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Books : Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded AgeIn association with Amazon.comby: Larry M. Bartels  List Price: $29.95 Amazon.com's Price: $19.77 You Save: $10.18 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 330.973 EAN: 9780691136639 ISBN: 0691136637 Label: Princeton University Press Manufacturer: Princeton University Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 328 Publication Date: April 27, 2008 Publisher: Princeton University Press Studio: Princeton University Press Sales Rank: 5508 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: Unequal Democracy debunks many myths about politics in contemporary America, using the widening gap between the rich and the poor to shed disturbing light on the workings of American democracy. Larry Bartels shows that increasing inequality is not simply the result of economic forces, but the product of broad-reaching policy choices in a political system dominated by partisan ideologies and the interests of the wealthy. Bartels demonstrates that elected officials respond to the views of affluent constituents but ignore the views of poor people. He shows that Republican presidents in particular have consistently produced much less income growth for middle-class and working-poor families than for affluent families, greatly increasing inequality. He provides revealing case studies of key policy shifts contributing to inequality, including the massive Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 and the erosion of the minimum wage. Finally, he challenges conventional explanations for why many voters seem to vote against their own economic interests, contending that working-class voters have not been lured into the Republican camp by "values issues" like abortion and gay marriage, as commonly believed, but that Republican presidents have been remarkably successful in timing income growth to cater to short-sighted voters. Unequal Democracy is social science at its very best. It provides a deep and searching analysis of the political causes and consequences of America's growing income gap, and a sobering assessment of the capacity of the American political system to live up to its democratic ideals. Average Rating:
 Rating: - Politics MattersThis very interesting book is an exploration of the nature of American politics and its relationship to inequality in the USA. Bartels summarizes a great deal of his own work and considerable other work on these topics. Bartels begins by demonstrating the marked increase in economic inequality characteristic of the last three decades. He then goes on to present reasonable evidence that a major determinant of rising inequality is who controls the Federal government, particularly the White House. ... Read More Rating: - Facts everyone should know"Unequal Democracy" is a tough read for the average reader. Half-page footnotes and statistics usually put people off. But I wish I could require all our government officials and even all voters to read this book. The research is solid and the conclusions important to the future well-being of our democracy. I was particularly impressed by the cross-testing he did to check his assumptions. I recommend this to all my college students and to all serious readers. (You can skip the footnotes if you ... Read More Rating:  - On Spreading the WealthIn this study Princeton professor Larry Bartels makes the argument that lower- and middle-income groups consistently do better under Democratic administrations than under Republican. During the last sixty years (1948-present) the average annual growth of real GNP was 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents and 2.78 percent under Democratic presidents. He shows further that income inequality has gone sharply upward during Republican administrations and slightly downward during Democratic. ... Read More Rating: - Everyone Makes More Money When a Democrat is PresidentA couple of things jumped out for me: "comparing average annual real pre-tax (1) income growth (%) for families at various points in the income distribution" from 1948-2005: -- First, everyone made more money under Democratic presidents, although the difference was small for the wealthiest (95th percentile). -- Under Republicans, the wealthy do a lot better (2.12% increase per year for the 95th percentile) than those with less (0.43% increase for the 20th percentile). ... Read More Rating:  - Bartel's analysis oversimplifiesIt's no coincidence that Larry Bartels is a political scientist -- not an economist. His book purports to show that American economic performance under Democratic administrations has been superior to performance under Republicans, across all income categories. Apparently, this chart has a lot of liberals very excited. Too bad that it is complete nonsense. Bartels grossly oversimplifiwa how economic policy actually impacts economic performance. The root of its problem lies in the inane ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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