Confronting Inequality How Societies Can Choose Inclusive Growth by Jonathan D.Ostry, Prakash Loungani Andrew Berg forewword by Joseph E. Stiglitz

Confronting Inequality How

Societies Can Choose Inclusive Growth by Jonathan D.Ostry, Prakash Loungani Andrew Berg foreword by Joseph E. Stiglitz focuses the attention about an important fact: it's up to the governments if they want to create and live a big inequality between the various social classes.

Said that, sharing richness, and permitting to everyone of living well wouldn't mean to the upper social class any danger in term of richness.

As President Obama admitted: inequality in incomes is harmful for sustained economic growth. An average incomes means winners and losers in a country and it's again, unfair and dangerous.

Surem a good conclusion could be the policies's impact on the distribution of income, tempering the distributional impacts. Redistribution of the so-called richness won't hurt if not too unbalanced the economy growth of a country. Another perplexity that there is: people won't work hard doing that.

Not taking any measure for fighting the immense gap created by this new society, there is not anymore the middle-class, problem is this one,  means more poverty in economic and social aspects.

The book is divided per chapters, where each of them will explain firstly the measurement and drivers of inequality, analyzing later what it means the economic policies on growth, taking in consideration the various policies: financial openness, austerity and so on. A chapter will include also a new danger: the one of robots. The arrival of robots will mean less work for humans, because a robot can work much more; let's also add as say the author that investment in this field will mean and means less investments in traditional capital, buildings, traditional machinery. There is a consolation. Robots are not consumers so people will buy the products created by them.

The consolations adds the authors is that "People bring a spark of creativity or a critical human touch." The risk is a strong resentment of workers regarding the arrival of robots in a close future (two decades more or less before the invasion will start.) Anyway, before to be too alarmistic, authors precise that this one is not our destiny.

In the future, education, including higher education will be absolutely indispensible because people well-learned won't never be replaced by a robot. So, investing in the education, culture of your children will be an indispensible card to play for granting them a good work. Problem is that if people don't work with sufficient dignity and they don't receive a good pay they won't be in grade to invest in the education of their children and this terrible spiral of poverty will invest culture and future of the newest generations. 

Plenty of graphics, statistics, this book is wonderful for understand a society in motion too often devoted to inequality, with an increasing gap between rich and poor pretty embarassing.

Highly recommended.

I thank Columbia University Press fot the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori