Warning

Larry Summers: We Must Fix Inequality Now

If Occupy Wall Street measures its success in how much it got opinion makers talking about income inequality, it can consider itself victorious: Harvard economics professor Larry Summers writes in today’s Financial Times that inequality should be the first priority in fixing the global economy. “There is no question that this will be more important to the politics of the industrialised world than its response to a market system that distributes rewards increasingly inequitably.” The issue is gridlocked in partisan rancor, and addressing it has been demonized as class warfare. “Neither the politics of polarisation nor those of noblesse oblige will serve to protect the interests of the middle class in the post-industrial economy. We will have to find ways to do better.”