Conscience of a LiberalThis wholly original new work by the best-selling author of The Great Unraveling challenges America to reclaim the values that made it great. With this major new volume, Paul Krugman, today's most widely read economist, studies the past eighty years of American history, from the reforms that tamed the harsh inequality of the Gilded Age to the unraveling of that achievement and the reemergence of immense economic and political inequality since the 1970s. Seeking to understand both what happened to middle-class America and what it will take to achieve a "new New Deal," Krugman has created his finest book to date, a work that weaves together a nuanced account of three generations of history with sharp political, social, and economic analysis. This book, written with Krugman's trademark ability to explain complex issues simply, will transform the debate about American social policy in much the same way as did John Kenneth Galbraith's deeply influential book, The Affluent Society. |
Contents
THE WAY WE WERE | 3 |
THE LONG GILDED AGE | 15 |
THE GREAT COMPRESSION | 37 |
THE POLITICS OF THE WELFARE STATE | 57 |
A TROUBLED PROSPERITY | 79 |
MOVEMENT CONSERVATISM | 101 |
THE GREAT DIVERGENCE | 124 |
101 | 137 |
THE POLITICS OF INEQUALITY | 153 |
WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION | 173 |
THE NEW POLITICS OF EQUALITY | 198 |
CONFRONTING INEQUALITY | 244 |
THE CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERAL | 265 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 285 |
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70th Congress achieve advanced countries Ameri American politics average Barry Goldwater benefits boom campaign civil rights Clinton companies Compression Congress conservative costs created Deal Democrats disenfranchisement economic economists effect election electoral elite employers equal executive extent families force gains Grover Norquist health care reform health insurance immigration income inequality increase institutions Iraq Kristol labor less liberal Long Gilded Age major Medicare ment middle-class minimum wage movement conservatism National Review national security Nixon norms paid Paul Krugman percent policies politicians polls population postwar programs progressive racial Republican Party rich Rick Perlstein rising inequality role Ronald Reagan sixties Social Security society South Southern spending story tax rate there's thing think tanks tion today's union movement United universal health universal health care urban victory vote voters wealthy welfare workers World World War II