Rudiger L. von Arnim is associate professor of economics at the University of Utah. He is also senior research associate at the Austrian Foundation for Development Research.Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University and a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He is copresident of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University, chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute, and cochair of the High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress at the OECD.

• Introduction, by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Rudiger L. von ArnimPart I. America’s Growing Inequality1. Alternative Theories of Inequality: Causes, Consequences, and Policies, by Joseph E. StiglitzPart II. Recasting the Evidence in a New Light2. Labor Market Segmentation and the Distribution of Income, by Ellis Scharfenaker and Markus Schneider3. The Cost of Gender Inequality: Structural Change and the Labor Share of Income, by Stephanie Seguino and Elissa Braunstein4. The Postwar Trajectory of the U.S. Labor Share: Structural Change and Secular Stagnation, by Jose Barrales-Ruiz, Ivan Mendieta-Muñoz, Codrina Rada, Ansel Schiavone, and Rudiger L. von Arnim5. The Changing Patterns of Income Inequality in the United States, 1917–2017, by Gérard Duménil and Dominique LévyPart III. Policy Matters: Labor Markets, Education, Tax, and Intellectual Property6. Policy Decisions’ Role in Wage Suppression and Inequality, by Lawrence Mishel7. “Leave Something for the Risk-Takers:” How the Democrats Rebuilt Structural Racism and Hastened the Great Polarization, 1964–1978, by Julia Ott8. Teachers’ Unions and Public Education During the Great Polarization, by Eunice Han and Thomas N. Maloney9. Is Intellectual Property the Root of All Evil? Patents, Copyrights, and Inequality, by Dean BakerPart IV. The Political Economy of Inequality: Political Context and the Way Forward10. The Economic Discourse on Income Inequality, by Korkut A. Ertürk11. Redistribution and Social Exclusion in the United States and Germany, by Marcel Paret and Michael Levien12. A Race-Conscious Economic Rights Approach to Providing Economic Security for All, by Darrick Hamilton13. Law and the Collective Struggle for Economic Justice, by Marion CrainContributorsIndex

The Great Polarization warns us that the history of the Gilded Age is repeating itself because we are aping the narratives from that era that celebrated inequality as the natural evolution of technological progress. This book gets us to focus on how policies and the public discourse have been captured to serve inequality.