Book Alert / The Politics Of Inequality

The Politics of Inequality -- A Political History of the Idea of Economic Inequality in America by Michael J. Thompson, Columbia UP '07, 247 pages, ISBN #0231140746. Index, bibliography, source notes, unillustrated.

"Throughout the history of Western political thought," writes political scientist Michael J. Thompson, "injunctions against unequal divisions of property, wealth, and power can be found, from the scrolls of ancient Greece to the political philosophy of the mid-twentieth century." Yet in recent decades, as the gap between rich and poor seems to be ever-widening, "economic inequality seems to have lost its place at the center of the debate about democratic life."

The author points to "the great reaction against the welfare state" in the late 20th century as a signal event, which led to a concept of the interplay between economy and society very different than was originally conceived. If we fail to correct this imbalance, Thompson argues, America risks losing the political foundation upon which our republic was built.

In his study, the William Paterson University scholar traces the historical development of American political thinkers about economic inequality and then explains how leaders rationalize the present economic inequality through examining changing political ideas and values. "By the end of the twentieth century," he says, "liberalism becomes co-opted by capitalism, and republican themes of the past fade into the background."