Download or read book Why Redistribution Fails written by James Piereson and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democratic presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, along with progressive economists like Thomas Piketty and Paul Krugman, have made a case for redistributing income from the wealthy to the poor as a means of reducing inequalities in income and wealth. Meanwhile, public opinion polls show that voters reject programs of redistribution in favor of policies designed to promote overall economic growth and job creation. While voters are concerned about inequality, they are more skeptical of the capacity of the government to do anything about it without making matters worse for everyone. In this Broadside, James Piereson explains why the voters are right and the progressive politicians and economists are wrong. As he demonstrates, the progressive case is based upon a serious fallacy: it assumes that the government is actually capable of redistributing income from the wealthy to the poor. For reasons of policy, tradition, and constitutional design, this is not the case. The United States currently has one of the more progressive income tax systems in the industrial world but it does little to redistribute income from the wealthy to the poor. One reason for this is that, though the government spends vast sums on programs to aid the poor, most of these funds flow to providers of services rather than to the poor themselves. Thus, whatever one may think of inequality, redistributive tax and spending policies are unlikely to do much to ameliorate it but will instead line the pockets of providers and advocates who wield great influence in Washington.
Download or read book Why Nations Fail written by Daron Acemoglu and published by Currency. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.
Download or read book The Ethics of Redistribution written by Baron Bertrand de Jouvenel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-14 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ethics of Redistribution was originally delivered as a Boutwood Lecture at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in the autumn of 1949. The Baron Bertrand de Jouvenel was then an already internationally regarded philosopher whose learned style was a calculated blend of moral. historical and political considerations. In this essay, split between discussions of the socialist ideal and state expenditure, he presents the fraught economic, societal and ethical implications attendant upon the question of income redistribution.
Download or read book The Great Gap written by Merike Blofield and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-08-21 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between socioeconomic inequality and democratic politics has been one of the central questions in the social sciences from Aristotle on. Recent waves of democratization, combined with deepened global inequalities, have made understanding this relationship ever more crucial. In The Great Gap, Merike Blofield seeks to contribute to this understanding by analyzing inequality and politics in the region with the highest socioeconomic inequalities in the world: Latin America. The chapters, written by prominent scholars in their fields, address the socioeconomic context and inequality of opportunities; elite culture, public opinion, and media framing; capital mobility, campaign financing, representation, and gender equality policies; and taxation and social policies. Aside from the editor, the contributors are Pablo Alegre, Maurício Bugarin, Daniela Campello, Anna Crespo, Francisco H. G. Ferreira, Fernando Filgueira, Liesl Haas, Sallie Hughes, Juan Pablo Luna, James E. Mahon Jr., Juliana Martínez Franzoni, Adriana Cuoco Portugal, Paola Prado, Elisa P. Reis, Luis Reygadas, Sergio Naruhiko Sakurai, and Koen Voorend.
Download or read book Economic Inequality and Income Distribution written by D. G. Champernowne and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic inequality has become a focus of prime interest for economic analysts and policy makers. This book provides an integrated approach to the topics of inequality and personal income distribution. It covers the practical and theoretical bases for inequality analysis, applications to real world problems and the foundations of theoretical approaches to income distribution. It also analyses models of the distribution of labour earnings and of income from wealth. The long-run development of income - and wealth - distribution over many generations is also examined. Special attention is given to an assessment of the merits and weaknesses of standard economic models, to illustrating the implications of distributional mechanisms using real data and illustrative examples, and to providing graphical interpretation of formal arguments. Examples are drawn from US, UK and international sources.
Download or read book The Citizen s Share written by Joseph R. Blasi and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of workers owning the businesses where they work is not new. In America’s early years, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison believed that the best economic plan for the Republic was for citizens to have some ownership stake in the land, which was the main form of productive capital. This book traces the development of that share idea in American history and brings its message to today's economy, where business capital has replaced land as the source of wealth creation.div /DIVdivBased on a ten-year study of profit sharing and employee ownership at small and large corporations, this important and insightful work makes the case that the Founders’ original vision of sharing ownership and profits offers a viable path toward restoring the middle class. Blasi, Freeman, and Kruse show that an ownership stake in a corporation inspires and increases worker loyalty, productivity, and innovation. Their book offers history-, economics-, and evidence-based policy ideas at their best./DIV
Download or read book Democracy and Redistribution written by Carles Boix and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-07-21 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Employing analytical tools borrowed from game theory, Carles Boix offers a complete theory of political transitions, in which political regimes ultimately hinge on the nature of economic assets, their distribution among individuals, and the balance of power among different social groups. Backed up by detailed historical work and extensive statistical analysis that goes back to the mid-nineteenth century, this book explains, among many other things, why democracy emerged in classical Athens. It also discusses the early triumph of democracy in both nineteenth-century agrarian Norway, Switzerland and northeastern America and the failure in countries with a powerful landowning class.
Download or read book The Economic Other written by Meghan Condon and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-08-13 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic inequality is at a record high in the United States, but public demand for redistribution is not rising with it. Meghan Condon and Amber Wichowsky show that this paradox and other mysteries about class and US politics can be solved through a focus on social comparison. Powerful currents compete to propel attention up or down—toward the rich or the poor—pulling politics along in the wake. Through an astute blend of experiments, surveys, and descriptions people offer in their own words, The Economic Other reveals that when less-advantaged Americans compare with the rich, they become more accurate about their own status and want more from government. But American society is structured to prevent upward comparison. In an increasingly divided, anxious nation, opportunities to interact with the country’s richest are shrinking, and people prefer to compare to those below to feel secure. Even when comparison with the rich does occur, many lose confidence in their power to effect change. Laying bare how social comparisons drive political attitudes, The Economic Other is an essential look at the stubborn plight of inequality and the measures needed to solve it.
Download or read book Forbearance as Redistribution written by Alisha Holland and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-16 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book explains why and when laws go unenforced in developing countries. It argues that the tolerance of street vending and squatting is a form of informal welfare provision and a more effective means to mobilize the poor than conventional state social policies.
Download or read book The Forgotten Americans written by Isabel Sawhill and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation's economic inequalities One of the country's leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society--economic, cultural, and political--and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. Although many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and the federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.
Download or read book Globalization and Egalitarian Redistribution written by Pranab K. Bardhan and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrates that the free flow of goods, capital, and labor has increased the inequality or volatility of labor earnings in advanced industrial societies, while constraining governments' ability to tax the winners to compensate the workers for their loss. This book looks at how globalization affects policies aimed at reducing inequalities.
Download or read book Whither Socialism written by Joseph E. Stiglitz and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996-01-31 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rapid collapse of socialism has raised new economic policy questions and revived old theoretical issues. In this book, Joseph Stiglitz explains how the neoclassical, or Walrasian model (the formal articulation of Adam Smith's invisible hand), which has dominated economic thought over the past half century, may have wrongly encouraged the belief that market socialism could work. Stiglitz proposes an alternative model, based on the economics of information, that provides greater theoretical insight into the workings of a market economy and clearer guidance for the setting of policy in transitional economies. Stiglitz sees the critical failing in the standard neoclassical model underlying market socialism to be its assumptions concerning information, particularly its failure to consider the problems that arise from lack of perfect information and from the costs of acquiring information. He also identifies problems arising from its assumptions concerning completeness of markets, competitiveness of markets, and the absence of innovation. Stiglitz argues that not only did the existing paradigm fail to provide much guidance on the vital question of the choice of economic systems, the advice it did provide was often misleading.
Download or read book What We Owe Each Other written by Minouche Shafik and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change. Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated, falling ill, working, growing old—and shows how a reordering of our societies is possible. Drawing on evidence and examples from around the world, she shows how every country can provide citizens with the basics to have a decent life and be able to contribute to society. But we owe each other more than this. A more generous and inclusive society would also share more risks collectively and ask everyone to contribute for as long as they can so that everyone can fulfill their potential. What We Owe Each Other identifies the key elements of a better social contract that recognizes our interdependencies, supports and invests more in each other, and expects more of individuals in return. Powerful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, What We Owe Each Other provides practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society—together.
Download or read book When All Else Fails written by David A. Moss and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004-10-25 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most important functions of government—risk management—is one of the least well understood. Moving beyond familiar public functions—spending, taxation, and regulation—Moss spotlights government's pivotal role as a risk manager, revealing the nature and extent of this function, which touches almost every aspect of economic life.
Download or read book The New Economics of Inequality and Redistribution written by Samuel Bowles and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-12 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incorporating the latest results from behavioral economics and microeconomic theory, Samuel Bowles argues that conventional economics has mistakenly presented inequality as the price of progress. In place of this view, he offers a novel and optimistic account of the possibility of a more just economy.
Download or read book Redistribution Or Recognition written by Nancy Fraser and published by Verso. This book was released on 2003 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A debate between two philosophers who hold different views on the relation of redistribution to recognition.
Download or read book A War on Global Poverty written by Joanne Meyerowitz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-13 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of US involvement in late twentieth-century campaigns against global poverty and how they came to focus on women A War on Global Poverty provides a fresh account of US involvement in campaigns to end global poverty in the 1970s and 1980s. From the decline of modernization programs to the rise of microcredit, Joanne Meyerowitz looks beyond familiar histories of development and explains why antipoverty programs increasingly focused on women as the deserving poor. When the United States joined the war on global poverty, economists, policymakers, and activists asked how to change a world in which millions lived in need. Moved to the left by socialists, social democrats, and religious humanists, they rejected the notion that economic growth would trickle down to the poor, and they proposed programs to redress inequities between and within nations. In an emerging “women in development” movement, they positioned women as economic actors who could help lift families and nations out of destitution. In the more conservative 1980s, the war on global poverty turned decisively toward market-based projects in the private sector. Development experts and antipoverty advocates recast women as entrepreneurs and imagined microcredit—with its tiny loans—as a grassroots solution. Meyerowitz shows that at the very moment when the overextension of credit left poorer nations bankrupt, loans to impoverished women came to replace more ambitious proposals that aimed at redistribution. Based on a wealth of sources, A War on Global Poverty looks at a critical transformation in antipoverty efforts in the late twentieth century and points to its legacies today.
