In this Book
- The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy
- Book
- 2017
- Published by: The MIT Press
summary
The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America, and outlines ways to work toward greater equality so that America will no longer have one economy for the rich and one for the poor.Many poorer Americans live in conditions resembling those of a developing country -- substandard education, dilapidated housing, and few stable employment opportunities. And although almost half of black Americans are poor, most poor people are not black. Conservative white politicians still appeal to the racism of poor white voters to get support for policies that harm low-income people as a whole, casting recipients of social programs as the Other -- black, Latino, not like "us." Politicians also use mass incarceration as a tool to keep black and Latino Americans from participating fully in society. Money goes to a vast entrenched prison system rather than to education. In the dual justice system, the rich pay fines and the poor go to jail.
Table of Contents
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- Introduction
- pp. ix-xviii
- I: An American Dual Economy
- 1. A Dual Economy
- pp. 3-14
- 2. The FTE Sector
- pp. 15-26
- 3. The Low-Wage Sector
- pp. 27-40
- 4. Transition
- pp. 41-46
- II: Politics in a Dual Economy
- 5. Race and Gender
- pp. 49-60
- 6. The Investment Theory of Politics
- pp. 61-76
- 7. Preferences of the Very Rich
- pp. 77-86
- 8. Concepts of Government
- pp. 87-98
- III: Government in a Dual Economy
- 9. Mass Incarceration
- pp. 101-114
- 10. Public Education
- pp. 115-128
- 11. American Cities
- pp. 129-136
- 12. Personal and National Debts
- pp. 137-144
- IV: Comparisons and Conclusions
- 13. Comparisons
- pp. 147-152
- 14. Conclusions
- pp. 153-160
- Appendix: Models of Inequality
- pp. 161-166
- References
- pp. 183-208
Additional Information
ISBN
9780262339988
Related ISBN(s)
9780262036160
MARC Record
OCLC
978572706
Pages
256
Launched on MUSE
2017-03-28
Language
English
Open Access
No