The New Inequality: Creating Solutions for Poor America (New Democracy Forum) - Softcover

Richard B. Freeman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807044350 ISBN 13: 9780807044353

Publisher: Beacon Press, 1999

Synopsis

A wake-up call on the new American inequality and what to do about it.

Harvard economist Richard B. Freeman launches this provocative book with the idea that in equality is the one problem from which all crises in America flow. He contends that inequality-both economic and social-has become more brutal and pervasive in the last twenty years, and that it is now time to stop analyzing its causes and consequences and concentrate on doing something about it. Freeman offers real solutions: raising the income of the working class, reinvesting in cities, and reenergizing democratic institutions through the encouragement of local citizen organizations.

His argument is answered by distinguished activists, social scientists, and activists-James Tobin, Heidi Hartmann, Michael Piore, Frances Fox Piven, James Heckman, Ernesto Cortes, Jr., and Paul R. Krugman-in essays that heed and add depth to Freeman's call. As they debate the limits of traditional solutions for inequality, all agree on one key prerequisite: A democracy can solve inequality only by living up to its name.

Spirited and engaging, this unique dialogue will serve as a guidebook for activists, students, and all interested in achieving a just society.

NEW DEMOCRACY FORUM: A series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns. The series editors (for Boston Review), Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, aim to foster politically engaged, intellectually honest, and morally serious debate about fundamental issues-both on and off the agenda of conventional politics.

About this title

About the Author

Richard B. Freeman is Ascherman Chair of Economics at Harvard University.

Reviews

Beacon kicks off its New Democracy Forum series with a lively debate on tactics to reverse the two-decade trend toward a two-tiered society in the U.S. Harvard economist Freeman opens this free-for-all debate by offering five "strategies for raising the bottom" of the nation's income curve: asset-based redistribution; starting-gate equality; a higher social wage, progressively taxed; building unions; and rebuilding cities. His ideas are then dissected, supported, deflated, or challenged by community organizer Ernesto Cortes Jr.; economists James Heckman (University of Chicago), Michael Piore and Paul R. Krugman (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and James Tobin (Yale, emeritus); Heidi Hartmann of the Institute for Women's Policy Research; and Frances Fox Piven (City University of New York's Graduate School). Most commentators share at least some of Freeman's goals, but several find his proposals too limited a challenge to the prevailing market capitalism, and others doubt that even these modest proposals could be enacted. Provocative ideas, well worth debating. Mary Carroll

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807044350
• ISBN 13: 9780807044353
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 85
• Editor: Joshua Cohen, Joel Rogers