Synopses & Reviews
A groundbreaking work that identifies the real culprit behind one of the great economic crimes of our time— the growing inequality of incomes between the vast majority of Americans and the richest of the rich.
We all know that the very rich have gotten a lot richer these past few decades while most Americans haven’t. In fact, the exorbitantly paid have continued to thrive during the current economic crisis, even as the rest of Americans have continued to fall behind. Why do the “haveit- alls” have so much more? And how have they managed to restructure the economy to reap the lion’s share of the gains and shift the costs of their new economic playground downward, tearing new holes in the safety net and saddling all of us with increased debt and risk? Lots of so-called experts claim to have solved this great mystery, but no one has really gotten to the bottom of it—until now.
In their lively and provocative Winner-Take-All Politics, renowned political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson demonstrate convincingly that the usual suspects—foreign trade and financial globalization, technological changes in the workplace, increased education at the top—are largely innocent of the charges against them. Instead, they indict an unlikely suspect and take us on an entertaining tour of the mountain of evidence against the culprit. The guilty party is American politics. Runaway inequality and the present economic crisis reflect what government has done to aid the rich and what it has not done to safeguard the interests of the middle class. The winner-take-all economy is primarily a result of winner-take-all politics.
In an innovative historical departure, Hacker and Pierson trace the rise of the winner-take-all economy back to the late 1970s when, under a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, a major transformation of American politics occurred. With big business and conservative ideologues organizing themselves to undo the regulations and progressive tax policies that had helped ensure a fair distribution of economic rewards, deregulation got under way, taxes were cut for the wealthiest, and business decisively defeated labor in Washington. And this transformation continued under Reagan and the Bushes as well as under Clinton, with both parties catering to the interests of those at the very top. Hacker and Pierson’s gripping narration of the epic battles waged during President Obama’s first two years in office reveals an unpleasant but catalyzing truth: winner-take-all politics, while under challenge, is still very much with us.
Winner-Take-All Politics—part revelatory history, part political analysis, part intellectual journey— shows how a political system that traditionally has been responsive to the interests of the middle class has been hijacked by the superrich. In doing so, it not only changes how we think about American politics, but also points the way to rebuilding a democracy that serves the interests of the many rather than just those of the wealthy few.
Review
“Winner Take All Politics is a powerfully argued book about a critically important subject, and I guarantee you it will make you think.”—Fareed Zakaria, GPN (CNN show)
Review
“The Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson of political science, Jacob Hacker of Yale and Paul Pierson of Berkeley, about how Washington served the rich in the last 30 years and turned its back on the middle class. They’re marvelous…”—Bill Moyers
Review
"The clearest explanation yet of the forces that converged over the past three decades or so to undermine the economic well-being of ordinary Americans."–Bob Herbert, The New York Times
Review
"This book is a wake-up call. Read it and wake up."–Robert Solow, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics in 1987
Review
"Must reading for anyone who wants to understand how Washington stopped working for the middle class."–Elizabeth Warren, Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Review
“Important. . . . The collapse of the American middle class and the huge transfer of wealth to the already wealthy is the biggest domestic story of our time.... The good news reported by Hacker and Pierson is that American wealth disparities—are not the residue of globalization or technology or anything else beyond our control. There's nothing inevitable about them. They're the result of politics and policies, which tilted toward the rich beginning in the 1970s and can, with enough effort, be tilted back over time (emphasis added for impatient liberals)” —Jonathan Alter, The New York Times Book Review
Review
“Engrossing. . . . Hacker and Pierson . . . deliver the goods. . . . Their description of the organizational dynamics that have tilted economic policymaking in favor of the wealthy is convincing.”—Justin Fox, Harvard Business Review
Review
"How can hedge-fund managers who are pulling down billions sometimes pay a lower tax-rate than do their secretaries?' ask the political scientists Jacob S. Hacker (of Yale) and Paul Pierson (University of California, Berkeley) in their deservedly lauded new book, Winner-Take-All Politics. If you want to cry real tears about the American dream—as opposed to the self-canonizing tears of John Boehner—read this book and weep. The authors' answer to that question and others amount to a devastating indictment of both parties.... The book deflates much of the conventional wisdom."—Frank Rich, The New York Times
Review
“How the U.S. economic system has also moved ‘off center’ toward an extreme concentration of wealth, and how progressive efforts to reverse that trend have run aground. . . . A very valuable book.”—Ed Kilgore, Washington Monthly
Review
“Hacker and Pierson make a compelling case. If Marie Antoinette were alive, she might aver of today’s great economically challenged masses, ‘Let them nibble on passbook-savings-account interest’—if they can manage to save anything, that is.”—David Holahan, The Christian Science Monitor
Review
"A must-read book.... It broke down what was at stake in 2010 and will be at stake in 2012 better than anything I've read.... Hacker and Pierson show how politics has become 'organized combat.'"—Joan Walsh, Salon
Review
“Buy a copy of Hacker and Pierson’s book and read it. Seriously. . . . This is the most complete and sustained explanation I’ve ever read of why, over the past 30 years, America has gone the direction it has even while most other countries haven’t. . . . For me, it was a 300-page ‘Aha!’ moment.”—Kevin Drum, Mother Jones
Review
"The worst social change in America during my lifetime has been its shift from the land of middle-class opportunity to the land of super-rich privilege. The economic polarization of America is a familiar problem, but Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson approach it in an original way, using detective-story procedure to identify an unsuspected culprit—one that has little to do with 'globalization' or 'technological revolution' or China or the like. Their case is convincing, and it builds to a recommendation of how Americans could organize to save their country's promise. I hope people read the book and follow its advice."—James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic
Review
"This is a transformative book. It's the best book on American politics that I've read since Before the Storm. . .
Review
“Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson combine enormous learning about how our political system actually works with a spritely facility for getting their ideas across—rare gifts in American political debate. Winner-Take-All Politics carries forward the argument from their path-breaking book Off-Center. It explains why the 2006 and 2008 elections only began a reform process that still has a ways to go. Hacker and Pierson have always stayed ahead of the conventional arguments and Winner-Take-All Politics keeps them in the lead.”—E.J. Dionne, Jr., author of Why Americans Hate Politics and Souled Out
Review
“Hacker and Pierson deftly pose and solve a political mystery: How could our democracy have turned away from a politics of broadly shared prosperity that served most citizens? Clue: take a close look at the elite capture of the Democratic Party. Winner-Take-All Politics—stylishly written and well documented with evidence—is a must-read for understanding the great political puzzle of our time.”—Robert Kuttner, author of A Presidency in Peril and co-editor of The American Prospect
Review
“Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson brilliantly break the intellectual logjam over the causes of runaway inequality. Their findings put responsibility and control back into the hands of officeholders, elected and appointed. Winner-Take-All Politics is crucial reading for all those engaged in American politics.”—Thomas B. Edsall, political editor, Huffington Post, and correspondent, The New Republic
Review
“This is a transformative book. It’s the best book on American politics that I’ve read since Before the Storm. . . If it has the impact it deserves, it will transform American public arguments about politics and policymaking.”—Henry Farrell, Crookedtimber.org
Review
andquot;If youandrsquo;re wondering 'whatandrsquo;s the matter with Kansas?'andmdash;working-class Americans voting against their own class interestandmdash;you should be asking, 'whatandrsquo;s the matter with Congress (and state legislatures, the Supreme Court, and basically every other American political institution)?' As Nicholas Carnes engagingly shows, politicians with working-class backgrounds take positions very much in line with working-class interests. The problem is that there are hardly any of them in office. Sure to stir debate,
White-Collar Government opens up exciting research vistas and new strategies of reform.andquot;and#160;
Review
andldquo;That Congress contains more than its fair share of millionaires is fairly well known. But Iandrsquo;ve never seen it put quite this vividly. . . . Nicholas Carnesandrsquo;s researchandmdash;and common senseandmdash;shows that the simple fact of being a white-collar millionaire leads to different priorities. It leads to different social circles. It leads to different bills.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A bold, compelling, and much-needed study of how the lack of working class individuals in public life shapes what government does. Nicholas Carnes undertakes a careful analysis to show how the disproportionate representation of people from white-collar professions skews government output toward conservative economic policies. The evidence he presents convinces me!andrdquo;
Review
and#8220;and#8216;Where you stand depends on where you sitand#8217; is a maxim seldom applied to the economic backgrounds of legislators. But Nicholas Carnesand#8217;s eye-opening study shows social class and work experience to be key determinants in shaping how Congress and state legislatures write laws and shape policies.and#8221;
Review
andquot;White-Collar Government is a superb analysis of an important and long-neglected topic. Nicholas Carnes documents the overwhelming underrepresentation of the working class in America's legislatures and shows why it matters. At local, state, and national levels, the dearth of representatives from working-class backgrounds, Carnes shows, has bent public policies toward the interests of business and the well-to-do. This book combines fluid, accessible prose with methodological rigor to make a powerful statement about the causes and consequences of our disproportionately white-collar government. Anyone concerned with the health of American democracy needs to read Carnes' compelling study.andquot;
Review
and#8220;Legislators with substantial working-class experience constitute less than two percent of Congress, whose members have a median net worth of $1.5 million, almost twenty times the amount held by the median family in the United States. In White-Collar Government, Carnes carefully documents this reality, which has been hidden in plain sight. And he demonstrates that it matters: politicians from the working classes, it turns out, think and vote differently from those with white collars on economic issues, including taxation, social spending and corporate regulations. With its compelling case that and#8216;who wins and who loses depends in large part on who governs,and#8217; his rigorous book should command the attention of everyone who is concerned about the state of our democracy.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Americaand#8217;s relationship to class is complicated, and tracking what is a powerful but often invisible identifier is a challenge. Carnesand#8217;s book offers scholars a much-needed jumping-off point for continued research on why the working class is vastly underrepresented in public office and how this affects policy outcomes.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;In politics, class matters, and it matters immensely. . . . and#160;Carnes offers striking evidence that the class background of legislators profoundly influences the US political system. . . . White-Collar Government demonstrates that the working class is radically underrepresented in all levels of US government, and the consequences are substantial. I hope (and suspect) that Carnesandrsquo;s findings will ignite a wave of research that builds on these conclusions.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;[Carnes] explores the hidden role of class in economic policy making and presents a solution to the notion that legislatorsandrsquo; socioeconomic backgrounds have a profound impact not only on how they view issues but also on the choices they make in office.andrdquo;
Synopsis
This acclaimed paradigm-shifting work identifies the real culprit behind one of the great economic crises of our time--the growing inequality of incomes between the vast majority of Americans and the richest of the rich.
A groundbreaking work that identifies the real culprit behind one of the great economic crimes of our time-- the growing inequality of incomes between the vast majority of Americans and the richest of the rich.
We all know that the very rich have gotten a lot richer these past few decades while most Americans haven't. In fact, the exorbitantly paid have continued to thrive during the current economic crisis, even as the rest of Americans have continued to fall behind. Why do the "haveit- alls" have so much more? And how have they managed to restructure the economy to reap the lion's share of the gains and shift the costs of their new economic playground downward, tearing new holes in the safety net and saddling all of us with increased debt and risk? Lots of so-called experts claim to have solved this great mystery, but no one has really gotten to the bottom of it--until now.
In their lively and provocative Winner-Take-All Politics, renowned political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson demonstrate convincingly that the usual suspects--foreign trade and financial globalization, technological changes in the workplace, increased education at the top--are largely innocent of the charges against them. Instead, they indict an unlikely suspect and take us on an entertaining tour of the mountain of evidence against the culprit. The guilty party is American politics. Runaway inequality and the present economic crisis reflect what government has done to aid the rich and what it has not done to safeguard the interests of the middle class. The winner-take-all economy is primarily a result of winner-take-all politics.
In an innovative historical departure, Hacker and Pierson trace the rise of the winner-take-all economy back to the late 1970s when, under a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, a major transformation of American politics occurred. With big business and conservative ideologues organizing themselves to undo the regulations and progressive tax policies that had helped ensure a fair distribution of economic rewards, deregulation got under way, taxes were cut for the wealthiest, and business decisively defeated labor in Washington. And this transformation continued under Reagan and the Bushes as well as under Clinton, with both parties catering to the interests of those at the very top. Hacker and Pierson's gripping narration of the epic battles waged during President Obama's first two years in office reveals an unpleasant but catalyzing truth: winner-take-all politics, while under challenge, is still very much with us.
Winner-Take-All Politics--part revelatory history, part political analysis, part intellectual journey-- shows how a political system that traditionally has been responsive to the interests of the middle class has been hijacked by the superrich. In doing so, it not only changes how we think about American politics, but also points the way to rebuilding a democracy that serves the interests of the many rather than just those of the wealthy few.
Synopsis
Eight of the last twelve presidents were millionaires when they took office. Millionaires have a majority on the Supreme Court, and they also make up majorities in Congress, where a background in business or law is the norm and the average member has spent less than two percent of his or her adult life in a working-class job. Why is it that most politicians in America are so much better off than the people who elect themandmdash; and does the social class divide between citizens and their representatives matter?
With White-Collar Government, Nicholas Carnes answers this question with a resoundingandmdash;and disturbingandmdash;yes. Legislatorsandrsquo; socioeconomic backgrounds, he shows, have a profound impact on both how they view the issues and the choices they make in office. Scant representation from among the working class almost guarantees that the policymaking process will be skewed toward outcomes that favor the upper class. It matters that the wealthiest Americans set the tax rates for the wealthy, that white-collar professionals choose the minimum wage for blue-collar workers, and that people who have always had health insurance decide whether or not to help those without. And while there is no one cause for this crisis of representation, Carnes shows that the problem does not stem from a lack of qualified candidates from among the working class. The solution, he argues, must involve a variety of changes, from the equalization of campaign funding to a shift in the types of candidates the parties support.
If we want a government for the people, we have to start working toward a government that is truly by the people. White-Collar Government challenges long-held notions about the causes of political inequality in the United States and speaks to enduring questions about representation and political accountability.
About the Author
Jacob S. Hacker is the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University. A Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, he is the author of The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream, The Divided Welfare State, and, with Paul Pierson, of American Amnesia: The Forgotten Roots of Our Prosperity; Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class; Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy. He has appeared recently on The NewsHour, MSNBC, All Things Considered, and Marketplace. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.Paul Pierson is Professor of Political Science and holder of the Avice Saint Chair of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Politics in Time, Dismantling the Welfare State?, and (with Jacob S. Hacker), American Amnesia: The Forgotten Roots of Our Prosperity; Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class; Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy. His commentary has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and The New Republic. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Table of Contents
1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; White-Collar Government
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; What Is Class?and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Unequal Social Class Makeup of American Political Institutionsand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Elephant in the Roomand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Why Does Class Matter? and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Evidenceand#160;2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Voting with Classand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Legislative Voting as a Window into the Importance of Classand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Measuring the Divisions and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Class and Legislative Voting Todayand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Class and Legislative Voting during the Postwar Periodand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Enduring Imprint of Classand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Representational Inequality in andldquo;Ayesandrdquo; and andldquo;Naysandrdquo;and#160;3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Before the Votes are Castand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Legislative EntrepreneursThe Role of ClassMeasuring Legislative EntrepreneurshipThe Policies Legislators ProposeThe Policies Legislators PassLeaving the Working Class Off the Agendaand#160;4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Class, Opinions, and Choicesand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Out of Touch, or Out of Step?and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Inside the Mind of a Member of Congressand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Importance of Opinionsand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Whoandrsquo;s Out of Touch Now? and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Out-of-Step Government and#160;5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Economic Policy Making in Class-Imbalanced Legislaturesand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;Representation and Policy Making What Would a Class-Balanced Congress Have Done? When the Working Class Holds OfficeBlue-Collar Government The Economic Consequences of White-Collar Government and#160;6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Fixing the Broken Mirrorand#160;Whatandrsquo;s Keeping the Working Class Out of Office? Thinking Bigger about Inequalityand#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Up Front There Oughtandrsquo;a Be a Man in Blackand#160;and#160;NotesReferencesand#160;Index