Description
Book SynopsisThe Great Polarization brings together contributors from disparate perspectives to examine the causes and consequences of skyrocketing inequality. Contributors reconsider the data on inequality, examine the policies that have led to this predicament, and outline potential ways forward.
Trade ReviewThe Great Polarization warns us that the history of the Gilded Age is repeating itself because we are aping the narratives from that era that celebrated inequality as the natural evolution of technological progress. This book gets us to focus on how policies and the public discourse have been captured to serve inequality. -- William Spriggs, chief economist, AFL-CIO
The Great Polarization makes a persuasive case that the distribution of economic rewards is overwhelmingly a political choice. While it’s depressing that our politics have made this choice, fortunately there are no real binding
economic constraints keeping us from a more broadly shared prosperity. This volume should motivate economists to turn their attention to the specific policy changes that could be made that would deliver a fairer set of economic outcomes. -- Josh Bivens, director of research, Economic Policy Institute
The Great Polarization seeks to move economics beyond market fundamentalism, not by focusing on critique, but by laying out new ways of thinking about the relation between markets and states. Representing an earnest and pioneering effort in the building of new ways of thinking about capitalism’s recent past and theorizing about its future, this volume is at the cutting edge of the transformation of economics and its way of approaching growth and development. -- William Milberg, The New School for Social Research
This lively and well-argued book, which takes into account race and gender as well as class, shows that increasing inequality in income and wealth is driven by policy choices that favor property rights over labor rights. It is essential reading for everyone concerned with reducing inequality. -- Diane Elson, University of Essex
Describing some of the most important economic trends in the last quarter century, particularly focused on economic inequalities,
The Great Polarization tackles one of the most salient economic problems of our era comprehensively. -- Roberto Veneziani, Queen Mary University of London
The volume contains some outstanding papers on the causes of rising inequality and on economic policy and inequality. * Choice *
Table of ContentsIntroduction, by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Rudiger L. von Arnim
Part I. America’s Growing Inequality1. Alternative Theories of Inequality: Causes, Consequences, and Policies, by Joseph E. Stiglitz
Part II. Recasting the Evidence in a New Light2. Labor Market Segmentation and the Distribution of Income, by Ellis Scharfenaker and Markus Schneider
3. The Cost of Gender Inequality: Structural Change and the Labor Share of Income, by Stephanie Seguino and Elissa Braunstein
4. The Postwar Trajectory of the U.S. Labor Share: Structural Change and Secular Stagnation, by Jose Barrales-Ruiz, Ivan Mendieta-Muñoz, Codrina Rada, Ansel Schiavone, and Rudiger L. von Arnim
5. The Changing Patterns of Income Inequality in the United States, 1917–2017, by Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy
Part III. Policy Matters: Labor Markets, Education, Tax, and Intellectual Property6. Policy Decisions’ Role in Wage Suppression and Inequality, by Lawrence Mishel
7. “Leave Something for the Risk-Takers:” How the Democrats Rebuilt Structural Racism and Hastened the Great Polarization, 1964–1978, by Julia Ott
8. Teachers’ Unions and Public Education During the Great Polarization, by Eunice Han and Thomas N. Maloney
9. Is Intellectual Property the Root of All Evil? Patents, Copyrights, and Inequality, by Dean Baker
Part IV. The Political Economy of Inequality: Political Context and the Way Forward10. The Economic Discourse on Income Inequality, by Korkut A. Ertürk
11. Redistribution and Social Exclusion in the United States and Germany, by Marcel Paret and Michael Levien
12. A Race-Conscious Economic Rights Approach to Providing Economic Security for All, by Darrick Hamilton
13. Law and the Collective Struggle for Economic Justice, by Marion Crain
Contributors
Index
