Class Politics

Uncover the historical and social roots of caste discrimination in Who Were the Shudras? by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. This groundbreaking work challenges the traditional narratives of Hindu society, offering a meticulous examination of the origins and status of the Shudra caste. Ambedkar's critical analysis and visionary insights call for a re-evaluation of social hierarchies and advocate for equality and justice.

Who is killing America? Is it really Donald Trump and a GOP filled with white supremacists? In this audiobook, Dinesh D’Souza makes the provocative case that Democrats are the ones killing America by turning it into a massive nanny state modeled on the Southern plantation system. Death of a Nation's bracing alternative vision of American history explains the Democratic Party's dark past, reinterprets the roles of figures like Van Buren, FDR, and LBJ, and exposes the hidden truth that racism comes not from Trump or the conservative right but rather from Democrats.

Drawing from stratification economics, intersectionality, and respectability politics, The Love Jones Cohort centers on the voices and lifestyles of members of the Black middle class who are single and living alone (SALA). While much has been written about both the Black middle class and the rise of singlehood, this book represents a first foray into bridging these two concepts.

Acclaimed National Book Award-winning author George Packer diagnoses America’s descent into a failed state and envisions a path toward overcoming our injustices, paralyses, and divides.

In "Radical Chic", Wolfe focuses primarily on one symbolic event: a gathering of the politically correct at Leonard Bernstein’s duplex apartment on Park Avenue to meet spokesmen of the Black Panther Party. He re-creates the incongruous scene - and its astonishing repercussions - with high fidelity. In the companion essay, Wolfe travels west to San Francisco to survey another meeting-ground between militant minorities and the liberal white establishment. "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers" deals with the newly emerging art of confrontation, as practiced by San Francisco’s militant minorities.

This landmark treatise by the great economist Henry George was first published in 1879. George's work became the seminal analysis of the political economy which inspired most, if not all, the prominent thinkers of the Progressive Movement and many others of great influence: Upton Sinclair, John Dewey, George Bernard Shaw, Friedrich Hayek, H. G. Wells, Clarence Darrow, and Leo Tolstoy, to name but a few. His analyses and proposals are referred to as "Georgism".

Sixty percent of humanity - some four-point-three billion people - live in debilitating poverty. The standard development narrative suggests that alleviating poverty in poor countries is a matter of getting the internal policies right, combined with aid from rich countries. But anthropologist Jason Hickel argues that this approach misses the broader political forces at play. Global poverty - and the growing divide between "developing" and "developed" countries - has to do with how the global economy has been designed over the course of 500 years. Global inequality doesn't just exist; it has been created.

Brad Braxton and Anthony Pinn represent two traditions—Christianity and Secular Humanism respectively—that have for centuries existed in bitter opposition. For too long, people with different worldviews have disparaged and harmed one another. Instead of fighting each other, Braxton and Pinn talk with, listen to, and learn from one another. Their wide-ranging conversation demonstrates the possibility of fruitful exchange that accounts for—rather than masks—their differences.

Capitalism as a system has spawned deepening economic crisis alongside its bought-and-paid-for political establishment. Neither serves the needs of our society. Whether it is secure, well-paid, and meaningful jobs or a sustainable relationship with the natural environment that we depend on, our society is not delivering the results people need and deserve.

An approachable guide to being an informed, compassionate, and socially conscious person today - from discussions of race, gender, and sexual orientation to disability, class, and beyond - from critically acclaimed historian, educator, and author Blair Imani.

The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America.

The widening wealth gap is all too familiar to many Millennials and GenZers, especially when home ownership and the lack of debt seem like faraway fantasies. And it's no surprise when they only hold about 4.6% of the country's wealth while Boomers held 22% at around the same age. So what happened to the promise of the American Dream? In this entry of his celebrated Hidden History series, Thom Hartmann uncovers the rise of the American middle class through the progressive policies of FDR, through to its downfall with the increasing privatization and economic deregulations of the Reagan era.

Chris Hedges has taught courses in drama, literature, philosophy, and history since 2013 in the college degree program offered by Rutgers University at East Jersey State Prison and other New Jersey prisons. At East Jersey State Prison, his class set out to write a play of their own. In writing the play, Caged, students gave words to the grief and suffering they and their families have endured, as well as to their hopes and dreams. The class’ artistic and personal discovery, as well as transformation, is chronicled in heartbreaking detail in Our Class.

Joseph E. Stiglitz has had a remarkable career. What brought him to economics were his concerns about the inequality and discrimination he saw growing up. Wanting to understand what drives it and what can be done about it has been his lifelong passion. This book gathers together and extends to new frontiers this lifelong work, drawing upon the challenges and insights of each of these phases of his career.

About 50km outside of Cape Town lies the beautiful town of Stellenbosch, nestled against vineyards and blue mountains that stretch to the sky. Here reside some of South Africa’s wealthiest individuals: all male, all Afrikaans - and all stinking rich. Johann Rupert, Jannie Mouton, Markus Jooste and Christo Weise, to name a few. Julius Malema refers to them scathingly as ‘The Stellenbosch Mafia’, the very worst example of white monopoly capital. But who really are these mega-wealthy individuals, and what influence do they exert?

Bridges Out of Poverty champions alliances of support, and helps individuals and communities that are ready to break free of poverty. Rather than creating reliance, Bridges' communities create new understanding, skills, resources, and motivation. As a result, Bridges is embraced by tens of thousands of people who represent a diverse range of political, racial, economic, geographic, and other identities. An innovative, yet practical, human- and community-centered solution, Bridges creates sustainable communities where everyone can live well.

On the Clock takes us behind the scenes of the fastest-growing segment of the American workforce to understand the future of work in America - and its present. Until robots pack boxes, resolve billing issues, and make fast food, human beings supervised by AI will continue to get the job done. Guendelsberger shows us how workers went from being the most expensive element of production to the cheapest - and how low wage jobs have been remade to serve the ideals of efficiency, at the cost of humanity.

Capital is the defining feature of modern economies, yet most people have no idea where it actually comes from. What is it, exactly, that transforms mere wealth into an asset that automatically creates more wealth? The Code of Capital explains how capital is created behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, and why this little-known fact is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else.

In Liberal White Supremacy, Angie Beeman argues that white supremacy is maintained not only by right-wing conservatives or stereotypically uneducated working-class racial bigots but also by progressives who operate from a liberal ideology of color-blindness, racism-evasiveness, and class elitism. This distinction provides insight on divisions among progressives at the local level, in community organizations, and at the national level, in the Democratic Party.

A History of the World in Six Plagues shows that throughout history, outbreaks of disease have been exacerbated by and gone on to further expand the racial, economic, and sociopolitical divides we allow to fester in times of good health. Princeton-trained historian Edna Bonhomme’s examination of humanity’s disastrous treatment of pandemic disease takes us across place and time from Port-au-Prince to Tanzania, and from plantation-era America to our modern COVID-19-scarred world to unravel shocking truths about the patterns of discrimination in the face of disease.