I received a complimentary copy of “Republic of Equals: A
Manifesto for a Just Society” by Jonathan Rockwell, Princeton University Press,
2019, 384 pages, with index and endnotes, very long appendix, the ten chapters
run 294 pages. Rockwell is a principle economist
at Gallup and a visiting scholar at the George Washington University in Washington DC.
I suppose using the word “manifesto” in a book title has
become a bad thing by now!
The author explains pervasive inequality (as in the Piketty
book, July 20, 2014) in terms of unequal access to markets, which has built up
over time particularly with respect to race in the United States because of the
long tail of slavery and segregation, with practices, for example, like real
estate redlining or unequal access to credit, which tends to reinforce itself
with circularity. Obviously unequal public schools figures in. I can recall when I was living in Dallas in
the 1980s how many families would move to the areas north of I-635 to have
access to “Richardson schools” (or Plano).
Here is a summary on Kirkus Reviews.
Here’s a typical recent piece by the author in the New York
Times, “the social effects of television”, which obviously would extend to
social media.
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