How some rich people are trying to dismantle inequality

By Erynn Beaton, Maureen A. Scully and Sandra Rothenberg.

 

Members of Patriotic Millionaires, whose privileged members advocate for higher taxes on the rich, met with lawmakers in this 2015 photo to discuss legislation to close the carried interest loophole. (Senate Democrats, CC BY-SA)

 

Ample research indicates that the growing problem of wealth and income inequality could stunt U.S. economic growth and undermine our democracy while stirring political polarization. Given that the federal government shows little interest in fighting economic inequality and many states are ill-equipped to do much about it, what else can be done?

Studies have also found that the rich exert far more influence over government than the rest of us. This imbalance means that wealthy people who do something about inequality may have more power to make an impact than everybody else. As scholars of social change, we wanted to learn more about how a small number of affluent Americans choose to spend their own time, clout and money fighting inequality.

UMB OSC group at conference on Inequality, Institutions and Organizations in Vancouver

By Ed Carberry, David Levy, Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Suhaib Riaz, Mary Still.

The Organizations and Social Change (OSC) research group at UMass-Boston had a strong presence at a recently held conference on “Inequality, Institutions and Organizations” at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. The conference was organized by John Amis (Memphis), Tom Lawrence (Simon Fraser) and Kamal Munir (Cambridge) and featured guest discussants such as Jerry Davis (Michigan), Steve Barley (Stanford) and Pam Tolbert (Cornell) among others.

Research related to inequality comprises a key area of interest for several scholars in the OSC group at UMass-Boston and their strong presence at Vancouver highlighted their various ongoing projects. The UMB OSC group had the highest number of participants from any one institution and they were also amongst those called upon to summarize the work in their respective streams.