Book · 2012 · intro level
The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future
Joseph E. Stiglitz
- Venue
- W. W. Norton & Company
- Link
- not available
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In plain language
A Nobel laureate's argument that rising U.S. inequality comes from rent-seeking — market power, financial-sector capture of policy, political capture — rather than being efficient or inevitable, and that it damages growth and democratic legitimacy.
Technical summary
Synthesizes rent-seeking and political-capture theory to argue against the standard equity-efficiency tradeoff framing of inequality policy.
Key takeaways
- Directly rebuts the older economic assumption that redistribution necessarily costs growth.
Themes
Political Science: Power & DemocracyInstitutions & Long-Run Prosperity
Related works
- Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class — Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson, 2010