Social Inequality, Economic Decline, and Plutocracy


Book Description

This book aims to further an understanding of present day America by exploring counter-hegemony to the rule of capital and offering guidelines for strategizing change proceeding from the dialectic of What Is and What Ought to Be. The author analyzes neoliberal global order and its political expressions through discussions of the dominance of finance capital in the late twentieth century, the triumph of ideology, the closing of avenues to reform, the problem of the captive state, and a sociological analysis of rule by “divide and conquer.” The book concludes with a look at the history of movement politics in culture, arts, economics, and politics. It resounds with a hope that challenges to hegemony can use many paths to change, of which the electoral path is but one of many fronts, in the long-term struggle for radical reform.




Plutocracy in America


Book Description

This data-driven book offers insight into the fallacy of widespread opportunity, the fate of the middle class, and the mechanisms that perpetuate income disparity.




Plutocrats


Book Description

A Financial Times Best Book of the Year Shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but recently what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Forget the 1 percent—Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at breakneck speed. Most of these new fortunes are not inherited, amassed instead by perceptive businesspeople who see themselves as deserving victors in a cutthroat international competition. With empathy and intelligence, Plutocrats reveals the consequences of concentrating the world’s wealth into fewer and fewer hands. Propelled by fascinating original interviews with the plutocrats themselves, Plutocrats is a tour de force of social and economic history, the definitive examination of inequality in our time.




Capitalism, Alone


Book Description

For the first time in history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. Capitalism prevails because it delivers prosperity and meets desires for autonomy. But it also is unstable and morally defective. Surveying the varieties and futures of capitalism, Branko Milanovic offers creative solutions to improve a system that isn’t going anywhere.




America's Inequality Trap


Book Description

"In this book Nate Kelly argues that rising concentrations of wealth creates a politics that makes reducing economic inequality more difficult. Kelly convincingly demonstrates that the concentration of economic resources in a small group leads to a concentration of economic and political power that in turn creates a self-perpetuating plutocracy or an "inequality trap." As economic resources become concentrated, those who control them engage in a variety of political activities that seek to perpetuate their advantages. Among other things, the rich support a broad public campaign that convinces voters that policies to reduce inequality are unwise and not in the average voter's interest, notwithstanding the real economic impact. They also manipulate the formal division of our government into separate branches and a federal system to their advantage"--




Is Inequality in America Irreversible?


Book Description

We are living in a time of extreme inequality: America’s three richest people now own as much wealth as the bottom half of the population. Although most accept that this is grotesque, many politicians accept it as irreversible. In this book, leading US researcher and activist Chuck Collins succinctly diagnoses the drivers of rampant inequality, arguing that such disparities have their roots in 40 years of the powerful rigging the system in their favor. He proposes a far-reaching policy agenda, analyzes the barriers to progress, and shows how transformative local campaigns can become a national movement for change. This book is a powerful analysis of how the plutocracy sold us a toxic lie, and what we can do to reverse inequality.




Capital in the Twenty-First Century


Book Description

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.




Global Inequality


Book Description

Winner of the Bruno Kreisky Prize, Karl Renner Institut A Financial Times Best Economics Book of the Year An Economist Best Book of the Year A Livemint Best Book of the Year One of the world’s leading economists of inequality, Branko Milanovic presents a bold new account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale. Drawing on vast data sets and cutting-edge research, he explains the benign and malign forces that make inequality rise and fall within and among nations. He also reveals who has been helped the most by globalization, who has been held back, and what policies might tilt the balance toward economic justice. “The data [Milanovic] provides offer a clearer picture of great economic puzzles, and his bold theorizing chips away at tired economic orthodoxies.” —The Economist “Milanovic has written an outstanding book...Informative, wide-ranging, scholarly, imaginative and commendably brief. As you would expect from one of the world’s leading experts on this topic, Milanovic has added significantly to important recent works by Thomas Piketty, Anthony Atkinson and François Bourguignon...Ever-rising inequality looks a highly unlikely combination with any genuine democracy. It is to the credit of Milanovic’s book that it brings out these dangers so clearly, along with the important global successes of the past few decades. —Martin Wolf, Financial Times




The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution


Book Description

In this original, provocative contribution to the debate over economic inequality, Ganesh Sitaraman argues that a strong and sizable middle class is a prerequisite for America’s constitutional system. A New York Times Notable Book of 2017 For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable—and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America’s republic. Over the next two centuries, generations of Americans fought to sustain the economic preconditions for our constitutional system. But today, with economic and political inequality on the rise, Sitaraman says Americans face a choice: Will we accept rising economic inequality and risk oligarchy or will we rebuild the middle class and reclaim our republic? The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution is a tour de force of history, philosophy, law, and politics. It makes a compelling case that inequality is more than just a moral or economic problem; it threatens the very core of our constitutional system.




The Asian 21st Century


Book Description

This open access book consists of essays written by Kishore Mahbubani to explore the challenges and dilemmas faced by the West and Asia in an increasingly interdependent world village and intensifying geopolitical competition. The contents cover four parts: Part One The End of the Era of Western Domination. The major strategic error that the West is now making is to refuse to accept this reality. The West needs to learn how to act strategically in a world where they are no longer the number 1. Part Two The Return of Asia. From the years 1 to 1820, the largest economies in the world were Asian. After 1820 and the rise of the West, however, great Asian civilizations like China and India were dominated and humiliated. The twenty-first century will see the return of Asia to the center of the world stage. Part Three The Peaceful Rise of China. The shift in the balance of power to the East has been most pronounced in the rise of China. While this rise has been peaceful, many in the West have responded with considerable concern over the influence China will have on the world order. Part Four Globalization, Multilateralism and Cooperation. Many of the world's pressing issues, such as COVID-19 and climate change, are global issues and will require global cooperation to deal with. In short, human beings now live in a global village. States must work with each other, and we need a world order that enables and facilitates cooperation in our global village.