Another post as part of my social justice series.

Bruce Western - of Punishment and Inequality in America fame - hopes so (via Chris Uggen ) in this article in the Boston Review.

"The British sociologist T.H. Marshall described citizenship as the “basic human equality associated with full membership in a community.” By this measure, thirty years of prison growth concentrated among the poorest in society has diminished American citizenship. But as the prison boom attains new heights, the conversation about criminal punishment may finally be shifting.

For the first time in decades, political leaders seem willing to consider the toll of rising incarceration rates. In October last year, Senator Jim Webb convened hearings of the Joint Economic Committee on the social costs of mass incarceration. In opening the hearings, Senator Webb made a remarkable observation, “With the world’s largest prison population,” he said, “our prisons test the limits of our democracy and push the boundaries of our moral identity.”  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Christian Chavagneux and Ronen Palan’s Les Paradis Fiscaux is a great (and mercifully short) introduction to tax heavens, banking secrecy and the offshore financial world. And it’s in French. For my non-French readers, not to worry, hopefully, my review will give enough substantial information… or, y’all could learn French! However, I have preserved what I think are the best quotes in the original language so as to preserve their value.

The book’s central thesis is that the development of offshore financial centers since the 1960s is an integral part of the dynamics of contemporary globalization, both in the financial and productive sectors. Tax heavens are now a pillar without which contemporary economic globalization could not function.

And surprisingly, they have not been studied to the extent that they should have been. For orthodox economic literature, tax heavens are a product of overtaxation in industrialized countries or a simple manifestation of informal economies. Both views are faulty according to Chavagneux and Palan.  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

The book I want to start this conversation on social class is Robert Frank’s Richistan - A Journey Through The American Wealth Boom and The Lives of the New Rich. It is an ethnographic overview of the lifestyles of the new superrich. What does Richistan mean? According to Frank,

"Today’s rich had formed their own virtual country. They were in fact wealthier than most nations. By 2004, the richest 1 percent of Americans were earning about $1.35 trillion a year - greater than the total national incomes of France, Italy or Canada.

And with their huge numbers, they had built a self-contained world unto themselves, complete with thwie own health-care system (concierge doctors), travel networks (Net Jets, destination clubs), separate economy (double-digit income gains and double-digit inflation), and language ("who’s your household manager?"). They didn’t just hire gardening crews; they hired "personal arborists." The rich weren’t just getting richer; they were becoming financial foreigners, creating their own country within a country, their own society within a society, and their economy within an economy.

They were creating Richistan." (3-4)  Read more 

Lambert has kindly invited me to write this week’s installment in our PB2.0 series and I am happy to do so, although I live in a Central Time area so, my post will probably be up around 6pm, Eastern.

My contribution will focus on what I think should be central to PB2.0: social justice (Lambert and I have a slight difference of view on this, so, I’m sure / I hope he’ll explain in the discussion).  Read more