Showing titles in Social Classes & Economic Disparity

In a Fifth Avenue apartment high above Central Park, a weathy art dealer and his wife are trying to interest a moneyed friend in a $2 million investment when an unexpected young guest arrives - and changes their lives forever. Performed by a full cast starring Alan Alda, Swoosie Kurtz, and Chuma Hunter-Gault.

The vast majority of our country is entirely unknown to us because we are banned from setting foot on it. By law of trespass, we are excluded from 92 per cent of the land and 97 per cent of its waterways, blocked by walls whose legitimacy is rarely questioned. But behind them lies a story of enclosure, exploitation and dispossession of public rights whose effects last to this day. The Book of Trespass takes us on a journey over the walls of England, into the thousands of square miles of rivers, woodland, lakes and meadows that are blocked from public access.

Economists regularly promote Capitalism as the greatest system ever to grace the planet. With the same breath, they implore us to leave the job of understanding the magical powers of the market to the "experts." Despite the efforts of these mainstream commentators to convince us otherwise, many of us have begun to question why this system has produced such vast inequality and wanton disregard for its own environmental destruction. This book offers answers to exactly these questions on their own terms: in the form of a radical economic theory.

Two decades into the twenty-first century, the stagnation of living standards has become the defining trend of American life. Life expectancy has declined, economic inequality has soared, and, after some progress, the Black-white wage gap is once again as large as it was in the 1950s. How did this happen in the world's most powerful country? And what happened to the "American dream"? Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Leonhardt examines the past century of American history, from the Great Depression to today's Great Stagnation, in search of an answer.

Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show in this book, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees. Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today's trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past 30 years. 

Kelly argues instead for the democratization of ownership, including public ownership of vital services, worker-owned businesses, and more. She sketches the outlines of a nonextractive capitalism that would be subordinate to the public interest. This is an ambitious reimagining of the very foundations of our economy and society.

In The Journey of Humanity, Oded Galor offers a revelatory explanation of how humanity became, only very recently, the unique species to have escaped a life of subsistence poverty, enjoying previously unthinkable wealth and longevity. He reveals why this process has been so unequal around the world, resulting in the great disparities between nations that exist today. He shows why so many of our efforts to improve lives have failed and how they might succeed.

From the Orwellian reach of an Amazon warehouse to the time trials of a council care worker and the grim reality behind the glossy Uber app, Hired is a clear-eyed analysis of a divided nation and a riveting dispatch from the very front line of low-wage Britain. We all define ourselves by our profession. But what if our job was demeaning, poorly paid, and tedious? Cracking open Britain's divisions, journalist James Bloodworth spends six months living and working across Britain, taking on the country's most gruelling jobs.

It's OK to be angry about capitalism. It's OK to want something better. Bernie Sanders takes on the 1% and speaks blunt truths about a system that is fuelled by uncontrolled greed, and rigged against ordinary people. Where a handful of oligarchs have never had it so good, with more money than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes, and the vast majority struggle to survive. Where a decent standard of living for all seems like an impossible dream.

A graphic and biting polemic that still holds a fierce political relevance and impact despite being written over half a century ago. First published in 1937 it charts George Orwell's observations of working-class life during the 1930s in the industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire. His depictions of social injustice and rising unemployment, the dangerous working conditions in the mines amid general squalor and hunger also bring together many of the ideas explored in his later works and novels.

The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative “Davos Men”—members of the billionaire class—chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a fifty-year trend of wealth centralization.

This is not a taste, nor an anti-taste, manual. This is an interrogation of the importance we place on seemingly objective ideas of taste in a culture that is saturated by imagery, and the dangerous impact this has on our identities, communities and politics. This book is dedicated to understanding the industries of taste. From the food we eat to the way we spend our free time, Olah exposes the shallow waters of 'good' and 'bad' taste and the rigid hierarchies that uphold this age-old dichotomy.

Discrimination and Disparities challenges believers in such one-factor explanations of economic outcome differences as discrimination, exploitation, or genetics. It is listenable enough for people with no prior knowledge of economics. Yet the empirical evidence with which it backs up its analysis spans the globe and challenges beliefs across the ideological spectrum.

The Housekeeper's Tale reveals the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women's careers. Using secret diaries, unpublished letters, and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain's most prominent households.

If you don’t understand communist revolutions, you aren’t ready for what’s coming. The old rules are over. The old order is over. Accusations are evidence. Activism means bigotry and hate. Criminals are allowed to roam free. Citizens are locked up. An appetite for vengeance is unleashed—to deplatform, debank, destroy. This is the daily news, yet none of it’s new. Patterns from the past make sense of our present. They also foretell a terrifying future we might be condemned to endure.

About 50km outside of Cape Town lies the beautiful town of Stellenbosch, nestled against vineyards and blue mountains that stretch to the sky. Here reside some of South Africa’s wealthiest individuals: all male, all Afrikaans - and all stinking rich. Johann Rupert, Jannie Mouton, Markus Jooste and Christo Weise, to name a few. Julius Malema refers to them scathingly as ‘The Stellenbosch Mafia’, the very worst example of white monopoly capital. But who really are these mega-wealthy individuals, and what influence do they exert?

In this boldly drawn portrait of 18th-century England, Roy Porter defines a nation from its princes to its paupers, from its metropolis to its smallest hamlet. The topics covered run the gamut, covering diet, housing, prisons, rural festivals, bordellos, plays, paintings, and work and wages.

This landmark book tackles a deceptively simple idea: the more we spend time with people unlike ourselves, doing things together, the more understanding, tolerant and even friendly we become. Combining fresh analysis with a wealth of fascinating examples, Jon Yates demonstrates the ways in which our societies have become disconnected, so that most of us spend less and less time with people who are different - as defined by age, race or class, earning power or education.

A century ago, it was a given that a woman with a college degree had to choose between having a career and a family. Today, there are more female college graduates than ever before, and more women want to have a career and family, yet challenges persist at work and at home. This book traces how generations of women have responded to the problem of balancing career and family as the twentieth century experienced a sea change in gender equality, revealing why true equity for dual career couples remains frustratingly out of reach.

Long before the American Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a motley crew of sailors, slaves, pirates, laborers, market women, and indentured servants had ideas about freedom and equality that would forever change history. The Many Headed-Hydra recounts their stories in a sweeping history of the role of the dispossessed in the making of the modern world.