A Great Leap Forward

Part C

Tackling poverty and inequality. The road to full employment and price stability

Abstract

One troubling trend that has gained increased attention is rising inequality. In this part of the book we will link rising inequality to the same forces that have increased financialization of the economy: deregulation and desupervision of finance, promotion of what George W. Bush called the “ownership society”, and the rise of neoliberalism. We examine the failure of the 1960s “War on Poverty”, the strategy adopted by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to deal with poverty, in large part because it did not provide decent jobs to the poor. As a result, the link between joblessness and poverty remains strong. We compare and contrast two ...