August 10, 2004

Egalitarian Capitalism

Posted by Kieran

I’ve mentioned this book before, but now that it’s been published so I thought it worth mentioning again. Egalitarian Capitalism is a new book by my new colleague Lane Kenworthy, who’s just joined us at Arizona. It’s a comparative analysis of trends in income inequality and household pre- and post-tax transfers in sixteen wealthy capitalist democracies. Lane’s approach is to ask whether the data support the idea that there are tradeoffs between a low degree of inequality, on the one hand, and strong growth, high employment and growing incomes on the other. The short answer is “not really.” The longer answer has interesting discussions of which approaches work and which seem not to. It’s a good book: the argument, the writing, and the data analysis are accessible and easy to follow. As has often been said around here, policy and public debate in the United States hardly ever looks around to see how other countries organize the relationship between economy and society. Maybe the current climate provides an opportunity to change that: To see how equality is compatible with various measures of economic success, read the book. (To get a sense of how these countries compare to Neoconservative ideals, just continue to follow the news about Iraq.) You can read the first chapter to get a better sense of what the project is; look at the cover; or just buy it.

Posted on August 10, 2004 05:53 PM UTC
Comments
Lane’s approach is to ask whether the data support the idea that there are tradeoffs between a low degree of inequality, on the one hand, and strong growth, high employment and growing incomes on the other. The short answer is “not really.”

Some Euro countries best US on productivity-study

NEW YORK, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Productivity levels in seven European countries have gradually moved higher than in the United States, with fewer hours actually worked, according to a study released on Thursday.

“Seven nations — Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Ireland and Germany — exceeded U.S. productivity levels in 2002,” the economists at the Economic Policy Institute, wrote.
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Unemployment rate in Sweden: 4%.

Posted by abb1 · August 10, 2004 09:53 PM

Very interesting. At a minimum, this will make it on to the list of Books I Did Not Read This Year

Posted by John Quiggin · August 11, 2004 04:46 AM

Any idea of how this project compares to Harold L. Wilensky’s recent big fat Rich Democracies?

Posted by Ray Davis · August 11, 2004 02:38 PM

abb1:

I think the root cause of the better productivity is that the men in Europe do not bug their wives about how much money they spend, while in the U.S. it is still very common, even when the wives are working.

Posted by wood turtle · August 11, 2004 05:15 PM

abb1:

I think the root cause of the better productivity in Europe is that the men do not bug their wives about how much money they spend, the way they do in the U.S., even when the women work.

Posted by wood turtle · August 11, 2004 05:27 PM

Good thinkin’ Wood, the mystery is solved. Or maybe it’s wine-drinking vs. beer-drinking.

Although I suspect it may also have something to do with the dollar/euro exchange rate.

Cheers.

Posted by abb1 · August 11, 2004 05:33 PM

abb1:

The dollar/euro exchange rate? I think not. Wasn’t it not too long ago that some guy posted here about his wife and buying a watch and all the numbers were in dollars? Whoo-ee! I figured the guy was such a windbag that he must know what he is talking about. I was just a little confused because he said he lived in Switzerland! I didn’t want to look stupid on this mucho educated type website, so I just assumed that THE EURO HAD GONE EXTINCT and they just gave up all their currency and decided to use dollars instead. That wouldn’t account for Sweden anyway because didn’t they kill people over there not to have the Euro? That’s what happens when you destroy your bogs.

In the future though, none of this will matter because everybody’s money will be worth the same, and we can just use whatever country’s money is the nicest looking.

Posted by woodturtle · August 12, 2004 08:32 AM

I was just a little confused because he said he lived in Switzerland!

It may sound incredible, but some people live in different countries at different times of their lives.

That wouldn’t account for Sweden…

Sweden is not listed as one of the countris with productivity higher than the US. Although I imagine the dollar/krona rate probably dropped 20-30% in the past few years as well.

Posted by abb1 · August 12, 2004 11:20 AM

abb1:

That is incredible, world traveler.

Have a good one.

Posted by woodturtle · August 12, 2004 05:44 PM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.