Summary of Joseph E. Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality

By IRB Media

Get the Summary Joseph E. Stiglitz's The Price of Inequality in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: The top 1 percent of Americans control some 40 percent of the nation's wealth. But as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains in this best-selling critique of the economic status quo, this level of inequality is not inevitable. Rather, in recent years well-heeled interests have compounded their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism and making America no longer the land of opportunity that it once was. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, distorting key policy debates, and fomenting a divided society. Stiglitz not only shows how and why America's inequality is bad for our economy but also exposes the effects of inequality on our democracy and on our system of justice while examining how monetary policy, budgetary policy, and globalization have contributed to its growth. With characteristic insight, he diagnoses our weakened state while offering a vision for a more just and prosperous future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Feb 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638153245

IRB Media

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Book preview

Analysis

of

Joseph E. Stiglitz’s

The Price of Inequality

How Today’s Divided Society

Endangers Our Future

Table of Contents

Overview

Key Insights

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Important People

Author’s Style

Author’s Perspective

Overview

The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future (2012) by Joseph E. Stiglitz examines the causes and damaging effects of growing inequality in the United States.

Income and wealth inequality has been on the rise in the United States since the early 1980s and was severely worsened by the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the ensuing Great Recession. Gains from the economic recovery went largely to the top of an already stratified society. In response, the Occupy Wall Street movement arose, demanding an end to the corruption of democracy by corporations and big banks.

The past three decades have seen a simultaneous enrichment of the wealthiest one percent and the decline of restrictions on campaign contributions from that same one percent. The one percent uses its money to shape policy, and the resultant policies add to their wealth, and, thus, their ability to shape future regulations. The wealthy are careful about how they sell their priorities; they make sure to claim that their own interests align with those of ordinary people. So far, this strategy has worked to their advantage.

The result has been increased