Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay

by James K. Galbraith

Book Overview

The boom of the U.S. economy in the late 1990s suggests that Americans are better off than they were a decade ago, but this is not true across the board and the reason, as James Galbraith explains, is wage inequality. He contends that inequality is not the result of impersonal market forces but of specific government decisions and the poor economic performance they created. Featuring a new afterword on wage shifts since 1994, Created Unequal...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226278794
• ISBN13: 9780226278797
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 378 Pages
• Weight: 1.19 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A compelling case that politics affects wages.

Galbraith provides a cogent, well-documented argument that instability has more to do with wage inequality than does a mechanism for market efficiency. "When the ocean is flat, rowboats and dinghies can join the trawlers out on the reef where the fish are running. But in a gale, the little boats sink while the large ones do not." He argues that reasonable wages obtain from low unemployment and that expecting science and technology to act as the "centerpiece of a progressive agenda is absurd." Highly recommended.

A sparring analysis of our current economic crisis.

Created Unequal, by James K. Galbraith, is an increadible book. In a time when most economists stick to the supply-side economic mantra, Galbraith breaks free. He gives a leftist view of the new economic order and the exploitation it has caused. He observes that the point of Welfare as it was concieved was never a safety net, as it should have been, but rather a way to insure a constant flow of low wage workers. He points to the growing wage disparities between the top 1% and the bottom 55%. He knocks down popular misconceptions about the growing inequality, including the technology myth. Galbraith tactfully explains that there has always been changing technology and new skills needed, yet the severity of inequality has never been so great. Galbraith also shows how the Fed's policy to keep unemployment at an artificially high, and immoral, level in order to scare off inflation has hurt a great number of people. Galbraith writes in the same progressive vien that his father, John Kenneth Galbraith, perfected. If you want to know why there have been striking economic inequalities in recent years, buy this book!

A significant extension of classical Keynesianism

This book looks at a main question in economics prior to the deflation Keynes wrestled with -- the structure of wages. He concludes (i) that not only has a purportedly "natural" rate of unemployment been set too high, way over any "ethical" rate, but also (ii) that such action by government is one of three means of keeping wages low, making the distribution of income and wealth more unequal than it would be in the absence of such deliberate policy.This has produced a crisis in the management of transfer payments such as Social Security. Jas. GALBRAITH is definitely "ahead of the curve".

Outstanding..filled with technical analysis, insights, data.

Editor, Stern's Management Review online, stern@hrconsultant.com Argues that America's wage gap was driven up by public policies shaped by and for the wealthy. Explains the relationship between economic policy and the structure of pay. Shows why knowledge workers have done well and why service worker have not; why consumer industries have lost ground. Shows that differential power, rather than a theory of differential skills, explains inequality in pay. Includes technical notes and bibliography. For those who want to gain insight into inequality in pay this work, by a leading economist, This book is outstanding and filled with technical analysis, insights and supporting data.

An economic thriller

I picked up the book and read the whole thing in one shot. It was so refreshing to read that in today's media and economics, which is dominated by views favorable to big business, someone dares write a book that seems almost communist in what it advocates.One of my own pet peeves is the unfairness of the social security tax. People making over $60,000 a year are not taxed at the income above that amount, under the pretense that social security is some kind of a social insurance system, when in fact it's a taxation and benefit system. One of the startling facts in the book: 65% of all capital gains are attributed to the top percentile (1%) of the economic population. How fair is it for congress to reduce these taxes below the rates for personal income taxes. As Warren Buffett put it, it's unfair that someone who earns a million dollars by finding a cure for cancer would pay more in taxes than someone who "earned" the same amount by investing in the stock ! market.Galbraith draws on the theories of Veblen, Keynes and Marx. The works of all three are available on the internet. If you want links, feel free to e-mail me or do a yahoo search.