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Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights
Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human RightsWas the Boston Tea Party the first WTO-style protest against transnational corporations? Did Supreme Court sell out America's citizens in the nineteenth century, with consequences lasting to this day? Is there a way for American citizens to recover democracy of, by, and for the people? Thom Hartmann takes on these most difficult questions and tells a startling story that will forever change your understanding of American history. He begins by uncovering an original eyewitness account of the Boston Tea Party and demonstrates that it was provoked not by "taxation without representation" as is commonly suggested but by the specific actions of the East India Company, which represented the commericial interests of the British elite. Hartmann then describes the history of the Fourteenth Amendment--created at the end of the Civil War to grant basic rights to freed slaves--and how it has been used by lawyers representing corporate interests to extend additional rights to businesses far more frequently than to freed slaves. Prior to 1886, corporations were referred to in U.S. law as "artificial persons." but in 1886, after a series of cases brought by lawyers representing the expanding railroad interests, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were "persons" and entitled to the same rights granted to people under the Bill of Rights. Since this ruling, America has lost the legal structures that allowed for people to control corporate behavior. As a result, the largest transnational corporations fill a role today that has historically been filled by kings. They control most of the world's wealth and exert power over the lives of most of the world's citizens. Their CEOs are unapproachable and live lives of nearly unimaginable wealth and luxury. They've become the rudder that steers the ship of much human experience, and they're steering it by their prime value--growth and profit and any expense--a value that has become destructive for life on Earth. This new feudalism was not what our Founders--Federalists and Democratic Republicans alike--envisioned for America. It's time for "we, the people" to take back our lives. Hartmann proposes specific legal remedies that could truly save the world from political, economic, and ecological disaster. .
Price: $4.15
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Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System
The United States holds the dubious distinction of having the most unequal income distribution of any advanced industrialized nation. While other developed countries face similar challenges from globalization and technological change, none rivals America's singularly poor record for equitably distributing the benefits and burdens of recent economic shifts. In Categorically Unequal, Douglas Massey weaves together history, political economy, and even neuropsychology to provide a comprehensive explanation of how America's culture and political system perpetuates inequalities between different segments of the population. Categorically Unequal is striking both for its theoretical originality and for the breadth of topics it covers. Massey argues that social inequalities arise from the universal human tendency to place others into social categories. In America, ethnic minorities, women, and the poor have consistently been the targets of stereotyping, and as a result, they have been exploited and discriminated against throughout the nation's history. African-Americans continue to face discrimination in markets for jobs, housing, and credit. Meanwhile, the militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border has discouraged Mexican migrants from leaving the United States, creating a pool of exploitable workers who lack the legal rights of citizens. Massey also shows that women's advances in the labor market have been concentrated among the affluent and well-educated, while low-skilled female workers have been relegated to occupations that offer few chances for earnings mobility. At the same time, as the wages of low-income men have fallen, more working-class women are remaining unmarried and raising children on their own. Even as minorities and women continue to face these obstacles, the progressive legacy of the New Deal has come under frontal assault. The government has passed anti-union legislation, made taxes more regressive, allowed the real value of the federal minimum wage to decline, and drastically cut social welfare spending. As a result, the income gap between the richest and poorest has dramatically widened since 1980. Massey attributes these anti-poor policies in part to the increasing segregation of neighborhoods by income, which has insulated the affluent from the social consequences of poverty, and to the disenfranchisement of the poor, as the population of immigrants, prisoners, and ex-felons swells. America's unrivalled disparities are not simply the inevitable result of globalization and technological change. As Massey shows, privileged groups have systematically exploited and excluded many of their fellow Americans. By delving into the root causes of inequality in America, Categorically Unequal provides a compelling argument for the creation of a more equitable society..
Price: $20.24
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Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches (Walras-Pareto Lectures)
Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2007. The idea of America as politically polarized--that there is an unbridgeable divide between right and left, red and blue states--has become a cliché. What commentators miss, however, is that increasing polarization in recent decades has been closely accompanied by fundamental social and economic changes--most notably, a parallel rise in income inequality. In Polarized America, Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal examine the relationships of polarization, wealth disparity, immigration, and other forces, characterizing it as a dance of give and take and back and forth causality. Using NOMINATE (a quantitative procedure that, like interest group ratings, scores politicians on the basis of their roll call voting records) to measure polarization in Congress and public opinion, census data and Federal Election Commission finance records to measure polarization among the public, the authors find that polarization and income inequality fell in tandem from 1913 to 1957 and rose together dramatically from 1977 on; they trace a parallel rise in immigration beginning in the 1970s. They show that Republicans have moved right, away from redistributive policies that would reduce income inequality. Immigration, meanwhile, has facilitated the move to the right: non-citizens, a larger share of the population and disproportionately poor, cannot vote; thus there is less political pressure from the bottom for redistribution than there is from the top against it. In "the choreography of American politics" inequality feeds directly into political polarization, and polarization in turn creates policies that further increase inequality..
Price: $17.10
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Two Nations : Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal
Why, despite continued efforts to increase understanding and expand opportunities, do black and white Americans still lead separate lives, continually marked by tension and hostility? In his much-lauded classic, newly updated to reflect the changing realities of race in our nation, Andrew Hacker explains the origins and meaning of racism and clarifies the conflicting theories of equality and inferiority. He paints a stark picture of racial inequality in America -- focusing on family life, education, income, and employment -- and explores the current controversies over politics, crime, and the causes of the gap between the races. Illuminating and oftentimes startling, Two Nations demonstrates how race has defined America's history and will continue to shape its future..
Price: $7.91
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Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age
A generation ago Americans undertook a revolutionary experiment to redefine marriage. The results of this experiment separating marriage from childrearing are in, and they are bad news for children and for the country as a whole. The family upheaval has hit African-Americans especially hard. We forgot what American marriage was designed to do: it ordered lives by giving the young a meaningful life script. It supported middle-class foresight, planning, and self-sufficiency. And it organized men and women around The Mission--nurturing their children's cognitive, emotional, and physical development. It is The Mission that separates middle-class kids from their less-parented and lower-achieving peers. In fact our great family experiment threatens to turn what the founders imagined as an opportunity-rich republic of equal citizens into a hereditary caste society..
Price: $9.80
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Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success
Is the United States "the land of equal opportunity" or is the playing field tilted in favor of those whose parents are wealthy, well educated, and white? If family background is important in getting ahead, why? And if the processes that transmit economic status from parent to child are unfair, could public policy address the problem? Unequal Chances provides new answers to these questions by leading economists, sociologists, biologists, behavioral geneticists, and philosophers. New estimates show that intergenerational inequality in the United States is far greater than was previously thought. Moreover, while the inheritance of wealth and the better schooling typically enjoyed by the children of the well-to-do contribute to this process, these two standard explanations fail to explain the extent of intergenerational status transmission. The genetic inheritance of IQ is even less important. Instead, parent-offspring similarities in personality and behavior may play an important role. Race contributes to the process, and the intergenerational mobility patterns of African Americans and European Americans differ substantially. Following the editors' introduction are chapters by Greg Duncan, Ariel Kalil, Susan E. Mayer, Robin Tepper, and Monique R. Payne; Bhashkar Mazumder; David J. Harding, Christopher Jencks, Leonard M. Lopoo, and Susan E. Mayer; Anders Björklund, Markus Jäntti, and Gary Solon; Tom Hertz; John C. Loehlin; Melissa Osborne Groves; Marcus W. Feldman, Shuzhuo Li, Nan Li, Shripad Tuljapurkar, and Xiaoyi Jin; and Adam Swift. .
Price: $22.40
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More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States
This book will prove useful to teachers, students, researchers, and activists as we struggle to understand how class is working in the twenty-first century United States.
—Peter Rachleff, professor of history, Macalester College, and President, Working Class Studies Association Binds diverse, informed, often compellingly personal explorationsof social and economic inequity together into a revealing journey through the scarred terrain of todays working-class reality. This book should be off the shelf and in the hands, and backpacks, of a new generation of working-class activists who can lead the struggle to collectively claim a new direction.
—Jerry Tucker, former UAW International Executive Board Member & co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina exposed to the world what many U.S. politicians and pundits have long been able to ignore. The media images that commanded our attention spoke loudly of the class and racial divisions that still exist in the United States today. Despite the stock market gains of the 1990s, which increased the ranks of millionaires and created greater wealth for those already wealthy, U.S. society has witnessed a dramatic increase in class inequality over that last two decades. A host of newly available research indicates that the United States is afar more classbound society than was previously supposed. The rich are becoming both relatively and absolutely richer while the poor are becoming relatively, if not absolutely, poorer. More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States is a sobering examination of the dynamics of class relations today. John Bellamy Foster, William K. Tabb, David Roediger, Stephanie Luce, and Mark Brenner— among others— contribute essays that challenge many of our assumptions about class and provide a multilayered analysis. Topics include the impact of social and economic policy on class; wealth and prospects for the working poor; undocumented workers and their exploitation in the U.S. informal economy; race and class struggles post-Hurricane Katrina; women and class over the last forty years; and education reform and the devastating effects for public schooling. Editor, Michael D. Yates shares a personal story of his working-class life and values, the shaping of his political consciousness, and the people and ideas that inspired his teaching. For the vast majority of us, a strong work ethic and desire to see the next generation in better circumstances are no longer enough. The barriers separating classes are hardening. Class inequality manifests itself in wealth, income, and occupation, but also in education, consumption, and health. More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States demonstrates that an analysis of society as a whole— its relationships of power, conflict, and potential for social change— is not possible without a thorough investigation of the role and meaning of class. .
Price: $9.01
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Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States
Most public health students, academicians, and practitioners recognize the association between racial/ethnic minority status and the disproportionate burden of preventable disease in the United States. Much less attention has been directed, however, toward health disparities that affect gay and bisexual men. These disparities affect the lives of an estimated 5.3-7.4 million American men, and are an important concern for public health. Until very recently, the relative invisibility of this group and a paucity of empirical data have hampered attempts to identify health disparities experienced by gay and bisexual men. This book proposes to review and synthesize evidence of health disparities among gay and bisexual men, identify individual and community factors that contribute to these disparities, and articulate strategies for public health efforts to eliminate disparities. To date, these disparities have been largely discussed in isolation in the research literature in a manner that does not permit a comprehensive examination of these problems, their underlying causes, and potential solutions. Thus, a primary emphasis of the book will be to document health disparities among gay and bisexual men while also describing public health solutions to these challenges..
Price: $39.86
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