David F. Ruccio — Class Dismissed

Just the fact that a special issue of such a prestigious journal [Science] is devoted to inequality tells us something about how the problem of inequality has risen to the top of our agenda....

Here’s what I find interesting about the debate, not only between the economists but throughout the entire special issue: it’s all about economic inequality—what it is, how it can be measured, what its causes and consequences are, and so on—but there’s not a single mention of class.

Not literally. The word class simply doesn’t appear in any of the articles or reviews. But that’s the specter that, in my view, haunts this entire debate: the return of class.

If the powers that be can’t solve the problem of inequality, then soon it will be all class all the time.

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All inequality all the time
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics University of Notre Dame Notre Dame