1. The Creation of Inequality (archeology and anthropology of the evolution to inequality)
The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire. Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus. Human societies were markedly egalitarian during hunter-gatherer times, but…
2. The Great Leveler (high inequality throughout history, except briefly after catastrophes)
The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century. Walter Scheidel. 2017.The author’s thesis is that throughout recorded history extremely violent shocks…
3. The Great Transformation (the rise of markets–consequences and economic theory)
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Karl Polanyi. 1944.In 1944, the opposing monumental classics, The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek and The Great Transformation…
4. Capital and Ideology (history of ideologies of beneficiaries that claim to justify inequality)
Capital and Ideology. Thomas Piketty. This book is a follow up to Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century, the 1000+ page definitive economic documentation and review of global inequality. Capital…
5. The Crisis of the Middle Class Constitution (evolution of constitutions to deal with inequality)
The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution. Ganesh Sitaraman. 2017.The author, from the Vanderbilt Law School and the Center for American Progress, maintains that the number one threat to American constitutional…
6. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (Christian justification of free market inequality)
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. Benjamin M. Friedman. (Review Michael Shermer in The American Scholar—considerably abridged). Market Morality: The divine underpinnings of Western prosperity Over the years, some religious…
7. The Reactionary Mind (favors inequality from hereditary wealth and hierarchical status quo)
The Reactionary Mind. Corey Robin.Corey Robin’s book is a collection of his essays and hence does not provide a straight-line analysis explaining conservatism. Part one focuses first on historical topics…
8. How Will Capitalism End (Speculation)
How Will Capitalism End? Wolfgang Streeck. 2016.Professor Streeck, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Research in Cologne, begins with a review of the 2013 book Does Capitalism Have…
10. Capital in the Twenty-first Century (uniquely extensive data about inequality today)
Capital in the Twenty-first Century. Thomas Piketty. In his introduction to this book, Piketty states, “When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and…
11. Global Inequality (summary by international economist of global inequality)
Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization. Branko Milanovic. 2016.In this book, inequality is characterized globally, between nations, and within nations. Inequality is often quantitated by the…
12. American Amnesia (US inequality low after WW II, but rapidly increasing since 1980 Reagan Revolution)
American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper. Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson. 2016.The first half of the Twentieth Century was characterized…
13. Dark Money (multibillion dollar, 50 year propaganda and influence campaign led by Kochs and others)
Dark Money. Jane Mayer. Market societies unrestrained by government inevitably experience relentlessly increasing inequality. The wealthy beneficiaries of inequality then have the resources to perpetuate and enhance this unfortunate cycle…
14. The Nobel Factor (Economic Nobel Prize created in 1969 by bankers to boost right wing economists)
The Nobel Factor: The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy, and the Market Turn. Avner Offer and Gabriel Soderberg. 2016.The authors argue that in 1969 the Swedish business elite managed to…
15. The Politics of Resentment (right wing Wisconsin takeover by outside money and propaganda)
The Politics of Resentment. Katherine J. Cramer.Ms. Kramer, a University of Wisconsin—Madison Political Science Professor, explored a recent political paradox, “We live in a time of increasing economic inequality, and…
16. Behind the Carbon Curtain (Wyoming academic and government takeover by corp. mining)
Behind the Carbon Curtain: The Energy Industry, Political Censorship, and Free Speech.I liked this book enough to buy a second copy from Amazon so I could write an Amazon book…
17. Democracy for Realists (political choice from group identity, not from leaders’ policy positions)
Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Christopher H. Achen & Larry M. Bartels. Princeton University Press. 2016.The authors challenge the cherished American notion that general citizens…
18. Technology, Growth, and Development (rebuttal to “government can’t do anything right”)
Technology, Growth, and Development: An Induced Innovation Perspective. Vernon W. Ruttan. 2001. (Textbook) Part One—Productivity and Economic Growth: Throughout history and in today’s developing countries, sustained economic growth, which is…
19. How Democracies Die (from within by elected officials, rather than coups, when norms abandoned)
How Democracies Die. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. Historically, we think of democracies as giving way to dictatorships after violent military coups or violent revolutions. However, since the end of…
20. The Triumph of Injustice (marked imbalance in US tax system favoring the rich and corporations)
The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay. Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. From 1980 to 2019, US inequality has grown rapidly from…
21. The Business of America is Lobbying (enormous advantage v. unions and public interest groups)
The Business of America is Lobbying. Lee Drutman. During the past forty years, wealthy special interests have managed to create a cycle of increasing influence on US government leading to…
22. Democracy in America? (how average citizens are underrepresented and what to do about it)
Democracy in America? What has gone wrong and what we can do about it. Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens. Our government in Washington is so mired in gridlock and inaction…
23. Kill Switch (how obstruction in the Senate, particularly from the filibuster, is subverting our democracy)
Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy. Adam Jentleson. As America faces enormous challenges, the Senate has become a kill switch that cuts…
24. Supreme Inequality (Supreme Court bias toward rich and business makes inequality worse)
Supreme inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-year Battle for a More Unjust America. Adam Cohen Despite its idealized image, the reality of the US Supreme Court throughout its history is that…
25. We, the Corporations (marked expansion of Corporate rights by courts makes inequality worse)
We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights. Adam Winkler. The earliest version of a corporation, the societas publicranum, was created in ancient Rome in about 300 B.C.…
26. Why Cities Lose (redistricting rules very unfavorable to urban Democrats, even without gerrymandering)
Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-rural Political Divide. Jonathan A. Rodden. It is hardly surprising that a system of political representation designed 234 years ago for four…
27. Phishing for Phools (deceit in business ignored by right wing economic models)
Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation & Deception. George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller. 2015.The authors, both Nobel laureates in economics, argue that the common economic model of…
28. Success and Luck (claims for meritocracy debunked mathematically)
Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy. Robert H. FrankWorld War II was followed by thirty years of strong economic growth with no increase in economic inequality.…
29. The Anatomy of Inequality (claims for meritocracy debunked by game theory)
The Anatomy of Inequality: Its Social and Economic Origins and Solutions. Per Molander. 2014.The author, Per Molander, was a consultant to the Swedish government, the World Bank, the OECD, the…
30. The Shock Doctrine (disastrous switch to free markets in Russia, E. Europe, and S. America)
The Shock Doctrine. Naomi KleinThe author strikes at the heart of market fundamentalists’ claim that freedom and democracy are the hallmarks of deregulated capitalism. Instead, she presents market fundamentalism as…
31. The Rise and Fall of Nations (national policies that lead to economic failure)
The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World. Ruchir Sharma. 2016.Ruchir Sharma, head of emerging markets and chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management,…
32. Why Nations Fail (from extraction economics to benefit colonialists and oligarchs)
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. 2012.The authors begin by comparing life in Nogales, Arizona with life in Nogales, Sonora,…
33. White Rage (history of African-American inequality, especially Jim Crow)
White Rage. Carol AndersonThe author was prompted to write this book by the usual framing in terms of black rage of discussions of police shootings of several unarmed black men.…
34. Stoney the Road (hateful characterization of Blacks in propaganda to justify Jim Crow)
Stoney the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The author of this book, the eminent Harvard historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., provides…
35. The Myth of the Lost Cause (debunking the lies behind persistent Confederate ideology)
The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South fought the Civil War and why the North won. Edward H. Bonekemper III. (Review from anonymous historian at Edge Induced Cohesion…
36. White too Long (Christian scholar reveals Christianity as major source of US White supremacy)
White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. Robert P. Jones. Reviewed by Jemar Tisby in the NY Times In 1968, James Baldwin wrote in The New…