This book is part of my current attempt to understand at least a bit about economy. In the last few months I was watching a few lectures, or public speeches made by this guy, Joseph Stiglitz, which by the way won a Nobel prize on economy a couple of years ago. I was getting really impressed because although he is a famous economist, he does speak as if he is a normal human being. You know what I mean, he doesn't talk as usually economists do, like pretending they own a kind of superior knowledge that is not questionable in any ways and that we normal human beings must simply listen to them and accept their trues. The guy is a Nobel prize winner and does not do that. And being an economist. That really impressed me. Because of that I liked him from the beginning. But, anyway! I know my decision to read his book and to learn from his talks is a bit biased, from a leftist point of view of course, although not that much, because even though Stiglitz is very aligned with anti-capitalist movements, or at least with anti-establishment movements such as the occupy wall-street, he is not, as far as I understand, any kind of Marxist or so. Anyway, in this book, as the title says, his main point is to properly understand the problems that inequality brings to society, not only economically, but also politically and mainly socially. He does write it in a very simple language, and also does clarify little by little every point he tries to make on the book. So you don't need to know a lot of economy to follow it. He explains things very well. Although in a way the book is only about one subject, inequality, there is a lot of stuff there. He talks a lot on the mechanisms that create or enhance inequality, sometimes very unethical ones, especially showing how dirty politics is sometimes absolutely necessary to maintain certain elements of the inequality puzzle. Since he is american, he uses mainly examples from United States, but not only. He does sometimes refers to European, South american and Asian economies and politics. Yes, that is one thing about him. Although he is an economist, he even makes very clear right from the beginning of the book that he is and always was very interested in the relations between economy and politics. So there is a lot about that everywhere in his book. What more? Well, he obviously describes in detail the bad consequences that high social and economic inequality brings to a country and in the end of the book, on the last chapter, gives suggestions on how to treat, or at least try to treat, the issue. He is not naive and idealist about what he proposes. He is very honest and realist about the difficulties and limitations that that policies he suggest might face. But still... that's pretty much it I think. I'm sorry I can't get in to much detail about his economic views, I am not that knowledgeable on economy to do so properly. If you are interest simply read the book. I think its worth it a go.
