Deep Inequality

Understanding the New Normal and How to Challenge It

By (author) Earl Wysong, Robert Perrucci

Not available to order

Publication date:

17 November 2017

Length of book:

224 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442266469

Forbes reports that the richest 1 percent of the world’s population owns nearly half the world’s wealth, and the gap between the richest and poorest of the world only continues to increase. Deep Inequality looks behind these stark statistics to understand not only wealth inequality but also rising disparities in other elements of life—from education to the media. The authors argue that inequality has become so pervasive that it is the new normal. When we do recognize troubling inequality, we look at individual or small-scale problems without understanding the broader structural issues that shape the economy, the global political system, and more. Only by understanding the structural forces at play can we recognize the deep divisions in our society and work for meaningful change. Deep Inequality explains the changing landscape of inequality to help readers see society in a new way.

Chapter 1: When Worlds Collide: The New Normal Meets Structural Realities
Chapter 2: Income and Wealth Inequality: The New Class Structure
Chapter 3: The New Economy: National and Global Dimensions
Chapter 4: The New Workplace: Employers, Employment, Workers
Chapter 5: New Normal Politics: Money, Class, and Power
Chapter 6: New Normal Education: Public Schools and Colleges
Chapter 7: The Information and Culture Industries: Pacification and Resistance
Chapter 8: The Future of Inequality: Polarization, Gridlock, and Global Warming

Increasing inequality, precarious work arrangements, stagnant wages, and cutbacks in government spending—in the mainstream public sphere, these and other troubling features of the contemporary American landscape are commonly described as the "new normal." Challenging this legitimating ideology, Earl Wysong and Robert Perrucci convincingly argue that the grim realities we are expected to accept as given are in fact the contingent and reversible outcomes of decisions made by networks of wealthy and well-placed corporate and political power holders. In developing their analysis of today's inequalities, the authors take us on a richly detailed and multifaceted tour, with many interesting stops along the way: the contemporary class structure, globalization, the gig economy, the corrupting role of money in politics, the class-based education system, the corporate media, political polarization and gridlock, climate change, and much more. An important, innovative, and well-written book.