An eye-opening look at a specific element of economic and social inequality.
An examination of income inequality through the lens of Teton County, Wyoming, which is “both the richest county in the United States and the county with the nation’s highest level of income inequality.”
Teton County has become the primary or secondary home for a large influx of multimillionaires and billionaires, who are attracted by the breathtaking natural beauty and the absence of a state income tax. A similarly large population—perhaps 30% of the county—consists of low-income families who live in Teton County to fill jobs that serve the wealthy residents. Farrell (Sociology/Yale Univ.; The Battle for Yellowstone: Morality and the Sacred Roots of Environmental Conflict, 2015), a Wyoming native, found that the bulk of the low-income families are immigrants who speak Spanish as their first language. The author also writes about how he was raised by a mother who depended on rich people for income as a house cleaner. Farrell eventually moved away, becoming a first-generation college student and an academic researcher. In his chronicle of his return to where he grew up, he examines both sides of the divide. The book contains some sections packed with academic jargon, including one about the research methodology underlying the 200-plus in-depth interviews of the wealthy and the working poor who serve them in various capacities. Farrell learned that the wealthy tend to view themselves as sensitive, generous philanthropists, part of a county where everybody gets along and where distinguishing between the rich and the poor is mostly irrelevant because they are all friends. The laborers, on the other hand, do not perceive the relations as friendships. While the author found little overt hatred among the laborers, he did uncover puzzlement about why the wealthy seemed to lack empathy and self-awareness. “The working poor,” writes the author, “called into question many of the positive perceptions ultra-wealthy people have of themselves….They pointed out the irony and false virtue of affluent environmentalism, and link it to the ongoing suffering of the working poor.”
An eye-opening look at a specific element of economic and social inequality.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-691-17667-3
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
The benefit of slavery is but one of the firebombs lobbed within a book that more are likely to find infuriating than...
A conservative professor of economics and public policy argues that conventional attitudes about racism and social injustice are not only wrong, but harmful as well, in an analysis that will spark outrage among the liberal intellectuals that he targets.
Sowell (The Housing Boom and Bust, 2009, etc.) understates the case when he writes that he has arrived at “many conclusions very different from those currently prevailing in the media, in politics or in academia.” The result of that common liberal consensus, he charges, “has been a steady drumbeat of grievance and victimhood ideologies, from the media, from educational institutions and from other institutions permeated by the vision of the intelligentsia.” As a member of the media, an educator, an intellectual and a black man (who often writes about racial issues from a conservative perspective), Sowell relishes his role as provocateur. Of course, the author’s version of truth serves an agenda suggesting that the black community might have been better off before initiatives such as civil rights and affirmative action and that blaming society for the inequities suffered by minorities represents “a long tradition of intellectuals who more or less automatically transform differences into inequities and inequities into the evils or shortcomings of society.” Even if blacks have less opportunity than whites, achieve less and commit more crime, he writes, these are not the results of oppression, and they can’t be resolved by “a lifestyle of dependency.” Instead, “those who lag, for whatever reasons, face a daunting task of bringing themselves up to the rest of society in knowledge, skills and experience—and in the attitudes necessary to acquire this knowledge and these skills and experience.” In other words, the problem isn’t white racism but black attitudes.
The benefit of slavery is but one of the firebombs lobbed within a book that more are likely to find infuriating than enlightening.Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-465-05872-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Only the most dedicated Ginsburg fans, and there are many, will devour everything here, but most readers will find items of...
From the second woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court, a collection of writings ranging from the slight to the serious.
Now 83, women’s rights icon Ginsburg nears the close of her distinguished career as a law professor, appellate advocate, judge, and justice, arguably having done more to move our law in the direction of gender equality than any living person. Now, as two Georgetown Law professors, Hartnett and Williams (emerita) prepare her official biography, they have collected Ginsburg’s speeches, lectures, articles, and opinions, some on offer here. They preface most of this material with explanatory, wholly complimentary notes and begin with a chapter of juvenilia, demonstrating Ginsburg’s early interest in human rights and in preserving individual liberties. Passages devoted to “the lighter side” of life at the Supreme Court include, for example, Ginsburg’s musings on lawyers depicted in opera, not least her own “starring” role in Scalia/Ginsburg. There follows a section on “waypavers” and “pathmarkers,” Ginsburg’s tributes to, among others, Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to the Supreme Court Bar, Gloria Steinem, “the face of feminism,” and Sandra Day O’Connor, the court’s first woman justice. Especially good are the author’s observations on the court’s “Jewish seat” and her charming lecture on four notable Supreme Court wives. These, and many other agreeable selections, are characterized as “remarks,” delivered and often recycled for various audiences. The collection also contains numerous bench announcements, summaries of some of Ginsburg’s most consequential opinions and dissents, and a few revealing essays that offer keys to her jurisprudence: for example, her perspective on the role of dissents, the value of consulting foreign law, and the wisdom of “measured motions” by the judiciary, wherein she mildly criticizes Roe v. Wade for provoking a backlash and halting “a political process that was moving in a reform direction.”
Only the most dedicated Ginsburg fans, and there are many, will devour everything here, but most readers will find items of interest from this icon of women’s rights.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-4524-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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