Table of ContentsFigures and Tables ix Preface xi CHAPTER 1 Why Inequality? 3 CHAPTER 2 Understanding "Intelligence" 22 CHAPTER 3 But Is It Intelligence? 55 CHAPTER 4 Who Wins? Who Loses? 70 CHAPTER 5 The Rewards of the Game: Systems of Inequality 102 CHAPTER 6 HOW Unequal? America's Invisible Policy Choices CHAPTER 7 Enriching Intelligence: More Policy Choices 158 CHAPTER 8 Confronting Inequality in America: The Power of Public Investment 204 APPENDIX 1 Summary of The Bell Curve 217 APPENDIX 2 Statistical Analysis for Chapter 4 225 Notes 241 References 277 Index 303
