The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

by Walter Scheidel Narrated by Joel Richards

Overview

Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world.



Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling-mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues-have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future.

Editorial Reviews

Choice

"This book will be widely read and spur a wave of critical scholarship."

Pennsylvania Literary Journal

"It is a very good thing that this book was written as we definitely need to understand inequality and how to avoid it to make this world tolerable."

From the Publisher

"An astonishing tour de force."—-Gregory Clark, Wall Street Journal

"Walter Scheidel’s The Great Leveler is a smartly argued book. As you may be able to tell from the title, Mr. Scheidel makes the case that throughout history, inequality has led only to terrible things (think pandemics and wars). For anybody who has ever debated issues related to inequality and their broader meaning, this book provides more than just a powerful thought experiment."—-Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times

"Scheidel's evidence is so persuasive that readers will find themselves cheering on the Black Death as a boost to median wages."—-Janan Ganesh, Financial Times

The Economist

"As a supplier of momentary relief, the Great Depression seems an unlikely candidate. . . . Yes, it brought widespread suffering and dreadful misery. But it did not bring death to millions, and in that it stands out. If that counts as relief, you can begin to imagine the scale of the woe that comes before and after. [Scheidel] puts the discussion of increased inequality found in the recent work of Thomas Piketty, Anthony Atkinson, Branko Milanovic and others into a broad historical context and examines the circumstances under which it can be reduced."

The New Yorker

"Sweeping and provocative."

New Yorker

"Sweeping and provocative."

The New Yorker

"Sweeping and provocative."

JOE Media

"A very perky story…if anyone wants to be lifted up then this is the book for you"

New Yorker

"Sweeping and provocative."

From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY

"Sweeping and provocative." —New Yorker

Kirkus Reviews

2016-12-05
Economic history that examines the mechanisms and prospects of lessening inequality in our time. The rich and poor have been with us always. Or at least, writes Scheidel (Humanities/Stanford Univ.; State Power in Ancient China and Rome, 2015, etc.), surpluses have, and with them "humans who were prepared to share them unevenly." Enter the first capitalists, the first hoarders, and the first impoverished people. Thanks in large measure to the French economist Thomas Piketty, much attention has recently been given to this economic inequality and its causes; less energy has been exerted on how to put an end to it or ameliorate its harsher effects, other than to float the wan idea that wealth has to be redistributed. But how? Enter the historically minded Scheidel, whose observations don't make for a pretty picture: of the proven methods for redistributing wealth and lessening inequality in the past, the most effective harken back to the four horsemen, involving shaking a society's and economy's foundations to the ground. Some energies toward this end—civil wars, revolts, etc.—have served only to increase inequality. However, writes the author, the old "violent levelers" aren't afoot on a broad scale, and on the horizon, there's no "easy way to vote, regulate, or teach our way to significantly greater equality." Toward the end of his examination of these levelers and their past occurrences in places like Mesoamerica and Bronze Age Crete, he adds, "only all-out thermonuclear war might fundamentally reset the existing distribution of resources." Given history, it seems certain that in such a scenario, one person will own all the bomb shelters and the other 99 will be out in the cold. Along the way, Scheidel offers provocative observations about things as they are, including the odd thought (for an academic) that "workers are increasingly overqualified for the work they do," contributing to wage dispersion and suppression and thus to inequality. A thoroughly unsunny and dense but fascinating look at the engines of our discontent.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170689989
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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