The Political Economy of Hope and Fear: Capitalism and the Black Condition in America / Edition 1

by Marcellus William Andrews

Overview

Popular liberal writing on race has relied on appeals to the value of "diversity" and the fading memory of the Civil Rights movement to counter the aggressive conservative assault on liberal racial reform generally, and on black well-being, in particular. Yet appeals to fairness and justice, no matter how heartfelt, are bound to fail, Marcellus Andrews argues, since the economic foundations of the Civil Rights movement have been destroyed by the combined forces of globalization, technology, and tight government budgets.
The Political Economy of Hope and Fear fills an important intellectual gap in writing on race by developing a hard-nosed economic analysis of the links between competitive capitalism, racial hostility, and persistent racial inequality in post-Civil Rights America. Andrews speaks to the anger and frustration that blacks feel in the face of the nation's abandonment of racial equality as a worthy objective by showing how the considerable difficulties that black Americans face are related to fundamental changes in the economic fortunes of the U.S.
The Political Economy of Hope and Fear is an economist's plea for unsentimental thinking on matters of race to replace the mixture of liberal hand wringing and conservative mythmaking that currently passes for serious analysis about the nation's racial predicament.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814706800
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2001
Series:	Capitalism and the Black Condition in America
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Marcellus Andrews is a Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Professor of Equality and Justice in America, Baruch CollegeCUNY.

Table of Contents

	A Preface in Three Parts	1
	Economics as a Razor	1
	Conservative and Anti-conservative	6
	A Note on the Vocabulary of Color	9
1	The Color of Prosperity: A Few Facts about Black Economic Well-Being in America	15
	Color and Well-Being in America	15
	Two Black Americas	26
	"Merit," Economic Change, and the Racial Blame Game	32
	Genes	33
	Culture	38
	Conservatives and the "Culture of Poverty"	46
	Taking Society Seriously	51
	Next Steps	54
2	Race and the Market	57
	Capitalism and the Political Economy of Color	57
	Discrimination in Market Society: Insights from Economists	61
	Becker	63
	Race and Crime in Capitalism: A Complication	69
	Economic Logic and "Legacies"	71
	Uncertainty, Merit, and Discrimination	75
	Overcoming Racial Inequality: The Conservative Stance	83
	Beyond Race: Capitalism, Individualism, and Family Meltdown	88
	Social Capital and Black Self-Help	97
	About Dynamics and the Color of Political Economy	102
Appendix	Discrimination and Human Capital in a Dynamic Becker Model	105
	Learning-by-Doing and the Legacy of Discrimination	108
	System I: Dynamics of Labor Efficiency in an Open, Racially Divided Economy	110
3	Confusion and Woe: Race, Capitalism, and the Retreat from Social Justice in America	114
	Race and Macroeconomics	114
	Productivity	115
	Productivity Arithmetic	123
	The Economics of Liberal Racial Reform	125
	Race and the Breakdown of the New Deal	131
	Budget Deficits and Racial Reform	132
	Budget Deficits: A Primer	133
	Deficits and Exchange Rates	136
	Deficits, Globalism, and the End of Racial Reform	138
	Race, Welfare, and the "Modern Class Conflict"	140
	Merit and Social Regard	144
	Race and Markets Kill Social Decency: A Restatement	148
	Conservatives and the American Dilemma	149
	Race and the Strategy of Inequality	151
	Trouble for White Labor	152
	Politics and the Strategy of Inequality	157
Appendix	The "Rule of 70"	163
4	The Political Economy of Hope and Fear	166
	The Predicament	166
	Black and Blue and Very Scared	169
	Adversity and Opportunity	173
	On Race, Poverty, and Prisons	175
	Color, Class, and Crime	176
	The Social Costs and Benefits of Punishment	180
	Prison Math	181
	The Choice	185
	A Quixotic, though Plausible, Egalitarian Program	186
	Jobs and Wage Subsidies	188
	The Long Run	190
	The End of Prohibition, Again	193
	The Next Black Rebellion	196
	Notes	199
	Works Cited	215
	Index	221
	About the Author	224

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Andrews does a superb job in offering solutions to familiar problems for African Americans. Complete with charts, graphs, facts and figures, the author provides readers with a vivid display of how the scales of equality, wealth and power are tipped against people of color."

-Upscale,

"Andrews' aim is to paint an intellectually defensible and decidedly anti-conservative picture of the complicated tie between race and economic wellbeing."

-Booklist

"Fiery, passionate, and provocative, but also unflinchingly rigorous in its argument. It is rare for an economist to write with such fire bolstered by such a commitment to logical reasoning."

-William A. Darity Jr.,

"Marcellus Andrews has written a fascinating and theoretically grounded account of the relationship between America's market economy and the prospects faced by African Americans."

-The Journal of Economic Issues,

"Deserves the close attention of both academic experts and the lay public alike. Marcellus Andrews's rare and wonderful achievement is to combine the compassion and intensity of the engaged social critic with the analytical detachment and discipline of the social scientist. His argument—for which the stake is nothing less than the soul of our nation—will unsettle the reader, and that is exactly as it should be."

-Glenn C. Loury,Boston University

Editorial Reviews

"Andrews' aim is to paint an intellectually defensible and decidedly anti-conservative picture of the complicated tie between race and economic wellbeing."

Booklist

"Marcellus Andrews has written a fascinating and theoretically grounded account of the relationship between America's market economy and the prospects faced by African Americans."

The Journal of Economic Issues

"Fiery, passionate, and provocative, but also unflinchingly rigorous in its argument. It is rare for an economist to write with such fire bolstered by such a commitment to logical reasoning."

William A. Darity Jr.

"Andrews does a superb job in offering solutions to familiar problems for African Americans. Complete with charts, graphs, facts and figures, the author provides readers with a vivid display of how the scales of equality, wealth and power are tipped against people of color."

Upscale

"Deserves the close attention of both academic experts and the lay public alike. Marcellus Andrews's rare and wonderful achievement is to combine the compassion and intensity of the engaged social critic with the analytical detachment and discipline of the social scientist. His argumentfor which the stake is nothing less than the soul of our nation—will unsettle the reader, and that is exactly as it should be."

Glenn C. Loury

"Andrews' aim is to paint an intellectually defensible and decidedly anti-conservative picture of the complicated tie between race and economic wellbeing."

Booklist

"Deserves the close attention of both academic experts and the lay public alike. Marcellus Andrews's rare and wonderful achievement is to combine the compassion and intensity of the engaged social critic with the analytical detachment and discipline of the social scientist. His argument—for which the stake is nothing less than the soul of our nation—will unsettle the reader, and that is exactly as it should be."

-Glenn C. Loury,Boston University

"Andrews' aim is to paint an intellectually defensible and decidedly anti-conservative picture of the complicated tie between race and economic wellbeing."

-Booklist

"Andrews does a superb job in offering solutions to familiar problems for African Americans. Complete with charts, graphs, facts and figures, the author provides readers with a vivid display of how the scales of equality, wealth and power are tipped against people of color."

-Upscale

"Fiery, passionate, and provocative, but also unflinchingly rigorous in its argument. It is rare for an economist to write with such fire bolstered by such a commitment to logical reasoning."

-William A. Darity Jr.

"Marcellus Andrews has written a fascinating and theoretically grounded account of the relationship between America's market economy and the prospects faced by African Americans."

- The Journal of Economic Issues

From the Publisher