The Returns to Power: A Political Theory of Economic Inequality

In The Returns to Power, Thomas F. Remington examines the rise of extreme economic inequality in the United States by drawing comparisons to the effects of market reforms in Russia, China, and Germany. Employing an unconventional comparative framework, he shows that the US embraced deregulation and market-based solutions around the same time that China and Russia also implemented major privatization and liberalization reforms. Remington contrasts the effectsof these policies Germany's postwar "social market economy." The book concludes with an analysis of the political dangers posed by high inequality and calls for a new public philosophy of liberal capitalism and liberal democracy.