Description
Argues that the struggle over income, wealth, status and privilege-inequality-has been the principal, defining issue in human history and provides a novel framework for understanding inequality today Whereas President Barack Obama declared inequality as the defining issue of our time, in The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality, Jon D. Wisman claims more: it is the defining issue of all human history. The struggle over inequality has been the underlying force driving human history's unfolding. Drawing on the dynamics of inequality, Wisman re-interprets economic history and society. Beyond according inequality the central role in history, this book is novel in two other respects: First, transcending the general failure of social scientists and historians to anchor their work in explicit theories of human behaviour, this book grounds the origins and dynamics of inequality in evolutionary psychology, or more specifically, Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Second, this book accords central importance to ideology in legitimating inequality, a role typically inadequately addressed by social scientists and historians. Because of the central role of inequality in history, inequality's explosion over the past forty years has not been an anomaly. It is a return to the political dynamics by which elites have, since the rise of the state, taken practically everything for themselves, leaving all others with little more than the means with which to survive. Due to elites' persuasive ideology, even after workers in advanced capitalist countries gained the franchise to become the overwhelming majority of voters, inequality continued to increase. Sweeping and provocative, Jon D. Wisman presents a fresh perspective on why economic inequality exists and how its dynamics have shaped human history.
About the Author
Jon D. Wisman is Professor of Economics at American University in Washington, D.C. He served as President of the Association for Social Economics in 2002 and has twice been selected by American University as the Outstanding Teacher of the Year. He was also a recipient of the 2023 Veblen-Commons Award, in recognition of his significant contributions to the evolutionary institutional economics.
Reviews
The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality is an important book. Wisman's analysis of the forces that shaped inequality in different periods is insightful. Extreme material inequality in human society has existed for over 5,000 years. It is still egregious in present day economically developed and democratic societies. The better we understand it, the more hope there is of mitigating it. * Samuel Clark, Sociology Inquiry *
If we want more than just a more equitable distribution of resources, if we want sustainable prosperity for the world, we ignore [this] important and readable [book] at our peril. * Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett, Nature *
...the arguments are excitingly new and largely persuasive. The book is also a terrific read. It builds the inequality narrative on a deep human impulse, foregrounds culture, and unlike stories that place excessive weight on industrial capitalism, builds a story that acknowledges many transitions and suggests a way to relate these. * Tirthankar Roy, EH.Net *
In sum, our biology condemns the human race to be competitive and acquisitive and only with concerted effort to build institutions that can fine tune the impact of its innate nature could it succeed in containing rent-seeking and creating a more "egalitarian future". These interdisciplinary arguments are presented in great detail with many innovative ideas. This large- vision book deserves to be read by anyone interested in the nature and rise of inequality; in other words, it should be on all of our bookshelves in easy reach. * John Komlos, Professor Emeritus, University of Munich, Real-World Economics Review *
The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality tackles the two problems head-on, with a rich analytical narrative that needs 500-odd pages to build a connected history. Two ideas hold this project together. First, inequality stems from an impulse to corner the good things in life. The deepest and oldest impulse is biological, to win the competition for sexual partners and be successful in the evolutionary game. This, the biological root, is largely forgotten because we get carried away by the forms that power takes...The biological root of inequality, and the elite conversion of economic power into political power by cultural-ideological means, run through the book as two connecting threads. * Tirthankar Roy, Professor of economic history at the London School of Economics and Political Science, EH.Net *
If we are looking for worldwide sustainable prosperity and a fair distribution of resources, thus lessening inequality, reading Wisman's book becomes compulsory. * Heterodox Economics Newsletter Issue 319 *
Wisman shows inequality to be the cause of much social, economic, political and environmental harm for at least fifty-five centuries. He also shows that in each historical era of inequality, the winners in the competition for the highest ranks have used ideology and religion to claim falsely that the exploitation that made them winners and the rest losers, was really in the interest of the losers, too. Professor Wisman has done a good job shining his light on dark corners of inequality. * William M. Dugger, Professor Emeritus of Economics The University of Tulsa, Journal of Economic Issues/Association for Evolutionary Economics *
Jon Wisman's entire scholarly life has a consistent and persistent focus on inequality including its causes, its consequences, and possible remedies. This scholarly life is powerfully presented to us in his new book, The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality: Sex, Politics, and Ideology. Wisman's book can only be described accurately as a Magnum Opus; it is the culmination of his scholarly work to date. * William Waller, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Journal of Economic Issues/Association for Evolutionary Economics *
The book is absorbing and a lesson in how to combine data, evidence, quotes, anecdotes, and narrative. It is now a touchstone for me. * Erudit *
[A] classic in the making... Wisman is a rare example of someone who has transcended his discipline. Chapter by chapter - and mostly using the long arc of human history to provide a storyline - he guides the reader in their development of understanding about how inequality instantiated itself into consequential areas of civilisation (and pre-civilisation)... an undiscovered masterpiece. * Anthony M. Gould, Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations *
Wisman welcomes the explosion of interest in inequality we have seen so far in the twenty-first century...In the pages of The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality, he sets out to do that shining. More specifically, he sets out to demonstrate the centrality of inequality to human history and the centrality of politics to that inequality. * The Review of Black Political Economy *
Book Information
ISBN 9780197575949
Author Jon D. Wisman
Format Hardback
Page Count 520
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 866g
Dimensions(mm) 165mm * 238mm * 42mm
About the Author
Jon D. Wisman is Professor of Economics at American University in Washington, D.C. He served as President of the Association for Social Economics in 2002 and has twice been selected by American University as the Outstanding Teacher of the Year. He was also a recipient of the 2023 Veblen-Commons Award, in recognition of his significant contributions to the evolutionary institutional economics.
Reviews
The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality is an important book. Wisman's analysis of the forces that shaped inequality in different periods is insightful. Extreme material inequality in human society has existed for over 5,000 years. It is still egregious in present day economically developed and democratic societies. The better we understand it, the more hope there is of mitigating it. * Samuel Clark, Sociology Inquiry *
If we want more than just a more equitable distribution of resources, if we want sustainable prosperity for the world, we ignore [this] important and readable [book] at our peril. * Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett, Nature *
...the arguments are excitingly new and largely persuasive. The book is also a terrific read. It builds the inequality narrative on a deep human impulse, foregrounds culture, and unlike stories that place excessive weight on industrial capitalism, builds a story that acknowledges many transitions and suggests a way to relate these. * Tirthankar Roy, EH.Net *
In sum, our biology condemns the human race to be competitive and acquisitive and only with concerted effort to build institutions that can fine tune the impact of its innate nature could it succeed in containing rent-seeking and creating a more "egalitarian future". These interdisciplinary arguments are presented in great detail with many innovative ideas. This large- vision book deserves to be read by anyone interested in the nature and rise of inequality; in other words, it should be on all of our bookshelves in easy reach. * John Komlos, Professor Emeritus, University of Munich, Real-World Economics Review *
The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality tackles the two problems head-on, with a rich analytical narrative that needs 500-odd pages to build a connected history. Two ideas hold this project together. First, inequality stems from an impulse to corner the good things in life. The deepest and oldest impulse is biological, to win the competition for sexual partners and be successful in the evolutionary game. This, the biological root, is largely forgotten because we get carried away by the forms that power takes...The biological root of inequality, and the elite conversion of economic power into political power by cultural-ideological means, run through the book as two connecting threads. * Tirthankar Roy, Professor of economic history at the London School of Economics and Political Science, EH.Net *
If we are looking for worldwide sustainable prosperity and a fair distribution of resources, thus lessening inequality, reading Wisman's book becomes compulsory. * Heterodox Economics Newsletter Issue 319 *
Wisman shows inequality to be the cause of much social, economic, political and environmental harm for at least fifty-five centuries. He also shows that in each historical era of inequality, the winners in the competition for the highest ranks have used ideology and religion to claim falsely that the exploitation that made them winners and the rest losers, was really in the interest of the losers, too. Professor Wisman has done a good job shining his light on dark corners of inequality. * William M. Dugger, Professor Emeritus of Economics The University of Tulsa, Journal of Economic Issues/Association for Evolutionary Economics *
Jon Wisman's entire scholarly life has a consistent and persistent focus on inequality including its causes, its consequences, and possible remedies. This scholarly life is powerfully presented to us in his new book, The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality: Sex, Politics, and Ideology. Wisman's book can only be described accurately as a Magnum Opus; it is the culmination of his scholarly work to date. * William Waller, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Journal of Economic Issues/Association for Evolutionary Economics *
The book is absorbing and a lesson in how to combine data, evidence, quotes, anecdotes, and narrative. It is now a touchstone for me. * Erudit *
[A] classic in the making... Wisman is a rare example of someone who has transcended his discipline. Chapter by chapter - and mostly using the long arc of human history to provide a storyline - he guides the reader in their development of understanding about how inequality instantiated itself into consequential areas of civilisation (and pre-civilisation)... an undiscovered masterpiece. * Anthony M. Gould, Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations *
Wisman welcomes the explosion of interest in inequality we have seen so far in the twenty-first century...In the pages of The Origins and Dynamics of Inequality, he sets out to do that shining. More specifically, he sets out to demonstrate the centrality of inequality to human history and the centrality of politics to that inequality. * The Review of Black Political Economy *
Book Information
ISBN 9780197575949
Author Jon D. Wisman
Format Hardback
Page Count 520
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 866g
Dimensions(mm) 165mm * 238mm * 42mm
