Post-Mao market reforms in China have led to a massive migration of rural peasants toward the cities. Officially denied residency in the cities, the over 80 million members of this "floating population" provide labor for the economic boom in urban areas but are largely denied go…
"Social anxiety about poverty surfaces with startling frequency in American literature. Yet, as Gavin Jones argues, poverty has been denied its due as a critical and ideological framework in its own right, despite recent interest in representations of the lower classes and the m…
Wall Street veteran Edward Conard argues that our current obsession with income inequality is misguided and will only slow growth further. Conard tracks the implications of an economy now constrained by both its capacity for risk-taking and by a shortage of properly trained tale…
An intimate portrait of poverty-level working families from a range of ethnic backgrounds in America reveals their legacy of low-paying, dead-end jobs, dysfunctional parenting, and substance abuse and charges the government with failing to provide adequate housing, health care, …
An intimate portrait of poverty-level working families from a range of ethnic backgrounds in America reveals their legacy of low-paying, dead-end jobs, dysfunctional parenting, and substance abuse and charges the government with failing to provide adequate housing, health care, …
Mapping coevolution -- Directed improvisation -- Balancing variety and uniformity -- Franchising the bureaucracy -- From building to preserving markets -- Connecting first-movers and laggards -- Conclusion : how development actually happened beyond China
Before markets opened in 1978, China was an impoverished planned economy governed by a Maoist bureaucracy. In just three decades it evolved into the world's second-largest economy and is today guided by highly entrepreneurial bureaucrats. In How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, Y…
Imagine if every month the government deposited $1,000 into your bank account, with nothing expected in return. It sounds crazy. But it has become one of the most influential and hotly debated policy ideas of our time. Futurists, radicals, libertarians, socialists, union represe…
A brilliantly reported, global look at universal basic income--a stipend given to every citizen--and why it might be the answer for our age of rising inequality, persistent poverty, and dazzling technology. Imagine if every month the government deposited $1,000 into your checkin…
Imagine if every month the government deposited $1,000 into your bank account, with nothing expected in return. It sounds crazy. But it has become one of the most influential and hotly debated policy ideas of our time. Futurists, radicals, libertarians, socialists, union represe…
The politics of higher education -- College and the myth of the good job -- Why higher education reduces social mobility -- The myth of the fair meritocracy -- How college changed childhood, education, and parenting in America -- Training undemocratic capitalists -- The death of…
While much has been written on post-apartheid social movements in South Africa, most discussion centers on ideal forms of movements, disregarding the reality and agency of the activists themselves. In Living Politics, Kerry Ryan Chance radically flips the conversation by focusin…