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Class & Inequality

Thomas Piketty Takes On the Ideology of Inequality

In his sweeping new history, the economist systematically demolishes the conceit that extreme inequality is our destiny, rather than our choice.

Marshall Steinbaum

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Class & Inequality

Class & Inequality

The Keynesian Revolution

A new biography reveals the full scope of John Maynard Keynes’s critique of unfettered capitalism, emphasizing the economist’s larger philosophical vision of the good life.

Jonathan Kirshner

Class & Inequality, Politics

A Politics of the Future

Despite the myth that deaths of the elderly are never untimely, the author mourns a friend, fifty years his senior, who succumbed to COVID-19. She taught him that a moral life entails wanting those rewards not only for yourself but for everyone.

Simon Waxman

Class & Inequality

The End of Family Values

Neoliberalism rests on the myth that “good” families can provide for their own without public support. COVID-19 may finally change all that.

Julie Kohler

Class & Inequality, Science & Nature

What Would Health Security Look Like?

Nineteenth-century reformers understood the deep connections between public health and environmental protection. That's why struggles for Medicare for All and a Green New Deal are two sides of the same coin.

Sunaura Taylor

Class & Inequality, Politics

When Will Capitalism End?

Rumors of the imminent death of capitalism have often been greatly exaggerated. But that doesn’t mean we must give up on making things better.

Alyssa Battistoni

Class & Inequality

We're Not All In It Together

The deep, growing divisions in U.S. society have an outsize effect in determining who suffers from this pandemic—as well as how the government responds.

Rajan Menon, Jeffrey Kucik

Class & Inequality, Global Justice

What 30 Percent Unemployment Looks Like

As we know from South Africa's crisis, political and social fault lines will shape the contours of joblessness.

Nicholas Rush Smith

Class & Inequality, Science & Nature

COVID-19 Crisis Capitalism Comes to Real Estate

Proptech is leading to new forms of housing injustice in ways that increase the power of landlords and further disempower tenants and those seeking shelter.

Erin McElroy, Meredith Whittaker, Genevieve Fried

Class & Inequality

Deaths of Despair

Boston Review talks with Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton about COVID-19, the relationship between culture, financial hardship, and health, and why capitalism’s flaws are proving fatal for America’s working class. 

Joshua Cohen, Angus Deaton

Class & Inequality, Global Justice

International Labor Solidarity in a Time of Pandemic

A new geoeconomic order is creating opportunities for organizing along supply chains.

Manoj Dias-Abey

Class & Inequality

COVID-19 and Welfare Queens

Conservatives have long been sounding the alarm about “undeserving” people receiving public assistance. These fears have deep ties to racism and the policing of black women’s bodies.

Scott W. Stern

Class & Inequality, Science & Nature

Recessions often improve population health, but COVID-19 may be different

Mortality rates typically fall during economic downturns. But the unprecedented features of the COVID-19 shutdown suggest that trend might not hold this time.

Sarah Burgard, Lucie Kalousova

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THINKING IN A PANDEMIC

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