Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics

Leading scholars explain how and why Canadian public policy has been falling behind in the race to contain surging income inequality.

Leading political scientists, sociologists, and economists explain how and why Canadian public policy has been falling behind in the race to contain surging income inequality.

All advanced democracies have faced the pressures of globalization, technological change, and new family forms, which have generated higher levels of inequality in market incomes. But countries have responded differently, reflecting differences in their domestic politics. The politics of who gets what and why is at the core of this volume, the first to examine this question in an explicitly Canadian context.

In Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics, leading political scientists, sociologists, and economists point to the failure of public policy to contain surging income inequality. Government programs are no longer offsetting the growth in inequality generated by the market, and Canadian society has become more unequal. The redistributive state is fading due to powerful forces that have reshaped the politics of social policy, including global economic pressures, ideological change, shifts in the influence of business and labour, changes in the party system, and the decline of equality-seeking civil society organizations.

This volume demonstrates conclusively that action and inaction -- policy change and policy drift -- are at the heart of growing inequality, calling into question Canada’s record as a kinder, gentler nation.