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Review Of The Price Of Inequality By Joseph E. Stiglitz

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The Price of Inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz is a brutal confrontation towards the way the United States is run, specifically the top one percent. It is a powerful analysis of inequality in America and what it means for our society, political system, and economy. Stiglitz argues that inequality is a continuos pattern that it is produced by the vast amount of political power that the wealthy people hold to control legislative and regulatory activity. Stiglitz also blames “rent-seeking”, which involves seeking to increase someone's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth, for being one of the leading reasons of inequality. He says that with the wealthy using their power to pay low taxes, shape monopolies, and obtain favorable treatment by the government it is not only causing inequality, but causing a divide between the the wealthy and the rest of the nation. He discusses how that with all these factors coming in to play, the end result is not only morally wrong but also hurts the productivity in the economy. A quote from the book essentially captures what Stiglitz is trying to promote, "The top 1 percent of Americans gained 93 percent of the additional income created in the country in 2010, as compared with 2009." The book does a fantastic job of laying out the facts. The Price of Inequality is basically divided into three …show more content…

So to summarize my understanding of the simplest way to describe the causes of inequality are; rent-seeking activity and the rise of The Predator State, then tax policy, macroeconomic policy, corporate governance and regulation, or lack thereof, decline in unionization, globalization, technological change, and finally, education. These are all due to the failure of government to regulate capitalism. And because of this we have a super wealthy upper

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Economic inequality is the uneven distribution of wealth and differences in economic security found in each individual in a specific country or region. Today, the topic is being discussed profusely by the American presidential candidates and by many writers around the world because of the beliefs of whether there should or should not be wealth redistribution policies put into action. Larry Schwartz, the author of “35 Soul-Crushing Facts about American Income Inequality”, makes a valid claim that economic inequality is the foundation of the problems that the entire American population face such as poverty and a hindrance of economic growth. To begin with, Schwartz has an exceptional argument that the high rate of economic inequality, like is

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Rent Seeking by an American Economist In the American Economist Joseph Eugene Stiglitz’ essay, ‘Rent Seeking and the making of an Unequal Society,’ he argues, with the help of examples, that most of today’s economic and political problems are caused by the government. He goes in depth to explain why the government policies are a major factor in creating these problems, as well as the market forces itself. In addition to this, he discusses the relationship between income inequality and societal growth, and how rent seeking contributes to it. The following is main ideas from his essay that help to further prove his point of how rent seeking provides for income inequality, as well as how the government policies help in the making of an unequal society. Firstly, because the government policies shape the market forces, they are able to shape the degree of inequality.

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They also attempted to shape thinking, to make acceptable difference in income that would otherwise be odious”(395). In economic and political fields, people who are in charge take advantage of the authority, in other words, the dominance to consolidate and bolster their superiority. They influence (or manipulate, to some extent) the public’s thoughts and convey the idea that the difference in income is reasonable and justifiable to the public. Both Ho and Stiglitz mention people’s desire to maintain and strengthen the status.

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The Price of Inequality Name Institution The Price of Inequality In the past, the US was a nation with an upward mobility and was different from other European societies with rigid class divisions, the young could anticipate to lead better lives than the older people. Joseph Stiglitz in his book, The Price of Inequality: How Today 's Divided Society Endangers Our Future observes that the industrialization that is present in the Western world paves the way for better intergenerational mobility (Krupa, 2013). The author of the book has made various achievements during his life in the economic sector. He is an economist that won the Nobel Prize, served as a chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors during the Clinton era,

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The article says, “While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall.” (Stiglitz 2011) While the rich are getting higher incomes prices the poor are getting higher income by taking it from the one in the middle which therefore, makes them get a lower income percentage. America has fallen behind because of not being an equal country to the population by the income equality there is a huge gap between the income being earned by the poor and the rich. The rich are wealthy and the poor depend on the government for everything. As stated in the article, “America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride.

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