Good Reads
Rush Limbaugh, Listen to Your Brain
Deep down in our lobes, says new research from an international scientific team, sits a basic tilt toward fairness. A review of Elizabeth Tricomi, Antonio Rangel, Colin Camerer, and John O’Doherty, Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences, in the February 25, 2010 issue of the British scientific journal Nature.
Did the Founders Want Government Small?
The new conservative ‘Mount Vernon Statement’ unveiled last week claims that right-wingers are upholding what the Generation of 1776 held dear. But those right-wingers, history shows, are conveniently overlooking what the Founders truly feared. A review of Securing the Fruits of Labor: The American Concept of Wealth Distribution 1765-1900 by James Huston.
Does Good Fortune Explain Big Fortunes?
If the wealthy owe their wealth to luck, how should society respond? Philosophy’s ‘luck egalitarians’ are battling to get that question considered. A review of Health, Luck, and Justice by Shlomi Segall.
Must the Rich Rock On Forever?
Economists tend to add more to the aggravations of everyday life than explain them. Not this economist. A review of Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science that Makes Life Dismal by Moshe Adler.
A Thermodynamic Take on Executive Pay
What would constitute “fair pay” for corporate executives? A chemical engineer from Purdue looks for an answer in “the concepts and mathematics used to solve problems in statistical thermodynamics and information theory.”
Linking Work and Reward: A New Calculation
People who do vitally necessary work, throughout our economy, often take home far less than people whose jobs add trivial value to our lives. Do we have an alternative? Britain’s New Economics Foundation thinks so — and explains why in this fascinating new report.
The Acquisitive Society
Back in the 1930s, a University of Chicago project set out to list western civilization’s greatest books. Only one book by an author then living, this one, made the cut.
The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Us Stronger
By every measure that matters, relatively equal nations far outperform nations where income and wealth concentrate at the top. This powerful new book explores these contrasts — and explains them.
Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives
This American Library Association “outstanding title” of the year (Choice, Jan 2006) explores the price we pay for massive inequality. Now available for reading online.
Reaganism’s Rise — and Resiliency
The growing inequality of the last three decades rests on a flim-flam economic perspective on how the world works. But neutralizing this flim-flam, even in an Obama Age, will be no pushover. A review of The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics by Jonathan Chait.
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