The Great Polarization: How Ideas, Power, and Policies Drive Inequality(Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia: Challenges in Development and Globalization)

Inequality of income and wealth has skyrocketed since the 1970s. As the super-rich have grasped the vast majority of the gains from economic growth, labor's share of income has declined. The middle class has stagnated and those at the bottom have become even worse off. Persistent structural discrimination on the basis of race and gender exacerbates these economic disparities. The Great Polarization brings together contributors from disparate perspectives to examine the causes and consequences of this dramatic rise in inequality. They demonstrate that institutions, norms, policy, and political power-not the "natural" operation of the market-determine the distribution of wealth and income. The book underscores the role of ideas and ideologies, showing how neoclassical economics and related beliefs have functioned in public debates to justify inequality. Together, these essays bear out an inescapable conclusion: inequality is a choice. The rules of the economy have been rewritten to favor those at the top, entrenching the imbalances of power that widen the gap between the very rich and everyone else. Contributors reconsider the data on inequality, examine the policies that have led to this predicament, and outline potential ways forward. Using both theoretical and empirical analysis and drawing on the knowledge of experts in policy, political economy, economics, and other disciplines, The Great Polarization offers a kaleidoscopic view of the processes that have shaped today's stark hierarchies.

Table of Contents:
Introduction, by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Rudiger L. von Arnim Part I. America’s Growing Inequality 1. Alternative Theories of Inequality: Causes, Consequences, and Policies, by Joseph E. Stiglitz Part II. Recasting the Evidence in a New Light 2. Labor Market Segmentation and the Distribution of Income, by Ellis Scharfenaker and Markus Schneider 3. The Cost of Gender Inequality: Structural Change and the Labor Share of Income, by Stephanie Seguino and Elissa Braunstein 4. The Postwar Trajectory of the U.S. Labor Share: Structural Change and Secular Stagnation, by Jose Barrales-Ruiz, Ivan Mendieta-Muñoz, Codrina Rada, Ansel Schiavone, and Rudiger L. von Arnim 5. The Changing Patterns of Income Inequality in the United States, 1917–2017, by Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy Part III. Policy Matters: Labor Markets, Education, Tax, and Intellectual Property 6. Policy Decisions’ Role in Wage Suppression and Inequality, by Lawrence Mishel 7. “Leave Something for the Risk-Takers:” How the Democrats Rebuilt Structural Racism and Hastened the Great Polarization, 1964–1978, by Julia Ott 8. Teachers’ Unions and Public Education During the Great Polarization, by Eunice Han and Thomas N. Maloney 9. Is Intellectual Property the Root of All Evil? Patents, Copyrights, and Inequality, by Dean Baker Part IV. The Political Economy of Inequality: Political Context and the Way Forward 10. The Economic Discourse on Income Inequality, by Korkut A. Ertürk 11. Redistribution and Social Exclusion in the United States and Germany, by Marcel Paret and Michael Levien 12. A Race-Conscious Economic Rights Approach to Providing Economic Security for All, by Darrick Hamilton 13. Law and the Collective Struggle for Economic Justice, by Marion Crain Contributors Index

About the Author :
Rudiger L. von Arnim is associate professor of economics at the University of Utah. He is also senior research associate at the Austrian Foundation for Development Research. Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University and a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He is copresident of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University, chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute, and cochair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD.

Review :
The Great Polarization warns us that the history of the Gilded Age is repeating itself because we are aping the narratives from that era that celebrated inequality as the natural evolution of technological progress. This book gets us to focus on how policies and the public discourse have been captured to serve inequality. The Great Polarization makes a persuasive case that the distribution of economic rewards is overwhelmingly a political choice. While it’s depressing that our politics have made this choice, fortunately there are no real binding economic constraints keeping us from a more broadly shared prosperity. This volume should motivate economists to turn their attention to the specific policy changes that could be made that would deliver a fairer set of economic outcomes. The Great Polarization seeks to move economics beyond market fundamentalism, not by focusing on critique, but by laying out new ways of thinking about the relation between markets and states. Representing an earnest and pioneering effort in the building of new ways of thinking about capitalism’s recent past and theorizing about its future, this volume is at the cutting edge of the transformation of economics and its way of approaching growth and development. This lively and well-argued book, which takes into account race and gender as well as class, shows that increasing inequality in income and wealth is driven by policy choices that favor property rights over labor rights. It is essential reading for everyone concerned with reducing inequality. Describing some of the most important economic trends in the last quarter century, particularly focused on economic inequalities, The Great Polarization tackles one of the most salient economic problems of our era comprehensively. The volume contains some outstanding papers on the causes of rising inequality and on economic policy and inequality. There is quite a lot that is worth discussing here, and I recommend the book, potentially for classroom use in a public policy course, or for scholars engaged in work on inequality in the US case.