Inequality in Capitalist Societies

Inequality in Capitalist Societies PDF Author: Surinder S. Jodhka
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134837925
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book Here

Book Description
Inequality is one of the most discussed topics of our times. Yet, we still do not know how to tackle the issue effectively. The book argues that this is due to the lack of understanding the structures responsible for the persistence of social inequality. It enquires into the mechanisms that produce and reproduce invisible dividing lines in society. Based on original case studies of Brazil, Germany, India and Laos comprising thousands of interviews, the authors argue that invisible classes emerge in capitalist societies, both reproducing and transforming precapitalist hierarchies. At the same time, locally particular forms of inequality persist. Social inequality in the contemporary world has to be understood as a specific combination of precapitalist inequalities, capitalist transformation and a particular class structure, which seems to emerge in all capitalist societies. The book links the configurations to an interpretation of global domination as well as to symbolic classification.

Inequality in Capitalist Societies

Inequality in Capitalist Societies PDF Author: Surinder S. Jodhka
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1134837925
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book Here

Book Description
Inequality is one of the most discussed topics of our times. Yet, we still do not know how to tackle the issue effectively. The book argues that this is due to the lack of understanding the structures responsible for the persistence of social inequality. It enquires into the mechanisms that produce and reproduce invisible dividing lines in society. Based on original case studies of Brazil, Germany, India and Laos comprising thousands of interviews, the authors argue that invisible classes emerge in capitalist societies, both reproducing and transforming precapitalist hierarchies. At the same time, locally particular forms of inequality persist. Social inequality in the contemporary world has to be understood as a specific combination of precapitalist inequalities, capitalist transformation and a particular class structure, which seems to emerge in all capitalist societies. The book links the configurations to an interpretation of global domination as well as to symbolic classification.

How Much Inequality Is Fair?

How Much Inequality Is Fair? PDF Author: Venkat Venkatasubramanian
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231543220
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 410

Get Book Here

Book Description
Many in the United States feel that the nation’s current level of economic inequality is unfair and that capitalism is not working for 90% of the population. Yet some inequality is inevitable. The question is: What level of inequality is fair? Mainstream economics has offered little guidance on fairness and the ideal distribution of income. Political philosophy, meanwhile, has much to say about fairness yet relies on qualitative theories that cannot be verified by empirical data. To address inequality, we need to know what the goal is—and for this, we need a quantitative, testable theory of fairness for free-market capitalism. How Much Inequality Is Fair? synthesizes concepts from economics, political philosophy, game theory, information theory, statistical mechanics, and systems engineering into a mathematical framework for a fair free-market society. The key to this framework is the insight that maximizing fairness means maximizing entropy, which makes it possible to determine the fairest possible level of pay inequality. The framework therefore provides a moral justification for capitalism in mathematical terms. Venkat Venkatasubramanian also compares his theory’s predictions to actual inequality data from various countries—showing, for instance, that Scandinavia has near-ideal fairness, while the United States is markedly unfair—and discusses the theory’s implications for tax policy, social programs, and executive compensation.

Income Inequality in Capitalist Democracies

Income Inequality in Capitalist Democracies PDF Author: Vicki L. Birchfield
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271047461
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Examines patterns of income inequality among 16 advanced democracies from the mid 1970s to the early 2000s and explains why some societies have a large and growing divide between the rich and the poor while others, facing similar global economic pressures, maintain more egalitarian income distributions"--Provided by publisher.

Capitalism, Alone

Capitalism, Alone PDF Author: Branko Milanovic
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674260309
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book Here

Book Description
For the first time in history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. Capitalism prevails because it delivers prosperity and meets desires for autonomy. But it also is unstable and morally defective. Surveying the varieties and futures of capitalism, Branko Milanovic offers creative solutions to improve a system that isn’t going anywhere.

After the Digital Tornado

After the Digital Tornado PDF Author: Kevin Werbach
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108645259
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Get Book Here

Book Description
Networks powered by algorithms are pervasive. Major contemporary technology trends - Internet of Things, Big Data, Digital Platform Power, Blockchain, and the Algorithmic Society - are manifestations of this phenomenon. The internet, which once seemed an unambiguous benefit to society, is now the basis for invasions of privacy, massive concentrations of power, and wide-scale manipulation. The algorithmic networked world poses deep questions about power, freedom, fairness, and human agency. The influential 1997 Federal Communications Commission whitepaper “Digital Tornado” hailed the “endless spiral of connectivity” that would transform society, and today, little remains untouched by digital connectivity. Yet fundamental questions remain unresolved, and even more serious challenges have emerged. This important collection, which offers a reckoning and a foretelling, features leading technology scholars who explain the legal, business, ethical, technical, and public policy challenges of building pervasive networks and algorithms for the benefit of humanity. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Class Inequality and Political Order

Class Inequality and Political Order PDF Author: Frank Parkin
Publisher: Holt McDougal
ISBN: 9780275839802
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description


Analyzing Oppression

Analyzing Oppression PDF Author: Ann E. Cudd
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195187431
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 293

Get Book Here

Book Description
Analyzing Oppression presents a new, integrated theory of social oppression, which tackles the fundamental question that no theory of oppression has satisfactorily answered: if there is no natural hierarchy among humans, why are some cases of oppression so persistent? Cudd argues that the explanation lies in the coercive co-opting of the oppressed to join in their own oppression. This answer sets the stage for analysis throughout the book, as it explores the questions of how and why the oppressed join in their oppression. Cudd argues that oppression is an institutionally structured harm perpetrated on social groups by other groups using direct and indirect material, economic, and psychological force. Among the most important and insidious of the indirect forces is an economic force that operates through oppressed persons' own rational choices. This force constitutes the central feature of analysis, and the book argues that this force is especially insidious because it conceals the fact of oppression from the oppressed and from others who would be sympathetic to their plight. The oppressed come to believe that they suffer personal failings and this belief appears to absolve society from responsibility. While on Cudd's view oppression is grounded in material exploitation and physical deprivation, it cannot be long sustained without corresponding psychological forces. Cudd examines the direct and indirect psychological forces that generate and sustain oppression. She discusses strategies that groups have used to resist oppression and argues that all persons have a moral responsibility to resist in some way. In the concluding chapter Cudd proposes a concept of freedom that would be possible for humans in a world that is actively opposing oppression, arguing that freedom for each individual is only possible when we achieve freedom for all others.

The Inequality Trap

The Inequality Trap PDF Author: William Watson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442624957
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book Here

Book Description
US President Barack Obama has called economic inequality the “defining issue of our time.” It has inspired the “Occupy” movements, made a French economist into a global celebrity, and given us a new expression – the “one percent.” But is our preoccupation with inequality really justified? Or wise? In his new book, William Watson argues that focusing on inequality is both an error and a trap. It is an error because much inequality is “good,” the reward for thrift, industry, and invention. It is a trap because it leads us to fixate on the top end of the income distribution, rather than on those at the bottom who need help most. In fact, if we respond to growing inequality by fighting capitalism rather than poverty, we may end up both poorer and less equal. Explaining the complexities of modern economics in a clear, accessible style, The Inequality Trap is the must-read rejoinder to the idea that fighting inequality should be our top policy priority.

Engendering Development

Engendering Development PDF Author: Amy Trauger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351819801
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 410

Get Book Here

Book Description
Engendering Development demonstrates how gender is a form of inequality that is used to generate global capitalist development. It charts the histories of gender, race, class, sexuality and nationality as categories of inequality under imperialism, which continue to support the accumulation of capital in the global economy today. The textbook draws on feminist and critical development scholarship to provide insightful ways of understanding and critiquing capitalist economic trajectories by focusing on the way development is enacted and protested by men and women. It incorporates analyses of the lived experiences in the global north and south in place-specific ways. Taking a broad perspective on development, Engendering Development draws on textured case studies from the authors’ research and the work of geographers and feminist scholars. The cases demonstrate how gendered, raced and classed subjects have been enrolled in global capitalism, and how individuals and communities resist, embrace and rework development efforts. This textbook starts from an understanding of development as global capitalism that perpetuates and benefits from gendered, raced and classed hierarchies. The book will prove to be useful to advanced undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in courses on development through its critical approach to development conveyed with straightforward arguments, detailed case studies, accessible writing and a problem-solving approach based on lived experiences.

Possessive Individualism

Possessive Individualism PDF Author: Daniel W. Bromley
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190062843
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Get Book Here

Book Description
Daniel Bromley offers a fundamental critique of contemporary capitalism to explain why the world now finds itself in widespread disorder. The basic flaw, he argues, is the triumph of a culture of possessive individualism. As a result, capitalism is no longer an engine of improved livelihoods and social hope. Bromley explains that escape from this disorder requires that the private firm be reimagined as a public trust whose purpose is to offer plausible livelihoods as it also serves our acquisitive wants. However, the possessive individual also bears urgent responsibilities. We must renew the idea of loyalty to others-whether neighbors, fellow workers, or society at large.