The Politics of Inequality

Since the 1980s economic inequality has risen dramatically in most advanced democracies. In Denmark, for example, the richest 1% of adults received almost twice as much of total national income (pre-tax) in 2020 compared to 1980 (12.9% vs. 6.8%). In the United States, the pattern is even more pronounced: here the top 1% today receives more of total pre-tax income than the bottom 50%. What is driving these dramatic changes in economic inequality? And how does rising economic inequality affect democracy, politics, and political preferences?

In this course, we will investigate the (economic and political) causes and consequences of rising economic inequality. In doing so, we will read and discuss both classic and recent work that seeks to provide answers to the questions raised above. Specifically, we will discuss i) how the post-1980 era is different from the one that came before, ii) how economic inequality affects the redistribution of income from the rich to the poor, iii) how it transforms preferences for redistribution and taxation, iv) whether rising inequality is a democratic problem, iv) and whether it increases political inequality and the distribution of political power.