The land of too much : American abundance and the paradox of poverty / Monica Prasad.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Prasad, Monica.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Economic policy.

United States.

Economic policy.

United States--Social policy.

Social policy.

Fiscal policy--United States.

Fiscal policy.

Physical Description:

xiv, 327 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2012]

Summary:

Even controlling for factors of race and immigration history, poverty in the United States is far worse than in any other developed country. Rejecting the explanation that relies on the idea of the US as a laissez-faire, non-interventionist state, Prasad (sociology, Northwestern U.) argues that the reason for this paradox is that the American state chose a very different form of anti-poverty intervention than Europe; an approach that was rooted in the perception, spurred on by a powerful agrarian movement, of the problem of poverty as rooted in productivity, abundance, and the concentration of wealth in too few hands. This perception led to state intervention in the form of progressive taxation, democratization of credit, and strict regulations on business, all of which led to a form of "mortgage Keynesianism" and undermined support for the establishment of a European-style welfare state. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

Explaining American state intervention

The farmers' tour

Comparing capitalisms

A demand-side theory of comparative political economy

The agrarian regulation of taxation

The non-history of national sales tax

The land of too much

Progressive taxation and the welfare state

The agrarian regulation of finance

American adversarial regulation

The democratization of credit

The credit/welfare state trade-off

American mortgage Keynesianism : summary and policy implications.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p . 275-316) and index.

ISBN:

9780674066526

0674066529

OCLC:

782251855