The very rich have gotten a lot richer these past few decades--even during the current economic crisis--while most Americans haven't. How have they managed to restructure the economy to reap the lion's share, tearing new holes in the safety net and saddling all of us with increased debt and risk? In an innovative historical departure, Hacker and Pierson trace the rise of the winner-take-all economy back to a major transformation of American politics in the late 1970s, under a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress. With big business and conservative ideologues organizing themselves to undo the regulations and progressive tax policies that had helped ensure a fair distribution of economic rewards, deregulation got under way, taxes were cut for the wealthiest, and business decisively defeated labor in Washington. And this transformation continued under Reagan and the Bushes as well as Clinton.--From publisher description.

The very rich have gotten a lot richer these past few decades--even during the current economic crisis--while most Americans haven't. How have they managed to restructure the economy to reap the lion's share, tearing new holes in the safety net and saddling all of us with increased debt and risk? In an innovative historical departure, Hacker and Pierson trace the rise of the winner-take-all economy back to a major transformation of American politics in the late 1970s, under a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress. With big business and conservative ideologues organizing themselves to undo the regulations and progressive tax policies that had helped ensure a fair distribution of economic rewards, deregulation got under way, taxes were cut for the wealthiest, and business decisively defeated labor in Washington. And this transformation continued under Reagan and the Bushes as well as Clinton.--From publisher description.

“Urgent work, by the foremost champion of ‘progressive capitalism.’ ” — The New Yorker An authoritative account of the dangers of unfettered markets and monied politics, People, Power, and Profits shows us an America in crisis. The American people, however, are far from powerless, and Joseph Stiglitz provides an alternative path forward through his vision of progressive capitalism, with a comprehensive set of political and economic changes.

Pulitzer Prize-winning economics journalist Steven Pearlstein argues that our thirty year experiment in unfettered markets has undermined core values required to make capitalism and democracy work. Thirty years ago, 'greed is good' and 'maximizing shareholder value' became the new mantras woven into the fabric of our business culture, economy, and politics. Although, around the world, free market capitalism has lifted more than a billion people from poverty, in the United States most of the benefits of economic growth have been captured by the richest 10%, along with providing justification for squeezing workers, cheating customers, avoiding taxes, and leaving communities in the lurch. As a result, Americans are losing faith that a free market economy is the best system. In Can American Capitalism Survive', Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steven Pearlstein chronicles our descent and challenges the theories being taught in business schools and exercised in boardrooms around the country. We're missing a key tenet of Adam Smith's wealth of nations: without trust and social capital, democratic capitalism cannot survive. Further, equality of incomes and opportunity need not come at the expense of economic growth. Pearlstein lays out bold steps we can take as a country: a guaranteed minimum income paired with universal national service, tax incentives for companies to share profits with workers, ending class segregation in public education, and restoring competition to markets. He provides a path forward that will create the shared prosperity that will sustain capitalism over the long term ; Thirty years ago, 'greed is good' and 'maximizing shareholder value' became the new mantras woven into the fabric of our business culture, economy, and politics. Pearlstein argues that our thirty year experiment in unfettered markets has undermined core values required to make capitalism and democracy work. He challenges the theories being taught in business schools and in boardrooms, believing that we're missing a key tenet of Adam Smith's wealth of nations: without trust and social capital, democratic capitalism cannot survive. -- adapted from jacket

For two months in 1871, the workers of Paris took control of Europe's most celebrated capital city. When they established the world's first workers' democracy--the Paris Commune--they found no ready-made blueprints, and no precedents to study for how to run their city without princes, prison wardens, or professional politicians. All they had was the boundless revolutionary enthusiasm of Paris's socialists, communists, anarchists, and radical Jacobins, all of whom threw their energies into creating a new society. As the city's bakers, industrial workers, and other "ruffians" built new institutions of collective political power to overturn social and economic inequality, their former rulers sought to thwart their efforts by any means necessary--ultimately deciding to drown the Communards in blood. By paying particular attention to the historic problems of the Commune, critical debates over its implications, and the glimpse of a better world the Commune provided, Gluckstein reveals its enduring lessons and inspiration for today's struggles. Donny Gluckstein is author of The Nazis, Capitalism and the Working Class and The Tragedy of Bukharin . He is a lecturer in history in Edinburgh and is a member of the Socialist Workers Party.

This is a posthumous collection of essays in political philosophy by G.A. Cohen. Part I asks what egalitarians have most reason to equalize. Part II considers the relationship between freedom and property. Part III reflects upon ideal theory and political practice

Inequality has always been with us. With the growth of capitalism across the globe, inequalities of income, wealth and power became increasingly extreme. Written by economist Douglas Dowd, this book shows that the present banking crisis is the result of the growth of inequality across the globe. The expansion of the financial sector has brought incredible riches to a select few, at the expense of the majority. Inequality was ignored, or described as a necessary aspect of a booming global economy. With the collapse of the world markets, the fallacy of this position is clear. Inequality and the Global Economic Crisis shows how it is only by addressing inequality that we can secure the health of our economies in the future.--Publisher.