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A treatment of Steven Pinker's "Enlightenment Now" with regard to his discussion of economic inequality.
2009 •
“We are now living in a new Gilded Age, as extravagant as the original,” says the Nobel Prize–winning Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. 1 In the days of Krugman's youth,“the economic disparities you were conscious of were quite muted.” But that America is “another country,” Krugman says. Once, the AFL-CIO was a fixture of nature, even Ike liked the New Deal, and lawyers and longshoremen felt themselves to be peers—as men, and as Americans.
2021 •
This is an introductory textbook of the history of economics of inequality for undergraduates and genreral readers. It begins with Adam Smith's critique of Rousseau. The first and second chapters focus on Smith and Karl Marx, in the broad classical tradition of economics, where it is believed that there is an inseparable relationship between production and distribution, economic growth and inequality. Chapters 3 and 4 argue that despite the fact that the founders of the neoclassical school had shown an active interest in social issues, namely worker poverty, the issues of production and distribution became discussed separately among neoclassicals. Toward the end of the 20th century, however, there was a renewed awareness within economics of the problem of the relationship between production and distribution. The young Piketty's beginnings as an economist are set against this backdrop. Chapters 5 to 8 explain the circumstances of the restoration of classical concerns within t...
Over the three decades leading up to the crisis of 2008, inequality dramatically increased in the United States and Great Britain. What stands out, but is seldom noted, is that this occurred within democracies where the relative losers—the overwhelming majority—could in principle have used the political system to block or reverse rising inequality. Why did they not do so? A glance at history reveals that peoples have only very infrequently contested inequality because they were led to believe that their inferior status in terms of income, wealth, and privilege was just, that it was not really so bad, or that it was necessary for their future well-being. Ideological systems legitimated a status quo of inequality, or in more modern times even increasing inequality. This article surveys the manner in which inequality has been historically legitimated, first predominantly by religion, then predominately by economic thought. Attention is then focused on the manner in which contemporary economic science and its popular interpretations in the media have served to legitimate inequality in the U.S. since the mid-1970s. The article concludes with a reflection on the unique conditions that enable the legitimation of inequality to be delegitimated.
Real World Economics Review
Book Review: A Brief History of Equality2023 •
Piketty argues against ceding economic issues to experts and argues that addressing climate change necessitates combating inequality. He ... questions the neoliberal prescriptions of low taxes, balanced budgets, free trade, budget austerity, liberalization, deregulation, and free flow of capital. He critiques both state socialism and Chinese socialism, and instead supports democratic, decentralized, and participatory socialism that is based on confiscatory tax rates, having employees on board of directors, the provision of universal education and healthcare, basic income, guaranteed employment, and inheritance for all to address income and wealth inequality. ... Thus, Piketty offers a narrative that rejects both capitalism and state socialism and instead upholds a democratic, decentralized, ecological, and participatory socialism.
2018 •
(co-authored with John Deal and Matt Hendryx) The election of George W. Bush in 2000 was aimed at creating both a permanent Republican majority and a new Gilded Age. While the former was not achieved, the latter definitely emerged. In the last decade, scholars in political science and economics have conducted studies that show exactly how far we have come toward building a new age of inequality. The work of political scientists such as Larry Bartels and Martin Gilens has shown that inequality is not only the result of political decisions, but also that the policymaking process itself responds most to those who benefit from inequality. At the same time economists such as Anthony Atkinson and Thomas Piketty have documented the unprecedented levels of income and wealth inequality. Simultaneous with this academic work, political activists have raised important challenges to the system and the inequality on which it is based. In 2011, Occupy Wall Street brought the discourse of inequality into the daily news, and since then, striking fast food workers and others have pushed hard for a higher minimum wage. Such developments in the academy and the polity demand that we pay close attention to the causes and consequences of inequality. They require that we also think about alternatives to an economy and a polity that sustain and perpetuate inequality--alternatives that will yield a more egalitarian democratic society.
The Enigma of the Night: Dream Interpretations in Medieval Slavonic Apocrypha
Pages from Enigma finalThe Review of Laser Engineering
Measurements on radio-frequency discharge plasma of silane by coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy and laser-induced fluorescence1989 •
Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law
Moving Away From Paternalism: The New Law on Disability in Indonesia2017 •
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Self-Assembled TiO 2 with Increased Photoelectron Production, and Improved Conduction and Transfer: Enhancing Photovoltaic Performance of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells2011 •
Frontiers in Public Health
Sustainable nutrition and the case of vegetable oils to match present and future dietary needs2018 •