Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The Vanishing Middle Class, new epilogue
Author: Peter TeminPublisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262535297
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
Why the United States has developed an economy divided between rich and poor and how racism helped bring this about. The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America, and outlines ways to work toward greater equality so that America will no longer have one economy for the rich and one for the poor. Many poorer Americans live in conditions resembling those of a developing country—substandard education, dilapidated housing, and few stable employment opportunities. And although almost half of black Americans are poor, most poor people are not black. Conservative white politicians still appeal to the racism of poor white voters to get support for policies that harm low-income people as a whole, casting recipients of social programs as the Other—black, Latino, not like "us." Politicians also use mass incarceration as a tool to keep black and Latino Americans from participating fully in society. Money goes to a vast entrenched prison system rather than to education. In the dual justice system, the rich pay fines and the poor go to jail.
War on the Middle Class
Author: Lou DobbsPublisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101218754
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
Lou Dobbs's bestselling exposé of the silent assault on the living standards of ordinary Americans Millions of TV viewers have known Lou Dobbs for years as the Walter Cronkite of economics coverage, and now the anchor has become the preeminent champion of the common man and the good of the national interest, who tells uncomfortable truths in a voice that can't be ignored. In this incendiary book, he presents a frontline report on the betrayal of America's middle class by interests that range from rapacious corporations to an out-of-touch political elite. The result is not only lost jobs but also dysfunctional schools and unaffordable health care. But War on the Middle Class also outlines a bold program for change. As essential as it is infuriating, this book furnishes the talking points for the national debate on income and class.
China's Emerging Middle Class
Author: Cheng LiPublisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815704054
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
Decades ago, there was no distinct middle class in the People's Republic of China. Any meaningful discussion of China's economy, politics, or society must take into account the rapid emergence and explosive growth of the Chinese middle class. This book details the origins and characteristics of this dramatic change.
The Autocratic Middle Class
Author: Bryn RosenfeldPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691192197
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
"The conventional wisdom is that a growing middle class will give rise to democracy. Yet the middle classes of the developing world have grown at a remarkable pace over the past two decades, and much of this growth has taken place in countries that remain nondemocratic. Rosenfeld explains this phenomenon by showing how modern autocracies secure support from key middle-class constituencies. Drawing on original surveys, interviews, archival documents, and secondary sources collected from nine months in the field, she compares the experiences of recent post-communist countries, including Russia, the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, to show that under autocracy, state efforts weaken support for democracy, especially among the middle class. When autocratic states engage extensively in their economies - by offering state employment, offering perks to those to those who are loyal, and threatening dismissal to those who are disloyal - the middle classes become dependent on the state for economic opportunities and career advancement, and, ultimately, do not support a shift toward democratization. Her argument explains why popular support for Ukraine's Orange Revolution unraveled or why Russians did not protest evidence of massive electoral fraud. The author's research questions the assumption that a rising share of educated, white-collar workers always makes the conditions for democracy more favorable, and why dependence on the state has such pernicious consequences for democratization"--
The Radical Middle Class
Author: Robert D. JohnstonPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691126003
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 420
Book Description
America has a long tradition of middle-class radicalism, albeit one that intellectual orthodoxy has tended to obscure. The Radical Middle Class seeks to uncover the democratic, populist, and even anticapitalist legacy of the middle class. By examining in particular the independent small business sector or petite bourgeoisie, using Progressive Era Portland, Oregon, as a case study, Robert Johnston shows that class still matters in America. But it matters only if the politics and culture of the leading player in affairs of class, the middle class, is dramatically reconceived. This book is a powerful combination of intellectual, business, labor, medical, and, above all, political history. Its author also humanizes the middle class by describing the lives of four small business owners: Harry Lane, Will Daly, William U'Ren, and Lora Little. Lane was Portland's reform mayor before becoming one of only six senators to vote against U.S. entry into World War I. Daly was Oregon's most prominent labor leader and a onetime Socialist. U'Ren was the national architect of the direct democracy movement. Little was a leading antivaccinationist. The Radical Middle Class further explores the Portland Ku Klux Klan and concludes with a national overview of the American middle class from the Progressive Era to the present. With its engaging narrative, conceptual richness, and daring argumentation, it will be welcomed by all who understand that reexamining the middle class can yield not only better scholarship but firmer grounds for democratic hope.
The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution
Author: Ganesh SitaramanPublisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0451493923
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
In this original, provocative contribution to the debate over economic inequality, Ganesh Sitaraman argues that a strong and sizable middle class is a prerequisite for America’s constitutional system. A New York Times Notable Book of 2017 For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable—and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America’s republic. Over the next two centuries, generations of Americans fought to sustain the economic preconditions for our constitutional system. But today, with economic and political inequality on the rise, Sitaraman says Americans face a choice: Will we accept rising economic inequality and risk oligarchy or will we rebuild the middle class and reclaim our republic? The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution is a tour de force of history, philosophy, law, and politics. It makes a compelling case that inequality is more than just a moral or economic problem; it threatens the very core of our constitutional system.
Middle Class Dreams
Author: Stanley B. GreenbergPublisher: Crown
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 358
Book Description
President Clinton's brilliant advisor offers a provocative look at the radical new shape of American politics, revealing how today's anger has grown out of the middle class's betrayal by both political parties in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Charts; graphs; index.
The Return of the Middle Class
Author: The Return of the Middle Class
Author: John CorbinThe Return of Ordinary Capitalism
Author: Sanford F. SchramPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190253037
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
As Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward argued in the early seventies, in a capitalist economy, social welfare policies alternatingly serve political and economic ends as circumstances dictate. In moments of political stability, governments emphasize a capitalistic work ethic (even if it means working a job that will leave one impoverished); when times are less politically stable, states liberalize welfare policies to recreate the conditions for political acquiescence. Sanford Schram argues in this new book that each shift produces its own path dependency even as it represents yet another iteration of what he (somewhat ironically) calls "ordinary capitalism," where the changes in market logic inevitably produce changes in the structure of the state. In today's ordinary capitalism, neoliberalism is the prevailing political-economic logic that has contributed significantly to unprecedented levels of inequality in an already unequal society. As the new normal, neoliberalism has marketization of the state as a core feature, heightening the role of economic actors, especially financiers, in shaping public policy. The results include increased economic precarity among the general population, giving rise to dramatic political responses on both the Left and the Right (Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party in particular). Schram examines neoliberalism's constraints on politics as well as social and economic policy and gives special attention to the role protest politics plays in keeping alive the possibilities for ordinary people to exercise political agency. The Return of Ordinary Capitalism concludes with political strategies for working through--rather than around--neoliberalism via a radical, rather than status-quo-reinforcing, incrementalism.