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Inequality: What Can Be Done?

Inequality: What Can Be Done?

by Anthony B . Atkinson (Author)

  • Used

    Illustrated 2015

    $3.48
Synopsis

Winner of the Richard A. Lester Award for the Outstanding Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics, Princeton University
An Economist Best Economics and Business Book of the Year
A Financial Times Best Economics Book of the Year

Inequality 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 Books

An 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 Guardian

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More Information

Format: Illustrated
 Pages: 400
 Edition: Illustrated
 Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 20 Mar 2015
ISBN 10: 0674504763
ISBN 13: 9780674504769

Media Reviews
Inequality is a real accomplishment. It represents the first comprehensive, realistic, and detailed proposal for countering growing economic inequality--and it's done not by some energetic graduate student but by a seasoned economist who's been working on these issues for more than forty years.-- (07/08/2016)
Atkinson knows his stuff. He understands arguments used by free marketeers (largely successfully) to marginalize inequality as a front-and-center issue... This is why Atkinson devotes much space in Inequality to rebutting these arguments and asserting that tackling the rich-poor divide should, and can, be a priority... By presenting a strategic combination of new and established ideas, Atkinson shows why addressing the growing pervasiveness of inequality in the twenty-first century requires a sustained attack on many fronts. It also requires seeing economics not just as a debate about numbers but as a debate about people... Atkinson shows what might be possible if we stretch our collective imagination and focus on innovative ways to address what is emerging as the defining issue of our time.-- (10/01/2015)
Atkinson is a pioneer of the study of the economics of poverty and inequality. His latest work, Inequality: What Can Be Done?, is an uncomfortable affront to our reigning triumphalists. His premise is straightforward: inequality is not unavoidable, a fact of life like the weather, but the product of conscious human behavior.-- (04/08/2015)
Inequality has replaced house prices as a fashionable topic for discussion. But anyone looking for a serious treatment of the problem, rather than just a dinner party conversation, should turn to [this] book by [an] eminent economist who [has] made the study of inequality [his] life's work... [Inequality] sets out a range of policies for bringing about a significant reduction in inequality.-- (05/01/2015)
Though it has not attracted the celebrity attention, in many respects Atkinson's [Inequality] is more important than Thomas Piketty's pathbreaking Capital in the Twenty-First Century, and is the perfect sequel. Where Piketty explained the tendency of wealth and income to concentrate, Atkinson digs deeper into what drove this shift and why conventional remedies will not reverse the trends. He has a far surer grasp than Piketty of the political dynamics that made possible the anomalous egalitarian era of the 30 glorious years after World War II.-- (01/01/2016)
The best of the new crop of books [on income inequality] is Anthony B. Atkinson's Inequality: What Is to Be Done? Not unrelatedly, it is also the most solutions-oriented.-- (05/30/2015)
Inequality: What Can Be Done?, is an effort to keep the issue of inequality on the agenda of politicians, economists, and citizens alike... [It] is explicitly solutions-oriented... The book offers a number of original policy suggestions... [Atkinson's] mastery of detail and comfort with costings mean that his proposals seem not only imaginative but also practically feasible... Inequality is now an issue that political parties, on all parts of the ideological spectrum, cannot dismiss. And that is partly because of the work of academics such as Thomas Piketty and Anthony Atkinson... The books by Piketty and Atkinson have prompted renewed attention to matters of economic distribution, and have strengthened a public movement that has put pressure on governments to tackle inequality... Atkinson's Inequality: What Can Be Done? deserves credit for contributing considerable intellectual resources to that important struggle.-- (05/26/2015)
Atkinson takes a position that is in some ways more radical than Piketty... It will surely influence debate as the presidential campaign heats up... Atkinson has researched inequality and poverty for nearly 40 years, using rigorous quantitative analysis to assess the impact of tax rates and other 6policy measures on inequality and growth. [Inequality] focuses on the United Kingdom, but it's easy to extrapolate his ideas to the U.S.... His book will embolden those who are tired of nibbling at the edges of the problem and skeptical of the argument that rising inequality is the inevitable result of globalization and technical advance. It should stimulate creative and bold thinking as the presidential candidates put their proposals before the public.-- (06/15/2015)
Author Bio
Anthony B. Atkinson was a Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.