INDEX–Inequality Book Reviews

To access reviews, click on selected titles below

(I suggest beginning with “9. Summary of Inequality in graphs” for an overview of multiple aspects of inequality arranged by categories.)

Prehistory, History, and Theory of Inequality

  1. The Creation of Inequality (archeology and anthropology of the evolution to inequality)
  2. The Great Leveler (high inequality throughout history, except briefly after catastrophes)
  3. The Great Transformation (the rise of markets–consequences and economic theory)
  4. Capital and Ideology (history of ideologies of beneficiaries that claim to justify inequality)
  5. The Crisis of the Middle Class Constitution (evolution of constitutions to deal with inequality)
  6. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (Christian justification of free market inequality)
  7. The Reactionary Mind (favors inequality from hereditary wealth and hierarchical status quo)
  8. How Will Capitalism End (Speculation)

Overview of Recent Inequality

  1. Summary of Inequality in Graphs
  2. Capital in the Twenty-first Century (uniquely extensive data about inequality today)
  3. Global Inequality (summary by international economist of global inequality)
  4. American Amnesia (US inequality low after WW II, but rapidly increasing since 1980 Reagan Revolution)

Politics and propaganda of Inequality

  1. Dark Money (multibillion dollar, 50 year propaganda and influence led by Kochs and others)
  2. The Nobel Factor (Economic Nobel Prize created in 1969 by bankers to boost right wing economists)
  3. The Politics of Resentment (right wing Wisconsin takeover by outside money and propaganda)
  4. Behind the Carbon Curtain (Wyoming academic and government takeover by corp. mining)
  5. Democracy for Realists (political choice from group identity, not from leaders’ policy positions)
  6. Technology, Growth, and Development (rebuttal to “government can’t do anything right”)

How Structure of US Governance and Financial Influence Contribute to Inequality

  1. How Democracies Die (from within by elected officials, rather than coups, when norms abandoned)
  2. The Triumph of Injustice (marked imbalance in US tax system favoring the rich and corporations)
  3. The Business of America is Lobbying (enormous advantage v. unions and public interest groups)
  4. Democracy in America? (how average citizens are underrepresented and what to do about it)
  5. Kill Switch (how obstruction in the Senate, particularly from the filibuster, is subverting our democracy)
  6. Supreme Inequality (Supreme Court bias toward rich and business makes inequality worse)
  7. We, the Corporations (marked expansion of Corporate rights by courts makes inequality worse)
  8. Why Cities Lose (redistricting rules very unfavorable to urban Democrats, even without gerrymandering)
  9. Phishing for Phools (deceit in business ignored by right wing economic models)

Myth of Meritocracy

  1. Success and Luck (claims for meritocracy debunked mathematically)
  2. The Anatomy of Inequality (claims for meritocracy debunked by game theory)

Fates of Nations—International Inequality, both national and global

  1. The Shock Doctrine (disastrous switch to free markets in Russia, E. Europe, and S. America)
  2. The Rise and Fall of Nations (national policies that lead to economic failure)
  3. Why Nations Fail (from extraction economics to benefit colonialists and oligarchs)

Race-related sources of economic inequality (see also 23 and 24 above)

  1. White Rage (history of African-American inequality, especially Jim Crow)
  2. Stoney the Road (hateful characterization of Blacks in propaganda to justify Jim Crow)
  3. The Myth of the Lost Cause (debunking the lies behind persistent Confederate ideology)
  4. White too Long (Christian scholar reveals Christianity as major source of US White supremacy)
  5. The New Jim Crow (devastation of American Blacks by mass incarceration)
  6. On the Run (basis for inner-city black youth fear of interactions with police)
  7. Bring the War Home (White supremacy militia movement from 1979 to 1995)
  8. The Soul of America (historian John Mecham’s review of civil rights struggle)
  9. How the South Won the Civil War (persistence and spread of divisive Confederate ideology)