CREATED UNEQUAL : THE CRISIS IN AMERICAN PAY
Author: James Galbraith
List Price: $26.00
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ISBN: 0684849887
Publisher: Free Press (20 August, 1998)
Sales Rank: 84,786
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Outstanding..filled with technical analysis, insights, data.
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.
Rating: 5 out of 5
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!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Technically solid, but weaker on policy arguments
"Created Unequal" is an impressive work of economic analysis of wage and wealth inequality. Although the book occasionally gets into some relatively rigorous economics, it should be accessible to the determined lay reader.Professor Galbraith's central thesis is that the amount of wage inequality (the difference between what the wealthiest make and what the poorest make) is tied directly to a number of key factors: the unemployment rate, the interest rate, the strength of the dollar, and so on. Essentially, the lower the unemployment rate, the less the degree of wage inequality. I am simplifying his thesis considerably here, but this is the essence of it. There is a considerable amount of technical research presented that supports the thesis and demonstrating a strong correlation between wage inequality and unemployment.
So, Professor Galbraith makes a persuasive case that the government can affect wage inequality by making certain policy decisions, such as lowering unemployment, raising the minimum wage, weakening the dollar against international currencies, and so on.
But, what is missing from the book is a serious justification of why the free market should not dictate the value of labor. In other words, from a normative standpoint, why should workers be paid two or three or more times the value of their labor? There are egalitarian arguments to be made, of course, but at the same time, if the value of Bill Gates' labor is, say, 100 times more valuable than the work of a custodian, why should Gates' wages be limited to, say, 30 times that of custodian? (At one point, Professor Galbraith suggests a 30-1 limitation.)
In the end, this is an impressive and valuable work. You may or may not agree with the policy decisions that Professor Galbraith supports, but his analysis must be reckoned with.
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