"Examines patterns of income inequality among 16 advanced democracies from the mid 1970s to the early 2000s and explains why some societies have a large and growing divide between the rich and the poor while others, facing similar global economic pressures, maintain more egalitarian income distributions"--Provided by publisher.

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

For the first time in history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. Capitalism prevails because it delivers prosperity and meets desires for autonomy. But it also is unstable and morally defective. Surveying the varieties and futures of capitalism, Branko Milanovic offers creative solutions to improve a system that isn’t going anywhere.

In 1976, there were 38 countries, comprising nearly 50% of the world’s population that self-identified as socialist states, yet by 1991, only one remained. In 1976, the annual GDP per capita of the 38 socialist countries (in inflation adjusted dollars) averaged approximately $5 thousand. By 1990 it had grown to about $8 thousand. During that same period, the GDP per capita, in comparable numbers, for the United States grew from $24 thousand to $36 thousand. The socialist countries never grew their per capita income to more than 22% of the United States. Even China, which today has an economy almost as large as the United States, never saw its per capita GDP grow beyond $2 thousand per year during the twenty-eight year period as a socialist state under Mao Zedong. But, after the death of Mao, China converted its economy to the capitalist model with spectacular success, lifting a billion people out of poverty and challenging the United States for worldwide economic supremacy-an outcome that would have been unthinkable under socialism. Why has capitalism proven to be such an extraordinary success and socialism such a miserable failure? Charles Ladner argues that the success or failure of economic systems can be traced to the degree to which such systems are congruent with the primal force of evolutionary natural selection. This is the most fundamental need of every living thing to survive and reproduce. He encapsulate these forces into the term: selfishness. Capitalism, he finds, is grounded in such selfishness or self-interest, and therefore is fully congruent with the biological needs which provide the aspirational motivation that cause capitalism at all times and in every place, to be successful. Socialism, on other hand, requires and cannot function without, authoritarian rule to suppress expressions of self-interest. Its operation at the level of the state, serves to frustrate the biological needs and thereby will always produce poverty and failure. The historical record, he says, categorically demonstrates this. Capitalism, however, has a fatal flaw, and that is its inability to restrain the expression of selfishness, which ultimately leads to such extremes of wealth and income inequality that the system can self-destruct. In the final chapters, Ladner offers possible remedies for the United States, which he believes is already in the very early stages of such self-destruction.

Capitalism and Inequality rejects the popular view that attributes the recent surge in inequality to a failure of market institutions. Bringing together new and original research from established scholars, it analyzes the inequality inherent in a free market from an economic and historical perspective. In the process, the question of whether the recent increase in inequality is the result of crony capitalism and government intervention is explored in depth. The book features sections on theoretical perspectives on inequality, the political economy of inequality, and the measurement of inequality. Chapters explore several key questions such as the difference between the effects of market-driven inequality and the inequality caused by government intervention; how the inequality created by regulation affects those who are less well-off; and whether the economic growth that accompanies market-driven inequality always benefits an elite minority while leaving the vast majority behind. The main policy conclusions that emerge from this analysis depart from those that are currently popular. The authors in this book argue that increasing the role of markets and reducing the extent of regulation is the best way to lower inequality while ensuring greater material well-being for all sections of society. This key text makes an invaluable contribution to the literature on inequality and markets and is essential reading for students, scholars, and policymakers.