The Price of Inequality
Joseph Stiglitz
The Price of Inequality
The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn - too late. In this timely book, Joseph Stiglitz identifies three major causes of our predicament: that markets don't work the way they are supposed to (being neither efficient nor stable); how political systems fail to correct the shortcomings of the market; and how our current economic and political systems are fundamentally unfair. He focuses chiefly on the gross inequality to which these systems give rise, but also explains how inextricably interlinked they are. Providing evidence that investment - not austerity - is vital for productivity, and offering realistic solutions for levelling the playing field and increasing social mobility, Stiglitz argues that reform of our economic and political systems is not just fairer, but is the only way to make markets work as they really should.
3.4 out of 5 based on 4 reviews
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Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Society, Politics & Philosophy, Business, Finance & Economics |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
448 |
| RRP |
|
| Date of Publication |
June 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-1846146930 |
| Publisher |
Allen Lane |
| |
The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn't seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn - too late. In this timely book, Joseph Stiglitz identifies three major causes of our predicament: that markets don't work the way they are supposed to (being neither efficient nor stable); how political systems fail to correct the shortcomings of the market; and how our current economic and political systems are fundamentally unfair. He focuses chiefly on the gross inequality to which these systems give rise, but also explains how inextricably interlinked they are. Providing evidence that investment - not austerity - is vital for productivity, and offering realistic solutions for levelling the playing field and increasing social mobility, Stiglitz argues that reform of our economic and political systems is not just fairer, but is the only way to make markets work as they really should.
Reviews
The Observer
Yvonne Roberts
“That often inchoate anger, seen in Occupy Wall Street and Spain's los indignados, is given shape, fluency, substance and authority by Stiglitz … [He] methodically and lyrically (almost joyously) exposes the myths that provide justification for "deficit fetishism" and the rule of austerity. If George Osborne is depressed at the ineffectiveness of Plan A, he should turn to Stiglitz's succinct explanation on page 230 to feel truly miserable. Cutting spending, reducing taxes, shrinking government and increasing deregulation destroys both demand and jobs — and doesn't even benefit the 1%.”
15/07/2012
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Times Higher Education
Stewart Lansley
“Many of the arguments will be familiar to those who have followed this debate. But while Stiglitz presents little new or original evidence, what he does is marshal, with force, the growing volume of academic research, much of it cited in detailed endnotes and a good deal of it from his own wide-ranging output, on the roots and impact of growing inequality.”
05/07/2012
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The Economist
The Economist
“Mr Stiglitz’s views are representative of clever, leftish America and Mr Stiglitz is (mostly) skilled at making his argument … [His] argument would benefit, however, from a better sense of history and geography. He points to the period between 1950 and 1980 as one where inequality was much reduced. But that was a highly unusual time. For much of recorded history there has been a huge gap between a wealthy landowning class and the rest ... Whether or not he has the right answers, Mr Stiglitz is surely right to focus on the issue.”
23/06/2012
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The Financial Times
Samuel Brittan
“If you think of income or wealth as a pie to be divided up by a central authority, like a mother cutting a cake for her children, then there is indeed a presumption in favour of equality. If you believe in some version of the entitlement theory, in which what each person receives from others is a reward for services rendered, then it is redistributive measures that have to be justified. If either theory were carried to its logical conclusion, we should have a hell on earth.”
13/07/2012
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