The Political Economy of Inequality--Reformism Or Socialism? (Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America by Jonas Pontusson‪)‬

Jonas Pontusson, Inequality and Prosperity: Social Europe vs. Liberal America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 2005) JONAS PONTUSSON IS A POLITICAL science professor at Princeton University who in the recent past has been known to critique social democracy, particularly in Sweden, from a socialist perspective. (1) However, the thrust of the book under review here is to provide an empirical and analytical rationale that social democratic regimes (especially those of the Nordic nations) have performed well in economic and social terms in the post-World War II era in comparison with other capitalist nations but especially in comparison with the neo-liberal United States. Indeed, some other forms of social welfare regimes in Western Europe have also done better than has the United States, thus setting up Pontusson's sub-title of "social Europe versus liberal America." It is an examination of what Pontusson refers to as "comparative political economy" with a focus on finding similarities, and particularly differences, among Western industrialized capitalist economies. Pontusson believes that while capitalism inevitably generates inequalities in the distributions of wealth and income, nonetheless, there can be a wide range among them in terms of how adversely the majority of their citizenries are affected. Neo-conservative, neo-liberal, moderate or centrist, welfare-state liberal, and social democratic governments can, and do, make some differences in how unequal economic inequality is.