Joseph Stiglitz: On "The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future"; On Occupy Wall Street & Why U.S.-Europe Austerity Will Only Weaken Economic Recovery; On Ways to Lessen Inequality in the United States

Democracy Now

Joseph Stiglitz on "The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future"

Several months before Occupy Wall Street, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%," an article for Vanity Fair. He returns to the subject in his new book looking at how inequality is now greater in the United States than any other industrialized nation. He notes that the six heirs of the Wal-Mart fortune command wealth equivalent to the entire bottom 30 percent of American society. "It’s a comment both on how well off the top are and how poor the bottom are," Stiglitz says. "It’s really emblematic of the divide that has gotten much worse in our society." On Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported that pay for the top CEOs on Wall Street increased by more than 20 percent last year. Meanwhile, census data shows nearly one in two Americans, or 150 million people, have fallen into poverty or could be classified as low-income. "United States is the country in the world with the highest level of inequality [of the advanced industrial countries], and it’s getting worse," Stiglitz says. "What’s even more disturbing is we’ve [also] become the country with the least equality of opportunity."

Joseph Stiglitz on Occupy Wall Street & Why U.S.-Europe Austerity Will Only Weaken Economic Recovery

As European leaders scramble to address the sovereign debt crisis, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz argues the austerity measures pushed by Germany, the United States and international creditors are only "going to make the countries weaker and weaker." If European economies contract, Stiglitz predicts that "our economy is going to go down further into the hole. ... Those policies then increase the probability of our weak economy tipping over into recession." Stiglitz’s new book is "The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future."

Part 3: Joseph Stiglitz on Ways to Lessen Inequality in the United States

In an extended interview about his new book, The Price of Inequality, Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz offers several recommendations for a reform agenda. "Traditional economics said we could only get more equality if we pay a price. We have to weaken our economy in one way or another," Stiglitz says. "But my book shows that that’s wrong, that we can have more equality, stronger economy, more growth, greater efficiency. There’s not a conflict; the two actually go together."