Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age (Russell Sage Foundation Co-Pub) | 
| Author: Larry M. Bartels
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 13187
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 328
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0691136637
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.973
EAN: 9780691136639
ASIN: 0691136637
Publication Date: April 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NEW!! No marks, no bent pages, Great book!
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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.
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 New provocative evidence June 1, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Larry Bartels's book is one of the most important written works on economic inequality issues over the last 25 years. Anyone discussing economic inequality in the U.S. will have to deal with Bartels's arguments and evidence, even if you disagree with his findings and how he interprets those findings.
Among the evidence and arguments of Bartels's books are the following:
*** Since World War II, Democratic Presidents have been associated with modestly progressive patterns of real per family income growth, that is the income growth during Democratic Presidents' terms has been somewhat higher for lower income families than for upper income families. Republican Presidents have been associated with highly regressive patterns of real per family income growth, that is income growth has been much higher for upper income families than for other families. However, all income groups have on average gained more under Democratic Presidents.
*** The Democratic Presidents' better performance has been concentrated during the second year of Presidential terms. Republican Presidents have done better during the 4th year of Presidential terms, that is the election year. This may help explain Presidential election results, as voters appear to respond more to election year economic performance than the economic performance of prior years.
*** Economic issues still are key for working class voters in the U.S.
*** Political leaders appear to be much more responsive to upper class and middle class voters in their state than to lower class voters. However, even more of voting behavior is explained by the ideology of a politician's political party. This is true both for the Democrats, who have ignored most voters' opposition to estate taxes, and for Republicans, who have ignored most voters' support for higher minimum wages.
Bartels's work is only a start. He really does not have even close to a complete theory about WHY economic growth for different income families has the correlations he finds with Presidential political party. We would need to know more about this to more completely judge the relative economic performance under different political parties.
In addition, his book raises the issue of how we can improve the quality of the political debate in the U.S. over issues of economic inequality. There is considerable resistance in the U.S. to openly discussing these issues. Politicians who discuss these issues risk being accused of promoting "class warfare". As Bartels points out, there is some tendency to want to assume that somehow the income distribution is determined by unchanging economic laws that are impervious to political influence. Bartels presents new evidence that in fact the income distribution can be influenced by public policy to a very large extent. But the question is, how do we make this understanding part of the mainstream political debate?
Get Real About Inequality and Its Political Consequences/Causes May 24, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a quite amazing book for its wealth of fascinating and often counter intuitive information, particularly income distribution stats and political survey information. There is definitely a form of political delusion at work in the USA, based on voters so consistently voting against their own interests. For example voters favoring abolition of the estate tax when it only affects the top 2% of tax payers or favoring the Bush 2001 tax cuts without knowing anything much about them. More interestingly he shows how, while increasing political knowledge (measured by simple questions on who is what position in US politics) increases Democrats awareness of economic inequality; the same increasing political knowledge makes Republicans LESS knowledgeable or more in denial that inequality has increased, let alone whether it is a problem. He also nails the idea that the blue collar have shifted against their interests. Republican voting is still largely a matter of the better off supporting them, especially the less well educated and religious better off The Democrats lost power because of the defection of the South that now merely reflects the national picture (rather than hugely Democratic as before Civil Rights circa 1964) and the growth of reasonably well off, non college educated, religious voters who vote on economic AND values grounds, though still against their economic interests. Since 1948 economic growth has been on average significantly higher and unemployment lower for all social groups under Democrat presidents; inflation has been only slightly higher. And income equality much better under Democrats. Ultimately I suppose a worrying and somewhat pessimistic book, but a necessary tough tonic before thinking of solutions. Voters tend to vote on the economy in election year and the Republicans have done better in election years and voters don't seem to remember the other years when things were much worse. I hope both Presidential Candidates read it but doubt it will have the necessary impact. That will take a gutsy new FDR to put the country back together again after a collapse like the 1930s. Interestingly my conservative friends go into huge denial about this book: they can't even consider it; it is so threatening to their world view. I am open to doubt about its data and arguments, but the author provides plentiful source and precise survey question detail so intelligent engagement with the book is really easy, whether you agree or not with his fundamental premises. The author hasn't voted since 1984 he says and then voted Reagan, so this is not another move on.org book for the choir. The evidence drove him to his conclusions rather than the other way round. I wish there were more books this insightful.
 Scholarship with a limited range, and no help with solutions April 27, 2008
12 out of 23 found this review helpful
Democrats are better for the economy, says Larry Bartels, and they're better for the poor. He backs this up with an arsenal of data on rates and causes of inequality over the last 50 years under Republican and Democratic presidents. Inequality systematically increases under Republicans and decreases under Democrats. Bartels doesn't linger much over the mechanism which might make this true; he hypothesizes that Republicans emphasize inflation-lowering policies that help mostly businessmen, while Democrats fight unemployment that largely afflicts the poor.
So if Republicans are bad for the majority of us, why do they win elections? A good part of the answer, says Bartels, is that Americans have short memories: they respond much more intensely to economic gain in the year right before an election than they do to economic loss in the preceding three. And American political opinion suffers from an unfortunate inconsistency: people claim to be in favor of reducing inequality at the same time that they support policies which further it. No matter how you frame it, for instance, Americans have overwhelmingly supported ending the estate tax since the 1930's, even though it demonstrably only affects the wealthiest 1% or 2% of the population. And this inconsistency doesn't go away with education: virtually every way you cut the data, clear majorities support doing away with the tax on inherited estates.
"Unequal Democracy" is, unfortunately, a highly academic book: it seems very concerned to establish ideas rigorously that the rest of the world has long since taken for granted, out of the sheer analytical joy of doing so. Thus we wait 250 pages to see Bartels announce: "I find that senators in this period were vastly more responsive to affluent consistuents than to constituents of modest means." This is why we pay political scientists the big bucks. And yet to read Bartels, political science as a discipline only understands democracies as a collection of autonomous equals. So "Unequal Democracy" constitutes an *advance*. So much the worse for political science. I have my doubts that anyone outside of political science will get much from the book.
In particular -- once again, assuming Bartels has summarized the literature propertly -- political science seems to have missed out on the collective-action problem in economics. As Mancur Olson noted in "The Logic of Collective Action" in 1965 (and I don't think he was the first), there's a problem when policies stand to benefit one group while they spread their harms across the whole population: the group will lobby intensely for the policy, while the rest of the population stands mute. Compact interest groups are really important, if only for this reason. Yet Bartels doesn't even start to discuss their effect on policy. He also never stops to touch on the disfranchisement of the poor. This was a large part of "The Conscience of a Liberal": Krugman asserts that our nation's growing inequality stems in large part from weakened labor unions, which used to help bring the poor to the polls.
In short, Bartels is looking at the American political scene from a high statistical level, never descending to the foundations. And his book will not help us change the situation.
In a world where "The Conscience of a Liberal" and Paul Farmer exist, I can't recommend "Unequal Democracy".
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