Social Science is not fighting Inequality

Sociology is at risk of losing what credibility it has because we have latched onto ways of studying inequality that are not suited to new economic arrangements. What are those ways? They started as truths that now represent half-truths or worse – we just repeat them and think we’re doing something to produce insights into how inequality is produced and maintained. An unjust economic system that rewards rent collection, tax avoidance, hoarding of public goods, the creation of private substitutes for public goods, and the automatic passing on of advantages from one generation to another will not change substantially by making CEO’s, corporate board members, Chief General Counsels, Chief Financial Officers and Hedge-Fund Managers more demographically diverse. Nor will inequality decrease by sending more African Americans to Harvard. “Me too” social science and social policy does little to fight inequality. The real question is, are we ready to meet the challenge?

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