From the GOP tax bill to the resurgence of neoliberal economics, there are plenty of reminders that we are living in one of the most unequal times in modern history. Here are our top reads on class and the economy from 2017.
Rescuing Economics from Neoliberalism
by Dani Rodrik
Neoliberalism is hard to pin down. A proper understanding would allow us to identify—and to reject—ideology when it masquerades as economics.
Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder?
by Marshall Steinbaum
Capital in the Twenty-First Century raised important questions about inequality that the Ivory Tower would rather ignore.
All in the Family Debt
by Melinda Cooper
Despite their differences on virtually everything else, neoliberals and social conservatives came together to decimate the welfare state.
The Dream Hoarders: How America's Top 20 Percent Perpetuates Inequality
by Richard V. Reeves
The critique of the uber-rich—the top 1 percent—is incomplete. The real class divide is between the upper middle class and everyone else.
Basic Income in a Just Society
A forum by Brishen Rogers, Tommie Shelby, Connie Raza, and others
Each week, another magazine, book, or think tank sketches a dystopian near-future in which automation renders workers unnecessary. Is a basic income the solution?
A Jobless Utopia?
by David McDermott Hughes
There is more than enough wind energy to power our future. But our model of paying for it is stuck in the past.
Kochonomics: The Racist Roots of Public Choice Theory
by Bethany Moreton
Democracy in Chains, a National Book Award finalist, traces how the anti-democratic projects of the Jim Crow South evolved into an economic theory championed today.
It's the Gap, Stupid
by Archon Fung
Three new books draw a disturbing picture of the United States as a system of compounding inequality driven by a hereditary meritocracy of professional elites.
Polanyi, the Failed Prophet of Moral Economics
by Jeremy Adelman
Polanyi’s moral economics obscured the nature of global interdependence even as it revealed the dangers of leaving the invisible hand alone.
Is Globalization to Blame?
A forum by Dean Baker, Daron Acemoglu, Susan N. Houseman, and others
The loss of jobs that accompanied globalization could have been avoided.