Description
Winner of the Richard A. Lester Award for the Outstanding Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics, Princeton UniversityAn Economist Best Economics and Business Book of the YearA Financial Times Best Economics Book of the YearInequality is one of our most urgent social problems. Curbed in the decades after World War II, it has recently returned with a vengeance. We all know the scale of the problem-talk about the 99% and the 1% is entrenched in public debate-but there has been little discussion of what we can do but despair. According to the distinguished economist Anthony Atkinson, however, we can do much more than skeptics imagine.[Atkinson] sets forth a list of concrete, innovative, and persuasive proposals meant to show that alternatives still exist, that the battle for social progress and equality must reclaim its legitimacy, here and now Witty, elegant, profound, this book should be read.-Thomas Piketty, New York Review of BooksAn uncomfortable affront to our reigning triumphalists. [Atkinson’s] premise is straightforward: inequality is not unavoidable, a fact of life like the weather, but the product of conscious human behavior.-Owen Jones, The GuardianTable of Contents: I. Diagnosis 1. Setting the Scene 2. Learning from History 3. The Economics of Inequality A Summing-Up So Far II. Proposals for Action 4. Technological Change and Countervailing Power 5. Employment and Pay in the Future 6. Capital Shared 7. Progressive Taxation 8. Social Security for All Proposals to Reduce the Extent of Inequality III. Can It Be Done? 9. Shrinking the Cake? 10. Globalisation Prevents Action? 11. Can We Afford It? The Way Forward
