Diversity, Equity, Inclusion: Socioeconomic Class

A fascinating sociological assessment of the damaging effects of the for‑profit partnership between government and corporation on rural Americans Why is government distrust rampant, especially in the rural United States? This book offers a simple explanation: corporations and the government together dispossess rural people of their prosperity, and even their property. Based on four years of fieldwork, this eye‑opening assessment by sociologist Loka Ashwood plays out in a mixed‑race Georgia community that hosted the first nuclear power reactors sanctioned by the government in three decades. This work serves as an explanatory mirror of prominent trends in current American politics. Churches become havens for redemption, poaching a means of retribution, guns a tool of self‑defense, and nuclear power a faltering solution to global warming as governance strays from democratic principles. In the absence of hope or trust in rulers, rural racial tensions fester and divide. The book tells of the rebellion that unfolds as the rights of corporations supersede the rights of humans.

Adam Reich and Peter Bearman examine how Walmart workers make sense of their jobs in order to consider the nature of contemporary low-wage work, as well as the obstacles and opportunities such workplaces present for social and economic justice. Working for Respect makes important contributions to debates on labor and inequality.

Centered on the concept of 'Maximization, ' Matthew B. Robinson and Dr. Daniel S. Murphy offer a new theory of elite deviance and corporate crime called contextual anomie/strain theory. Exploring how simultaneous use of legitimate (i.e., legal) and illegitimate (i.e., deviant or illegal) means of opportunity in pursuit of one's goals, Greed is Good explains various forms of elite deviance and corporate crime. Contextual anomie/strain theory posits that although everyone in American society experiences stress and frustration association with American Dream, there are certain contexts in American society that produce even greater stress, frustration, and pressures toward crime. One such context is the corporate workplace. This book affirms how deviance and criminality have become normal in big business due to pressure to produce massive profits at the expense of all other considerations

Illuminating the ways in which neoliberal policies - such as the deregulation of economies and the transfer of governmental responsibilities to the private sector - have been implemented on a global scale, the contributors show how neoliberalism has seeped into our social and political fabric and affected our daily lives. Drawing attention to the most visible elements of neoliberalism in business, government, and personal life, reveal the ways in which policies designed to ensure market expansion also inevitably expand social inequalities of gender, race, class, and ability. Using a variety of methods, contributors discuss a range of topics, including globalization, privatization, health care, and the welfare state. An intelligent and informative collection that explains and challenges neoliberal policies, Neoliberalism and Everyday Life is an important assessment of a political system that makes profit easier and people's lives more difficult.

Neoliberalism - the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action - has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Its spread has depended upon a reconstitution of state powers such that privatization, finance, and market processes are emphasized. State interventions in the economy are minimized, while the obligations of the state to provide for the welfare of its citizens are diminished. David Harvey, author of 'The New Imperialism' and 'The Condition of Postmodernity', here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from, and how it proliferated on the world stage. While Thatcher and Reagan are often cited as primary authors of this neoliberal turn, Harvey shows how a complex of forces, from Chile to China and from New York City to Mexico City, have also played their part. In addition he explores the continuities and contrasts between neoliberalism of the Clinton sort, and the recent turn towards neoconservative imperialism of George W. Bush.; Finally, through critical engagement with this history, Harvey constructs a framework not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.

In the era of globalization and liberalization, the world is enjoying high growth as well as suffering from the ill-effects of unequal distribution of its economic outcomes. The activities of anti-government demonstrations in China and across the world via the Occupy Wall Street Movement highlight that inequality has become an international phenomenon. It is apparent in both poor countries under authoritarianism and rich countries governed by a democratic regime. Thus, inequality has become not only a hurdle to development but also a threat to social and political stability. The spread of the Jasmine Revolution across parts of North Africa and the Arab Spring are illustrative of what can happen under certain circumstances. This book confirms the inconsistencies between high growth and increasing inequality via a series of case studies across 11 countries, numerous regions, and OECD members. Many of the case studies draw upon original household surveys. Our findings indicate the seriousness of income inequality, explore factors that have caused the inequality and analyze their economic and social consequences. The book raises, and deals with, three key questions: (1) Can high growth reduce inequality gradually? (2) Can government intervention be effective in equalizing income distribution? (3) Is the income disparity an engine for, or an obstacle of, high growth?Contents: "Globalization, Liberalization, Growth and Income Inequality: "Growth and Inequality in ChinaGrowth and Inequality in Hong KongGrowth and Inequality in the United StatesGrowth and Inequality in IndiaGrowth and Inequality in GermanyGrowth and Inequality in KoreaGrowth and Inequality in the UKGrowth and Inequality in IndonesiaGrowth and Inequality in ThailandGrowth and Inequality in SingaporeGrowth and Inequality in Japan"Factor and Policy Analysis on Income Inequality: "Informal Employment and Income DisparityEducational Disparity and Income DisparityHousing Inequality and Underlying Factors in Urban ChinaAgriculture Profitability and Income DisparityLabor Migration and Income InequalityIncome Inequality, Labor Migration and the Lewis Tuning PointTrade-offs and Complementarities Between Growth and Inequality in OECD Countries Readership: Researchers, students, government officers and general readers interested in income distribution studies.

Featuring 15 explosive new chapters, this new edition of the New York Times bestseller brings the story of Economic Hit Men up-to-date and, chillingly, home to the U.S.―but it also gives us hope and the tools to fight back.   Former economic hit man John Perkins shares new details about the ways he and others cheated countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Then he reveals how the deadly EHM cancer he helped create has spread far more widely and deeply than ever in the US and everywhere else--to become the dominant system of business, government, and society today. Finally, he gives an insider view of what we each can do to change it.   Economic hit men are the shock troops of what Perkins calls the corporatocracy, a vast network of corporations, banks, colluding governments, and the rich and powerful people tied to them. If the EHMs can't maintain the corrupt status quo through nonviolent coercion, the jackal assassins swoop in. The heart of this book is a completely new section, over 100 pages long, that exposes the fact that all the EHM and jackal tools--false economics, false promises, threats, bribes, extortion, debt, deception, coups, assassinations, unbridled military power--are used around the world today exponentially more than during the era Perkins exposed over a decade ago.   As dark as the story gets, this reformed EHM also provides hope. Perkins offers specific actions each of us can take to transform what he calls a failing Death Economy into a Life Economy that provides sustainable abundance for all.

John Perkins' controversial and bestselling exposé, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, revealed for the first time the secret world of economic hit men (EHMs). But Perkins' Confessions contained only a small piece of this sinister puzzle. The full story is far bigger, deeper, and darker than Perkins' personal account revealed. Here other EHMs, journalists, and investigators join Perkins to tell their own stories, providing the first probing and expansive look into this pervasive web of systematic corruption. With chapters spotlighting how specific countries around the globe have been subverted, A Game As Old As Empire uncovers the inner workings of the institutions behind these economic manipulations. The contributors detail concrete examples of how the "economic hit man game" is still being played: an officer of an offshore bank hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen money, IMF advisers slashing Ghana's education and health programs, a mercenary defending a European oil company in Nigeria, a consultant rewriting Iraqi oil law, and executives financing warlords to secure supplies of coltan ore in Congo. Together they show how this system of corruption and plunder operates in real life, and reveal the price that the rest of the world must pay as a result. Most important, A Game As Old As Empire connects the dots, showing how the various pieces of this system come together to create the world's first truly global empire.

A permanent political class has emerged on a scale unprecedented in our nation 's history. Its self-dealing, nepotism, and corruption contribute to rising inequality. Its reach extends from the governing elite throughout nongovernmental institutions. Aside from constituting an oligarchy of prestige and power, it enables the creation of an aristocracy of massive inherited wealth that is accumulating immense political power. In a muckraking tour de force reminiscent of Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair, and C. Wright Mills, American Oligarchy demonstrates the way the corrupt culture of the permanent political class extends down to the state and local level. Ron Formisano breaks down the ways this class creates economic inequality and how its own endemic corruption infects our entire society. Formisano delves into the work of not just politicians but lobbyists, consultants, appointed bureaucrats, pollsters, celebrity journalists, behind-the-scenes billionaires, and others. Their shameless pursuit of wealth and self-aggrandizement, often at taxpayer expense, rewards channeling the flow of income and wealth to elites. That inequality in turn has choked off social mobility and made a joke of meritocracy. As Formisano shows, these forces respond to the oligarchy 's power and compete to bask in the presence of the .01 percent. They also exacerbate the dangerous instability of an American democracy divided between extreme wealth and extreme poverty.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A former Wall Street quant sounds the alarm on Big Data and the mathematical models that threaten to rip apart our social fabric--with a new afterword   "A manual for the twenty-first-century citizen . . . relevant and urgent."--Financial Times   NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * The Boston Globe * Wired * Fortune * Kirkus Reviews * The Guardian * Nature * On Point   We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives--where we go to school, whether we can get a job or a loan, how much we pay for health insurance--are being made not by humans, but by machines. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules.   But as mathematician and data scientist Cathy O'Neil reveals, the mathematical models being used today are unregulated and uncontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination--propping up the lucky, punishing the downtrodden, and undermining our democracy in the process. Welcome to the dark side of Big Data.

This book aims to create an interface between intellectual property and diversity - including cultural, biological, religious, racial, and gender based-diversity. While acknowledging that the historical rationale for intellectual property protection is based on theories of utilitarian incentives and property rights, the authors of this volume assert that the current intellectual property framework is not incompatible with including diversity as part of its objectives. Through its various themes, this book delves into the debate of whether such inclusion can be made possible and how intellectual property norms could be effectively used to protect and promote diversity. In this volume, leading scholars address ongoing regional, national, and international debates within the contexts of diversity, the existing legal framework, and the broader political and economic climate. The authors tackle such wide-ranging topics as the prohibition against trademarking slurs and concepts of intellectual property in ancient Indian texts.

"This isn't your America. No matter who the president is. We're told that when we vote, when we elect representatives, we're gaining a voice in government and the policies it implements. But if that's true, why don't American politics actually translate our preferences into higher-living standards for the majority of us? The answer is that, in America, the wealthy few have built a system that works in their favor, while maintaining the illusion of democracy. The reality is that the quality of democracy in the United States is lower than in any other rich democracy, on a par with nations such as Brazil or Turkey. In the US, voters have little influence on eventual policy outcomes engineered by lawmakers. Political scientists call it the income bias and attribute it to the power of wealthy donors who favor wage suppression and cuts to important government programs such as public education and consumer protection. It causes American lawmakers to compete to satisfy preferences of donors from the top one percent instead of the middle class. It's also why our economy has been misfiring for most Americans for a generation, wages stagnating and opportunity dwindling. The election of Donald Trump shocked the world, but for many Americans, it came as a stark reflection of mounting frustrations with our current system and anger at the status quo. We need to find a way to fix the way our government serves us. The only realistic pathway to improve middle-class economics is for Congress and the Supreme Court to raise the quality of American democracy. In Billionaire Democracy: The Hijacking of the American Political System, economist George R. Tyler lays out the fundamental problems plaguing our democracy. He explains how the American democratic system is rigged and how it has eroded the middle class, providing an unflinching and honest comparison of the US government to peer democracies abroad. He also breaks down where we fall short and how other rich democracies avoid the income bias created by the overwhelming role of money in US politics. Finally, Tyler outlines practical campaign finance reforms we can adopt when we finally focus on improving the political responsiveness of our government. It's time for the people of this nation to demand a government that properly serves us, the American people"--

The best guide yet to the practical aims and consequences of Reaganomics.--Philadelphia Enquirer

For years, a pervasive belief has reigned in American politics—that two of our most recent presidents had drastically opposing views of our economy and our world. Historians and economists alike have explored, extolled and criticized Ronald Reagan’s presidency, particularly the theory of “Reaganomics,” which affirmed that big government was the cause, not the solution, to our problems. In public, President Bill Clinton positioned his approach as the antidote to Reaganomics. But in reality, his governing philosophy was the logical corollary to the Reagan Revolution.

Clintonomics explores how Clinton’s presidency marked the return of fiscal discipline and the end of big government. Political scientist Jack Godwin reveals how Clinton succeeded where Reagan failed and how Clinton’s ability to demystify, but not simplify, the world around us made him one of the most successful politicians of all time. He shows how Clinton succeeded by repairing the flaws in Reaganomics and then presenting a governing philosophy appropriate for the 21st century and equal to the powerful forces of globalization. Controversial and insightful, this book will redefine how we see the legacies of these two leaders—and the forces that helped define their influence on the world.

Michael Meeropol argues that the ballooning of the federal budget deficit was not a serious problem in the 1980s, nor were the successful recent efforts to get it under control the basis for the prosperous economy of the mid-1990s. In this controversial book, the author provides a close look at what actually happened to the American economy during the years of the "Reagan Revolution" and reveals that the huge deficits had no negative effect on the economy. It was the other policies of the Reagan years--high interest rates to fight inflation, supply-side tax cuts, reductions in regulation, increased advantages for investors and the wealthy, the unraveling of the safety net for the poor--that were unsuccessful in generating more rapid growth and other economic improvements. Meeropol provides compelling evidence of the failure of the U.S. economy between 1990 and 1994 to generate rising incomes for most of the population or improvements in productivity. This caused, first, the electoral repudiation of President Bush in 1992, followed by a repudiation of President Clinton in the 1994 Congressional elections. The Clinton administration made a half-hearted attempt to reverse the Reagan Revolution in economic policy, but ultimately surrendered to the Republican Congressional majority in 1996 when Clinton promised to balance the budget by 2000 and signed the welfare reform bill. The rapid growth of the economy in 1997 caused surprisingly high government revenues, a dramatic fall in the federal budget deficit, and a brief euphoria evident in an almost uncontrollable stock market boom. Finally, Meeropol argues powerfully that the next recession, certain to come before the end of 1999, will turn the predicted path to budget balance and millennial prosperity into a painful joke on the hubris of public policymakers. Accessibly written as a work of recent history and public policy as much as economics, this book is intended for all Americans interested in issues of economic policy, especially the budget deficit and the Clinton versus Congress debates. No specialized training in economics is needed.

Jack Rasmus has written a revealing exposé of Barack Obama's economic policies since 2008. Explaining in detail why Obama's programs have failed to generate an economic recovery for all but big bankers, corporations, speculations, and the 1% wealthiest households, Rasmus predicts more of the same economic stagnation, or perhaps worse, by 2013 if current economic policies continue. Rasmus concludes the book with his own detailed 'Alternative Program for Economic Recovery.' It is time to seriously begin public discussion and debate of economic alternatives to the past four years, which Rasmus's book clearly has begun.