Angus Deaton | Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality

Recorded October 12, 2023
In conversation with Binyamin Appelbaum
Angus Deaton won the 2015 Nobel Prize in economics for his study of poverty, consumption, and welfare. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus and Senior Scholar at Princeton University, he is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Academy, and the Econometric Society. He is the co-author of The New York Times bestseller Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, and he is the author of The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality and Understanding Consumption, among other books. Inspired by the shocking gaps in wealth Deaton witnessed when he immigrated from Britain in the early 1980s, Economics in America offers a frank critique of how his field has failed to properly address such issues as income inequality, the U.S.’ broken healthcare system, and minimum wage.
A business and economics editorialist for The New York Times, Binyamin Appelbaum previously served as that newspaper’s Washington correspondent. His writing on subprime lending for The Charlotte Observer won a George Polk Award and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is also the author of The Economists’ Hour.
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[@arnowillekes7979]

Very important work thanks ✊🏽🙏🏽👍🏽

[@nthperson]

Ingrained in the socio-political arrangements, laws and institutions of the United States is the redistribution of income and wealth from producers to non-producing rentier interests. As Henry George warned us at the end of the 19th century, this problem had to be addressed or the republic would fail. The consequences of this long-standing problem of systemic privilege is worsening in the United States because of the unwillingness of those at the top of the U.S. wealth ladder to accept progressive taxation in order to provide support for those who are at or close to the bottom. The optimum solution was offered by Henry George, a solution that has very little chance of ever being implemented for the simple reason that as owners of a residential property, some 60+ percentage of households benefit to some extent by having a stake in the system.

[@stephenyang2844]

I wonder is US' liberal capitalism will collapse, or stagnate from extreme inequality and despair of the under-previlliaged.