Inequality of income and wealth has skyrocketed since the 1970s. As the super-rich have grasped the vast majority of the gains from economic growth, labor’s share of income has declined. The middle class has stagnated, and those at the bottom have become even worse off. Persistent structural discrimination on the basis of race and gender exacerbates these economic disparities.
The Great Polarization brings together scholars from disparate fields to examine the causes and consequences of this dramatic rise in inequality. Contributors demonstrate that institutions, norms, policy, and political power—not the “natural” operation of the market—determine the distribution of wealth and income. The book underscores the role of ideas and ideologies, showing how neoclassical economics and related beliefs have functioned in public debates to justify inequality. Together, these essays bear out an inescapable conclusion: inequality is a choice. The rules of the economy have been rewritten to favor those at the top, entrenching the imbalances of power that widen the gap between the very rich and everyone else.
Contributors reconsider the data on inequality, examine the policies that have led to this predicament, and outline potential ways forward. Using both theoretical and empirical analysis and drawing on the knowledge of experts in policy, political economy, economics, and other disciplines, The Great Polarization offers a kaleidoscopic view of the processes that have shaped today’s stark hierarchies.
Table of Content
Introduction, by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Rudiger L. von Arnim
Part I. America’s Growing Inequality
1. Alternative Theories of Inequality: Causes, Consequences, and Policies, by Joseph E. Stiglitz
Part II. Recasting the Evidence in a New Light
2. 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 Property
6. 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 Forward
10. 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
About the author
Rudiger L. von Arnim is associate professor of economics at the University of Utah. He is also senior research associate at the Austrian Foundation for Development Research.Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University and a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He is copresident of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University, chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute, and cochair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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