The Great Leveler

The Great Leveler

Author: Walter Scheidel

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018-09-18

Total Pages: 525

ISBN-13: 0691184313

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How only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout world history Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world. Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling—mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues—have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future. An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent—and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon.


Communities in Action

Communities in Action

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-04-27

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0309452961

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In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.


Killing the Competition

Killing the Competition

Author: Martin Daly

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1351510169

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Criminologists have known for decades that income inequality is the best predictor of the local homicide rate, but why this is so has eluded them. There is a simple, compelling answer: most homicides are the denouements of competitive interactions between men. Relatively speaking, where desired goods are distributed inequitably and competition for those goods is severe, dangerous tactics of competition are appealing and a high homicide rate is just one of many unfortunate consequences. Killing the Competition is about this relationship between economic inequality and lethal interpersonal violence.Suggesting that economic inequality is a cause of social problems and violence elicits fierce opposition from inequality's beneficiaries. Three main arguments have been presented by those who would acquit inequality of the charges against it: that "absolute" poverty is the real problem and inequality is just an incidental correlate; that "primitive" egalitarian societies have surprisingly high homicide rates, and that inequality and homicide rates do not change in synchrony and are therefore mutually irrelevant. With detailed but accessible data analyses and thorough reviews of relevant research, Martin Daly dispels all three arguments.Killing the Competition applies basic principles of behavioural biology to explain why killers are usually men, not women, and counters the view that attitudes and values prevailing in "cultures of violence" make change impossible.


Inequality and Violence in the United States

Inequality and Violence in the United States

Author: Barbara H. Chasin

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13:

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An examination of class, racial and gender violence in the contemporary United States, which discusses the obvious violence of individual murder and assault and also the less publicized violence caused by the routine workings of our society, and especially, of its stratification.


Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict

Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict

Author: F. Stewart

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-01-22

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 0230582729

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Drawing on econometric evidence and in-depth studies of West Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, this book explores how horizontal inequalities - ethnic, religious or racial - are a source of violent conflict and how political, economic and cultural status inequalities have contributed. Policies to reverse inequality would reduce these risks.


The Violence of Neoliberalism

The Violence of Neoliberalism

Author: Victoria Collins

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-07-05

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 0429013248

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This book examines the impact of neoliberalism on society, bringing to the forefront a discussion of violence and harm, the inherent inequalities of neoliberalism and the ways in which our everyday lives in the Global North reproduce and facilitate this violence and harm. Drawing on a range of contemporary topics such as state violence, the carceral state, patriarchy, toxic masculinity, death, sports and entertainment, this book unmasks the banal forms of violence and harm that are a routine part of life that usurp, commodify and consume to reify the existing status quo of harm and inequality. It aims to defamiliarize routine forms of violence and inequality, thereby highlighting our own participation in its perpetuation, though consumerism and the consumption of neoliberal dogma. It is essential reading for students across criminology, sociology and political philosophy, particularly those engaged with crimes of the powerful, state crime and social harm.


The Costs of Inequality in Latin America

The Costs of Inequality in Latin America

Author: Diego Sánchez-Ancochea

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-12-10

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1838606254

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From the United States to the United Kingdom and from China to India, growing inequality has led to social discontent and the emergence of populist parties, also contributing to economic crises. We urgently need a better understanding of the roots and costs of these income gaps. The Costs of Inequality draws on the experience of Latin America, one of the most unequal regions of the world, to demonstrate how inequality has hampered economic growth, contributed to a lack of good jobs, weakened democracy, and led to social divisions and mistrust. In turn, low growth, exclusionary politics, violence and social mistrust have reinforced inequality, generating various vicious circles. Latin America thus provides a disturbing image of what the future may hold in other countries if we do not act quickly. It also provides some useful lessons on how to fight income concentration and build more equitable societies.


Violence, Inequality, and Human Freedom

Violence, Inequality, and Human Freedom

Author: Peter Iadicola

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 537

ISBN-13: 1442209496

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"Violence, Inequality, and Human Freedom is a powerful sociological introduction to the study of violence. The book highlights how violence goes beyond individual actions and introduces students to violence on three different levels: structural, institutional, and interpersonal. The third edition has been revised and updated throughout, including a new chapter on educational violence and revised sections on forms of institutional and structural violence, including sibling and elder violence, violence of the modern-day seige and drone assassinations, violence directed at other species, and the violence of modern-day slavery."--back cover.


How to Fight Inequality

How to Fight Inequality

Author: Ben Phillips

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2020-09-29

Total Pages: 85

ISBN-13: 1509543104

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Inequality is the crisis of our time. The growing gap between a few at the top and the rest of society damages us all. No longer able to deny the crisis, every government in the world is now pledged to fix it – and yet it keeps on getting worse. In this book, international anti-inequality campaigner Ben Phillips shows why winning the debate is not enough: we have to win the fight. Drawing on his insider experience, and his personal exchanges with the real-life heroes of successful movements, he shows how the battle against inequality has been won before, and he shares a practical plan for defeating inequality again. He sets a route map for us to overcome deference, build our collective power, and create a new story. Most books on inequality are about what other people ought to do about it – this book is about why winning the fight needs you. Tired of feeling helpless in the face of spiralling inequality? Want to know what you can do about it? This is the book for you.