Lunch at the Labs

Inequality Matters

Some web links on the topic of inequality.

• It's Not Just Unfair: Inequality Is a Threat to Our Governance

  Book review: THE CRISIS OF THE MIDDLE-CLASS CONSTITUTION --
  Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic,
  

  In his fine book, both history and call to arms, Ganesh Sitaraman argues that the contemporary explosion of inequality will destroy the American Constitution, which is and was premised on the existence of a large and thriving middle class. He has done us all a great service, taking an issue of overwhelming public importance, delving into its history, helping understand how our forebears handled it and building a platform to think about it today.
  ...
  As recognized since ancient times, the coexistence of very rich and very poor leads to two possibilities, neither a happy one. The rich can rule alone, disenfranchising or even enslaving the poor, or the poor can rise up and confiscate the wealth of the rich. The rich tend to see themselves as better than the poor, a proclivity that is enhanced and even socially sanctioned in modern meritocracies. The poor, with little prospect of economic improvement and no access to political power, "might turn to a demagogue who would overthrow the government -- only to become a tyrant. Oligarchy or tyranny, economic inequality meant the end of the republic."

• What Inequality Doesn't Mean

  Is inequality a death sentence for the American republic? Two recent books vigorously argue both sides of the case--with the naysayer pulling out ahead.

  Before accepting the conclusion(s), see the previous March 31 item What Do Economists Actually Know?

• Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality over the millennia

  Professor Walter Scheidel examines the history of peace and economic inequality over the past 10,000 years.

  "It is almost universally true that violence has been necessary to ensure the redistribution of wealth at any point in time," said Scheidel, summarizing the thesis of The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, his newly published book.

  Surveying long stretches of human history, Scheidel said that "the big equalizing moments in history may not have always had the same cause, but they shared one common root: massive and violent disruptions of the established order."