Presentation: The Crisis of Economic Inequality

Two existential crises threaten modern human civilization. One is climate change; the other is economic inequality. They are directly related.

The renowned French economist Thomas Piketty argues that the current rate of inequality is so unsustainable that it threatens to undermine society. The rise of fascism and populist authoritarianism around the globe are, he argues, direct results of the fact that all of the new wealth created in countries like the US over the past 20 years has gone to the top 1 percent, leaving millions behind and creating massive political unrest.

We are not, as a society, doing nearly enough to address climate change, but at least we're talking about it. International conferences are held. Plans are put in place. Many governments agree it's a high priority. But far less attention or planning is directed toward economic inequality, if any. And yet, issues like homelessness and the affordable housing crisis, student debt, and the high price of medical care are all the direct result of tax policies put in place in the 1980s and never changed by Democrats or Republicans. This class will explore what has happened, why, and what we can do about it.

Tim Redmond is a career journalist who has been writing about economic inequality for decades. He has taught a class on The Economics of Social Justice in the Masters in Urban and Public Affairs Program at the University of San Francisco. He has read all 700 pages of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013, transl. 2014) so you don't have to.

The class will take 90 minutes, with a break in the middle.