In his fine book, both history and call to arms, Ganesh Sitaraman argues that the contemporary explosion of inequality will destroy the American Constitution, which is and was premised on the existence of a large and thriving middle class. He has done us all a great service, taking an issue of overwhelming public importance, delving into its history, helping understand how our forebears handled it and building a platform to think about it today.
Like any pathbreaking exploration of a topic, the book invites challenges from many directions. One wonders, for example, why Sitaraman chose a class schema (upper, middle, lower) that omits the working class ... On the whole, however, the book succeeds in its central objective: presenting a strong case that economic inequality isn’t just a matter of fairness or economic efficiency; it’s about the survival of our constitutional order. Americans who value the republic can only hope that judges, legislators and we the people take heed.
Constitutional forms have given way to congressional polarization, executive imperialism and judicial improvisation, and voters left and right have concluded that 'the system is rigged.' Mr. Sitaraman plausibly insists that these phenomena are connected. Unfortunately, he fails to pursue the thought with the rigor it deserves ... The author offers a withering account of the plutocracy of the Gilded Age, followed by a conventional account of the Populist, Progressive, and New Deal heroes who sought to bring corporations to heel ... Mr. Sitaraman complements this lamentably polemical account with a list of familiar and ill-conceived reform ideas ... That said, his book provides a much-needed reminder: For all our legendary good luck, nothing ordains that all our constitutional stories will have a happy ending.
Sitaraman provides us with a much-needed reminder of how economic inequality has been adjudicated in the past—and how it can be more effectively alleviated in the future. He raises the possibility of passing tougher inheritance laws, but absent an actual revolution, that doesn’t seem any more feasible today than it did in the time of Madison and Jefferson. He rejects outright the idea of a 'class warfare constitution' to divide power between rich and poor. His most powerful suggestion for change lies in a return to the cooperative commonwealth and the rise of a new labor movement—one focused not purely on collective bargaining within the workplace, but more broadly on the empowerment of workers.
A blend of accessible economic theory and practical reform, of much interest to any reader whose common cause is with the 99 rather than the 1 percent.
