Relational Inequalities

Donald Tomaskovic-Devey is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has been a leading proponent of organizational approaches to inequality. His work major works include examinations of the birth of what we now call neoliberalism, the financialization of the US economy, and workplace racial and gender desegregation since the 1964 US Civil Rights Act. Currently he is developing general theory around inequality as well as deepening scholarly and public access to organizational data on inequalities. Dustin Avent-Holt is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Augusta University. He focuses on the causes and consequences of social inequalities, particularly as they intersect with organizations and markets. His empirical work has primarily examined the various processes through which social relations within workplaces produce income inequalities.

• Chapter 1. Generating InequalitiesRelational Inequality TheoryHow Else Do Social Scientists Think About Inequality?Status Attainment and Human Capital TheoriesConventional EconomicsHeterodox EconomicsInstitutional Political EconomyThinking RelationallyPlan of the BookChapter 2. Observing InequalitiesFrom There to Here?Comparative Organizational Research ExemplarsClass Inequality Regimes in Institutional ContextInequality Regimes in Interactional ContextComparisons of Ethnographic CasesChapter 3. Relational Inequality TheoryBuilding Blocks of Relational InequalityCategorizationOrganizationsGeneric Inequality Generating ProcessesExploitation and Social ClosureClaims-MakingContextual Variation in Generic ProcessesOrganizational ResourcesInstitutional VariationChapter 4. Organizational Inequality RegimesThe Ubiquity of Regime VariationGender Wage Gaps in Japan and the U.S.Immigrant Status and Skill Distinction in SwedenEducation, Gender and Immigrant Status and German Wage GapsElements of Inequality RegimesResource LevelsNational InstitutionsOrganizational Rules and PracticesLocal Organizational CulturesIntersectionalityChapter 5. ExploitationConceptualizing ExploitationObserving ExploitationComparing Firm Productivity to Wages Paid and Profits ExtractedRising Income InequalityExploitation across Categorical Distinctions in Linked Employer-Employee Analyses How does Exploitation Happen?Exploitation on the Shop Floor and in the Office CorridorTotal ExploitationExploitation in Institutional ContextChapter 6. Social ClosureConceptualizing Social ClosureObserving Closure ProcessesOrganizational Data Matched to EmployeesEthnographic accounts of closure processesIntegrating Science and Engineering FieldsGender and Engineering in the Age of Affirmative ActionChapter 7. Relational Claims MakingConceptualizing Claims MakingLegitimacy and Claims-MakingObserving Claims MakingClaims Making and the Labor ProcessNegotiating Work-Family RelationshipsClaims Making and WagesClaims Making and DignityNeoliberalism and the Legitimacy of ClaimsOrganized LaborFinancialization Mobilizing Claims in Cultural ContextChapter 8. Organizational Surplus and Rising InequalitiesMarket Power Closure, Exploitation, and Power in MarketsRelationality and Market Closure in Biotech InnovationInstitutionalizing Airline MonopoliesEmbedded Exchange and the Limits of ExploitationLinking Organizational Inequality and Resource PoolingFinancialization and Shifting ClaimsReconfiguring Organizational Boundaries to Monopolize Surplus Chapter 9. Expanding the Moral CircleImplications for Social ScienceRIT and the Politics of EgalitarianismFrom Tribalism to UniversalismFrom Hierarchy to Organizational CitizenshipFrom Markets to DignityInstitutional and Organizational PoliticsDestabilize Status Hierarchies Increase the Bargaining Power of the Least PowerfulReduce Organizational Resource Inequalities

Brilliant book.