Inequality In The 21st Century

This book provides selections from the seminal works of Karl Marx, Max Weber, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman that reveal some of the reasons why class, race, and gender inequalities have proven very adaptive and can flourish even today in the 21st century.

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

In a world where the effects of inequality occupy an increasingly prominent place on the public agenda, this book provides up-to-date and thorough analysis from the perspective of a group of researchers at the forefront of social stratification analysis. Exploring Social Inequality in the 21st Century is a clear and critical overview of current debates about social inequality. It includes new information, tools, and approaches to conceptualising and measuring social stratification and social class, as well as informative case studies. Throughout, the researchers describe the direct and indirect costs of social inequality. Divided into two parts – Conceptualising and Measuring Inequality; and Costs and Consequences of Inequality in the areas of Education, Employment, and Global Wealth – it includes new findings about the growth of wealth inequality in the G20 countries, and a detailed examination of tax policies designed to reduce inequality without affecting economic growth. With substantial contributions to the analysis of inequalities in education, and explanations of the processes and consequences of social and gender-based exclusion, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary social inequality. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Contemporary Social Science.

Risk, Power, and Inequality in the 21st Century provides a groundbreaking new analysis of the increasingly important relationship between risk and widening inequalities. The massive, and often unequal, impacts of contemporary risks are recognized widely in popular discussions – be it the fall-out from the 2008 financial crisis or Hurricane Katrina – yet there is a distinct neglect in social science of the overall systemic impacts of these risks for increasing inequalities. This book moves beyond this lacuna to identify novel intersections of risk and inequalities. It shows how key processes associated with risk society – the social production and distribution of risks as side-effects – are intensifying inequalities in fundamental ways. In articulating how risk is intensifying both the social sources of suffering of the least advantaged and the power of the most advantaged, this book realizes a significant rethinking of risk, power, and inequalities in contemporary society.

Leading scholars examine the conflicting paradigms of affluence and destitution in the United States—as well as other free societies—and discuss the influence of education, race, and status on economic mobility. While recent catastrophic events in New Orleans and Haiti may have magnified issues of social inequity, leaders have debated over poverty and discrimination for decades. Are the poor disadvantaged by the institutions of society or by the choices they make? Through two insightful volumes, the author examines differing academic and political perspectives to help shed light on the causes of poverty and inequality; the role that gender, race, age, or sexual preference plays in determining opportunity; and the effectiveness of current social and economic policies in balancing the inequity among disparate groups. The Economics of Inequality, Poverty, and Discrimination in the 21st Century consists of 2 volumes containing 32 papers divided into 5 categories: measurement, inequality and mobility, institutions and choices, demographic groups and discrimination, and policy. The papers—written by economists, sociologists, philosophers and lawyers—deal with the extent of inequality in the United States and how it compares to other countries, and the newly emerging evidence on the relationship between inequality and mobility within a society.

Labour market institutions, including collective bargaining, the regulation of employment contracts and social protection policies, are instrumental for improving the well-being of workers, their families and society. In many countries, these instituti

In a world where the effects of inequality occupy an increasingly prominent place on the public agenda, this book provides up-to-date and thorough analysis from the perspective of a group of researchers at the forefront of social stratification analysis. Exploring Social Inequality in the 21st Century is a clear and critical overview of current debates about social inequality. It includes new information, tools, and approaches to conceptualising and measuring social stratification and social class, as well as informative case studies. Throughout, the researchers describe the direct and indirect costs of social inequality. Divided into two parts – Conceptualising and Measuring Inequality; and Costs and Consequences of Inequality in the areas of Education, Employment, and Global Wealth – it includes new findings about the growth of wealth inequality in the G20 countries, and a detailed examination of tax policies designed to reduce inequality without affecting economic growth. With substantial contributions to the analysis of inequalities in education, and explanations of the processes and consequences of social and gender-based exclusion, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary social inequality. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Contemporary Social Science.

Social class remains a fundamental presence in British life in the twenty-first century. It is woven into the very fabric of social and political discourse, undiminished by the end of mass industry; unaugmented despite the ascendancy of 'ordinary working people' and other substitute phrases. Absent from this landscape, however, is any compelling Marxist expression or analysis of class.In Class Matters, Charles Umney brings Marxist analysis out of the 19th century textiles mill, and into the call centres, office blocks and fast food chains of modern Britain. He shows how core Marxist concepts are vital to understanding increasing pay inequality, decreasing job security, increasing routinisation and managerial control of the labour process.Providing a critical analysis of competing perspectives, Umney argues that class must be understood as a dynamic and exploitative process integral to capitalism - rather than a descriptive categorisation - in order for us to better understand the gains capital has made at the expense of labour over the last four decades.