Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide in America and Its Poisonous Consequences [Paperback]

James Lardner (Editor), David A. Smith (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2007

The inequality compendium hailed by Knight-Ridder as a "must-read for everyone who hopes to see equal opportunity restored to its rightful place in the American dream."

"Astonishing as it seems, scarcely anyone in official Washington seems to be troubled by a gap between rich and poor that is greater than it has been in half a century—and greater than that of any other Western nation today."—from the foreword by Bill Moyers

The critically acclaimed Inequality Matters found a wide and appreciative audience among those who see growing inequality as a "toxic state of affairs" (Sojourners) that imperils the health of the United States. Inequality is, many believe, the single most important domestic issue we face.

Inequality Matters includes a range of progressives, activists, writers, and academics—among them Barbara Ehrenreich, Christopher Jencks, Meizhu Lui, David Cay Johnston, and Jim Wallis—whose nuanced and sharply argued essays do much to illuminate the growing divergence between the haves and the can't haves. Called "excellent" by the New York Review of Books, Inequality Matters paints a readable and crucial portrait of the widening wealth and opportunity gaps while we drift, as Lardner writes, "toward a Third World-like distribution of our riches."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With the exception of Bill Moyers's fiery foreword, most of the essays in this collection examine the growing divide between the rich and the poor with irrefutable calm. "Today the United States is by far the most unequal rich democracy in the world," Christopher Jencks observes in his essay, "The Fork in the Road," which traces wealth disparity to constitutional design. "Gaps in [college] enrollment by class and race, after declining in the 1960s and 1970s, are once again as wide as they were thirty years ago, and getting wider," remarks Tamara Draut; at the same time, she points out, the wage disparity between college-degree-haves and have-nots grew starker. Meanwhile, Robert H. Frank analyzes how "spending cascades"— in which high-end wage earners "initiate a process that leads to increased expenditures... even among those whose incomes have not risen"—may have aggravated middle class bankruptcy. Though less vividly written than the New York Times' recently published Class Matters, this collection presents a similarly troubling vision of America's economic future. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

James Lardner is a journalist and senior fellow at Demos, a national think-and-action tank based in New York City. He is the co-author of NYPD: A City and Its Police. David A. Smith is a senior fellow in Business, Society, and Democracy at Demos. He previously served as the director of public policy at the AFL-CIO and as an aide to Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (August 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595581758
• ISBN-13: 978-1595581754
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #897,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inequality Matters -- and How!, January 3, 2006

By 

Sam Pizzigati "Too Much" (Kensington, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide In America And Its Poisonous Consequences (Hardcover)

Midway through 2004, veteran journalist James Lardner, with the help of the Demos think tank in New York, put together the first national conference directly focused on economic inequality - the gap between America's rich and everyone else - since that gap started widening in the late 1970s.

This Inequality Matters conference drew several hundred people to New York University for a weekend of robust discussion and debate. But few outside NYU's conference rooms ever noticed. America's ever more unequal business as usual rolled on unabated.

Here's hoping that Inequality Matters the book can do what Inequality Matters the conference could not - trigger a long-overdue bit of national introspection over the incredible concentration of income and wealth we Americans have witnessed ever since Jimmy Carter begat Ronald Reagan.

Today's conventional wisdom, of course, simply denies that this concentration of wealth makes any difference. So long as "even a have-not can have a VCR and a cellphone," argue the apologists for inequality who saturate our politics and our media, what possible reason could we have to worry about whether our richest are getting fantastically richer?

Inequality Matters the book takes on this question, in a series of essays inspired by Inequality Matters the conference. Ably edited by James Lardner and Demos senior fellow David Smith, this book's pages abound in insights - on everything from housing and health to happiness - that even regular readers of progressive books and periodicals will find fresh and provocative.

One example: Communities with the widest income gaps between top and middle, Cornell economist Robert Frank points out in his contribution, turn out to display "significantly higher personal bankruptcy rates, divorce rates, and average commute times."

Apologists for inequality, beware! With the publication of Inequality Matters, your case - that we need not worry about the wealth of the wealthy - has never seemed more dim-witted. Or dangerous.

Excerpted from a longer review that appears in the January 2, 2006 edition of Too Much (www.toomuchonline.org)

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unequal Representation but Good Essays, February 10, 2006

By 

Smallchief - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide In America And Its Poisonous Consequences (Hardcover)

"Inequality Matters" is a collection of 22 essays by different authors about the growing gap between the rich of America and the rest of us. The best is Bill Moyers' opening -- and passionate -- shot at the "plunder of public trust" and the "spectacle of corruption" that is the present day situation of the United States.

All of the essays which follow are convincing on the growing gap betweeen rich and poor in areas such as education, retirement, wages, taxes, and health. This is perhaps the most important long-term issue facing American society.

The weakness of the book is that it is one-sided, a liberal feast on the faults of the conservatives and corporations. I agree with the liberals, but I would like to see some responses from conservatives. (Not that any conservative would venture like a Christian into this arena of leonine liberals. And, would that liberals were a bit more like lions and a little less like liberals!) You won't find any attempt at balance. It illustrates another problem in the U.S: the liberals talk to only liberals and the conservatives talk only to conservatives. But without an opportunity for the other side to answer back you can't be sure how biased or incorrect the essays may be. So read the book because it's good, but also read a conservative book before you take to the street promoting "class warfare" and a crusade against the rich. After reading both sides -- you'll take to the streets.

Smallchief

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Discusses probably the greatest problem for America today., December 1, 2010

By 

steamduck43 "The Realist" (Oregon USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide In America And Its Poisonous Consequences (Hardcover)

The greatest problem we face today is the growing gap between the richest and everyone else, and the slow but steady decline of the middle class.

The contributors to this book make clear how it is happening, and what should be done to address the problem.

I recommend it highly.