THE CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERAL -- By Paul Krugman W. W. Norton / 352 pages / $25.95
Paul Krugman's stimulating manifesto aims to galvanize today's progressives the way Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative did right-wingers in 1964. Krugman's great theme is economic equality and the liberal politics that support it. America's post-war middle-class society was not the automatic product of a free-market economy, he writes, but was created ... by the policies of the Roosevelt administration.
By strengthening labor unions and taxing the rich to fund redistributive programs like Social Security and Medicare, the New Deal consensus narrowed the income gap, lifted the working class out of poverty and made the economy boom. Things went awry, Krugman contends, with the Republican Party's takeover by movement conservatism, practicing a politics of deception and distraction to advance the interests of the wealthy. Conservative initiatives to cut taxes for the rich, dismantle social programs and demolish unions, he argues, have led to sharply rising inequality, with the incomes of the wealthiest soaring while those of most workers stagnate.
Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets
By Sudhir Venkatesh Penguin Press / 320 pages / $25.95
The portrait that Columbia University's Sudhir Venkatesh paints of one Chicago neighborhood's criminal kingpin has been called a "path-breaking" contribution to the study of urban economics. His riveting portrait of day-to-day life in this poor community, including the challenges confronting parents in a drug-infested and violent social environment, is disturbing. But Gang Leader for a Day is rich with original information and insights on poor families, drug dealers and even the police. It will leave an indelible impression on readers.
Economic Facts and Fallacies
By Thomas Sowell Basic / 262 pages / $26
From one of America's most noted conservative economists, a short, original book that offers some unconventional ideas about how to think about common economic topics. Sowell disects what he sees as widely disseminated fallacies about urban problems, income differences and male-female economic differences, as well as economics fallacies about academia, about race and about Third World countries. One of the themes of Economic Facts and Fallacies is that fallacies are not simply crazy ideas but in fact have a certain plausibility that gives them their staying power - and makes careful examination of their flaws both necessary and important, as well as sometimes humorous.
Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life
By Robert B. Reich
Borzoi Books / 288 pages / $25
Robert B. Reich, professor of public policy and former secretary of labor, argues that as the U.S. has grown stronger as a capitalist economy, it has grown weaker as a democratic nation. Reich begins by looking at the political and economic history that has contributed to the particular brand of capitalism and democracy practiced in the U.S. and how democracy is threatened as more and more Americans are engrossed in their roles as consumers and investors and less so as citizens.
He recalls the "almost Golden Age" of the 1950s, a period of stability as large corporations, big labor and government managed the interests of consumers, workers, management and investors for the "common good." The spread of capitalism to a global level hasn't corresponded with a spread of democracy throughout the world and has led to some negative social consequences at home, including widening inequalities and a shrinking social safety net.
Reich asserts that although Americans dislike what lower wages are doing to us as a nation, when weighed against lower prices or higher return on investments, we vacillate or look the other way.
Sources: Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, William Julius Wilson, Basic.