Unequal Democracy or Philanthrocapitalism

Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age

Author: Larry M Bartels

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.

The Washington Post - Dan Balz

…a provocative new book by Princeton professor Larry M. Bartels, one of the country's leading political scientists.

Table of Contents:

Preface     ix
The New Gilded Age     1
Escalating Economic Inequality     6
Interpreting Inequality     13
Economic Inequality as a Political Issue     19
Inequality and American Democracy     23
The Partisan Political Economy     29
Partisan Patterns of Income Growth     31
A Partisan Coincidence?     34
Partisan Differences in Macroeconomic Policy     42
Macroeconomic Performance and Income Growth     47
Partisan Policies and Post-Tax Income Growth     54
Democrats, Republicans, and the Rise of Inequality     61
Class Politics and Partisan Change     64
In Search of the Working Class     66
Has the White Working Class Abandoned the Democratic Party?     72
Have Working-Class Whites Become More Conservative?     78
Do "Moral Values" Trump Economics?     83
Are Religious Voters Distracted from Economic Issues?     90
Class Politics, Alive and Well     93
Partisan Biases in Economic Accountability     98
Myopic Voters     99
The Political Timing of Income Growth     104
Class Biases in Economic Voting     110
The Wealthy GiveSomething Back: Partisan Biases in Campaign Spending     116
Political Consequences of Biased Accountability     120
Do Americans Care about Inequality?     127
Egalitarian Values     130
Rich and Poor     136
Perceptions of Inequality     143
Facts and Values in the Realm of Inequality     148
Homer Gets a Tax Cut     162
The Bush Tax Cuts     164
Public Support for the Tax Cuts     170
Unenlightened Self-Interest     176
The Impact of Political Information     181
Chump Change     186
Into the Sunset     193
The Strange Appeal of Estate Tax Repeal     197
Public Support for Estate Tax Repeal     198
Is Public Support for Repeal a Product of Misinformation?     205
Did Interest Groups Manufacture Public Antipathy to the Estate Tax?     214
Elite Ideology and the Politics of Estate Tax Repeal     217
The Eroding Minimum Wage     223
The Economic Effects of the Minimum Wage     227
Public Support for the Minimum Wage     229
The Politics of Inaction     232
Democrats, Unions, and the Eroding Minimum Wage     239
The Earned Income Tax Credit     246
Reversing the Tide     247
Economic Inequality and Political Representation     252
Ideological Representation     254
Unequal Responsiveness     257
Unequal Responsiveness on Social Issues: The Case of Abortion     265
Partisan Differences in Representation     267
Why Are the Poor Unrepresented?     275
Unequal Democracy     283
Who Governs?     285
Partisan Politics and the "Have-Nots"     288
Political Obstacles to Economic Equality     294
The City of Utmost Necessity     298
Selected References     305
Index     317

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Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich are Trying to Save the World

Author: Matthew Bishop

An examination of how today’s leading philanthropists are revolutionizing the field, using new methods to have a vastly greater impact on the world. For philanthropists of the past, charity was often a matter of simply giving money away. For the philanthrocapitalists – the new generation of billionaires who are reshaping the way they give – it’s like business. Largely trained in the corporate world, these “social investors” are using big-business-style strategies and expecting results and accountability to match. Bill Gates, the world's richest man, is leading the way: he has promised his entire fortune to finding a cure for the diseases that kill millions of children in the poorest countries in the world.  In Philanthrocapitalism, Matthew Bishop and Michael Green examine this new movement and its implications. Proceeding from interviews with some of the most powerful people on the planet—including Gates, Bill Clinton, George Soros, Angelina Jolie, and Bono, among others—they show how a web of wealthy, motivated donors has set out to change the world. Their results will have huge implications: In a climate resistant to government spending on social causes, their focused donations may be the greatest force for societal change in our world, and a source of political controversy. Combining on-the-ground anecdotes, expert analysis, and up-close profiles of the wealthy and powerful, this is a fascinating look at a small group of people who will change an enormous number of lives.

On Liberty or 1948

On Liberty

Author: John Stuart Mill

Published in 1859, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty presented one of the most eloquent defenses of individual freedom in nineteenth-century social and political philosophy and is today perhaps the most widely-read liberal argument in support of the value of liberty. Mill's passionate advocacy of spontaneity, individuality, and diversity, along with his contempt for compulsory uniformity and the despotism of popular opinion, has attracted both admiration and condemnation.

About the Author:
John Stuart Mill was born in a suburb of London on May 20, 1806. By the age of ten he was reading classical authors in the original Greek and Latin, was proficient in history, algebra, and geometry, and soon after began to study logic, political economy, and law. He was elected to Parliament in 1865 and held the Radical seat for Westminster for the next three years. Mill died in Avignon, France, on May 7, 1873.

Books about:

1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War

Author: Benny Morris

This history of the foundational war in the Arab-Israeli conflict is groundbreaking, objective, and deeply revisionist. A riveting account of the military engagements, it also focuses on the war's political dimensions. Benny Morris probes the motives and aims of the protagonists on the basis of newly opened Israeli and Western documentation. The Arab side—where the archives are still closed—is illuminated with the help of intelligence and diplomatic materials.

Morris stresses the jihadi character of the two-stage Arab assault on the Jewish community in Palestine. Throughout, he examines the dialectic between the war's military and political developments and highlights the military impetus in the creation of the refugee problem, which was a by-product of the disintegration of Palestinian Arab society. The book thoroughly investigates the role of the Great Powers—Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union—in shaping the conflict and its tentative termination in 1949. Morris looks both at high politics and general staff decision-making processes and at the nitty-gritty of combat in the successive battles that resulted in the emergence of the State of Israel and the humiliation of the Arab world, a humiliation that underlies the continued Arab antagonism toward Israel.

The Washington Post - Glenn Frankel

[Benny Morris] first came to prominence with his 1988 book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, a ground-breaking, revisionist account of how Israeli forces uprooted and expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during Israel's independence war. His new book is an ambitious, detailed and engaging portrait of the war itself—from its origins to its unresolved aftermath—that further shatters myths on both sides of the Israeli-Arab divide.

The New York Times - David Margolick

The history of the 1948 war desperately needs to be told, since it's so barely understood or remembered and since so many of the issues that plague us today had their roots in that struggle…No one is better suited to the task than Benny Morris, the Israeli historian who, in previous works, has cast an original and skeptical eye on his country's founding myths. Whatever controversy he has stirred in the past, Morris relates the story of his new book soberly and somberly, evenhandedly and exhaustively. Definitely exhaustively, for 1948 can feel like 1948: that is, hard slogging. Some books can be both very important and very hard to read.

Frederic Krome - Library Journal

Morris (history, Ben-Gurion Univ.) offers a study of Israel's war of independence, effectively debunking many of the myths surrounding it. He divides that war into phases: civil war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews, begun in November 1947, followed by a Pan-Arab (i.e., Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq) invasion in May 1948. The Arab defeat in the civil war resulted in hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs fleeing, most expecting to return behind a triumphant Arab invasion force. Although outnumbered, the Israelis had spent months after the UN partition resolution in 1947 preparing for war, while their opponents spent more time calling for jihad against the Jews, which naturally inspired Jewish fear of a second Holocaust. The Israelis had a unified command system, internal lines of communication, and the ideological fervor that came from defending their homes. The invaders (the author's term), meanwhile, lacked coherent leadership and a unified strategy, so by the fall of 1948 the Israelis had achieved local military supremacy. Morris disputes the assertion that Israel had an overall policy of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. He meticulously documents the expulsions and atrocities that occurred on both sides. His work demonstrates that passion, not polemic, about this controversial era leads to good history. Recommended for all libraries.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments     ix
Abbreviations     xi
List of Maps     xiii
Staking Claims: The Historical Background     1
The United Nations Steps In: UNSCOP and the Partition Resolution     37
The First Stage of the Civil War, November 1947-March 1948     75
The Second Stage of the Civil War, April-mid-May 1948     113
The Pan-Arab Invasion, 15 May-11 June 1948     180
The First Truce, 11 June-8 July 1948, the International Community, and the War     264
The "Ten Days" and After     273
Operations Yoav and Hiram     320
Operation Horev, December 1948-January 1949     350
The Armistice Agreements, January-July 1949     375
Some Conclusions     392
Notes     421
Bibliography     493
Index     507